Well, starting out we know only...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/54475/DG_2_Starting_Techs.JPG

...and we haven't yet discussed possible ideas. Granted IMO we can't fully discuss our options without seeing the immediate lands surrounding us, but I'd like to get a feel for what everyone currently is thinking.

The Military Approach: With our civ and UU I'm wondering if it would be best to try and benefit from this ASAP. It wouldn't take a whole lot, just researching Animal Husbandry and Horseback Riding. Since we'd be researching AH first we would have plenty of time locating the nearest horses and settling our second city near it for Keshiks.

Silver: This option depends on where we settle, so may not matter at first. If we settler near the silver Mining would be an obvious tech to earn its benefits.

The Metal Techs: With our UU I can't see prioritizing this, but I recall it having already been brought up somewhere. [/b]Edit:[/b] BW would also be something to consider for two major benfits it provides; forest chopping and the civic Slavery. We don't have any food resources currently in view so Slavery wouldn't be very benficial to us currently, but forest chopping would. We currently have several forests in view.

Writing/Alphabet: I like aiming for Writing for both the libraries and the OB agreements. Getting a quick GS would really help with our research, but this also matters on if we have cities located in areas that would make it worth building. Alphabet is a big one on this path too for the tech trades. Just imagine how our great land would benefit with such possibilities. Other nations would be knocking at our door for such knowledge.

Pottery: With the river and the grass tiles in our starting location cottages would be very beneficial towards increasing our research abilities. In fact, placing Pottery in the midst of the Writing/Alphabet approach would be a strong strategy for our empire.

This is just a small list that is IMO a bit premature. I'd prefer to wait until we know where were settling before nailing down our options, but at least we can get some of the minor things out of the way. Does anyone have any other goals that we need to consider?

@The metal techs Bronze working = forest chopping

What about pottery? Cottages are vital, especially with so many grasslands.

@The metal techs Bronze working = forest chopping

I'm not much on Slavery, hence my forgetting about it. Definitely something that needs to be mentioned. Edit: How is you say forest chopping and I read it as slavery? My mistake. Forest chopping is definitely worthy due to the number of forests around our starting position.

What about pottery? Cottages are vital, especially with so many grasslands.

Unless we settle up north near the floodplains, I can't see Pottery being very important just yet. If we settle in place I'm unsure if it would be beneficial enough to pay for the time it would take to research it. My own opinion would be to possibly hold off researching it until we're ready to settle a city in an area that will benefit enough from Pottery to research it. Edit: For some reason I recall seeing mostly hills in the screenshot and not that many grass tiles. I need to have another look at the pic.

I'll edit the OP to include your suggestions.

@dutchfire: :lol: Your screenshot was taking using the default terrain and I've been playing with Blue Marble for so long, I'm getting the grass tiles and plains tiles confused in your pic! :lol:

Whoops, my mistake. :D

And Pottery gives granaries.

At the moment, I'd chose for agriculture - pottery - mining - bronze working - writing - alphabet

@methos I didn't make a screenshot with tile yields on for nothing :p

And Pottery gives granaries.

At the moment, I'd chose for agriculture - pottery - mining - bronze working - writing - alphabet

I can see agriculture for two reasons: the possibility of seeing a food resource to the north in the screenshot, and to water some of the grass tiles so we can work more of the hills.

BW is something I've always been able to trade for, so unless its vitally important I don't self-research it.

I'm typically not a warmonger, but I'm wondering if at least getting AH soon would be wise to learn if we have horses close by. If so, we may want to consider getting HBR early to take advantage of our UU.

Normally I like to get only the worker techs that are vitally important to the city and than head straight for Writing/Alpha. If financial or a lot of river tiles I'll hit Pottery on the way. Once I get to Alpha I than trade for everything else.

@methos I didn't make a screenshot with tile yields on for nothing :p

Oh sure, point out the obvious! :D

I can see agriculture for two reasons: the possibility of seeing a food resource to the north in the screenshot, and to water some of the grass tiles so we can work more of the hills.

Well, we just need it to get to pottery. And it speeds up AH.

BW is something I've always been able to trade for, so unless its vitally important I don't self-research it.


It is, without BW we won't be able to improve most tiles in our BFC.

I'm typically not a warmonger, but I'm wondering if at least getting AH soon would be wise to learn if we have horses close by. If so, we may want to consider getting HBR early to take advantage of our UU.


Keshiks are overrated IMO, swords are better.

I gotta agree at least on one point right now... I think we should go for Pottery, if nothing else for Granaries.

I mostly agree with Dutchfire path (agriculture, pottery/mining, bronze) after

to be seen.

And, we must settle first; so,the seminal techs as needed for the terrain.

So,if no animals in radius bronze before husbandry.

Best regards,

I tend to focus on the resource techs of BW, AH, and then IW if neither copper nor horses are found. Placement of the 2nd and 3rd cities is critical. I tend not to worry much about the UU unless it has an attribute which provides an advantage for the specific situation. For me the exceptions to this pattern are religion techs when starting with Mysticism, Ag/AH if there are food resources, and fishing if seafood is available.

I think the silver would be nice if we get Mining early, and we should anyway for bronze working.

We are the wind off the plains. The skulls of our enemies are piled as high as the Himalayas. Our horses are more than life itself. We are proud, free and fierce. We should learn agricultire to grow the strength of our fighters and horses, AH, Archery and HBR then pottery, writing and alpha to wring the secrets of many things from the weak people of the towns.
Ride free and strong my brothers, the world quakes at the sound of our passing! Let weaklings and women grovel in the bones of the earth.

I think the silver would be nice if we get Mining early,

Assuming we settle on spot, we'll only be able to mine the silver from turn 50 (btw did we think of culture doubling after 1000 years?)

If you predictions come true expect a CC

CC? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CC)

Or do you just mean citizen's complaint?

(btw did we think of culture doubling after 1000 years?)

If you are referring to the palace culture - it does not double after 1000 years... It will be turn 50 that we can mine this silver.

I would suggest as a research path: wait to see what (if any) other resources we have in the fat cross (I am quite confident that there will be some food (atleast if we settle in place that is :rolleyes: - since the map generator seldom produces starts without). Then hook those up asap and next I agree with pottery and bronze - the keshik is nice as a scouting/pillaging unit or for a very early rush - but horse riding is expensive and the keshik won't do much more good that some axes :mischief:...

IThen hook those up asap and next I agree with pottery and bronze - the keshik is nice as a scouting/pillaging unit or for a very early rush - but horse riding is expensive and the keshik won't do much more good that some axes :mischief:...

There's more romance and adventure in pushing the Keshik as far as we can than in using the predictable and reliable path you've recommended. I win easily on Prince so beating the game takes second place to having some fun :) That's why I like the AH and HBR track. Let's be Mongols not Romans or Greeks.

I think our first research should be aimed at making our civilization productive. If we settle on the spot or within one tile of where the settler currently stands, we’re going to have a lot of trees that can be chopped. This suggests BW (which of course requires mining) should be a priority. However, we also want to grow quickly, and have no food resources visible. Presumably there are some nearby in the fog. Once we see what food resources we have (if any) we’ll know whether we need to research agriculture or AH to access those resources.

I suggest for the first turnchat we research mining and either agriculture or AH (whichever one makes more sense once our hoped-for food resources are revealed). Once our scout has revealed more territory – and perhaps met a neighbor or two – what to research next may become obvious.

As I haven't seen any discussion on this yet, let's kick it off.

What are our research goals? What tech should we be learning now? How fast should we research?

-- Ravensfire

Initial research threads merged.

Well looking at the last save we've already got a little bit of research done on agriculture, however I think it would be prudent to switch our research path to mysticism. I believe it is very important that we found an early religion. Our best bet would be to try and found hinduism, if we fail at that goal we will still be positioned well to found judaism.

Researching agriculture, while it will allow us to use the wheat near our capital, probably won't have beneficial effects for many years, as I doubt we will be producing a worker in the very near future.

I agree with grant2004 on a the fact that we need to have founded a religion early on in the game. The advantages of having a religion founded in our capital are huge. More culture, holy city shrine, and seeing other civ's cities is an amazing boost to our future goals.

Without knowing our opponents, it is very hard to plan for founding a religion unless we have really good commerce. If two or more opponents start with mysticism, it's a lost cause. With both silver and gold, we can get +4 :) with forges.

I have to look at a save before I can offer anything constructive on what we should research instead.

agriculture then head to BW. We should try to find copper before we set out the settler.

We settled on spot it seems silver is out of the fat cross. In addition Agriculture was started.

So i think we need to get agriculture for the wheat and to give our settler something to do then we need to either head down to get BW. We also need to remember our UU needs AH. and if we find copper we should grab AH BEFORE IW.

There is another thread called SEER: Starting path (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=210133) which also discusses the early tech path. Any objections to a thread merge?

There is another thread called BC3800 research (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=210133). Any objections to a thread merge?

None - it's focused on research as well. Didn't see it!

-- Ravensfire

I propose Mining and Bronze Working. With the gold to the NE we can make a very welathy second city there. But even without that we need mining to unlock the silver depot to the SW of Karokorum. Bronze Working will enable us to chop forests and "help" construction speed. We shouldn't forget about Masonry either though. That stone deposit is just screaming for a quarry!

Now that we see our surrounding I vote for agriculture - mining - bronze

Agriculture - Mining - Bronze - Pottery.

Best regards,

agriculture, mining, AH, Horseback Riding, BW

that way we can set out to settle a horse infested area, using our UU to keep barbarians away and perhaps harassing nearby civs :D

We must know the metals locations before we settle our 3rd city.

Ag, Mining, BW, AH. If this were Warlords then chariots and archers can hold up against axes, but in vanilla if you don't have metal you're dead.

I don't think we need a religion. Better to go for worker techs and the tech for our UU.

Finish agriculture, we need it later anyway.

I think the discussion is too fractured to be conclusive. Any reason not to poll the immediate next tech?

I think the discussion is too fractured to be conclusive. Any reason not to poll the immediate next tech?

None I can see, if I read the discussion correctly we have 3-4 tech paths discussed:

a)Agriculture, Mining, Bronze Working, Animal Husbandry
b)Agriculture, Mining, Animal Husbandry, Horse Back Riding
c)Religion path either
i)Mysticism, Meditation
ii)Myticism, Polytheism

so why not poll these paths instead of one tech at a time?

If we poll a path, we run the risk of leaving out a significant combination. I think it would be better to take a while longer discussing the longer term and see if we run into a civ which we need to change it for.

I won't complain however if a poll on paths is opened instead of just one on the 1st tech.

I posted a poll Link (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=210762)

I rather just finish agriculture, and then go mysticism and poly (Buddhism will be founded first by AI.) On Prince it's usually possible to get Hinduism and research two previous techs (in this case agriculture and Mysticism.) If we wanted to found a religion, I don't think the four turns should of been played out, especially with no real talk about technological path.

Edit: Although, we could go for Judiasm, or Confucianism, and we wouldn't have to research mysticism immediately. I do agree with Daveshack that we need BW before settling our second city.

My most proposed path is Agriculture, BW, AH, Mysicism, Polytheism, Preisthood.
Build the Oracle and get CoL which gives courthouses, caste system and Confucianism. On Prince it's usually fairly easy to capture the oracle, especially with the research path I just proposed. Of course we might want to fit potter in there.

Second poll (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=210878)