To settle on the 1st turn or wait. What do as your 1st reasearch

To all. I noticed that Firaxis posed a article about do you build your 1st city on the 1st turn or explore. I personally try for the 1st turn but I have gone up to 10 turns before I found maximum city expansion.

As for starting research I always go for pottery as I get to build a granary and this helps with the population increase. I have found that once that is researched no matter what level. The population will stay happy. As a full stomach makes a happy population

This is just my opinion. Feel free to disagree. I do not mind. Just dont be rude



This is of course on a marathon game. I have one once on a small map after 5 moves by culture. And that was just

Well.. Did I understand you correctly? - You have delayed founding your first city (capital) for up to 10 turns? Hmm, I have waited a turn or two to settle on a better location but never more than that, since this results in turns is wasted - for these 2 turns you could have been building a scout, researching a tech and growing so it better be worth it. 10 turns.. You need 8 to build a scout if you've settled on a non-hill tile and are not working a tile with any production so 10 turns is......

Researching Pottery is almost mandatory, but I've found myself going for AH if I'm not going after a pantheon or my terrain is pro-horses and I need that extra bit of production. Rarely, but still happens, is going for Mining if I'm in a dense jungle land and I'll be heading straight for a worker after a couple of scouts. I've never gone for Archery except once when I tried to get the Temple of Artemis and I did but it didn't pay out since I was too far behind tech and infrastructure wise.

I generally don't wait around too much, I either settle outright or move around AT MOST 2-3 turns. Generally, your starting location is fixed to be at worst, manageable

I try to settle the first 1 or 2 turns particularly on a hill for the extra hammer which gets things produced quick early. Having an early granary is also a good start with a library since libraries make more science when there's more citizens.. not only that, but you could also make internal food trade routes to your other cities so that you can grow other cities faster as well.

Here's a question I've thought about but in reality never tried.

Have you settled on a luxury before, what happened in that situation to make it worthwhile for you?

Riverside gem, gold or silver hill -- yes, please. Only loss is 1 gold from not improving the tile as a mine, but you get the hill benefit and the city center tile's base gold yield all game long (whereas, with a mine, you may or may not continuously work that tile, depending on your food situation). And, if you get Religious Idols (for gold and silver) or Tears of the Gods (for gems) as your pantheon, you are guaranteed the city center tile's pantheon yield.

On marathon and/or with Spain I sometimes scouted longer for a perfect location (once more than 20 turns and got lucky and a natural wonder for Spain).
A turn lost on slower speeds is less expensive and better city locations pay of more.

I also like to settle on calendar or camp resources as they only add more gold when improved. Plus as mentioned above you get the extra gold all the time, not just when you work the tile.

A delay of 1 or 2 turns is fine, ten turns sounds like a really bad idea.

Chunkook said:

Well.. Did I understand you correctly? - You have delayed founding your first city (capital) for up to 10 turns? Hmm, I have waited a turn or two to settle on a better location but never more than that, since this results in turns is wasted - for these 2 turns you could have been building a scout, researching a tech and growing so it better be worth it. 10 turns.. You need 8 to build a scout if you've settled on a non-hill tile and are not working a tile with any production so 10 turns is......

Researching Pottery is almost mandatory, but I've found myself going for AH if I'm not going after a pantheon or my terrain is pro-horses and I need that extra bit of production. Rarely, but still happens, is going for Mining if I'm in a dense jungle land and I'll be heading straight for a worker after a couple of scouts. I've never gone for Archery except once when I tried to get the Temple of Artemis and I did but it didn't pay out since I was too far behind tech and infrastructure wise.

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But Mining does literally nothing until you have a Worker, and said worker is standing on a hill or forest, and in fact begins his turn there (with > 0 moves), and you indeed start a mine or chop. This can't happen before 8 turns, and probably won't even happen before 16. Unless you're playing for extra pennies in trade route science created by Deity AI, or intend to tech right into Masonry (meh) or Bronze Working (never rewarding in my experience), it seems demonstrably non-optimal.

Not taking pantheon seems iffy too. They are so good that the 40 hammers and 10 gold might be worth taking one away from someone in a distant land. And hey, maybe you'll walk into territory that uses it. People talk about opportunity cost - what's the cost of letting mr. Harun al-starts-in-Petra found Burial-Temple-bonus Islam before turn 80?

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Longest I've waited to settle is a Venice game, but in a large changes mod that defies discussion here. Also, my very first victory in Civ V was vanilla, Mongolia OCC science victory, I trekked to the center of the pangaea for I think 15 turns to get a mountain hill because I was actually spawned without luxuries.
Otherwise it's found on turn 2 tops. The payoff for moving after that would have to be some Lake Victoria / Mt. Fuji type ****.

Horseshoe_Hermi said:

But Mining does literally nothing until you have a Worker, and said worker is standing on a hill or forest, and in fact begins his turn there (with > 0 moves), and you indeed start a mine or chop. This can't happen before 8 turns, and probably won't even happen before 16. Unless you're playing for extra pennies in trade route science created by Deity AI, or intend to tech right into Masonry (meh) or Bronze Working (never rewarding in my experience), it seems demonstrably non-optimal.

Not taking pantheon seems iffy too. They are so good that the 40 hammers and 10 gold might be worth taking one away from someone in a distant land. And hey, maybe you'll walk into territory that uses it. People talk about opportunity cost - what's the cost of letting mr. Harun al-starts-in-Petra found Burial-Temple-bonus Islam before turn 80?

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Longest I've waited to settle is a Venice game, but in a large changes mod that defies discussion here. Also, my very first victory in Civ V was vanilla, Mongolia OCC science victory, I trekked to the center of the pangaea for I think 15 turns to get a mountain hill because I was actually spawned without luxuries.
Otherwise it's found on turn 2 tops. The payoff for moving after that would have to be some Lake Victoria / Mt. Fuji type ****.

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I should've elaborated on picking Mining: With a jungle start I would need BW afterwards of course. I never said it's a good start, it's about making a bad start optimal. Staying without production for too long (jungle starts) has ruined my games and jungles never give production. + You do need BW to improve the luxuries under jungles. It's the same as a desert start - you are going to want to go for a Petra. It's going to slow down you at first, but imagine not managing to build it. Tundra's bad as well and I still have no good way to deal with it except fast internal food TRs. So basically I do believe in adjustment more than I believe in some cookiecutters.

I don't consider pantheons that good, I'll write down the ones I find worthy and the situations I'd get them:
Dance of the Aurora - Only on Tundra (Very rare)
Desert Folklore - Only on Desert (Rare)
Earth Mother - If I have more than 3 tiles (Rare)
Fertility Rites - If my initial idea's been taken and I don't see a better option (Rare)
God of Craftsmen - Sometimes when going wide (Rare)
God of the Open Sky - If I have more than 3 pastures (Sometimes)
Goddess of Festivals - If I have more than 3 Wine and Incense (Very rare)
Goddess of the Hunt - If I have more than 3 Camps (Sometimes)
Messenger of the Gods - Only if I'm going wide and for a SV (Very rare)
Monument to the Gods - If I want more than 1 Ancient/Classical wonder (Very rare)
One with Nature - If I can get more than 2 Natural wonders (Very rare)
Oral Tradition - If I have more than 3 plantations (Sometimes)
Religious Idols - If I have more than 3 Gold and Silver (Very rare)
Sacred Path - If there are more than 4 jungles and I can leave them be (Rare)
Stone Circles - If I have more than 3 Quarries (Rare)
Sun God - If I have more than 3 Bananas, Wheat and Citrus (Sometimes)
Tear of the Gods - If I have more than 3 Gems and Pearls (Very rare)

I had been going for the desired pantheon if I have 3 of the necessary tiles, but more than 50% of that time I didn't manage to get it. That's on Immortal and Diety of course. Nowadays I go after a pantheon if the above requirements are checked and I start working on it asap. If the pantheons could be kept for the whole game, I would've taken them more often, but it seems to me that I could be getting something more important at that time. My games I mostly win and are plenty fun so..

I'm cool enough to bee-line to Future Tech right at the start of the game.

Generally 2-3 turns max. Delay will usually be to get to a coast or Spain. Difficulty level changes things as well. Prince/King + Spain may delay up to 8 turns. I like the flexibility of those levels.

Tech path is influenced greatly by the difficulty as well. Deity I'm not good enough to have flexibility. Everything revolves around getting to national colleges while ensuring I can fend off the AI (bows or pikes).

Emperor and below I can play around more and tailor it to the land around me.

A Shrine is totally worth it if you can get God-King, that's the secret no one will tell you. ( The "optimal" pantheon advice is to always prioritize the pantheon giving the most faith, so to sure you don't get beat out of a religion.)

I recall watching one of MadDjinn's "Beyond the Monument" videos about settling, and I'm currently of the school of thought that says you shouldn't be afraid to spend 5-10 turns walking your settler. In practice, I send my settler to the best place I can see after moving my warrior on turn 0. (Hills are a must, rivers and mountains adjacent are great, gems/gold are gifts from a merciful RNG, not awkwardly 1-3 tiles from coast is important, being surrounded by things that aren't jungle also important, nearby Salt is basically cheating) However, if my warrior finds a better location on Turn 1 or 2 and I haven't settled, I'll go to that location. Good capital placement will quickly make up for those few turns lost. (I think Beyond Earth does this right and just starts by giving you a choice of where to start.)

Tech-wise, I think in every of my last 50-or-so games, Pottery First. Early Libraries are important. Getting to NC is important. Calendar is important. Shrines and Granaries can be important early on, depending on your circumstances.

I haven't understood the logic behind delaying your settling beyond more than one or maybe two turns at most. The game is programmed to put starting locations in good areas, so isn't your starting location almost certain to be better than any other locations you could find, unless you're searching for an NW?

Yeah, we know from the funny screenshots thread that there are these moments when the game truly effs up in assigning a starting location. But if you were to continue playing and move your first settler around in those circumstances, you could just reroll instead.

Sessy said:

Here's a question I've thought about but in reality never tried.

Have you settled on a luxury before, what happened in that situation to make it worthwhile for you?

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Settling on minable luxuries is way better because you get the extra gold and the extra luxury without having to work so much... this is done best in larger raging barbarian settings where you don't really need a worker that early and won't need to worry about having your improvements plundered.

reddishrecue said:

Settling on minable luxuries is way better because you get the extra gold and the extra luxury without having to work so much... this is done best in larger raging barbarian settings where you don't really need a worker that early and won't need to worry about having your improvements plundered.

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Settling on gold-producing luxuries might be even better, if you go by the argument that production is better than gold.

LoneRebel said:

Settling on gold-producing luxuries might be even better, if you go by the argument that production is better than gold.

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I guess you could settle on any luxurious resource, too, particularly if you want to get a luxury connected quick.

I settle resources often. but not compulsively. I've noticed the AI doesn't appreciate the benefit of settling on a hill, and it seems to be allergic to settling on a resource of any sort. I was surprised to see Oda settle his 2C on bison recently though.

I think you should always consider moving your starting settler. Normally I don't but in my last game I moved my settler to tiles to the West and I'm glad I did as it meant I had space to the East. Starting tech is always Pottery for me.

I often settle on the second turn, if you get a hill you almost immediately recoup the hammers, and "research" at first is dominated by how many ruins you find (culture, tech finds, pop, even gold matter more than your early breakers).

I hardly ever settle on 3, usually only if my warrior finds a natural wonder, otherwise I make the best of what I can settle at the end of turn 2.