Initial infrastructure builds -their priority and ordering.

[learner gamer]

Hi all,

As someone who’s transitioning back to Civ 5 following the recent patch, I’ve been noticing that my game seems to lose some momentum after the initial opening. IMHO, this is likely due to a lack of available hammers – however, when I sat down to evaluate my opening recently, it occurred to me that this may in fact reflect that my opening tends to follow a traditional Civ 4 approach of REx to fill the land (ie. horizontal expansion) followed by the working of food heavy tiles and construction of food boosting buildings to grow vertically (assuming I’m skipping early wonders and a rush). In effect, my playstyle may therefore be contributing to the problem...and I’d love to find out if this is in fact the case by asking a couple of very simple questions to all you Civ 5 gurus out there.

The first concerns your initial build order. Assuming you start by building units such as workers, settlers and military to support a REx to grab, say a critical mass of four cities, at what stage do you start building infrastructure like granaries, aqueducts, watermills, stables, libraries and monuments (assuming that you skip a national collage and the wonders)? If more land is available, do you tend to continue the REx to grab the land before the AI can settle it, or do you consolidate and build a library for some science before continuing the REx? I understand BTW that this will be map and Civ dependent – but even tips like continue the REx if the land contains a happy resource would be welcome, as would more specific advice.

Talking of specific, my second question addresses the issue of hammer availability. Assuming you have available to build the follow infrastructure: (a) granary (b) watermill (c) aqueduct (d) library (e) stables (f) windmill (g) forge, what is your likely order of build priority? Once again, I appreciate that this will be map and Civ dependent, but what I’m trying to fathom at the very least is whether people prioritise food, science or hammers in their early infrastructure builds, (assuming you tend to build a monument first in new cities to pop borders...and this may be open to question too for leaders like Napoleon). For those who prioritise the food or science buildings, how do you increase hammer availability? Perhaps by (a) emphasizing production in the city management screen (b) working mines ASAP and raising the priority of building an aqueduct (c) the republic social policy (d) running engineer specialists, or perhaps something else? Or do you simply accept lesser hammer availability as the price to be paid for early vertical growth?

Apologies for the length of the post – and thanks for any and all feedback. BTW, if you find that the advice varies by level (I’m currently playing at king FWIW), even a note to that effect would really be appreciated.

 

[lilnev]

I build the library and NC in my capital. Other cities may get a library eventually, if they're going to grow large. The capital will eventually get a university, an observatory if applicable, and perhaps a public school. The sad truth is that, other than the NC, cities and buildings are a pathetic way to research (compared to Scholasticism and Research Agreements).

Monuments in my first few cities, monasteries where possible, no temples. Cultural CS's offer a lot, but it's nice to have the baseline from monuments.

Pretty much every city gets a workshop. Stable and forges for cities with 2+ resources. Windmills come later, when I'm likely warring, but I might build a few.

Sometimes I'll build food buildings (granary, watermill, lighthouse), but not always -- depends on terrain (availability of hills) and Maritime CS's. I've never built an aqueduct -- seems like I'm always up against happiness limits by then, and don't want more growth.

At some point I'll want the Heroic Epic, which means barracks everywhere, though some of them may get sold once the HE is up; the HE city will get an armory.

I might build markets in some cities with a lot of luxuries, especially late Medieval/early Renaissance if I haven't started conquering yet. I've never built a bank. Most gold comes from resource sales and wars, not tiles.

Every city gets a Coliseum; it's often the first build or buy for any later-founded cities (though I often only found 3 or 4 total). Every city that can have a circus gets one. Cities will eventually get Theaters.

 

[Smote]

If 3+ granary resource, granary first.

Else If another city is not donating worker, Worker first.
Else If 2+ granary resource, Granary first.
Else If 3+ Stable resource, stable first.
Else If river, Water Mill first.
Else If 2+ fish resource, Lighthouse first.
Else If 1 granary resource, granary first.
Else if 2 stable resource, stable first.
Else Workshop first.

Next workshop.
Next aqueduct, then finish off stables, granary, water mill as applicable.

Stay at 2-4 pop maximizing production until aqueduct is done. Then grow.


Many players make the mistake of food before hammers. Hammers before food is more powerful, once city is size 2-4.


All of this comes before anything else (monuments, libraries, markets, collosseums etc). If there is no happiness room to grow because of hasty settling, make happiness building higher priority, preferably at cities that have already finished infrastructure. Make sure not to lose crops because of unhappiness- only delve into it if you are confident that you can minimize food production (by working many hills).

Once all this infrastructure is done, and whatever else you want, then you are in good shape to spend the next 50 turns making military units to conquer the world.

 

[Tabarnak]

Good résumé. I often prioritize workshops before everything else because i want an engineer somewhere in the early ADs and they add 15% of an already 10-12 hammers established for a total of approx. +3.5 hammers. I usually grow until size 6 before halt if i go Landed Elite early.

 

[Smote]

I prefer water mill first in the case of water mill vs workshop, because its cheaper. That first building has great % boost to the city, usually bringing it from 6 or 8 to 9-11 (37%-50% production gains after 1 building). This is assuming a donated worker has improved some tiles.

 

[slobberinbear]

I don't have Smote's analytical chops, but I can share my experience on this subject, especially in comparison to Civ IV.

1. For most civs, workers' primary use in the early game is improving bonus resources and roading. Why? Because the generic improvements, early-game, only yield +1 production from the base tile. Thus ... if you don't have an improveable bonus resource or the tech to improve it, a worker can usually be bettered by a relevant building. Granaries and Watermills, in particular, are unlocked very early (Pottery and the Wheel), and while they cost maintenance, they contribute their production without having to hook up a resource or use a citizen.

2. In Civ IV, the primary deterrent to growth was corruption and maintenance. You could easily bankrupt yourself via overexpansion. In Civ V, happiness is the main limiting factor on horizontal (and to some extent, vertical) growth. As in Civ IV, your map situation and civ will be key factors in deciding whether to go broad or tall early. As long as you can keep acquiring new happiness resources, you are generally better off expanding horizontally and making the most of the Liberty tree for a land grab, providing you can defend your new additions. Focusing on food should come after (a) getting happiness and (b) getting enough hammers in your capital to crank out units. In Civ V, settlers and workers are built with hammers, not food (unlike Civ IV).

3. The extent of your early land grab also will dictate your choice of victory condition. Cultural games work best with small empires. The other victory conditions favor larger empires.

4. I agree with Illnev regarding the specifics of infrastructure buildings.

So here's a typical opener for me, using a pure REX strategy:

Build: Scout > possible second Scout depending on map > Monument > Granary > Worker > Warrior > Settler (repeat previous three builds until happy cap)

Research: Pottery > AH > luxury tech > Writing

Social Policies: Liberty > Collective Rule > Citizenship > Meritocracy

If you don't take Collective Rule early, you lose its benefits (getting a second city FAST, and being able to build future settlers quickly). With a REX strategy, Meritocracy can take you in many different directions. I am currently favoring "settling" (building a Manufactory) on a riverside tile with a Great Engineer. Love those early hammers.

If you are willing to dip into Tradition, you can get some interesting policy combinations that support expansion. Legalism and Landed Elite, in particular, are quite compatible with a Liberty expansion strategy. If you are willing to build some culture buildings or befriend some Cultural city-states, a policy path that will let you go Horizontal AND Vertical would be something like this:

Tradition > Legalism > Liberty > Collective Rule > Landed Elite > Republic (yes, Republic)

With those six policies, your first four cities are getting substantial culture, production, and food boosts. The tricky part is staying out of war while expanding like crazy.

 

[learner gamer]

Thanks very much all for your feedback - this will help my openings immeasurably.

By the looks of it, my problem is (or thanks to the advice here, will now be, was) the point made by Smote here:

Many players make the mistake of food before hammers. Hammers before food is more powerful, once city is size 2-4.

It looks as if my Civ 4 playstyle does indeed to be ditched to help master Civ 5.

BTW, @slobberinbear: that's a great spot re: republic, which I meant to say rather than Civ 4's representation, d'oh! I've amended the OP accordingly.

As it happens BTW, Tabarnak kindly forwarded me a terrific link, which I began reading seconds after I made the above OP. Tabarnak's "Optimized Production Strategy" also addresses a number of the questions that I posited above, so I attach it for those who are interested:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=415715

Of course, the views of other civ gurus re: the points I made above remain very welcome.

 

[lilnev]

Food is still useful, but it's much easier to come by -- look at how early Civil Service comes in the tech tree. Plus Maritime CS's. Plus Landed Elite, if that's your thing. Hammers are much harder to come by than in IV -- and there's no slavery, and seldom enough trees to make chopping powerful, and no drafting. What you do get is the option to buy with gold. But gold is also needed to buy research (RA's and CS-Scholasticism) and cultural CS's and food CS's, and to bribe AI's into wars, and just about everything else. And Slobberinbear is correct in that luxuries are king -- they're by far your best source of gold (sold to the AI's).

 

[Rittmeyer]

I build the library and NC in my capital. Other cities may get a library eventually, if they're going to grow large. The capital will eventually get a university, an observatory if applicable, and perhaps a public school. The sad truth is that, other than the NC, cities and buildings are a pathetic way to research (compared to Scholasticism and Research Agreements).

Yes, I`m starting to consider not building a university on my non-capital cities anymore, at least not early on. My GS`s are usually all coming from the capital anyways (national epic+garden) when possible. Research is coming from the sources you mentioned. So I feel like those unis are retarding workshops and markets that I want in every city in order to get the national wonders in the capital. I love those.

Maybe the unis would eventually be built in order to enable Oxford.... but I`m thinking workshop and market as first builds (if I don`t need a monument or a colosseum/circus).

 

[Strategist83]

Postponing Monuments sounds like a poor decision to me. They are nearly always the first building that goes up in my cities - just as the game itself mostly suggests. It all depends on the specific situation, of course. However, Monuments are one of the most efficient buildings in the game. They cost only 40 hammers (ridiculously little compared to anything else), have just 1 gpt maintenance, produce a respectable amount of culture and, most importantly for newly founded cities, allow you to access the most valuable tiles, indirectly increasing hammers/culture/commerce.

 

[chazzycat]

Postponing Monuments sounds like a poor decision to me. They are nearly always the first building that goes up in my cities - just as the game itself mostly suggests. It all depends on the specific situation, of course. However, Monuments are one of the most efficient buildings in the game. They cost only 40 hammers (ridiculously little compared to anything else), have just 1 gpt maintenance, produce a respectable amount of culture and, most importantly for newly founded cities, allow you to access the most valuable tiles, indirectly increasing hammers/culture/commerce.

YES...I also like to build them first (or second after worker in some cities) when REXing. Ignoring culture is a bad idea if you want to get the good medieval policies at a decent time (i.e. theocracy or maybe scholasticism). You can still get them at a reasonable pace with a large empire, but building early monuments is a big part of that. Like Strategist says, they are quite cheap and cost-effective. Grabbing representation is a good idea too.

I think Smote's analysis is great for pursing a pure military production strategy. But, I find ignoring culture to be a bit risky for my taste. I would be worried that without any monuments, I would have happiness problems because theocracy would come too late.

 

[fmlizard2]

Libraries are the core of your early domestic science production. I always go for them first, especially for my NC start. Hammers come next, followed last by food buildings like granaries and aqueducts for me.

 

[vexing]

Republic (yes, Republic)

republic is a clear mistake. it's only 4 hammers (and slightly more as you expand). citizenship easily surpasses that very quickly, meritocracy for a GE -> manufactory would also be +4 hammers (except presumably focused in the capital - a solid investment for the rest of the game).

 

[Tabarnak]

Opening builds are strongly related to difficulty level and starting position. In singleplayer mode, they are many opening path leading to a victory. But multiplayer doesn't offer much paths. War is hardly avoidable, leading you to build an army very fast, neglecting buildings(not having time or not useful). Going Landed Elite first solves a lot of early turns problems in multi but in singleplayer you usually have time to do a lot fo things.

 

[slobberinbear]

republic is a clear mistake. it's only 4 hammers (and slightly more as you expand). citizenship easily surpasses that very quickly, meritocracy for a GE -> manufactory would also be +4 hammers (except presumably focused in the capital - a solid investment for the rest of the game).

Republic's value is for new and young cities, where +1 hammer is a substantial improvement over its base production. Consider that a new city is going to be working 2/3 F tiles until it is size 3 or 4 ... where are its hammers coming from, unless you stagnate growth? Why not get that granary or monument sooner?

It is also automatic and happens upon construction of the new city without any action on the player's part. No workers are necessary, and it is unpillageable.

The point of my 6-policy growth combo is to illustrate the benefit of stringing together policies that make new cities ROCK right out of the gate. Legalism, Landed Elite, and Republic all do that.

I agree that Republic's benefit is miniscule later, and I agree of course that Meritocracy allows for some simply wonderful things. There is also no question that a worker can deliver a +1 hammer benefit simply by pasturing a cow tile, for instance. There is of course, an opportunity cost for that ... the idea that the worker could be doing something else. Republic eliminates that opportunity cost. Also: if your worker pastures a cow for +1 hammer, what's wrong with another hammer on top of that?

I am merely saying that the growth combo I describe supports a REX strategy, allowing new cities to actually do stuff immediately. But I welcome the math wizards among us to show me the errors of my ways.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

at what stage do you start building infrastructure like granaries, aqueducts, watermills, stables, libraries and monuments (assuming that you skip a national collage and the wonders)?

My concept is very different from the posts here. Rather than argue, I just say what I think, because I could be very wrong.

I think you are stalling from too many buildings. Monuments are not a must in every city, food/hammer buildings are less efficient than maritimes and should be limited to dedicated production cities or 4-city challanges. There is no such thing as "general infrastructure" applicable for all cities.

I do, however, have one by victory condition:
Science: library, university/observatory; public school in 2-3 large production cities
Cultural: monument, temple, opera house, museum, broadcast tower, 1 wonder (constitution)
Diplomatic: market, bank
Domination: barracks, armory, units x 100.

There are no overlaps in my "must build" lists either, so you must choose victory condition very early. I also excluded the later buildings because the game ends before it pays off.

And please, don't take republic. If you like that +1hammer so much, settle on a hill, good multiplayer practice anyway.

 

[slobberinbear]

And please, don't take republic. If you like that +1hammer so much, settle on a hill, good multiplayer practice anyway.

Try an expansion game (say as America, or archipelago/Polynesia) where you settle as many happiness resources as possible as fast as possible. Observe how your new cities contribute very little production for 20-30 turns. Consider that the +1 hammer, in conjunction with improved worker productivity from Citizenship, are part of Liberty's grand design -- to allow the civ in question to expand and get productive in new cities while not completely losing happiness (Meritocracy's minor bonus) or new policies (Representation's bonus).

This is particularly true on coastal cities, where production is sometimes lacking.

You get the +1 hammer everywhere, all the time, forever. The more cities you found or conquer, the better it gets. It is a 10-50% production boost for at least half of the lifespan of your non-capital cities.

Republic is not uber. It is subtle. There are often other choices (say, starting on the medieval policies) that may be more pressing. But +1 hammer/city is huge.

 

[chazzycat]

Republic does have it's places. It's great for Polynesia especially - they have rapid expansion and poor production (due to building Moia instead of mines). Any rapid expansion start should at least consider it - building your first couple buildings a earlier can certainly have an impact on the game.

Consider a new city with 3 wheat/deer, just begging for a granary. +1 production could shave 10 turns off that granary and enable your growth to start that much earlier. Or, consider a city with the best tiles in the 2nd/3rd tier. Shaving turns off your monument will get you there faster. Sure that +1 becomes meaningless later in the game, but remember the snowball effect - things you do early in the game are much more important than later in the game.

There is a time & place for everything. I don't usually take republic, I get sidetrack towards Piety most of the time, but it's certainly not worthless.

 

[Smote]

I agree with slobbering. Republic is quite good. You should still settle on a hill for the additional hammer. Republic helps get the initial infrastructure up faster, which accelerates the cities quite a bit. 4 hammers is actually a big deal, thats similar to a manufactory (which, by the way, is a cool way to get new cities started ;p )

Its not as good as landed elite. But it is worth taking, if you already have collective rule.

 

[Kevin J]

Its not as good as landed elite. But it is worth taking, if you already have collective rule.

I think that sums it up on Republic.

No, it's not as stong as many other policies. But if you go Liberty->Collective rule, you are going for a hard rex - meaning you'll be short on workers, infrastructure, and military.

If you assume a new city can work a tile like a riverside plains wheat for its initial tile, Republic increases your initial production by 50%. If you aren't so fortunate and have to work a 2/0/x tile, republic doubles your initial production.

For a new city with no hope of getting boosted by a worker brought in somewhere else, as in a hard rex situation, republic is great.

It's not a policy I'd normally take late in the game - the more it's delayed, the less useful it is. I think it's most valuable when beelined, paired with a very rapid expansion to secure your core of cities. In other situations, it's a marginal choice at best.