First trade route

My first route is usually to another civ for the beakers but I've heard some saying keep internal. The trade off is early beakers (if you're making 10 bpt then 2 or 3 is a huge boost) and gold or early food for more future beakers/production. The latter also means getting a second city and granary.

Mine are also usually caravans even if I'm coastal since its cheaper, more versatile, on easy tech route, and easier to defend from rebel scum. Anyone swear by one or the other?

Right now I always start liberty and go masonry from the start. scout/monument/pyramids.

If I need a lux tech I will grab it, but animal husbandy, sailing, engineering are next for the three caravans to get gold/science. The science from this is generally negates the need for early libraries, but I will got back for writing/libraries then and push on to printing press, which I will usually get by turn 150 without national college or universities. By turn 150 I should get the a GE from the gpps pyramids creates, which will go to pisa/globe theatre. Finish the liberty tree later for another GE. During this period I will have be able to get CBows/walls built for defence, and have worskhops built to make all future infrastructure builds much quicker. Ironworks built in the city for the rest of the wonders to be built in.

Don't knock the science from caravans in the early game.

I'd say it depends on the difficulty level and the situation. If you're on deity and you only have a caravan that can actually reach the other civs without getting killed by barbarians, the science makes it clearly worth sending them to the AI. Cargo ship food is hard to pass up though. Sure, it might set you back a little on science, but that's like a hanging gardens in every city you have if you're going tall. Still, doubling your science early game is a tempting proposition on deity still. I'm not sure which is better.

One reason to go internal early is because you need to cover less area to protect your cargo ships/caravans. I think cargo ships are better if you can get them, just because they cost only a little bit more to produce, yet provide double gold/food. The difference is very noticeable, even in the early game when you have a million buildings you really need to get up quickly. It takes a couple of triremes to protect them, but triremes aren't a bad investment early anyway, so I would strongly favor cargo ships over caravans if possible.

First caravan? Never. (Complete waste of a trade route spot, a cargo ship provides 2X the stuff even if the destination is on the same landmass.)

First cargo ship? For me that's always a trade route going to my capital to help it to grow.
My second cargo ship will usually be a food route to somewhere as well (at least for the first 30 turns)
It's normally the third cargo ship that's my first gold (& science) route.

Scott Jegg said:

Don't knock the science from caravans in the early game.

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Yeah I agree. A library is 1 for every 2 so assuming one waits till 4 pop before the first hard-built settler and then library this can be easily provided by a trade-route. By the time you can build NC, constructing the libraries doesn't take that long anymore.

I found this strategy to be more suitable than settling city no. 3 or 4 and then "rushing" to build the library in like 23 turns

But I don't see this working on lower than Emperor. I just started a warlord game (for the achievement) and I am ahead in tech since turn 1 so it's a meagre one science per trade route.

My favorite thing about trade routes is being able to quickly build up cities... what a great feature that was missing from Vanilla.

Do you care if the other civ is getting a +1 or +2 from you?

Each citizen equals a science forever... and more with bonuses, so I like the growth.

bison21 said:

But I don't see this working on lower than Emperor. I just started a warlord game (for the achievement) and I am ahead in tech since turn 1 so it's a meagre one science per trade route.

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True. It can be as much as 5 beakers per route on immortal if you go the bottom half of the tech tree and send all your caravans to someone like Pacal.

I wouldn't wait till 4 pop though. Get the first one out at 2 pop if you have done the scout monument by then.

Early food is superior to all else. Grow that city big and it will make you more science and more gold for the entirety of the game.

I like to concentrate all my caravans on 1 city at a time and watch it explode, especially if it's a production rich city that would not normally be able to grow very well on its own.

Zaimejs said:

Each citizen equals a science forever... and more with bonuses, so I like the growth.

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That's true, abd you will get there eventully, but in the early game with caravans you aren't sacrificing gold/hammers for population. I find it's the difference between being forced to turtle and actually expanding and taking out early leaders.

joncnunn said:

First caravan? Never. (Complete waste of a trade route spot, a cargo ship provides 2X the stuff even if the destination is on the same landmass.)

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Not really that useful unless you are rerolling every non coastal start.

I don't have a hard and fast rule like "First trade route always internal" or anything like that because it always depends on how I feel like playing in that game. Tall = internal, wide or warmongering = external, although obviously if you only have one neighbor and you're at war, then you kinda have to go internal. I will say though that generally, I prioritize internal more. If I'm going tall, you build up a huge capital, and other civs will want to send their trade routes to you and you'll get free beakers that way. Even if I'm going wide, I'll still have some internal to accelerate those new cities. As CraigMak said, early growth means more science long term.

Scott, I have to say, you and I seem to have completely opposite playstyles.

1. I don't usually have the happiness yet at 2 pop to found a new city. I actually rarely build my first settler, because the early growth in the capital is so vital. If I open Tradition, I'll buy my first settler (ideally I'll never build a settler and just buy all 3); if I go Liberty, my first settler is the free one, and then subsequent settlers are a lot faster so they don't stunt my growth so much.
2. I almost never build Pyramids unless it's like the Medieval Era and no one else has built it yet because I was the only one who took Liberty. Sometimes I get inundated with workers from conquest, and they wind up improving tiles I don't need yet just because there's nothing else to do. By the Modern Era I'm disbanding most of my workers because I have too many. Adding to their efficiency seems like a minor benefit. The early Great Engineer Points are maybe the biggest deal to me.
3. I know it's boring but I like the tried-and-true NC/universities tech path. Pisa is great but I can live without it, and even moreso Globe Theater.
4. Ironworks is low priority for me. If I have 4 cities, Ironworks costs 245 hammers, so it takes 31 turns of +8 just to get those hammers back. There's usually something else I need in those 40-some turns (31 + the 10 or more it took to build the Ironworks).

I take pyramids almost purely for the GE points, but I'm not complaining about saving 10 turns building two workers either. I'll normally go scout/monument/settler/pyramids, and have three cities and pyramids done by turn 50. I'll generally be looking to get my second or third cities near to mining luxuries or horses so I can get the circus for happiness. It means on culture games I don't really need to worry about arriving at printing press 10 turns behind the tech leader, because I'll have popped a GE to get the Pisa/Globe combo before they can build. Ideally I'll get there first and manage to powerbuild it myself in my wonder city with ironworks. I'll purposefully not get the liberty finisher until then so that I can get another GE to almost guarantee Sistine or Uffizi. Again, it depends on whether I'm getting to these techs first. If I don't have to gamble on getting the tourism wonders, it leaves the possibilty of getting the helpful wonders like Notre Dame with the GE instead. I like globe theatre because I can get enough writers to fill it an oxford easily and quickly on immortal for the theming bonus. It takes a fair bit of time and GAs to get theming bonus in all the other art tourism wonders.

Going liberty, I find growth to be less of a factor. I'm now getting masonry first, then husbandry, sailing, and engineering, which gets me a lot of science from caravans. It negates the need for big population and libraries early, even NC, which was always a must for me when going tradition. Now I don't even find that I need it till well after turn 100. What's more, I have more scope for building military units in all cities if I'm not crippled by needing high food tiles and spending lots of turns with low production trying to get infrastructure built. I always like a war based culture victory on G&K, but I've generally found it difficult to do with tradition on BNW when trying to get all the wonders too. Liberty seems to make it easier for me.

Scott Jegg said:

Not really that useful unless you are rerolling every non coastal start.

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I play on Large island script. No rerolls needed; every single civ always has a coastal start. I like navies.

Also, since I play on standard size map (and not a bigger one); I'd normally get a coastal start on continents anyway.
But yes, I think starting with BNW, I would recommend a re-roll for a non coastal start. The capital really needs the food supplied by 2 cargo ships for most of the game which equates to 4 or 5 caravans.
This is in addition to if you are in the interior, you are surrounded by enemies; while if you are on the coast, you have a lot shorter border to defend.

if u aren't 10 tiles from a civ, don't bother... early caravan is for the +4 science it gives (doubles your research at the very earliest part of the game.
Early midgame, focus both caravans or cargo ships (after sailing and animal husbandry) on giving food to capitol.
After you get your 3rd caravan, feel free to use it however you like (production, food, gold) depending on what your empire needs.

Late game: trade routes with all culturally advanced civs for CV.