Rate staring techs !

[§L¥ Gµ¥]

agri>mine>wheel>hunt>fish>myst

agriculture #1 because it's the most common food resource tech that can get that food goin right away
mining #2 because it's the step towards bronze and masonry [if you're going for wonder based economy]
wheel #3 because chariot rushing is often part of my opening. That and it leads to pottery a critical economic tech.
hunting #4 because if you don't have agriculture, the next best land-based food resource is gonna be cows, sheep or pigs, and it's the next tech along the lines to AH.
fishing #5 if all else fails, you need food from somewhere, and fishing is better than myst, for this reason alone
myticism #6 because it's useless.

I prefer land based improvement tech first because even in a coastal start there's a good chance of at least 1 land based food resource. Couple that with the fact that subsequent cities [presumably] will be inland, you're gonna need workers to improve them, so for that reason alone, workers>fishing boats, and fishing boats are a last resort for food in the first few turns.

 

[AmazonQueen]

I think the worst combination has to be Wheel and Fishing if you get an inland start
Wheel and Mysticism is poor too for me since I rarely go for an early religion or SH

I'd rate them:
1. Agriculture
2. Mining
=3. Fishing and Hunting - Both vary a lot in usefulness depending on your start
5. The Wheel
6. Mysticism

 

[NKVD]

am i making a mistake to always shoot for a religion right of the bat?

 

[Meatbuster]

Depends on your strategy. It is debatable whether the wealth (and increased research %) generated from a shrine and a well-spread early religion + free tech from Oracle is only slightly worse than academy.

My list:
1. Agri
2. Mining
3. Mysticism
4. Hunting
5. Fishing
6. Wheel (unless the UU replaces chariot, which isn't most of the civs)

 

[DigitalBoy]

Fishing is either the best or useless depending on your capital start; all in all, it's probably a less than ideal starting tech. I rank them:

1) Hunting
2) Agriculture
3) Mining
4) The Wheel
5) Fishing
6) Mysticism

 

[L-Plate Ruler]

Ok, I know I only play on Nobel, but... why is no one picking bronze working? Is chopping not as prevalent as one might have thought after reading the strategy articles?

My build order is usually worker - worker - settler - warrior - warrior.
The first worker, hopefully in 15 turns or less, chops the second, and those two then chop the settler, at which point I've now got two cities and a worker/warrior for each.

My reasoning... with this build order the capital never gets beyond size one until the settler is produced, so why have improved tiles no being worked when I could be chopping.

Anyway, my list:

1) Mining
2) Bronze Working
3) Agriculture
4) The Wheel
5) Animal Husbandry
6) Fishing

 

[Freedom]

Bronze working is a second tier tech, so no civs start with it. Although that is probably the primary reason mining is rated so high, you're one tech away from perhaps the most useful tech in the early game!

 

[Crusher1]

1) Agriculture
2) TW
3) Mining

The rest suck equally. AGR/TW because they are the most expensive techs which saves early turns plus TW is needed for Chariots and early rushes. I only play CRE leaders when not in a forum game so MYST is pointless. On crowded maps on Deity and below you need nothing more than warriors to fog bust and on Immortal and below warriors will always do. Not to mention, starting with AGR/TW allows for weird Alpha beelines in favorable circumstances which greatly increases overall tech rate.

I always play with HUTS disabled because they are noobish and geared at random luck therefore scouts are worthless not to mention they cannot steal multiple workers plus you can no longer build cheap warriors for HR - hunting is quite possible the absolute worst, noobish starting tech there is. I hate it. Fishing is useless w/out a coastal food resource.

For those saying disabling HUTS makes the higher levels easier - false. It's a matter of random luck and imbalance. I don't care if they start with 2 scouts. Their 2 scouts could easily get 6 maps and my warrior could end up getting BW, IW, and Writing. Random luck = game destruction.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

For those saying disabling HUTS makes the higher levels easier - false.

I call bullsh!t until you back that up with facts.

Fundamentally, when you take huts off of the board, you take the enemy scouts and turn them into cartographers. Which, as you point out, isn't particularly valuable in the early going. So to begin with you are reducing the leverage of their advantage.

In addition, if we assume that huts are distributed relatively uniformly across the map, you are particularly reducing the leverage of your nearest neighbors (the ones most likely to score extra huts, because they steal your fair share), weakening the boundaries of the box that the AI is keeping you in.

Is it a LOT easier? I doubt it - my wild guess is that you could get about the same effect by gifting the AI 75 gold or so, maybe a bit more for the close ones - that's something, but I doubt that comes to a full level of difficulty. It might be a lot less, but as I said you're going to have to do some work if you want me to believe the true value of huts is 0g.

I only play CRE leaders when not in a forum game...
I always play with HUTS disabled because they are noobish

This almost persuades me that you are trolling - are you seriously trying to argue that tribal villages are for noobs while proudly asserting that you exclusively play leaders with the Training Wheels trait? For true?


It's a lot less work to persuade me that the game is more entertaining without the variance introduced by huts, or that the improved entertainment makes up for the decreased difficulty. Horses for courses - there are lots of pieces of this game (either original elements, or bolted on later) that aren't fun for everybody. Choose what works for you and enjoy.


As an alternative to disabling huts, you might instead mod the handicap info to reduce the amount of variance in hut yields - turn all the yields into gold, or something like that.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Oh, right, the poll

1) Agriculture
2) Mining (food before hammers)
3) Hunting (because Animal Loving and Bronze Working are the tier two techs that have highest priority)
4) Fishing
5) Myst
6) Wheel

If I better understood how to leverage early pottery, Wheel would rank higher. If I better understood how to leverage coastal commerce in the opening, fishing would rank higher. But as it stands I'm trapped in a worker first world, and roads to nowhere don't have a lot of upside in the first 25-50 turns.

 

[Norzin]

1) Agriculture
2) TW
3) Mining

The rest suck equally. AGR/TW because they are the most expensive techs which saves early turns plus TW is needed for Chariots and early rushes. I only play CRE leaders when not in a forum game so MYST is pointless. On crowded maps on Deity and below you need nothing more than warriors to fog bust and on Immortal and below warriors will always do. Not to mention, starting with AGR/TW allows for weird Alpha beelines in favorable circumstances which greatly increases overall tech rate.

I always play with HUTS disabled because they are noobish and geared at random luck therefore scouts are worthless not to mention they cannot steal multiple workers plus you can no longer build cheap warriors for HR - hunting is quite possible the absolute worst, noobish starting tech there is. I hate it. Fishing is useless w/out a coastal food resource.

For those saying disabling HUTS makes the higher levels easier - false. It's a matter of random luck and imbalance. I don't care if they start with 2 scouts. Their 2 scouts could easily get 6 maps and my warrior could end up getting BW, IW, and Writing. Random luck = game destruction.

I mostly agree. Ever since you helped me realize playing with a few leaders is the best way to improve skill my game has skyrocketed.

Voice of Unreason has appropriately named himself. Hes way off base. Seems pretty clueless. I am more and more fond of eliminating random luck from my games too.

 

[Norzin]

I call bullsh!t until you back that up with facts.

Fundamentally, when you take huts off of the board, you take the enemy scouts and turn them into cartographers. Which, as you point out, isn't particularly valuable in the early going. So to begin with you are reducing the leverage of their advantage.

In addition, if we assume that huts are distributed relatively uniformly across the map, you are particularly reducing the leverage of your nearest neighbors (the ones most likely to score extra huts, because they steal your fair share), weakening the boundaries of the box that the AI is keeping you in.

Is it a LOT easier? I doubt it - my wild guess is that you could get about the same effect by gifting the AI 75 gold or so, maybe a bit more for the close ones - that's something, but I doubt that comes to a full level of difficulty. It might be a lot less, but as I said you're going to have to do some work if you want me to believe the true value of huts is 0g.



This almost persuades me that you are trolling - are you seriously trying to argue that tribal villages are for noobs while proudly asserting that you exclusively play leaders with the Training Wheels trait? For true?


It's a lot less work to persuade me that the game is more entertaining without the variance introduced by huts, or that the improved entertainment makes up for the decreased difficulty. Horses for courses - there are lots of pieces of this game (either original elements, or bolted on later) that aren't fun for everybody. Choose what works for you and enjoy.


As an alternative to disabling huts, you might instead mod the handicap info to reduce the amount of variance in hut yields - turn all the yields into gold, or something like that.

Huts 100% add luck to the game. The best way for balance is without them. You could definitely learn from Crusher. Maybe you should private message him for help. It's obvious you need it from your lame comments about one of the best players in the forum.

Lots of jealous people around.

 

[tycoonist]

1. mining - early BW, it is almost always the first tier 2 tech i research
2. agriculture/fishing - kinda depends on the map but i definitely want some food
4. wheel - i always research this one eventually anyway and it can be helpful to get copper/horses online quickly.
5. mysticism - monuments are pretty helpful, but i can normally research this tech later on
6. hunting - scouts are worse than warriors if barbarians are on, plus i want someone to guard my second city. the tech itself is largely useless, many game i never research it unless i have elephants/furs/deer

 

[tycoonist]

Huts 100% add luck to the game. The best way for balance is without them. You could definitely learn from Crusher. Maybe you should private message him for help. It's obvious you need it from your lame comments about one of the best players in the forum.

Lots of jealous people around.

while i agree with crusher that huts are stupid and add another element of completely uncontrollable luck, i don't think you should be trolling VoU. he is one of the best players on this forum, and has contributed more to various strategic discussions than you or most people ever will.

 

[Soirana]

I always play with HUTS disabled because they are noobish and geared at random luck

For those saying disabling HUTS makes the higher levels easier - false. It's a matter of random luck and imbalance. I don't care if they start with 2 scouts. Their 2 scouts could easily get 6 maps and my warrior could end up getting BW, IW, and Writing. Random luck = game destruction.

If i wanted to play non random game i would play chess. Still entertaining after people spending thousands years on it's strategy.

in my view uncontrolled randomness is at least half of fun in this game.

 

[Jet]

Everyone likes a different amount and type of randomness.
Example: One of the reasons I like Hemispheres is because of the exact amount of predictability it has - not too much, not too little.
Example: The game rules of C-evo don't use random numbers at all.

For starting techs, on average I think the strongest are Agr and Mining.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Huts 100% add luck to the game. The best way for balance is without them. You could definitely learn from Crusher. Maybe you should private message him for help. It's obvious you need it from your lame comments about one of the best players in the forum.

Lots of jealous people around.

So do random maps and a lot of other things. Luck is an element of the game and its good to remember its just a game. If people really want a pure strategy game with no luck involved they'd be playing Chess, not Civ.

 

[mi6agent]

well obviously without hut high level is easier.
you talk about luck but the chance the AI have luck is double you because they start with 2 Scout. And there is 6 AI on standard map so the chance there is 1 AI pop tech from AI is more than 10 times greater than you . So if you disable hut, it make the game easier.

 

[Iranon]

VoiceOfUnreason generally knows what he's doing, has given us many good points to ponder and gets my respect for honesty (see his last post in this thread, where many other players would have claimed that the thing they aren't comfortable with is outright weak).
Quite a few people would do well to take a leaf out of his book.

*

This game deliberately involves chance. For example, you could simply have combat match the 'expected result'... i.e. 'with given terrain modifiers and promotions, unit x will beat unit y with z hit points left'. I suspect the game would be less deep.

Likewise, randomness from goody huts or events rewards players who are willing to adjust their strategy to unexpected windfall.
Sure, it's not as 'pure' a test of skills... but then, most of us aren't playing identical and symetrical maps or othewise doing everything in their power to keep games fair and comparable.

 

[Th3 PuNiSh3R]

I have been following a lot of Crusher1 post too, not because my head is up his butt like some other players, but because I generally have a lot in common with his playing style. One thing I would say is I like variety and randomness. I realize everyone doesn't but for me it's important.

But, I certainly agree with playing a small range of leaders contributes to a faster learning curve with better results. Myself, I only play with Organized leaders.

As far as huts go, if the main objective was to play a fair, even, and balanced game, then disabling huts would hands down be the best choice because they simply add a huge disparity when it comes to the playing field. Especially if you're playing a forum game and 2 people get 2 completely different sets of goodies. So yea, definitely on Crushers side there when balance is prioritized over luck.

Voice said some pretty outlandish stuff in my opinion. Variety is best imo but the way crusher explained his point is generally correct and his point is perfectly valid. Yea, those same 6 huts the AI got could be techs instead while Crushers 3 huts could be maps but it flows perfectly with his excellent point. Huts do add luck, but then, you do lose variety, which loses some appeal for me.

Sure, it's not as 'pure' a test of skills... but then, most of us aren't playing identical and symetrical maps or othewise doing everything in their power to keep games fair and comparable.

Reading some of Crushers other post I can see he is all about game balance and pure skill over variety and randomness. That's not my first choice but I see his point. But hey, that's the point of having so many options to choose from. After all, his options seem to be genuinely geared towards playing an equal and fair game. It's not like he's making an active attempt to give himself an unfair advantage but the contrary.

@ Norzin

I've also got a lot more out of Crushers post than Voice. Voice seems more scientific and methodical lacking common sense while Crusher is always inflated with dry humor with some form of ego if you will but at least he has very specific and always applicable advice which is better than forum theories which don't actually apply when your playing.

If you think someone is jealous and simply flaming another player, like Voice did to Crusher, you can go to your account options and mute them. That will let you concentrate your focus on players who you think contribute better.

VoiceOfUnreason generally knows what he's doing, has given us many good points to ponder and gets my respect for honesty (see his last post in this thread, where many other players would have claimed that the thing they aren't comfortable with is outright weak).
Quite a few people would do well to take a leaf out of his book.

I couldn't disagree more. Give me someone like Crusher1 or TMIT. He was the guy flaming and trolling.

I'd rate the techs as agriculture, mining, the wheel, mysticsim, fishing