First social policy? First building?

[ZapRowsdower]

I've been choosing Liberty (speed up the training of Settlers by 50%) as my first social policy for the couple of games i've played. Making settlers is necessary and slow, so it seems like a no-brainer. Any reason NOT to do this?

Less clear to me is building a monument as the first building in your first few cities. Before you get enough cash to buy land, this seems essential.

I'm curious if others have different perspectives on these decisions.

 

[Ahriman]

Any reason NOT to do this?

Sure. Tradition is great for a small empire (some powerful policies like Oligarchy), Honor is great for a conquest strategy (especially 50% cost reduction on upgrading... build a cheap unit, then upgrade it).
In my game as Rome, I only founded 1 other city early game, then went a-conquering.

ReXing with settlers isn't the only strategy.

 

[Yakk]

I've delayed settlers in a game or two, and picked up +1 food in capital instead as my first social policy.

Monuments are useful, but only if you really need the territory. It is a lot of production to get it started (which could be spent on a worker, which would boost your per-turn yield of hexes significantly, or something else).

With workers no longer being built with food, and the ability to grant +1 yield/6 turns, they are a pretty damn good choice to build first.

Scouts can easily pay for themselves by finding city states and ruins before the AI snaps them up. (+15 gold per city state). Even using warriors to hunt down barbarians can be profitable, playing for much territory buys if needed. And when you use cash, you know where it goes.

I try to have the +50% settler build time social policy up and running before I pump out settlers.

 

[mcmpan]

If you want to expand, definitaly choose this.

I am a bit more of a warmonger, so I am almost always choosing the honor trait to get a barbarian bonus, so that my units gain experience for the important battles.

 

[Olleus]

Honour is a good way of making sure you get lots of ruins, and make friends with city states at the same time.

 

[Ahriman]

I really like how the core 3 policies support expansionist, perfectionist and militarist strategies, the three standard civ strats.

 

[mcmpan]

I think it can also be a good strategy on higher levels to save the culture points for later policies like patronage.
Why on higher levels? Because you need really much culture points to choose a policy.

 

[Cyberian]

Early warmongering can also be efficient. Sacking an early capital can give you room for expansion later on. Also the capital usually has some improvements and workers to take as well as a larger border radius than a newly found city. You want honor for this tactics as you want to kill some barbarians first. Also going to war with a nearby city states helps even if you don't want to capture it. Just take some workers by turn 30. The great general from honor is sent with your troops. The money you get from scouting, barbarians and pillaging is going to a city state with cultural resources to make it your ally. That together with the usually good (and different) resources at the enemies capital makes up for the unhappiness by annexing the city. You usually get a second great general from war. This one you use for a golden age once you annexed the cities and have tile control to get early development going and get money for more CS befriending.

 

[King of Spades]

As already pointed out, Liberty is good, but it's not necesserily the best.

I guess it all depends on how you play, but I would rather go for Tradition or Honor, as these seem to pay off more in the long run than the bonus for building Settlers.

My reasoning is that I don't build too many Settlers in the beginning, and it's rarely critical to get it out those few turns earlier. Meanwhile, my Capital City will carry my empire for a long time, and I will run into alot of Barbarians while scouting for ruins and Natural Wonders.

 

[Alexfrog]

I prefer taking Piety or Patronage as my first policy (just wait until theyre available), and Stonehenge as my first building.

 

[kaltorak]

On the tradition tree there are some policies that say "in the capital" and some others don't. Do the others apply to all cities, like the wonder construction bonus, or is it the text missing?

 

[bhavv]

+ , +1 production, and +1 culture per city is awesome though.

 

[goodolarchie]

On the tradition tree there are some policies that say "in the capital" and some others don't. Do the others apply to all cities, like the wonder construction bonus, or is it the text missing?

Wonder production bonus applies to all cities. It's quite good for getting oracle and TGL!

 

[kaltorak]

Wonder production bonus applies to all cities. It's quite good for getting oracle and TGL!

And I'm even ramseses II !!!

I know the policies on the bottom of the trees are powerful, but Im seeing it also pretty useful to get key policies of several trees I want for my strategy.

 

[cembandit]

I don't like honor too much. I can win without the bonuses it provides, and I feel that bonuses to happiness or income is a better long term plan.

I aim my sp towards policys that give me smiley faces or gold.

I found tradition to be a good start, as the capital is your early game big boy.

Liberty is also a bit meh for me, as one can expand and grow too fast even without it.

I do love the double happiness from luxury bonus, but that's a latter policy from commerce I think.

I don't fill out any trees, but I haven't tried a culture win.

 

[Rub'Rum]

Does anyone delay choosing a social policy? I mean, with the cost going up so steeply, sometimes maybe it's better to wait if you wanna concentrate on like mercantilism and rationalism and other policies later in the game?

Or do culture points stop accumulating once you are supposed to pick a policy?

 

[cembandit]

They still build up. I often wait if I got everything I want from my current era.

 

[keweedsmo]

I personally prefer tradition. The long-term benefits FAR out-weight the short-term usefulness of cheaper settlers. I really can't see how you would think Liberty is a "no-brainer". All 3 are strong trees. Beyond that I'm a huge fan of the piety and order trees.

As far as a first building....eh. I usually rush out a monument so I can get that +33% wonder production policy then start pushing out some wonders.

 

[Rub'Rum]

I personally prefer tradition. The long-term benefits FAR out-weight the short-term usefulness of cheaper settlers. I really can't see how you would think Liberty is a "no-brainer". All 3 are strong trees. Beyond that I'm a huge fan of the piety and order trees.

As far as a first building....eh. I usually rush out a monument so I can get that +33% wonder production policy then start pushing out some wonders.

Some of the later benefits of Liberty are quite powerful, I especially love Meritocracy (+1 happiness per city connected to capital). I also kindda like Representation (+1 culture per city, which, in a large empire as allowed by meritocracy, can mean quite a bit of free culture).

 

[cembandit]

Good points Simon.

It's hard to find a bad policy.

They are very play style dependent.