What's your first build in your capital?

I like to play standart size continents with 16 civs and 8 citystates and raging barbarians and legendary starting positions.

standart start would be:
Tech: pottery, calendar, mining, animal husbandry, stoneworks(name?), trapping, the wheel, bronze, iron, writing, archery, math (if i didnt forget anything)

build order is:
monument, warrior, warrior, stonehenge, warrior, settler, pyramids, warrior, settler

culture goes to:
Liberty opener, free worker, free settler, road-happyness bonus, golden age, production bonus

all new citys start with:
monument, then either trireme if theres ocean res around to be protected (followed by a workboat, possibly purchased) or stoneworks for +1 happyness

the free great person from liberty is an engineer who builds hanging gardens in a secondary city, the second (early due to stonehenge and pyramids in capital) builds Hagia Sophia, spawns the third who builds Machu Picchu if possible.

If possible I start a war to capture a worker from an AI. If theres a CS nearby, plus a barbs camp I surround the camp and kill the spawning units to ally the CS. I need many workers so I build them here and there early on as well.

I hardly scout and I dont build librarys or the national college or anything like that early on. I just go for massive food and production and I got so many workers early on that every field in my territory is enhanced by a worker the very turn it comes into my posession. Its quantity over quality for me.

I know many people will tell me that things like rushing to Steel or any other smart--man move works better but I tried it and it doesnt.
 
I read somewhere that granaries were no longer an always build type building... was that wrong?

@devilhell, I don't understand, if there are barbs or another civ you build many workers?

My take on granaries, is that for an early capital or other early city they are always decent, but usually not important enough. They can possibly be really good buildings. If you settle cities later on, rivers with civil service or after fertilisation, you'll usually have workers improving quickly enough for the city to grow fast regardless of granary or not.

ive tried honor with raging barbs and montezuma to see if it would be interesting. wasnt nearly as fun as i thought. i did learn to not eliminate a camp to keep letting units spawn but even then it wasnt good enough from turn to turn. tried it with askia for the camp gold too, but that was tedious enough and eventually became a problem when DoW's and barbs started piling on.

it kind of sucks. liberty is so good i hate not taking it in every game. but then it's so formulaic every game that i dont like taking it either. im trying to play some "no liberty" games or at the least some delayed (not the first 3-5 policies) liberty games and it is hard to do. the other starts feel so slow when you have to make more settlers.

I don't think there's much point to liberty if you don't take it quickly, maybe the first point in tradition as some prefer. I think filling up tradition early is viable too, you really get some longterm benefits from going that route. For me it's the free garrisoned units in tradition I have grown so accustomed to that i feel I need it. I also usually fill up honor, this more to make a fun game than to be as efficient as possible. So garrisons and a standing army become good choices.
 
re granaries - they are pretty good buildings. I wouldn't say "always" in every city, but usually in the capital at least.

workers take a long time to build, and the payoff for the granary can be high. +2 food base, and +1 for wheat and deer. Consider how long it takes a worker to add 2, 3, or 4 food in your city. Just to build the worker takes a long time, and your first priority is probably luxes, so it can be a while before you see any food benefit from the worker.

If you are getting 4 food from the granary, it should be built right after scouts. 3 food and it can depend a bit, but I will usually still build right after scouts. 2 food you have to think about when to build it. If you have good food otherwise (riverside grass, cows) then you can skip it for a while.
 
re granaries - they are pretty good buildings. I wouldn't say "always" in every city, but usually in the capital at least.

granaries are a 90%-of-the-time building. if i have even 1 deer or wheat it's a guarantee. if i settle a city i know will be a good hammer city but no river access, it's a guarantee. only if im doing an ICS sprawl kind of game will i think twice about it. even then ive built it for early growth then later sold it to avoid later growth (keeping cities at 10 pop or under).

even if you dont NEED them for growth they can let a citizen work a hammer/gold tile instead. at the very least it pays for the maintenance on it.

aqueducts are the ones im still figuring out whether i will build them often or not. the carry over food mechanic is something im not familiar with.
 
I generally agree with that. I'm probably closer to 75% than 90% but I like to build a lot of cities.

Re aquaducts, it depends. I'm a big fan of building them in your NC city (capital most likely). Especially if you went tradition, it's a no brainer to grow the cap. But other cities are more situational. Sometimes cities will already be at their ideal size when you research engineering, and so it wouldn't make much sense. Other times you just might not have enough happiness to sustain growth.
 
I always build a scout first. I want to know what is out there as far as resources, other civs, terrain etc.
 
since going monument then scout ive noticed finding less ruins. usually 1-2 per game. not that big of a deal, but i have a requirement of finding at least 3 per game so if i dont it sometimes restart.
 
since going monument then scout ive noticed finding less ruins.

Monument-Scout-Scout is worth 20 culture more than Scout-Scout-Monument.

Like a free culture ruin!
 
90% of the time I play on Continents Plus, so it's always Monument - Scout - Worker to start.

I don't usually build a second Scout at the start unless my first gets killed. In my last game I was unlucky - in order to explore the rest of the continent I had to navigate through a very narrow neck of land which just happened to have a barb camp spawning next to it. I lost three Scouts trying to get through before I gave up at which point the AI had settled the area anyway.
 
Monument, almost without fail. This impedes my ruin-grabbing, but I'll usually get at least 1 free tech from them, which is a good enough head start for me.
 
Pretty much always:
Scout (or warrior if im aztec or inca)
then temple (unless I go tradition, build a second and third warrior if Im aztec on raging barbs, more cultrue)
then worker
then settler
then library/ national college
 
scout - monument-granary.

I never build the national college. The big army of swordsmen is usually more useful.
 
I tend to do multiplayer, I prefer Monument, Scout, Worker. I like starting up policies quick, I prefer to find the area and then with the early worker I can rush out Great Library (Turn 24-28) get Math and hook up Hanging Gardens. Sometimes I even go Great Library + Philo and get National College instead of Hanging if I discover strats of my opponents. I have been going Tall recently in Multiplayer because I am good with tactics and can hold my ground and I prefer tech advantage that allows me to get an edge in an era to have better units for a future rush.
 
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