Antiquity guide - The perfect early game

[Acken]

For me the altar is usually a mid-age build when happiness starts to hurt from exceeding the settlement limit. Compared to Civ6 at least, it seems rushing a good pantheon is a lot less important. Even for stone circles, paying 90 prod. (or its gold equivalent) for say, 3 prod. / turn takes 30 turns to pay off, plus the opportunity cost of what that prod. / gold could have given instead of the altar. God of the Sun also seems to not be prioritized by the AI in and remains available fairly late.The Priesthood policy card and +2 food from the mastery feels quite more impactful than the Pantheon.

If stone circles is giving you +3 it is indeed a low priority. But if it is going to be +5 or +6 with enough mines it's hard not to justify it.

I think Sun God is the all-around best pantheon*. Others will sometimes be better in the capital, but it's rare that anything will surpass it when scaled across a whole empire. This is especially important because Altars are a building that's purchaseable in towns.

*City Patron Goddess may be better, but the AI loves it. I have yet to be able to pick that up in a high-difficulty game, while Sun God is 100% always available. Just grab Mysticism at your leisure, pick Sun God, and have some decent-value buildings that you can fill in everywhere regardless of what else is going on with your empire.

I still think stone circles is better IF your cities are able to at least have 4 mines. If not, I often pick Sun God.

 

[Acken]

how many scouts do I need now?

I still recommend 2 for standard size.

 

[Fluffball]

how many scouts do I need now?

I still recommend 2 for standard size.

I think it depends on difficulty setting more than map size.

On lower difficulties I noticed the AI seemed to ignore goodie huts even when they were on or in their borders but as I worked up the difficulties it has been an increasing race to get to them first.

 

[Acken]

You could do 3 on low difficulties to try to get a bit more huts maybe. Probably needs to give you 2 extra huts to come even.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

I still recommend 2 for standard size.

building order is that two first scouts and what follows? Sawpit or Granary ?

 

[Acken]

building order is that two first scouts and what follows? Sawpit or Granary ?

Here is how my build order often looks like:
* 2 scouts
* SawPit or Brickyard. If these are not yet available you can put some turn into the Granary or a warrior while waiting.
* Settlers x2/x3 Often I can buy one from the scout gold
* Altar
* Monument / Library

 

[Fluffball]

building order is that two first scouts and what follows? Sawpit or Granary ?

I usually do

scout
scout
warrior
slinger
if I don't appear to be at the top or bottom of the map another scout
settler as soon as I have the pop and building military to fill in aiming to have at least one warrior and slinger each settlement.

If one of the warehouse buildings has a particularly high yield I will drop that in also but only tend to start with building once i have reasonable military and at initial settlement cap.

I have nearly lost my capital by neglecting military and getting hit by IPs and found the AI dog piled me early if I don't have a reasonable but leave me alone if I do.

 

[RaidandTrade]

Don’t sleep on the “Steal” options to get civics and techs.

 

[EpicWestern]

I like

scout
scout
granary
brickyard

I've seen some people say its fine to skip granary but building it early allows you to complete a quarter with the brickyard giving you that extra science and culture. There's also usually a couple turns worth of production after scouts before brickyard tech is completed anyway.

I also like fast two settlers and an altar after that but fast military units seems viable as well. The bonus you get from clearing a city state is massive early game.

 

[sixty4half]

I have a hard time believing the Scout-Scout-Warehouse-Warrior-Settlerx3 build.

Hostile IPs overrun me 3 out of 4 times I try that. It only works when you are surrounded by Friendlies or mountains.

I almost always need 3 Warriors or 2 and a slinger before I start the settlerx2 or 3 sequence.

 

[RaidandTrade]

I have a hard time believing the Scout-Scout-Warehouse-Warrior-Settlerx3 build.

Hostile IPs overrun me 3 out of 4 times I try that. It only works when you are surrounded by Friendlies or mountains.

I almost always need 3 Warriors or 2 and a slinger before I start the settlerx2 or 3 sequence.

Like everything, it’s situational. 2 scouts is pretty simple 99% of the time (or more). The next build is determined by IPs (and tech).

If you have hostiles on the doorstep and can build a slinger, build the slinger but don’t rush out to engage.

If you can’t build a slinger, build a warrior. But don’t press a bad fight. Hit, rest, rest, hit or whatever. Bring a scout back as bait if it’s really bad.

Question: are you building farms or woodcutters/mines?

Your first improvements should go for production so you can get things out faster.

Question: do you move your founder or settle in place?

If you move, there’s a chance you are moving towards an IP so that when you settle, they perceive you as forward settling and are aggro instead of friendly.

Question: Is your first warehouse the granary?

(Hint: the answer should be “no” if you’re trying to crack out 3 scouts).

If you do get a military unit built, don’t be tempted to scout too far with them.

The 2-3 scout -> warehouse -> settlers build order is my (and others’) go-to but adjust to conditions.

If you’re on PC you can force end turn (Shift+Enter) to save production as well - handy if your next build tech is a couple of turns away - just don’t forget to do everything else first.

 

[Benualdo]

I usually do: (Sovereign)

• Scout #1
• Scout #2
• Warrior
• Slinger
• Settler #1 (buy ASAP)
• Settler #2 (build)
• Slinger #2
• Warrior #2

 

[shoshonte]

I usually do: (Sovereign)

• Scout #1
• Scout #2
• Warrior
• Slinger
• Settler #1 (buy ASAP)
• Settler #2 (build)
• Slinger #2
• Warrior #2

What is the need for the Warrior and Slinger in the build order? Why not more scouts?

 

[Benualdo]

What is the need for the Warrior and Slinger in the build order? Why not more scouts?

To protect from Barbarians. I go for Discipline first, so that my commander can gain XP early killing barbs.
Also, I sometimes use them to avoid other civs to settle where I want to build my next cities.

 

[MightySpice]

But if you have three settlers around, what are you going to do with two units? It seems to me like a gamble.

 

[RaidandTrade]

Going to say “maybe” to this one:

Main recommendation for civics is to get a Pantheon asap if you can get one of the good ones like Stone Circles.

Stone Circles has been my go to and I’ve been blindly rushing for it in every game per the above.

Lately, I’ve been messing with my order while trying out some new strategies with Rome and rushing Legatus instead of Pantheon. Also done versions where I went into the first 2 Roman civics before pursuing the pantheon and in all cases I found Stone Circles was still available. (On Deity).

Point is, if you’re after Stone Circles, I don’t think you have to sweat it for FOMO as you’ve a good chance to pick it up. It’s more a build order decision like a Barracks.

If you’re after some of the others like the influence one then the above holds but I think I’ve only missed Stone Circles once or twice.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Stone Circles has been my go to and I’ve been blindly rushing for it in every game per the above.

Yeah I tend not to rush my pantheon as Stone Circles is always available and City Patron goes so quickly it's a waste of time and opportunity cost.

 

[vorlon_mi]

But if you have three settlers around, what are you going to do with two units? It seems to me like a gamble.

It's a map-dependent gamble.

Sometimes, I have a friendly IP nearby and I breathe a sigh of relief. That will get me 20 turns or so of relative peace; it also means my scouts have a greater chance of surviving.

Sometimes, I have a hostile IP nearby. These units (sometimes I build or buy 2 slingers and a warrior) are to engage the raiders while the settlers go out to found towns. If I can time it right, the first Army Commander goes with them to get some experience. I agree with the post above about the bonus for clearing hostile IPs. In my last 2 games, I've tried to remember to check to see if any of the AI have started to befriend this IP before I disperse it. No need for extra negatives to the relationship, if I can help it.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

It's a map-dependent gamble.

Sometimes, I have a friendly IP nearby and I breathe a sigh of relief. That will get me 20 turns or so of relative peace; it also means my scouts have a greater chance of surviving.

Sometimes, I have a hostile IP nearby. These units (sometimes I build or buy 2 slingers and a warrior) are to engage the raiders while the settlers go out to found towns. If I can time it right, the first Army Commander goes with them to get some experience. I agree with the post above about the bonus for clearing hostile IPs. In my last 2 games, I've tried to remember to check to see if any of the AI have started to befriend this IP before I disperse it. No need for extra negatives to the relationship, if I can help it.

sometimes you need as many as FOUR. sent them off in all directions. but 2 is always minimum.
What is the first technology to research? Animal Husbandry? and once done. what is a building to build first? granry or sawpit ?

 

[pmarc]

Typically you start with Animal Husbandry / saw pit if your capital has more forests (and maybe camp resources), Pottery / brickyard if it has more rough terrain (and resources improved by mines/quarries/clay pits).

Resources linked to the granary (pastures, plantations) are only a priority in the capital if they have an effect that's useful early on, like +food or +production (e.g. sheep, cotton). Even then I'm not sure you would go for granary early, because you hit diminishing returns from extra food very fast in Antiquity; that might change with the upcoming patch to the growth curve.

Thread 'Checking in from the dev team: next update coming later this month!'

Apr 8, 2025

Hey Civ fans! The dev team is hard at work on a new update (1.2.0) which is currently targeting April 22 (as always, date subject to change).

We've just posted a new update check-in that walks through what's coming later this month, what's still in progress behind the scenes, and how your feedback continues to shape what we're working on.

Check it out here.

And for my TL;DR crowd, a few bullets on what's incoming:

• Resource Updates
• Population Growth Improvements (Food Curve)
• One More Turn
• Teams Multiplayer
• Research Queuing
• Repair All
• Fewer Natural...

• FXS_Sar
• Replies: 116
• Forum: Civ7 - General Discussions

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