Salt Starts

Karatekid5

Karatekid5

Warlord
Joined
Nov 11, 2012
Messages
197
Location
Pennsylvania
I've seen people talk about Salt starts in different topics, and some have said it is one of the best luxuries. I know it provides +2 :c5food: and +1 :c5production: (when improved), but what other benefits does it provide? I've had a few salt starts, but they haven't all been too good and usually resulted in some deficit due to it only yielding +1 :c5gold:. Also, IIRC, there aren't any Pantheon beliefs that benefit having salt. So, what exactly are the salt start benefits?
 
Salt is 1:c5food: and 1:c5gold:. If it spawns on plains, that's 1:c5food: and 1:c5production:. Improving it yields another 1:c5food: and 1:c5production:.

It just gives a very good split between food, hammers, and gold, letting you work the tile immediately and get full benefit. It's also one one of the only tiles that gives +2 on improvement, along with Marble. The only weakness is no corresponding pantheon.

Gold + Silver, Marble, Wine + Incense, Marble, and Sea Resources can all be equally productive (or more so). Salt is definitely one of the best but it's not the only way to a powerful city.
 
The sea resources are tough, because god of the Sea is a popular pantheon belief with the AI--namely, the AI's who got a pantheon before you.
 
None of the other luxuries give as much food and production so early in the game, without building some additional buildings or getting a pantheon that boosts it. It can also be improved with just mining, not requiring any 2nd tier techs.
Improved salt really jump starts your cities more than any other luxury.
 
Also, sea resource usually require you to deviate a lot from your desired tech path. You usually want luxuries early, but unless you're on an island map, you wouldn't have wanted to research Sailing before Medieval.
 
Hpuk said:
None of the other luxuries give as much food and production so early in the game, without building some additional buildings or getting a pantheon that boosts it. It can also be improved with just mining, not requiring any 2nd tier techs.
Improved salt really jump starts your cities more than any other luxury.
Click to expand...

This.

The reason it's so good is it makes your cities productive so quickly. Every time i have a salt start i romp.
 
With a salt start, you can also NOT settle on a hill (if you must) and still be able to get a scout out in 5 turns instead of 8. A deer would work, but with no gold bonus. I think a riverside stone tile works as well. A hilltop riverside start with salt can almost be unfair, for reasons stated above.
 
As a side note sea resources are also a pain because they need a workboat which is almost the same cost as a worker but is only one shot rather than multiple use.
 
Don't forget that salt hammer yield improves with the cannon tech,so you get a good food and hammer tile. I would rank it at maybe a shared 1.place resource :=) who doesn't like a 3 food about 4hammer resource,depending on the climate tile? :=)
 
salt is so good it makes me wonder what they were thinking...there is a pretty obvious balance issue.

1) it only requires mining tech, so its improved as fast as possible
2) 3 food and 2 production, AND gold? are you kidding me?
3) it tends to come in clumps. 3 salts in the capital? game over.

no other lux comes close (IMO)
 
comatosedragon said:
With a salt start, you can also NOT settle on a hill (if you must) and still be able to get a scout out in 5 turns instead of 8. A deer would work, but with no gold bonus. I think a riverside stone tile works as well. A hilltop riverside start with salt can almost be unfair, for reasons stated above.
Click to expand...

I just wish that once you got the tech for improving a resource a city is built on, you would automatically build the improvement (mine, plantation, etc) and get the bonus. I usually make an exception for a +gold hill tile on a river since that much gold in the beginning is nice, and once the gold really gets rolling losing that mine gold isn't such a big deal, but otherwise I don't like to build on a resource. Although I suppose maybe also unique luxuries if the available land and happiness are getting tight, and I want to get a few more cities in without unhappiness.
 
chazzycat said:
salt is so good it makes me wonder what they were thinking...there is a pretty obvious balance issue.

1) it only requires mining tech, so its improved as fast as possible
2) 3 food and 2 production, AND gold? are you kidding me?
3) it tends to come in clumps. 3 salts in the capital? game over.

no other lux comes close (IMO)
Click to expand...

Yup. A good salt start effectively knocks the difficulty level down by one. I recently crushed an immortal Inca game (domination) where my first and second city had three salt each. I'd say the effective difficulty level was emperor or below.
 
compwiz1202 said:
Are there any certain maps or advanced settings that would maximize the salt hexes?
Click to expand...

Bigger map : Bigger map increases the cluster size of whichever luxuries are in that game and also increase the number of unique luxuries.
 
joncnunn said:
Bigger map : Bigger map increases the cluster size of whichever luxuries are in that game and also increase the number of unique luxuries.
Click to expand...

I had no idea that larger map sizes meant larger clusters. You're full of useful information, Jon.
 
I have seen several times that civs like inca start the game with cluster of salt resources.
 
Most unimproved luxes provide 2 extra gold for their tile. Whales, crab, salt, and citrus, however, produce 1 food and 1 gold. Generally, an extra food or hammer is better than an extra gold, which makes these luxes even better.

Similarly, improving most luxes provides an extra gold (except for the Mines, Quarries, and Fishing Boats) so the luxes that get an extra food/hammer from improvements are a bit better than the plantation/camp ones.
 
Karatekid5 said:
I've seen people talk about Salt starts in different topics, and some have said it is one of the best luxuries. I know it provides +2 :c5food: and +1 :c5production: (when improved), but what other benefits does it provide? I've had a few salt starts, but they haven't all been too good and usually resulted in some deficit due to it only yielding +1 :c5gold:. Also, IIRC, there aren't any Pantheon beliefs that benefit having salt. So, what exactly are the salt start benefits?
Click to expand...

Salt is OP because it give 1 food AND 1 gold when it spawns and yields the most benefits when improved. +1 food and +1 hammer while other luxuries only give you +1 of something when improved. No pantheon? Are you for real guys? Ever heard of EARTH MOTHER!!!??? What the heck?

Not sure if serious here.
 
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