Seeding options - best colonist

[CraigMak]

Artists are still crazy good. The only thing that would make them less attractive would be getting rid of the free settler and/or making all the virtues less powerful. Virtues are quite strong so artists is always an amazing choice.

Africa +artists is epically good.

 

[Xenotitan]

You could make artists less attractive by shaving the culture down to 2 and/or slightly increasing the other yields, without getting rid of the free settler or weakening virtues.

 

[EnderCN]

I tend to play random in all and after the patch the only one I don't like getting is Scientist. I think Artists is probably the best of the bunch though.

 

[sprang]

You could make artists less attractive by shaving the culture down to 2 and/or slightly increasing the other yields, without getting rid of the free settler or weakening virtues.

The colonists need to reflect the in-game exchange rates and values.
Prod = Sci, okay.
+2 Food is okay - it may turn out to be worth more than 2P, or not.

But 1P = 2 or 3 Energy. Aristocrats +5E? +6?

And culture is worth twice as much as science. Artists should be +1C (maybe add +10% Culture?).

 

[silvertuerk]

At first glance, Artists is clearly more universal and better than others.
It translates to
- faster free settler if you go Prosperity
- faster building bonuses and trade route bonuses if you go Industry
- faster espionage bonus and free affinity if you go Might
- it removes the risks if I try my pet strategy of building a lot of explorers and building a Laboratory ASAP; +5 culture of Barrè artists and subsequent free settler removes a lot of risks I would otherwise take with that strategy. Very, very risky with scientists, does not work IMO because you fall back with number of cities which is a waste. Positive health without cities seems waste, at least in early game, even with Polystralia with its extra trade routes. Tried and failed as a second banana in a 2 humans vs 2 Apollo AI (however, it was on Taigan - Taigan does seem sparse on pods and excavation sites, quests only).

I have tested if scientists help to rush towards the food wonders. They do.
I have not tried if scientists help to rush towards espionage, but that does seem a lot worse because espionage would combo well with Might that needs culture. However, when I want to roleplay scientists, I would take ARTISTS and then gain the virtues that grant science from killing animals p) and from expeditions, and Academies in midgame.

I do not know about Aristocrats. Maybe it helps to win a game before Affinity 4 in a duel map, I do not want to speculate too much. The only rushes I have tried is that with
1) scientists and food wonders or
2) Barrè, artists, worker OR laboratory, Prosperity, Settler, Early city 2 and building pharmalabs and ultrasonic fence and then city 3, 6 units, attack! If I fail, I retry with affinity 4 units that are about to be researched when attacking.
3) should try exploration-heavy Might for sake of Affinity, primarily. Dunno, if I should go straight (that could fit with ARC and espionage especially) or Barrè artists Prosperity because of the famous settler quick start.

 

[Qbix]

One of the custom sponsors in here comes with the "Revolutionaries" colonist option, +2 Culture and +1 Productivity... I assume this would be a good alternative?

 

[reticentbassist]

I agree that Artists for Culture is the "always good" Colonist to choose, but depending on your strategy you might want to go for another Colonist option to help out your expansion cities.

For example, Engineers are great if it is important for you go get buildings up ASAP in your expansion cities, especially early and tedious but important ones like Trade Depot, Recycler and Clinic. So starting with the +2 production from Engineers, grab Trade Depot > Recycler for a quick +6 to really get things moving.

If you want cities to grow ASAP, then obviously you want to choose Refugees. Your expansion cities will more quickly gain population which, especially if there are a lot of Basic Resources near by, allows you to quickly work the best tiles. Population is always good IMO, despite some forumites saying you don't need it as much in BE.

Scientists are nice since +2 science from each city is like having a free Laboratory each time you found a city. This is obviously most useful in the first 50 turns or so when +2 science makes more of an impact, and is less useful later on compared to both Engineers and Refugees because unlike those Colonists it does not help expansions grow. If you go Scientists + Clinic to start you can start with +3 science over your enemies, which is nice on turn 1 IMO.

Aristocrats is kinda fun IMO to play a "Morgan" game, but otherwise I don't pick it.

Edit: The summary of my opinion is to pick how you want your expansion cities to function for the first 20ish turns of their existence before other buildings start kicking in. This is especially true since the Trade Route change where expansions no longer immediately benefit from an Internal Trade Route, so unless you have a Station that gives hammers or food nearby, you won't be getting a benefit for the expansion base from the trade routes. IMO this is what makes Refugees and Engineers very viable choices.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Another vote for artists as the best option.
Still as I only play sp and not at apollo difficulty yet I can afford to pick other options.
Franco-Iberia because it seems fitting if you read their Civilopedia entry and because their bonus does nothing to help them until they've got 10 virtues I do take artists.
ARC being a bunch of plutocrats get Aristocrats as do Polystralia.
Kavithan Protectorate and African Union being nice guys take Refugees along.
PAC seem quite pragmatic so they get Engineers.
Slavic Federation seem quite tech obsessed so they get Scientists.
Brasilia get Engineers as well.

 

[keldaur]

Funny they actually buffed artists last patch, since you really only care about the culture it gives on early to propel your growth.

The problem with culture isn't only that's a hard resource to come with early on, but that unlike science, it has a massive return for each single extra point you generate each turn on early game. That's why PAU + artists is that strong because very early in the gamr you will have your extra colonist and a bit later half the tree of another virtue tree.

I would fix it increasing the gaps at low virtue, so investing into it is not much more efficient as getting science, pop or engineer that would allow you to get to domes and tech faster.

 

[RealHuhn]

I discovered something when I tried to rush straight to Cognition.

Resource pods gave me ~170 science per pod several times while researching Cognition. That's like 20 turns of research in the early game per pod xD.
In the end I got the tech on turn 60, standard speed, which is ultra fast. Works well with Bionics, too. So the yield of pods seems to be related to the cost of the tech you are researching.

To make this work you have to take free Pioneering tech and Scientists in order to unlock your desired Tier2 tech as fast as possible. Why? Because pods are gone very quickly, especially on Apollo.

If you get lucky and get several 100+ science pods, you get a nice snowball effect going, especially when followed by early academy spam.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

That's probably the same behaviour like stolen science from Espionage (iirc there the amount does also scale with the currently researched tech).