Seeding options - best cargo

OK, last one. Unlike Colonists which have clear, powerful option, and unlike Spacecraft which has lots of similar but not that powerful options, Cargo has several nice choices (but I still think we'll get a clear winner).

Hydroponics - extra Pop is always good, although this one might be better in the Colonist option for Refugees

Laboratory - a free tech is also always good. Unfortunately the buildings it gives are useless at first as you have no one to trade with....

Raw Materials - Again, a free building is good, but +1 Science isn't much, and +1 health is pointless when you start healthy, and you have a long way to go before health starts being a minor annoyance

Weapon Arsenal - Since aliens are so passive, and since the inherent strength of cities is so powerful, troops are pretty useless except for exploration at the beginning

Machinery - Since the first thing you build in almost every Civ game, ever, is a worker, getting a free one to start with seems like an absolute no brainer to me.

 

Machinery is great - easiest way to get extra yield quickly when it really matters. Unless aliens are changed to become hostile against workers (just like they are now against settlers), I see no reason *not* to pick this up.

Laboratory could work under certain circumstances. If you want to trade with the very first station you encounter it might be a decent option, especially when combined with Continental Surveyor on a water map.

Hydroponics is much less useful than the worker. Not sure if there is even any scenario where extra pop would be more valuable than better tiles. Even more so considering that unimproved ressource yields are pathetic.

Raw Materials is like a much worse version of Scientist colonists. I don't think it can compete with Machinery. If that was a free Laboratory, however...

Weapons Arsenal is only useful if aliens pile up next to your capital and hinder your expansion. But chances for that are very low and you won't know about that in advance. Even then, just building a Marine and using the worker to make that happen faster is better. If it would throw in another Explorerer it could be a cool idea. As it is: Useless.

 

A free combat rover instead of a soldier might make the weapons arsenal more competitive and more interesting.

The other options apart from the worker also need work urgently.

 

The Worker or the Tech are the options. Everything else is terrible.

Unfortunately, improving most resources changes almost nothing. +1 food, +1 Prod, +1 science. Whee.

On the other hand, Pioneering saves you roughly 32 turns in getting your first trade route up and running. If you are going Artists for the turn 20 free Colonist, then you also want Pioneering so you'll have a Trade Convey/Vessel available right away.

 

I typically pick Pioneering or Worker. The worker is basic, good stuff. The pioneering start can be nice if you go straight up for the free colonist in pioneering. Having the trade route up and away at that point lets you get more colonists much faster.

 

Going with pioneering doesn't reduce the turn count before first trade route by 32, not even close. I never have 32 turns between my first city and my first trade route. If you make pioneering your first or second tech you can still get a trade route up and going pretty quickly. There's always external routes but those are risky before the ultrasonic fence quest. Most of the benefit comes from what you can tech instead of pioneering.

While improving most resources is only +1 whatever, you can get 2 to 2.5 improved tiles before someone who didn't take the worker gets their worker out. Also there's a benefit of what you can be building early instead of the worker.

The extra pop is a bit lackluster, as fresh capitals in BE can grow in three or four turns. That could perhaps use a boost to starting with 3 pop for balance.

Soldier can sometimes be useful, but is sometimes useless. It's better to go with something that will definitely be useful.

For early game, a clinic just isn't as crucial as a worker or the pioneering tech.

Also, "Last one"? No best sponsor poll?

 

In truth, Pioneering is usually only 25-ish turns anyway. 32 turns is the normal cost for Physics and most other Tier 1 root techs.
The real advantage of Pioneering is that you can research something else sooner AND still get your trade route up earlier. With Artists, I get my Colonist sometime before turn 20, and plant the city before turn 25. The OER->Trade Depot is usually done before then, and depending on what was in the Pods I might buy a Convoy right away, or more usually, produce one.

The worker can be useful, and if chopping forests might be able to help get the OER/Depot/Convoy out faster. I've never tried exactly that. But normal improvements don't seem to make much different. +1 prod by turn 10, and other +1 by turn 15-20. If the basic resources are even available to help there.

Now, if you end up within close range of Titanium and mine it, THAT'S a big help where the worker-first would be really helpful.

 

I play Marathon so Laboratory.

 

Went with the worker, but Laboratory is a close second, especially since there's a nice early affinity quest that relies on you trading with a Station that gets planted near you.

 

Neither a Hydroponics or a Laboratory will make your first settler come earlier. But a free worker can give you +3 hammer on settler production, which is already superior.
As health can be ignore in early game, a client means only 1 beak. Not worthy.
Alien won't attack your city and a soldier is far from enough to push them back. I'd rather get an extra explorer instead.

 

Laboratory + research Ecology first means your trade routes are safe much faster. And that means water routes to foreign capitals much earlier.

 

Machinery is almost always best for my opening strategy. Soldier is a somewhat distant second. I always want to build a worker and a soldier before my first colonist (I don't go for the free colonist), so either of those saves me important early hammers. So the question is, would I rather have a worker for the first 15 turns or a soldier? The soldier can grab a couple of extra pods, but I almost always prefer to start improving tiles immediately. The difference between working improved tiles and unimproved tiles is citizens that just support themselves vs citizens that actually make your cities better. A 3 food or hammer tile is a lot better than a 2 food or 1 hammer tile.

 

I actually wish I went with Soldier on my last Might game. It'd have given me a head-start on leveraging Scavenging. 60 science per Nest!

 

Well, its been an interesting exercise in the balance of the game, so I shall put it up tomorrow.

 

Pioneering +Reveal Coastlines is pretty powerful especially with Humata.

I voted for worker though because its not map dependent.

 

I've gone with the laboratory (free Pioneering) and with the armour (free Soldier) for extra initial defence against aliens. The worker in my view is not that great because in the early rounds there isn't too much for the worker to do.
Having the Soldier be a Rover instead (3 movement) would definitely make it more useful. An extra Explorer would also be awesome.

 

There's plenty of stuff for the worker to do in the early rounds. Build farms or mines and improve all the basic resources you have.

 

The Worker benefit is swingy. If you take Tectonic Scanner and choose Worker as PAC, and you start with Titanium in the capital - that's one hell of a start.

If all you've got is Fungus on a coastal start, kind of a bummer.

 

I have used laboratory in conjunction with continental survey, early colonist from the prosperity tree and one of the island maps very successfully. With early sea based trade routes and electrostatic fence quest one can start a very strong economy very quickly. This works especially well for contact, harmony and superiority victory conditions. For non island starts I agree that the machinery cargo is best.

 

I think you still need to research Engineering regardless to be able to mine that Titanium.


I picked worker because it has the best need/availability ratio:

Extra Pop is good, but this will save you only 3-4 turns of growth only, so, you're not in that big of a rush.

Pioneering is not really useful as a start because if you need trading, you still need to get the Depot and Convoys up, not to mention scout out the path for them to ride, and you can research something else in the meantime and get the advantage of both

I'm delaying Clinic usually as much as possible, so not much use of this

Starting with a soldier is, again, not really useful as much as, say, an extra scout would be. If you can also get a free Purity from ruins early enough, explorers would be safe anyway

Machinery - Since the first thing you build in almost every Civ game, ever, is a worker, getting a free one to start with seems like an absolute no brainer to me.