Old Debate, New Circumstances: What do you build first?

[Thrasybulus]

By turn 25, I've got roads, animal husbandry, and am only a few turns from finishing Horseback Riding.

Why are you researching Horseback Riding? As Darius I don't research it until after I have guilds.

 

[thelibra]

Why are you researching Horseback Riding? As Darius I don't research it until after I have guilds.

Answered earlier in the thread, but the short version is that that was a mistake on my part. I'd assumed that Alexander was going to put up a tougher fight and figured I needed the extra promo to get the job done.

A wiser choice would have been some other vital tech.

 

[Soneji]

I always build either scout or warrior first, letting the city population grow to size two.. this is becuase I normally like to play spiritual and try and gain the first religion.

After that, worker then settler.

 

[MarkM]

On Epic, huge maps, I build warriors and maybe a monument untill my capital is at 3, where I build my first settler and I might get another warrior before getting my capital on Stonehenge. Meanwhile, I try to get some religon as quickly as possiable, technologically. I usually don't get to my first worker till like 2400 BC or something like that. I like my cities to grow and anything that'll take 15 turns of no growth is kind of painful for me.

It's hard to give a definitive answer, although I fall in with the camp that usually builds a worker first, except if I have fish in radius and/or I have two really sweet squares to work even without improvement, then I might go boat or warrior or possibly scout. However I think I can disagree with above post about 1) building a monument in capital as one of first builds, I can't imagine any circumstances where that would be a wise choice for me as one of my first builds. You don't need culture bonus immediately because you have a palace, and you shouldn't need any happiness bonus for a while, and 2) not building a worker til that late, and until you already have two cities! I understand the motivation to tech fast, but even if that is your priority you are shooting yourself in the foot if you don't have a worker to at least cottage spam.

Also if you really are so focused on growing ASAP, it actually makes makes more sense to build a worker & then chop (and/or whip) the settler, instead of building the settler without chopping. Try it once.