Startup research strategy

The game has started. As we all know, the first Techs to research are the most important ones, it won't be an exaggeration to say the history of our Egyptian nation will be forever marked by them. So let's be extra diligent with the decision we're making here.

As Egyptians, we come with The Wheel and Agriculture. We have none city yet, but it's very likely we'll just settle in-place. The only visible Resource we have is a Pig. That gives Animal Husbandry a high priority. Should we decide to build a Worker right away, he will finish roughly at the same time as Animal Husbandry becomes available - perfect timing.

Our Leader Hatshepsut is Spiritual. Therefore Mysticism would be another high priority.

Other Techs and my personal opinion about them:

- Fishing: No priority, as we don't have a coastal start (very unfortunately, as I *love* coastal starts).
- Pottery: Low priority, as we have a Pig and three Flooded Plains which will give our Capital more Growth than it can handle in the starting phase. Cottages can wait a little, too.
- Writing (after Animal Husbandry): Low priority, as Hatshepsut come with +2 Culture, and Open Borders isn't necessary that early in the game.
- Horseback Riding (after Animal Husbandry): No priority, as we don't need Horse Archer that early, and we're not even sure to have Horse nearby.
- Hunting: Medium priority, as Scout and Spearman are important early units, while on the other hand we have no need for Camps yet.
- Meditation (after Mysticism): Medium priority, as Buddism would be nice - if we can win the race for it.
- Polytheism (after Mysticism): Medium priority, same reason as Meditation.
- Masonry (after Mysticism): Low priority, as we have no need for Quarry, and can't build the Great Light House any time soon, but we *are* the Egyptions and may want to build the Pyramids just because of our proud?
- Mining: Medium priority, as Production is pretty low around our likely-to-be Capital, and a Mine on the Plains Hills nearby would help a lot.

In conclusion, I consider:

- High priority: Animal Husbandry, Mysticism
- Medium priority: Hunting, Meditation, Polytheism, Mining
- Low or no priority: everything else

What do you people think?

Given that our city will grow quickly, we'll probably need the health of the pigs quickly. I believe we should learn how to use those animals to our own benifit. That is why we provided those animals, to consume for our own inner greed.

If we research anything but mysticism first, we probably won't grab one of the first three religions. We're not hurting for food surplus, but the health bonus of the pigs will be important and thus animal husbandry is a priority.

I think whichever path we take (myst / husbandry) we're better off with not trying to do anything to take the other path as a priority, because once we start on the one, we've ensured we won't get the most important benefits of the other.

To get a religion, we need to research two techs in the time it takes another civ to research one. If nobody in the game starts with mysticism then it's possible, but if anyone does have it then we potentially waste a lot of time compared to not getting as much benefit as we would being first.

More on this soon, interruptions on the home front.

I'd actually go up one of the religion paths just to get Priesthood (Oracle). Forest chop the oracle, and get us a free tech. (hopefully something like fuedalism, Machinery, Monoarchy, Monotheism, etc.)

I agree with DaveShack that if we don't go after religions first, we won't get them. But is it possible to get AH, then go after Oracle in Prince? I don't remember if Prince is equal, or if the AI has a bonus. Just throwing out sugestions.

In prince, the AI's do get some sort of small bonus, I don't remember off the top of my head, but thats when the game starts to pamper the AI a bit to compete with our superior intelligence! (Go us) So anyway, it is slightly annoying to start as the ONLY spiritual leader to NOT start with myst. If we werent spiritual I would say go for animal husb, and if we had myst, I'd say go for med, but this certaintly is a dilemma. As a member of the NRO I am all for founding a home based religion, but never at the cost of the society. It seems almost like a dead 50-50 between choices. There is always the opportunity to found a religion later. Then again, we can learn animal husb any time and gain the pig bonus, if we want religion now, we should begin immediately, aim for Hinduism, and if that fails, follow through for judiasm. (Good thing they wont prevent us from eating pigs ) And if we DO go for animal husbandry, the set back in the religion race can ONLY be countered if we were to build a worker right away. To build a worker right away seems like a bad idea because it would DELAY the growth of the city by consuming food rescources. We would be at 1pop. We should build something non-food consuming, allow growth, and then build a worker FASTER and not be bogged down on its construction. If we decide not to build a worker right away, then I would suggest religion racing.

Wow, basically I spent this post talking to myself and I have now developed the oppinion that mysticism should be our top priority. The reason I suggest polytheism over meditation is because polytheism is a standard requirement on monotheism which if we went for meditation, we would then need to research polytheism, where if we missed poly, at least it would be a step on our way to mono.

Animal Husbandry to Writing to Alphabet then get Col for Confucianism. This assures that you get out in front tech wise, then also that you found a religion to spread!

Although its a bit more work then that (Need one of the alternate reqs, priesthood or currency) Confucianism does seem like a good alternate to entering the RelRace. Also my tech chart says we dont need alphabet for CoL? I did get the game on the first day of its release (Reserved copy) perhaps my chart is wrong. please confirm this for me someone?

I didn't mean get Alpah to get CoL, but get Alpha so we can tech trade to get in the lead, then found Confucianism because after that it is quite easy to do. With a tech lead and a missionary, we can pick the most powerful civ we have contact with and convert him unless he already founded a religion. It is a good strategy, and i got a cultural win with this(on noble) and a diplomacy win with this(on prince)

Also without mystism to start with we will never win the religion race. It is better to build a solid tech base and then use relgion as a tool, then it is to use religon as a tool to acheive technology, because that almost never happens!

Certanly, we would need to prioritze our growth and health of our cities. So animal Animal Husbandry would have to be researched first in order to gain access to pork products (pigs). Next we should research Mysticism in order to research both Polythiesm and Meditation to get Hinduism and Buddism. Certanly the more religions we have the better culture we will have.

I agree with persuing Animal Husbandry first. I suggest Pottery after that, though. Flood plains are the perfect tile for cottages, building them early will increase our research even more, and we already have both pre-req techs.

That will take around 30 turns, which should give us enough time to explore our surroundings, discover our opponents (and their strengths/weaknesses), and gain a better idea what to persue next.

Researching both Pottery & Animal Husbandry will reduce the cost of Writing as well, getting us fast Libraries which will bump up our research even more. First we need to take care of hammers, so I'll insert Mining after cottages.

My suggested initial tech line:
Animal Husbandry, Pottery, Mining, Writing
I would even switch it to:
Pottery, Animal Husbandry, Mining, Writing
if we wait on making that worker, as An. Husb. isn't very useful until you have a worker, while Pottery provides the Granary building.

After Writing, we would need to barrel towards Archery as well, to keep our military from slipping.

I don't like the idea of building a worker first. It hinders growth which effects our commerce which limits our research. A second warrior is never a bad thing.

The pigs aren't going to migrate anytime soon, they'll be there when we are ready for them.

The early religions won't wait around. If the nations with myst at the start all pursue thier best intrest, they will all head for meditation as it is the easier of the two. We should be able to grow quickly and with the river commerce we should be able to research fairly quick. We could gain myst while the race is still on for meditation. If we go for poly after myst, I think we have a better then decent shot at getting hindu.

Animal Husbandry should be first..... IMO the worker should be started on the turn that we grow to 2.

Mike Lemmer said:

I agree with persuing Animal Husbandry first. I suggest Pottery after that, though. Flood plains are the perfect tile for cottages, building them early will increase our research even more, and we already have both pre-req techs.

That will take around 30 turns, which should give us enough time to explore our surroundings, discover our opponents (and their strengths/weaknesses), and gain a better idea what to persue next.

Researching both Pottery & Animal Husbandry will reduce the cost of Writing as well, getting us fast Libraries which will bump up our research even more. First we need to take care of hammers, so I'll insert Mining after cottages.

My suggested initial tech line:
Animal Husbandry, Pottery, Mining, Writing
I would even switch it to:
Pottery, Animal Husbandry, Mining, Writing
if we wait on making that worker, as An. Husb. isn't very useful until you have a worker, while Pottery provides the Granary building.

After Writing, we would need to barrel towards Archery as well, to keep our military from slipping.

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I agree with some of your points Mike Lemmer, like getting pottery, but we need not get mining OR archery, because those beggining techs are very easy to get if you are the first to get alpahbet.

If we took the masonary route we could forest chop the great pyramids allowing us early access to Universal sufferage.

Universal Suff. is only useful if you have towns. We won't have those for a while... so pyramids might not be the best option. Also see some of the comments about health issues with too many forests deforested.

I play on Noble, usually a civ that doesn't start with mysticisim, and I find that I can always get Hinduism, but never Buddhism. I'm not sure how much faster the ai can research on prince

On Prince, you usually can't get either unless there's only one civ out there that starts with Myst. Someone will say that I'm wrong, but I would rather have some of the top techs than risk the loss of religion

Tubby Rower said:

On Prince, you usually can't get either unless there's only one civ out there that starts with Myst. Someone will say that I'm wrong, but I would rather have some of the top techs than risk the loss of religion

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You can but is always by luck rather than anything else.

could use representation and the such like though with the pyramids, also our city wont be growing to huge sizes anytime soon so the need for tonnes of health wont be as great.