Let's talk about opening moves

[Ornen]

The first turns in a game of Civ are often the most important in the entire game, so I think this might merit some in-depth discussion. The general consensus I've seen here (and found in most of my own sessions) is that a very early conquest is one of the most powerful strategies. If so, what's your build & method of doing it? If not, what strategies do you prefer?

I'm especially interested in what builds people are using. I pretty much always go Slinger -> Builder -> Slinger -> Settler in my games, or something very similar. I'll settle the second city on the way to my first conquest, and from there focus both cities on cranking out Slingers/Archers, with a couple Warriors in there as well. I'll sometimes work in a Trader as well. That gives a food/prod boost to the second city, helps new units get to the frontlines faster, and gives a very nice tech boost to Currency, which is usually the first Classical Era tech I'm interested in. That said, I'm still not sure it's worth it vs having an extra Archer early on, when every one counts.

As for tech, I usually unlock Mining/AH first to improve the production resources around me. From there, Archery and Irrigation are often priorities, though Irrigation can wait until I steal or make a second Builder. With civics, Political Philosophy is obviously a high priority. An early Builder and Settler both help attain a couple key Inspiration boosts on the way there.

In terms of policies, Discipline/Urban Planning is my starter set pretty much always. I'll switch to Agoge early on, while keeping Urban Planning in place. Once my initial conquest is over, my midgame usually involves building waves of settlers and builders to fill out and develop my empire. But that's getting outside of the scope of the thread.

For the sake of discussion, let's try to avoid strategies that hinge on Civ bonuses – yes, I'm familiar with spamming War Carts, but I'm more interested in general strategies here. I'm open to talking about religion, but I usually clearly divide my religion games from my non-religion ones, and the opening build is very, very different.

A couple key questions from my own plays: are the early builder, settler, and trader worth it, or is it best to focus more exclusively on conquest? That's a fair number of hammers to divert from an early conquest strat, but I do think each of them are well-served.

 

[Victoria]

So much depends on where you start, for example near the coast with mountains running down inland barbs are not as much a threat. Conquest people may restart such a map while I revel in the seclusion.
Starting in the middle of a pangea? On deity? Slinger, slinger, + maybe a 3rd. Its hell out there.
I love a scout and a builder early but also appreciate a slinger so depends on what is going on around me and be flexible to change. A few turns without a monument I think most people will accept. If you have a lot of wheat beelining a granary can be useful.
So much to talk about and just about dinner time.
My last game I had 4 sheep on hills within 2 tiles and beelined an encampment which I am starting to love more and more. It is so cheap and quick to get at. I have gone off rushing IZ because I like to stay in the classical longer.
Why?.... Less war penalties, more great people and more city state tasks. I mean is racing to a factory really worth it?
Thats the question that burns in my mind currently.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

As I said in ay too many threads, 3 Slingers opening is usually my go-for. If I don't see many neighbors, I'm willing to skip the 3rd one for a Builder. A Settler usually only comes after a decent army (2 Warriors and 3 Archers at least), but I've been experimenting with an earlier Settler and it's been just as fine. The third Settler only comes after the 50% discount policy, though. I'm thinking about trying the earlier Builder openings, but I so like the Slinger opening. It gives me more time for an Archer conquest before walls are up, and usually I'm not neighbor-starved.

Tech wise, I go for Animal Husbandry > Archery/Mining, depending on the map. Archery earlier if more neighbours, Mining earlier if more isolated. If I'm not in fresh water, I usually reroll, but maybe going for early Granary might not be ok. Civic wise, Political Philosophy is a no-brainer. The actual order depends on the inspirations, though, so I'm quite flexible there.

I have a somewhat similar question about IZs: Since we can build so many districts in the capital early on, is it better placing an Encampment or an IZ there? Even if I put an Encampment in the capital, is it better to grow the capital until I can place an IZ, leave the IZ for another city, or maybe both get the IZ, but only one get the Factory? It's been on my mind for some time now.

 

[Victoria]

You can normally squeeze 3 districts early. The main thing is to get a city that gets great internal trade route values. For me encampment, the commercial then harbour works depending on location of course. If campus adjacency is high, I'll likely include that instead of a harbour.

I believe the normal practice is commercial and then IZ across the board.

 

[Ornen]

What makes then Encampment worth building so early? I've never been that sold on it...

As for districts, I'll usually get a commercial district and either a science or culture district depending on what VC I want to go for. I'm not as big on industrial since they tweaked factories, but I will fill them in to cover my empire. As an extension of that, I don't think beelining factories is nearly as important as it once was.

I honestly don't start building districts in many of my games until t80 or later. They usually come after building an army and my initial conquest, and sometimes wait until after a first round of builders also.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

For me, there's mainly 3 points (roughly in that order) for Encampments:

1. The extra cog for all trade routes going to that city. It's the earliest one that do it.
2. Militaristic CS gives production for units at 3 and 6 envoys to each Encampement
3. The extra cogs from the buildings (especially an early Barrracks)

 

[fortydayweekend]

Building an encampment is cheap (if you kill 3 barbs and get BW early), and it's an extra cog on trade routes very early in the game. It's also worth a bit of culture as the inspiration for an essential pre-Feudalism civic and can help with the Mathematics eureka depending on your situation. On the down side it's a big opportunity cost in terms of early production that could easily be better invested in military or expansion. And an early encampment will usually have to be on a bought tile, as the 2nd row automated tile gains will prioritise resources and other good tiles you may not want to replace with a district.

It's an interesting one and probably depends a lot on each individual game. E.g. if you get early BW and are beelining education and have a good spot for it, then maybe place it and put enough cogs into it to finish in time for the boosts.

I don't see a whole lot of value in it for any other reason - army building is better across the whole civ in bursts with cards, not a single city with bonuses all the time. And the ROI from Barracks etc in terms of cogs is much lower than from settlers, builders, conquest and CZ/IZ etc

 

[Ornen]

I feel like there are better ways to get a eureka? And the +1 production on trade routes is only useful if you're building lots of internal trade routes, which isn't happening until after commercial districts (also a +1) are unlocked.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

You can lock the cost and build it later after you improve some tiles. And it's useful to have +2 cogs instead of +1 when you start making those trade routes, since the next one +1 cog is either Harbour (dead-end tech that might not be useful) or IZ.(quite some time later if you don't beeline).

 

[sugerdady87]

My BO is the same as ShinigamKenji except if I see no neighbors, after the builder, I immediately follow up with a settler.

 

[rrhal]

At what point do you build your first scout? I often do it after my first slinger.

 

[Victoria]

Many people do not use scouts and due to movement limitations often they do not go faster but I often get one first because understanding the lay of the land is important and they can fight a bit if needed. They also upgrade nicely to a ranger if the survive long enough, stop barbs spawning in a nasty corner if they survive initial scout and are very useful for the interior of a second continent if they last that long. Yes its not most effecient for the domination steamroller players but regardless I like to explore and understand the wider strategy.
Encampments also help in small ways like for Kumasi and defence. I will sometimes even buy a level 3 tile for them if I have gold CS helping my start.

 

[diamond geezer]

At what point do you build your first scout? I often do it after my first slinger.

Never. I wait for one to pop from a hut, and if it doesn't, I just let the army scout. I'm underwhelmed by Scouts in Civ6.

 

[Victoria]

They really should move 4, it would make them more appealing.

 

[fortydayweekend]

Or even 2 but ignore terrain.

I go builder first if there's 3 improvable tiles, scout if there's decent production, then 2 slingers. After that it's really map-dependent... usually more slingers and a warrior for defence and conquest, a settler, and another builder and a trader in whatever order makes sense.

 

[greygamer]

Don't scouts get better rewards from tribal villages?

 

[The Highwayman]

This is the most interesting part of the game. In general, I like having an early Scout to determine the rest. Sometimes they don't pay off, other times they get me off to a great start. If there's lots of rough terrain nearby, they're terrible. It takes forever to get the first promotion, if they get one at all. Initial Warrior and Scout expose the surrounding terrain will dictate the following:

Units

If there's a nearby Civ or useless CS, war is imminent. The Scout will be followed by a Builder and then Slinger x3 and a couple more warriors and archers. The exact order depends on nearby barbs and/or potentially hostile warriors approaching my Cap. The builder gets me the Agoge policy card sooner to make building the army more efficient. All in all, I like to have 3 warriors so the zone of control prevents city healing, and 4-6 archers to mow down city defenses and straggling units. Then I go for a Settler, Trade Route, second builder, first district. It's preferable for my army to take a few cities so the Cap and first expand can focus on infrastructure

Ideally, if I can slightly postpone building my army, I like Scout -> Builder for Inspiration and city improvements -> Slinger for the Eureka and escort -> Settler -> Trade Route -> then the army as described above. The Cap hammering out the TR while the Settler is en route to its destination seems to work nicely. As soon as they settle, the start with +1f, +1p and are either helping with army production, or a monument for culture/border expansion.

Policy Cards

Discipline and Urban Planning are almost automatic unless I'm using a specific Civ. +5 to barbs is difference making and +1 production is huge at this point. Agoge replaces Discipline to hammer out the rest of my army though. I'll only switch to the +30% builder card early if my Cap and first expand are both building one. Otherwise, +1 is just fine early on.

Upon getting my first government, it's usually Oligarchy for the nice balance of policy cards and to give my warriors/swordsmen a nice boost. Depending on the Civ, I may go Classical Republic if my army consists of a lot of maintenance-less units, or Germany, who gets an additional Military slot. Once I put Conscription in the Military slot, it usually stays there until replaced by the -2 card.

Techs

It makes sense to choose the tech based on surrounding resources. But I usually have several techs completed before my first builder anyway, so having Animal Husbandry -> Archery finished is a good general start. Mining early gets you to Bronze Working ASAP, which is good for Iron, rain forest chopping, and Spearmen for those nasty horse barbs. Aside from that, the surrounding resources dictate the order. I have a hard time justifying Astrology or Sailing early, as I don't sell out for Religion and I dislike coastal tiles. If the horse resource is available, beelining Horseback Riding is likely.

Districts

The commercial hub is priority IMO. When Currency is researched, a district slot needs to be available in each city to plant one. However, the Cap and first expand are easily to pop 4 at this point, so what's the first district? If I can get a +3 or more adjacency bonus to a campus, it can be a nice boost to science early on. Especially if there's a Science City State nearby I can utilize. I need to have 2 universities for Printing, a university next to a mountain for Astronomy, and campuses are going in most cities anyway so I may as well get started on them.

I've been experimenting with an early Encampment too. I think Encampments have higher value with the regional production nerf, so getting one of those down with a barracks/stable makes sense with the Armory and Military Academy coming later on. +1p and +1 housing are nice, extra XP for units, the Mathematics Eureka requires 3 different districts, +1p from the inevitable Trade Route I've created, and if you build ancient walls you can shred an incoming invasion. I've gone for an early Great General on Deity. It's possible, but I'm not sure it's worth it to try for the Ancient/Classical era one. Miss out on him and now it's Medieval/Renaissance, which doesn't support the units I'm rushing with. If you do earn him, what was the opportunity cost for +5 combat and +1 movement? Mowing for projects in the Ancient doesn't seem like a great idea either, unless you're trying for a Religious Victory and you gotta go all in.

Wonders

Does anyone bother with these in Ancient/Classical? As China it makes sense, but in general? My first coveted wonder with everyone is the Coliseum. On Immortal I get it almost every time. The last two games I played on Deity it was gone long before 1 AD (my usual target time). Maybe I need to bump that target time up a bit, as the Coliseum is really strong. Aside from that, I don't bother. Taking the Pyramids from someone else yields the +1 builder charge, so that's the ideal scenario IMO.

 

[joncnunn]

At what point do you build your first scout? I often do it after my first slinger.

On turn 1; and I'd strongly consider a second scout immediately after the first if this isn't an island start.

 

[diamond geezer]

You guys who start off building not one, but two, non-military (Scouts and/or Builders) units; what level are you playing? At harder difficulties I've found that there's a good chance you'll be swamped by Barbarians or even the AI (if there close) if you don't have an early army.

 

[liv]

Meeting city states first seems so powerful. I go for scout first