Advanced Build Order Question

Stalker0

Baller Magnus
Joined
Dec 31, 2005
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Alright, so decided to go a little more advanced in build order question this time. Lets assume your building your 6th or so city, so a number of buildings have been unlocked. Lets assume this city is on the edge of your current empire, and though its a nice spot, doesn't have anything that is obviously amazing for a specific building (aka 5 lakes for aqueducts). So with your options of buildings up, what is the order that you normally build these buildings?

Monument
Shrine
Granary
Barracks
Arena
Forge
Council
Library
Amphitheater
Baths
Market
Aqueduct
Temple (assume Grand Temple)
Walls
Well
Watermill
 
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Normally I focus on a mix of science and production first then culture. Monument is the exception though for obvious reasons:

Monument, Well / Watermill, Walls, Council, Library, Forge, Granary, Barracks, Arena, Shrine, Temple, Baths, Amphitheater, Aqueduct, Market.

Normal focus doesn't mean ideal though, under these conditions of having Grand Temple already maybe Shrine, Temple after council is a better idea.
 
I'd do production first then growth. Ignore any culture/science buildings as it is far more important to be able to make other buildings faster. Monument saves enough gold or produces production under authority so it is fine to dp earlier. So roughly,

Well
Granary
Monument

Council (as the city is exploding it is worth wasting production on something cheap that doesn't help build)

Shrine (assuming you have something to do with faith)

Forge
Arena
Barracks
Aqueduct

Then stuff depends on how your happyness is. Walls depends very much on if the city needs defending. By the 6th city I'd be running an internal trade route to the city and rush building all of these. The amount of culture the city produces when it small is to small it isn't really worth making any over helping you to build faster.
 
Here's my rough answer. Generally I think wells/watermills are OP and besides them I want faith/culture science the most.

1. Well/watermill

2. Shrine/ Monument/ Council
:c5science::c5culture: or :c5faith:, just pick whatever you want the most. Late cities can enjoy the council's bonus for growth a lot more than early cities will.

2a. Granary
Granaries can be very high or low priority depending on available tiles. For example if I take progress's 3 food quickly and have a city with lots of floodplains or crab and low production I'd potentially skip the granary until like Renaissance. But in a city with a foodless natural wonder or a bunch of mines on hills I might build it first.

3. Library/ Temple
this "assumes grand temple" like you proposed. That assumption sounds really odd to me though, everything else in your list is classical era but it's from medieval.

4. Barracks-Arena-Forge (obviously move forge up if you have the right resources)

5. Ampitheather/ Baths

6. Market/ Aqueduct
When my production is low I regularly reach renaissance with some cities lacking markets.
Aqueduct is a somewhat situational building, obviously great in like a tradition capital but overall I don't find trading production for food to be a very good idea.

Walls could be first or last, just depends on how threatened the city is.
 
Things vary massively on civ, policies and pantheons, but my 'generic city setup' is production/growth first:

1. Well / Water Mill
2. Monument
3. Granary
4. Forge
5. Arena
6. Barracks
+Herbalist, if it gets at least 4 yields​
7. Amphitheater
8. Council
9. Shrine
10. Market

And then it all varies a lot.
 
6. Market/ Aqueduct
When my production is low I regularly reach renaissance with some cities lacking markets.
Aqueduct is a somewhat situational building, obviously great in like a tradition capital but overall I don't find trading production for food to be a very good idea.

Kind of funny that these are the two poverty buildings. I often neglect markets as well (Aqueducts I do push in any Tradition city or core city usually), and I find poverty is often the unhappiness that persistently overperforms in my cities these days.

It's funny because it's not like the Market is bad, exactly, gold is just distorted in weird ways. Though it could maybe stand to be better, perhaps an extra poverty reduction.
 
I think you just have to accept poverty will be most of your unhappy. Focus on improving other things that have greater impact.

I do think you want them in your 6th city though as if you aren't growing it quickly it isn't worth settling, although maybe it just isn't worth it anyway.
 
Fighting poverty is more about distributing your trade routes and making sure to work as many villages as you can
 
I do think you want them in your 6th city though as if you aren't growing it quickly it isn't worth settling, although maybe it just isn't worth it anyway.
I think you can wait to grow for a little while in cities like these.

The bonus yields for growth get bigger over time which rewards waiting to grow, I often get universities before aqueducts in expansion cities.
 
I think you can wait to grow for a little while in cities like these.

The bonus yields for growth get bigger over time which rewards waiting to grow, I often get universities before aqueducts in expansion cities.

Yeah maybe I find it hard to factor in bonus yields as it makes it much harder to calculate everything. My gut says to grow first but in this mod maybe growth is less powerful enough you are better off doing other things.
 
There are many variables that can affect what priority buildings take in but assuming I'm playing prog/auth the focus is mainly on prod/gold, then everything else (assuming religion founding is done):

1. well/watermill (walls if necessary)
2. forge/arena/barracks/herbalist (order depends on existence of hill, forest, plantations, and unhappiness)
3. market, monument (depending on if I took authority for the yield on expansion)
4. council/granary
5. Everything else, depending on what is most advantageous in the current scenario
 
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