Do you aim to unlock all basic resources before your first settler?

[kenneth1221]

VP locks a good number of bonus resources behind the first 2 tiers of techs. It also tips the balance in favor of having more cities than less, and mitigates the base game's problems with suboptimally settled cities. However, there's still a rush to claim good spots.

What bonus and strategic resources do you aim to reveal before your second city?

 

[Stalker0]

It depends on my tech order. For example if I am doing a calendar rush, I will only have Deer, Fish, Stone, and Bison revealed.

 

[CrazyG]

With progress I find that taking all 5 techs in the first column first is a pretty good starting move. I tend to ignore bronze working for a while.

With authority your science is scarce and it is good if you can skip a tech for a while, especially to unlock better military units.

Tradition can go many different ways. Immediately getting the granary is often a good move.

 

[kenneth1221]

With progress I find that taking all 5 techs in the first column first is a pretty good starting move. I tend to ignore bronze working for a while.

With authority your science is scarce and it is good if you can skip a tech for a while, especially to unlock better military units.

Tradition can go many different ways. Immediately getting the granary is often a good move.

If I may ask/conjecture...

What about Progress benefits from revealing all 5 starting columns? Fully revealing all resources, or is there something else? I would imagine that with Progress, you can get away with a few poorly settled cities since everything has been lifted up.

For Authority, science comes from conquest/killing. I can see how beelining military tech can help your war machine and because you get a free settler it may be a very real reality that you don't have all the techs you need.

As for Tradition, I assume at that point you end up playing your civ/playing the land.

 

[CrazyG]

If I may ask/conjecture...

What about Progress benefits from revealing all 5 starting columns? Fully revealing all resources, or is there something else? I would imagine that with Progress, you can get away with a few poorly settled cities since everything has been lifted up.

For Authority, science comes from conquest/killing. I can see how beelining military tech can help your war machine and because you get a free settler it may be a very real reality that you don't have all the techs you need.

As for Tradition, I assume at that point you end up playing your civ/playing the land.

Are thinking along the lines of "I shouldn't build a settler because I don't know where horses are"? Just put the city down. Your city doesn't need a perfect position, occasionally I wish I put a city closer to iron but it isn't a big deal. Getting a city settled 10 earlier will usually help more than a slightly better position. It takes hundreds of turns to actually grow to all the tiles you can, don't worry about a city having slightly better or worse resource way over there.

With progress I research everything because I tend to use everything. Roads, mines, settlers, archers, I need them all. Animal husbandry is a good tech so my free worker can improve horses or cows for more production. Plus I get culture for researching techs, which means my culture is faster if I research cheaper techs.

Authority usually wants archers, then horsemen. I sometimes have to skip pottery for a while. Getting an army is the priority. I've had authority games where the free settler was the only settler I ever used.

Tradition, I usually plan for at least one early wonder, and it determines my tech path. Mining isn't very important, unless your luxuries are mines. I tend to get the middle techs first, usually going for mathematics, because hanging gardens is great and comp bows/skirmishers are awesome.

 

[ShadedSkies]

None? I always settle near natural wonders or luxuries for the monopolies, bonus/strategic resources be damned! The best early military unit are C. Bowmen which don't need anything anyway, plus extra resources kind of ruin triangle farm placements sometimes. I'd rather have 3 5f tiles than a stone. I very rarely reveal horses before the Classical Era and iron before the Medieval era, unless I'm aiming for a swordsman warmonger game, which is a risk in and of itself. Ultimately you want to cover as much available land as possible anyway due to stuff like Coal, Oil and Uranium in the late game, and it's not like you're going to forward-settle Gustavus for 2 horses so I wouldn't let it dictate my city placement regardless.

 

[andersw]

Horses, but not as important as it used to be with the nerf to skirmishers.
Settle on lux with atleast one city of the 5-6 first ones (unless I was very lucky with gold and could affort an early worker).
Iron have become more important for me, with the and the current patch where tanky melee is important when I lay siege to a city I really want swords/longswords.
Roughly where I need to expand to secure my monopoly and where I can settle for other lux.

For authority (which is what I generally play) my most common tech route is Wheel -> early tech -> Pottery -> early tech.
Early tech are most commonly trapping and animal husbandry (delaying mining as it doesn't reveal).
This usually lines up, along with barb kills and purchasing warriors, so that the first produced settler is around as I unlock imperium for free settler, in some cases I may have to delay settle a few turns but thats worth it imo for the science/culture on settle that imperium provides.