What's your first build in your capital?

I'm only talking about selling the extra luxuries gained through the alliance with the CS, not the extra luxuries I have on my own.
My point though is that in order to get those "extra" luxuries you have to pay cs's and that comes out of potential ra money.

Normally I have 2, rarely 3 cities before NC. I like to play on dense maps and if I wait for NC I will usually lose good city spots. Getting 1 new luxury per city can be challenging looking at the 3rd and 4th city spot (at least when trying to keep the cities close enough so they can be defended).

I didn't say each new city has a luxury I said an average of one per city. Almost always you get two in your capital and 1 more near by. If you play on immortal or deity you most likely wont be able to expand like crazy as by the time your done with your national college (with a two city setup) you're surrounded by mass expansions from the enemy. This means you should have plenty of happiness until you get to make Colosseum or dip into piety.
 
My point though is that in order to get those "extra" luxuries you have to pay cs's and that comes out of potential ra money.

What I'm saying is you only need the up front 750 to start the alliance (assuming you don't get a mission from them) after that you only need to sell the extra luxuries, that you wouldn't have had otherwise, to pay to maintain the relationship.

This means you should have plenty of happiness until you get to make Colosseum or dip into piety.

Dipping into piety is a complete waste. With RAs being what they are you will need to go rationalism to keep up.
 
What I'm saying is you only need the up front 750 to start the alliance (assuming you don't get a mission from them) after that you only need to sell the extra luxuries, that you wouldn't have had otherwise, to pay to maintain the relationship.
750 is still quite a massive early game investment. If for some reason you get dowed turn 20 and you have to buy an archer or two it puts you massively behind at getting the 750.

Dipping into piety is a complete waste. With RAs being what they are you will need to go rationalism to keep up.

Depending how your going to play it isn't a waste. If you have puppets they tend to build the monument. Also as long as you use your great person for pt you don't need rationalism to keep up. Good city placement, mass ra's and and science specialists should be enough.
 
Playing Emperor.

start scout or monument depending on map and preferred VC. after that its military, to deal with barbs and deterrence for Civs.

I rarely build a worker. Either I steal one, buy one, use the Social policy worker, and/or Pyramid.
OTOH, I am still not winning until 1900's so maybe thats why. Just seems like they get killed by barbs if they are built early/
 
Completely depends on map-type, objective, etc.

Usually scout on most large landmass games, sometimes followed by another scout.

If i'm planning cultural from the start then monument.

If i want war ASAP then warrior.
 
Scout then Warrior
Exploration is important, popping goddie huts is key, especially that 20 culture bomb hut that can you get your first SP essentially right away.

Any start that relies on randomness isn't going to be a solid strategy. You should play like they don't exist and if you get something good then that makes the start even better.
 
I always build monument first and scout around with my warrior. Next is always scout.
 
Any start that relies on randomness isn't going to be a solid strategy. You should play like they don't exist and if you get something good then that makes the start even better.

This is a good point, but there are other reasons to build scouts than just for goodie huts. They are worth building just so you can scout your land and make good decisions regarding your expansion plan. You also get gold from meeting city states, and meeting the other AI is important (for selling luxuries, possibly signing RAs, judging their strength) and a little happiness from natural wonders.

My build is almost always:

1 or 2 scouts (depends on map)
monument
granary if wheat/deer present
worker if not
settlers/military
 
This is a good point, but there are other reasons to build scouts than just for goodie huts. They are worth building just so you can scout your land and make good decisions regarding your expansion plan. You also get gold from meeting city states, and meeting the other AI is important (for selling luxuries, possibly signing RAs, judging their strength) and a little happiness from natural wonders.

My build is almost always:

1 or 2 scouts (depends on map)
monument
granary if wheat/deer present
worker if not
settlers/military

I never said scouts were bad it was his reasoning behind his build order. His second item was a warrior which is completely unnecessary at that stage. He would more often then not be better off with a granary or a monument.

Also with regards to your build order I find building the worker unnecessary as you can get a worker sooner with just a single scout moving around gathering gold. If that's not enough sell some gpt. Plus it allows you to start your library much faster which is crucial.
 
ah gotcha - yeah warriors to scout is not a good idea.

I like to play an expansive style and usually delay my library/NC for a while, so I need more than 1 early worker. I don't like stealing them so end up hard building one pretty often. Just my style. If I can avoid hard building by stealing from a barb, I will try to do that.
 
On standard continents/pangaea (pretty much all I play) I will basically always build a scout first. If that scout discovers a rival civ right next to my borders then I switch into archer rush mode and a different build order, but if not then I'll generally build another scout then monument, granary, library. If I'm attacked while that's happening then I change whatever I'm researching into archery, if I haven't popped it from a ruin, and purchase an archer to defend when the enemy turns up.

I've been involved in about a dozen debates on here about why I think a first scout is the best first build, and that a second immediate scout on pangaea definitely/continents usually, is the best starting plan. Doesn't matter what civ you play or how you suspect you'll want to win this game the gold, tech discount, ruin bonuses and the information you get from knowing your surroundings makes a couple of scouts better than the other alternatives.

I've played a couple of games with Polynesia recently on continents maps where I started with 4 scouts! Build 3 buy 1. I'm fairly convinced that something like that is best for Polynesia on a water map, you get such an advantage from meeting the other civs and finding all the ruins and CS on random unpopulated islands. It might sound like overkill, but give it a try sometime and see if it works out for you.
 
Usually scout or monument first. Sometimes 2 scouts then monument. Early exploration is really critical, not just for picking up ruins but for meeting all of the AI and CS ASAP.

I always build granaries, usually before libraries, even when there are no granary-specific tiles (wheat, deer). The reason is that they either allow you to grow faster (if going tall) or run more production tiles without starving (if going wide or building early wonders or troops).
 
based on the civ i use, ill go scout - monument - warrior almost every time.

if i play spain ill go scout - scout - monument only because i want to cover the map quickly to find the wonders.

i just played inca for the first time and went warrior - monument - warrior because they have the hill movement bonus.

if i play archipelago i dont bother with a scout until i get embarkation. then its monument - warrior - settler and just use my warriors to scout the (usually) small island im on and take out the barbs.
 
No monuments in the capital, until I can build it within 2-3 turns. My current pattern:
1. scout / UU warrior
2. worker
3. archer / UU warrior (to defend cultural CS and earn influence)
4. watermill / granary if deer, wheat, banana, or no rivercity
5. archer / UU warrior
 
No monuments in the capital, until I can build it within 2-3 turns. My current pattern:
1. scout / UU warrior
2. worker
3. archer / UU warrior (to defend cultural CS and earn influence)
4. watermill / granary if deer, wheat, banana, or no rivercity
5. archer / UU warrior

Interesting, do you run Liberty with that build? I find the early culture acceleration to be critical for getting my first 2-3 Liberty policies.
 
Interesting, do you run Liberty with that build? I find the early culture acceleration to be critical for getting my first 2-3 Liberty policies.

maybe the honor opener for barb kill culture while earning friends with the culture CS? that can speed up the next 2-3 liberty if you get the CS boost for a few turns. thats about the only guess i have.
 
Honor is a painful start unless you're going for early wars. You need to basically have units camping out several barb camps to make up for the culture you are losing from the tradition or liberty openers. You'll need maritime cs to keep your capital growing to feed the upkeep of all thse units camping barbs but why not just keep the gold and ally more CS instead of throwing it down the pit of unit maintenance.

I prefer a peaceful builder start. Nothing I can do if AI DoW on me early, but that's the game. I just dislike early rushes. That's RTS mentality and totally not about what Civilization should be about.
 
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.
 
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