Implications of Early Game Eureka Patterns for Build Orders

[Sprenk]

A few preliminary, and, no doubt, primitive thoughts. Caveat: much of this is hardly original.

The early game eurekas seem to fall into the following discrete categories (T for tech, C for civic):

Exploring--
Find natural wonder (Astrology T)
Meet another civ (Writing T)
Discover a 2nd continent (Foreign Trade C)

Fighting--
Kill unit w. slinger (Archery T)
Kill 3 barbs (Bronze Working T)
Clear barb outpost (Military Tradition C)

Developing Resources--
Farm a resource (Irrigation T)
Mine a resource (Wheel T)
Quarry a resource (Masonry T)
Improve 2 sea resources (Celestial Navigation T)
Build Iron Mine (Iron Working T)
Build Pasture (Horseback Riding T)
Improve 3 tiles (Craftsmanship C)

Miscellaneous--
Found city on coast (Sailing T)
Make trade route (Currency T)
Build any district (State Workforce C)
Grow pop to 6 (Early Empire C)
Found pantheon (Mysticism C)

There are several implications here:

1. An opening scout (or two) makes a lot of sense, not only for the eureka potential (and all three come very early!), but also for the benefits of goody huts and 1st city-state encounters. I suspect building a scout first will be the standard on almost all maps.

2. An early builder gives you a LOT of bang for your eureka buck. You can't get all the eurekas immediately, but you should at least be able to get 2 tech and a civic eureka from it.

3. You more than likely can get all 3 "fighting" eurekas by just building 2 slingers (they're cheap) once you find your friendly neighborhood barb camp. Have your starting warrior help out. Then you've got an early standing/defensive army built and partially trained already.

4. I doubt that the early Monument build ("to get the culture flow ticking") we're all so used to from Civ 5 is actually a smart move given the eureka system, unless you can find a place to slip it in and still hit the eurekas. Sure, the culture is valuable, but there is apparently NO eureka benefit from a monument.

5. On certain maps, it's worth thinking about placing your 2nd city on a coast for the Sailing eureka.

6. It's also well worth considering an early trade route to your 2nd city, for the roads and Currency eureka, if nothing else.

Any feedback?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

It seems the only way to get a pantheon (for Mysticism) is to run GodKing as your econoomic civic...giving up the extra production that helps you get the units for the other Eurekas

 

[Abraxis]

Seems sensible but I don't think eureka boosts will be the primary motivation for early build orders. They have will influence it sure, but so will other things, some very specific like maybe rushing mysticism as Greece, some more general like optimizing for an early wonder.

Mostly I think the local map features will be the biggest determining factors in opening build order.

 

[TRO]

I'm not sure getting eurekas is strictly better than getting an early monument. If you're getting +1 culture/turn, then decreasing a civic cost by 50% is equivalent to increasing your culture to +2/turn (Of course, monuments give +2/turn). So yes, it's better to get as many eurekas as possible to decrease the amount of culture you need to to accumulate, but is that worth delaying increasing your culture output per turn?

I'm sure it depends on numerous other factors. Certainly though, if you don't get an early monument, it is very important to get early eurekas.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Dont let eurkas or anything else make you blind for better choices.

 

[Sprenk]

I totally agree with everyone who's saying not to emphasize eurekas at the cost of everything else. Yes, balancing all the factors is key (and thank goodness! Civ would be a pretty boring game if that weren't true! )

However, it makes sense to consider how eurekas might effect early game decisions we took for granted in Civ 5. For example, in Civ 5, unless we had an early rush in mind, we probably built as little military as possible--there just wasn't a point to it before you had a specific goal/target. However, in Civ 6, building, say, a couple of early slingers to get 3 eurekas might not be such a bad play. Early builders look pretty darn good, too. They can not only nearly instantly improve 3 tiles, they also trigger nice eureka bonuses.

 

[Sprenk]

I'm not sure getting eurekas is strictly better than getting an early monument. If you're getting +1 culture/turn, then decreasing a civic cost by 50% is equivalent to increasing your culture to +2/turn (Of course, monuments give +2/turn). So yes, it's better to get as many eurekas as possible to decrease the amount of culture you need to to accumulate, but is that worth delaying increasing your culture output per turn?

I'm sure it depends on numerous other factors. Certainly though, if you don't get an early monument, it is very important to get early eurekas.

Granted, getting those exploration eurekas from a scout probably doesn't quite net you the same amount of culture as building a monument would (and you might not get them at all--things can happen to scouts). However, by building a scout first you're getting all the benefits of an early scout (the goody huts and first to meet bonuses) AND you're getting (probably) a pretty reasonable chunk of tech and culture from eurekas, on top of that. So I strongly suspect that going scout first will be seen as a no-brainer by most players.

 

[BrokenSky]

Depends on techcost but most of the time I expect building a city on the coast to be inferior to building it inland and building a harbour later. I doubt the sailing eureka is enough to change that except with civs with a heavy early game naval focus or on a map where the available land is small (so putting cities on the coast allow you to build more on any given island to create a district metropolis near the centre where all the cities can reach.

That's just my expectation though. Regarding the rest, early game district choice probably replaces the early monument/shrine thing; is your first district science, culture or faith?

and yeah scouting being more important would be good, since exploration is meant to be a really core mechanic in the early game (theoretically). More rewards for exploration should be good then.

 

[Xur]

The map and wether or not I got a barb problem will probably determine my choices - so to me it looks like it got lots of replayability, more than previous civilization games.

I am not going to actively focus on finding a natural wonder or another continent - if it happens, then great. Archery is a dead end tech, so if I don't really need it, then I'll just skip it - no need to focus the slingers. If I know that the map is pangaea standard size or larger, then I'll not be focusing on a coastal city, and I would probably avoid settling my capital coastal.

Many of these eurekas and inspirations come naturally - you can't really play a game of civ without improving 3 tiles. As I see it, there is never a "set-in-stone" route you wanna take. Having said that, I am going to focus on the easy: meet another civ, farm a resource, mine a resource. From there I'll take what I can. But yea, I'm probably gonna build a scout first.

 

[isau]

Glad someone started a topic on this. I dove into it a bit with some wild guessing on an Aztec build order in another thread. The build/tech/policy order in Civ VI is really interesting.

The thing about Eurekas is it matters when they trigger. You need them before you complete the tech/culture node (the specifics on this are still a little hazy to me). In some cases it may be effective to hard-research toward a node, but since a Eureka is a 50% boost--huge--hitting as many as possible appears to be very effective play.

Early coastal techs seems to be a bust, at least based on everything I have seen so far. There isn't any apparent synergy between what Sailing unlocks and other techs or policies other than more water stuff. So, delaying that seems evident in the vast majority of cases. And even if you went down this route, you'd still have to go for Astrology to get Celestial Navigation.

The big wild card Eurekas are Astrology (find a Natural Wonder) and Foreign Trade (discover a second continent). You just don't have much control over that. Depending on your luck either of these could trigger close to Turn 1, and Astrology may not trigger at all. Forcing a hard-research of Astrology may be the reality for some civs. Writing (meet another civ) is a similar boat if you end up on a landmass by yourself.

What I'm unclear on right now is whether Code of Laws starts out researched (I assume it does?) or whether you have to build to it to get any early policies. I'm sure we've seen that in videos, but I haven't paid attention. This is a big deal because it affects the feasibility of triggering the Eureka for the next 2 nodes (Craftsmanship- Improve 3 tiles vs Foreign Trade- Discover a second continent). Since you might actually start the game on Turn 1 next to a second continent, FT could end up halving the research time for some civs right from the start.

Early policy cards: Seems to me like at Turn 1 (assuming Code of Laws starts out researched) God King (+1 Faith and + 1 Gold) will generally win out over Urban Planning (+1 production/city). Altho it depends on how lucky you get with early Production availability I suppose. Discipline (+5 versus Barbarians) seems better than Recon (+50% XP for Recon units) at a glance, but I suppose it depends on what's in the Recon unit promotion tree.

 

[Stauffenberg]

Initially I would probably build a scout to have the warrior and scout explore the terrain around the capital, check where the barbarians are and collect goody huts.

My second build would probably be a builder if I have a resource near the capital I can mine or farm. However, you need pottery tech for the farming and mining tech for the mine. So you need to decide your initial research based upon what you can improve near your capital.

If I can't improve anything really fast then I might go for the monument second to get culture going. Expanding the borders and getting civic techs earlier will be important. God king looks nice to get a pantheon early and maybe a chance to form a religion.

However, all planning will be useless if a barbarian scout finds your capital. Then you need another warrior and a slinger asap. If you can't kill the scout you need more military units until the threat is thwarted. You might even be so unlucky you discover barbarians coming from 2 or 3 directions.

So I think it's almost impossible to make a plan about what to do. You need to just begin the game, look at the map for possibilities and plan accordingly. I like that Civ 6 isn't predictable even in the very first turns.

I will probably not let the eureka / inspiration moments interfere too much with my plans. Quite a few of the moments seem to come naturally without having to work for them so better to let them come when they come. If I need something further up in the tech or civic tree based upon circumstances in that particular game then I might look at what I need to get that tech and civic and do actions to get eureka / inspiration to reach the goal asap.

The most natural one to want is getting the holy district so you can get a shrine, pantheon and later a religion. However you need to find a natural wonder to get eureka for astrology. That is more related to luck than any planning. Building more scouts can increase the chance getting that eureka.

I have a feeling the most important preparation you can do before you start a civ 6 game is to UNLEARN your civ 5 strategies. Start from scratch and learn the mechanisms in civ 6. Following your civ 5 strategies might lead you astray.

 

[lockstep]

What I'm unclear on right now is whether Code of Laws starts out researched (I assume it does?) or whether you have to build to it to get any early policies. I'm sure we've seen that in videos, but I haven't paid attention.

You have to research the Code of Laws civic, and it takes 10 turns on quick speed to do so.

 

[skyclad]

It seems the only way to get a pantheon (for Mysticism) is to run GodKing as your econoomic civic...giving up the extra production that helps you get the units for the other Eurekas

Yes running god king first, switching to +1 production per city once you have your pantheon seems like it should be pretty standard! By then maybe you have second city as well and benefit more from the boost anyway.

 

[Acken]

There are a few things to remember :
-Building something just for the eureka is probably not a good idea. You have to also make sure its useful by itself. The best builds will be those that can combine both a useful build and complete eurekas.
-Eurekas can be delayed for a pretty substantial amount of time. Unless you absolutely need the tech or policy right away, you can ping pong between techs until you are ready to complete the eureka. This allow you some flexibility on when you wish to complete the objectives.
-Early eurekas are unlikely to be that huge of a boost to your overall game. In most civ games what often really matters is the economic strength of your civilization. If you reach a tech 10 turns before me but have an awful empire I'll end up in a way better position long term. There must be a purpose to getting a tech quickly !


1.
Scout first is a no brainer on pangea/continents maps it seems to me.

The benefit of ruins and meeting city states first is pretty high. From memory we have seen free scout and relics from the ruins. Meeting a city states first gives an envoy... that's kind of ridiculous.
I wouldn't be surprised if once again we go with 2 scouts first.
If builder stealing is also a thing of civ6 then just make 2-3 on those land heavy maps.

2.
The early builder. While you'll likely want one early it depends on a few things.
Do you really need to build it yourself ?
How good are the tiles around your city ? If you have multiple of those 3-4 yields forests/jungles then the benefit of improvements is null. Delaying the worker would then be a good idea if you are not in a hurry to use the eureka right now. A good example in my opinion is the Marbozir lets play where he has fantastic unimproved tiles making his early builder a waste.
On the other hand if you have mostly 2 yield tiles or 3 yields with a bonus, then getting that builder as a second or third build is a very good idea.
Still makes me wonder why hills are bonus tiles but I guess thats what theyll go for...

3.
The early monument. There are indeed no eureka from the monument.
However it is a very substantial boost to your culture output. +2 culture when you are getting +1.3 to +1.9 is at least doubling it. It will give you the civics faster than trying to get them without a monument and hitting the early eurekas.
Here is the thing to not miss too :
Craftmanship requires 3 tiles improvement. And one of its benefit is a production increase on workers !
This makes getting Craftmanship early through the eureka strongly redundant unless you plan to build a few units with agoge (but aren't you running the +5strength instead at this stage ?). You basically have to have a builder in order to build more... hmmm not that great in the first 30 turns. So your two next choices would be to leave it for later or get craftmanship without the builder. And the monument work perfectly for that. If you need craftmanship it will give it to you fast enough. If you decide to skip craftmanship then if you built a scout you already have the boost for foreign trade most likely and what it unlocks next is Early Empire with its settler reduction cost.
Getting 6pop in the capital looks pretty long if you are willing to wait for the Eureka of that civic which I'm pretty sure is not worth delaying your expansion by so long.

In conclusion, a fast monument looks like a very good choice for getting Early empire fast for that settler boost.

Early slinger look like difficult to justify before getting those three in my opinion. The eureka only unlock further military which is not possible to use wiithout a strong economy. Raging barbs would be a different story but I think you can safely delay your slinger to the 4th / 5th slot.


Edit : Also worth mentioning is that one of the most important early thing to get is probably the first government through Political Philosophy. Early empire and State Workforce are its prerequisite. This makes the value of trying to get military tradition and mysticism (before it) lower. The requirement for state workforce is a district which is likely to be the holy site or the campus. Both techs unlocking those district require scouting reinforcing, with the Foreign Trade, the value of the exploration eurekas over all the others.

 

[isau]

The reason I focused on the Aztecs in a previous post was because they especially well poised to blow through Eurekas, making them a surprisingly good science/culture civ in the early game, as long as they are able to find another civ or city state to pick on. By going for Eagle Warriors, they can output a force both capable of quickly acquiring Builders and accomplishing most of the combat-related Eurekas as well. My build order for them will likely be something like:

Eagle Warrior
Shrine
Eagle Warrior
Eagle Warrior
Eagle Warrior
Holy District

...and using the Builder units created from killed enemies to satisfy the various improvement-related Eurekas. Barbarians killed along the way both protect investment and satisfy Barbarian related Eurekas.

Still, it's going to take me multiple plays and restarts to really get the hang of the timing for all of this. I forsee myself spending hours trying different combos. And that's a good thing.

 

[ClavisRa]

Units. Units. And more units.

Early game will be dominated by units, because they efficiently satisfy multiple aspects of development, especially because you get eureka bonuses just for doing things that are already beneficial.

Early military let's you snipe other settlers and builders, control barbarians, and rapidly expand to the best city sites.

Building military, fast growth, and settling early fast growth cities seems like a pretty universal start strategy.

 

[stealth_nsk]

One of the key things in Eurekas is timing.
The requirement to build Iron Mine for Iron Working is not just about improving resource - it's about Iron being revealed with previous tech. So if you're trying to beeline, you need some preparations and luck to get the eureka.

 

[dturtle1]

Love ya Points Acken, particularly about how building a worker for Craftmanship is a bit counter-intuitive. For Aztecs though early Craftmanship is worth it. You can always run Agoge till you get 3-4 Eagle Warriors and then switch back into Discipline. The other thing is you want those Luxes as early as possible as the Aztecs, you could time this with the Craftmanship Inspiration.
It really seems quite a pickle when deciding on early build priorities, though scout probably takes No. 1. After that it becomes interesting .

THOUGHTS:
Monument is probably 2, 100% in Culture is just too important. Arguments can be made for a builder, but only if you have terrible yields without them. Slinger/Warrior are next at either 3,4. depending on how much the barbs are eating your face. If you go 3 it will be at the expense of the builder, very rarely at the expense of the monument(You have sucky yields AND the barbarians are eating your face )

I would try and get the military Eurekas's. You have to deal with the Barb's anyway. You will want Archery, because Archery is such a power increase over the slinger and in general. It doesnt matter that it is a dead end tech, it is an important piece of tech Whether it is worth building a slinger and trying to last hit a barbarian for the Eureka is another matter entirely. It should be relatively straight forward to last hit a Barbs with the slinger, however it could well be possible that people prefer the reliability and durability of another Warrior and just hard tech Archery.

So 5 or 6 Should be settler. with the other build being a scout, military unit or District. You will want Colonisation, which is a bit of a dilemma. How many people waited till 6 Pop before they pumped out their first Settler in 5?. At least Eurekas/Inspirations add to in-progress Techs/Civics. I think a good strategy will be hard Researching Early Empire and timing your growth to hit the Eureka just before Half-way. You will also be timing your 4th or 5th Build item to finish at the same time so you can go straight into settler. Of course things may not go as planned but to me, that is the ideal. The 6th, 7th, 8th build will be a Trade Route, Military Unit(inc Scout) or district.(if you didn't build one before settler),Type depending on which way you are inclined. Now you should be able to hit Political Philosophy and the game can begin

Obviously these musings are for standardised Early game Civs. Aztecs may of course want to focus Eagle warriors over early builder, districts, maybe monument. I feel they want to get an early settler out and Scout though. Scout to find the next luxe city and settler to settle it

 

[Nick31]

Acken's points are very well-thought out. I think Monument No. 1 will be a very strong option, though. If you're gambling, it's undoubtedly better to go with a scout first, as ruins and CS are a roulette wheel (First to meet CS gets a great reward).

That said, early Monument means early civic, which means you can do things like a) race to settle a city spot that's between you and an AI, or b) bump up you units if you're about to face a barb raid.

I think you want Scout second, of course, and since you can't really take builders very well in this game, you'll hard-build one in your first 3 for sure.

But since land-control is always vital, and particularly all the more so with Natural Wonders/rivers/Mountain spots having clear power, I think getting a Monument out to get you to faster Settler production is always going to be an option. Tasty land is everything, and all the more so in VI.

 

[Nick31]

The reason I focused on the Aztecs in a previous post was because they especially well poised to blow through Eurekas, making them a surprisingly good science/culture civ in the early game, as long as they are able to find another civ or city state to pick on. By going for Eagle Warriors, they can output a force both capable of quickly acquiring Builders and accomplishing most of the combat-related Eurekas as well. My build order for them will likely be something like:

Eagle Warrior
Shrine
Eagle Warrior
Eagle Warrior
Eagle Warrior
Holy District

...and using the Builder units created from killed enemies to satisfy the various improvement-related Eurekas. Barbarians killed along the way both protect investment and satisfy Barbarian related Eurekas.

Still, it's going to take me multiple plays and restarts to really get the hang of the timing for all of this. I forsee myself spending hours trying different combos. And that's a good thing.

I think you're dramatically over-estimating the time you'll need to destroy/capture a unit into a builder and getting him back to your capital, and underestimated the power of a 3-pop capital working 3 improved tiles vs. a 2-pop capital working no improved tiles. Time will tell, but not having an improved Capital in that build order will be problematic.