Seeding options - best colonist

[Tiedote]

+2 food isnt as big as a deal.

It's equivalent to a free farm in every city that does not need to be worked.

Not to mention it can salvage a low-food start.

Since when did Civ games stop being about growing your population?

If the problem with artists is free stuff from Virtues then the free stuff from virtues need to go. People don't seem to realize how the yield bonuses from all of the colonists are really hefty for early game. The way things are going Artists are going to get axed into uslessness and everybody will wind up picking Refugess or Scientists.

 

[Bandobras Took]

No, the yields would be hefty if they weren't easily eclipsed by Trade Routes. Once Trade Routes become sane, this poll will likely be a lot more balanced.

 

[Moon Pine]

I think the reason is obvious.
Scientist: +2;
Refugees: +2;
Aristocrats: as 2 energy to 1 hammer. +2.5;
Engineers: +2;
Artists: +3;

Add the fact that the health is more valuable than the other yields. A total victory!

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Since when did Civ games stop being about growing your population?

CIV:BE, I'd say. To be fair - pop is still important, considering that 1 citizen can be worth something like 6.25 science, 0.25 culture and 0.25 health, but in regards of food and production, having more cities (= more trade routes) is certainly better than having more citizens. A single trade convoy is probably equal to 6 (early game for new and unimproved cities) to 3 (late game with empowered improvements) pops working their tiles. Trade vessels seem even more extreme, probably worth almost twice that amount.

It's even more problematic with that change to the exponent for the "food required for city growth" algorithm - big cities grow *a lot* slower than in CIV5. You absolutely need any food carryover you can get - and even then there is a significant diminishing return of having excess food.

 

[Bandobras Took]

Though this is the first game that lets you build food.

 

[manu-fan]

You should change the Poll.

It should be:

Which is 2nd best, and take Artists out, because they're obviously #1.

 

[Roxlimn]

CIV:BE, I'd say. To be fair - pop is still important, considering that 1 citizen can be worth something like 6.25 science, 0.25 culture and 0.25 health, but in regards of food and production, having more cities (= more trade routes) is certainly better than having more citizens. A single trade convoy is probably equal to 6 (early game for new and unimproved cities) to 3 (late game with empowered improvements) pops working their tiles. Trade vessels seem even more extreme, probably worth almost twice that amount.

It's even more problematic with that change to the exponent for the "food required for city growth" algorithm - big cities grow *a lot* slower than in CIV5. You absolutely need any food carryover you can get - and even then there is a significant diminishing return of having excess food.

The numbers are actually in the game, so there's no need to guess.

Trade convoys on well-managed differentials output about 5 food and 10 hammers, with about half that for the outgoing city - 21-22.

A single tile in the late game can output 8 or 9 on unremarkable tiles, up to 15 or 17 on power tiles. Trade Vessels give about 50% more output, on average, not twice reliably.

So each route is worth about 3 pop, assuming you're managing the differentials correctly.

I'd say that the output of a city in the mid to late game about equals its TR contribution at about size 6, and doubles or more at about size 10 or 12. Six pop is trivial in the late game with a good food city powering the network - maybe 5 turns of development from a base 3 pop city?

Of course, certain yields can only come from buildings and tiles or Specialist Slots. TRs mainly just give you food and hammers.

 

[omniclast]

Eh, I like Engineers. 2 production is a pretty big head start on getting colos out early game, and you can build the OER faster to make up the lost culture. Also gets early trade routes up faster to jumpstart science. Plus that +2 culture per city is really only +1 culture per city once your second expo is up and you get unhealthy.

Course I might just not be feeling the pressure, since you can still spam colos and TRs no matter which one you take. Difficult to judge strategies when the outcomes are "easy win" and "easier win"...

 

[Acken]

Plus that +2 culture per city is really only +1 culture per city once your second expo is up and you get unhealthy.

Well not really, it's only true while artist is your only source of culture, if you add OER then it's a +2 differential (+4 instead of +2 while unhealthy).

And don't forget the health.

 

[Tomice]

artists are currently up to 90... the closest one is 3. You would get less lopsided results if you asked people if they wanted to be kicked in the groin.

Good one!

 

[Elz Majesto]

I went to artist as well (no surprise!).

I tried them all except for engineers and refugees. Those are next on my list.
My favorite starting combo is scientist and clinic, the time to research the first tech dropped by about 10 turns, which to me was awesome!
The one I use most however is Artist+Workers

The one I will use next is engineers + workers...you guys made some great points for engineers!

 

[Strategist83]

Plus that +2 culture per city is really only +1 culture per city once your second expo is up and you get unhealthy.

Just to clarify, the way it works is you get a -10% culture penalty for being unhealthy, but it always rounds down to nearest integer (unlike the other resources - culture is the only one using integers exclusively). You could go as high as 10 culture/turn in a city and still only lose just 1/turn from unhealth, while 11 culture/turn should lose you 2 culture/turn again. The game has a serious issue with these jump points which also permeate the Health model.

Trade routes currently get in the way of discussing balance of any other game system, including colonist loadouts. If trade routes receive the nerfhammer, Artists - whose main value lies in creating the ability to spam lots of cities to take advantage of trade routes - lose greatly in value and the other options suddenly become much more interesting. Combining both the most rare resource (culture) and putting a health bonus on top, that's just adding insult to injury. And it speaks volumes of the state BE was released in. The Artist culture bonus can even often result in a hammer/food/whatever bonus on top since the increased culture acquisition rate means you'll be working better tiles.

The other flawed system, as discussed, is food. It is unfathomable why they butchered the pretty good model from Civ V. This problem, once again, just reinforces trade route dominance and city spam. The odd thing is, trade routes are currently so powerful they would still dominate if the old BNW model had been reused, so that can't be why they changed the model. Despite there being some theoretical high multiplers scattered around, BE simply doesn't have an efficient food-multiplier (or other efficient multipliers, for that matter) equivalent like the old Aqueduct. Refugees would seem like the obvious choice for the Africans in particular but they simply drown in the flood of trade routed food and the fact you need almost 12,000 food to reach city size 30.

 

[Roxlimn]

I think they altered the higher end of the graph so that foodbasket cities wouldn't obliterate their surplus by growing too fast. Currently, the TR output is based on surplus, so a super-fast grower city would be useless for a TR network distributing food.

I think TRs being a core mechanic of the game is completely intentional as a new economic system - it relates to why the food bins grow so quickly. It's not to stunt growth, but to allow your foodbasket to function.

I've done Refugees, Scientists, Artists, and Engineers now. The Refugees were actually somewhat interesting since they fueled early growth of the Capital and nearby cities. At the start of the game, your differentials will be low, so TR food is only about +3 or so. +2 Food on top of that is a nontrivial advantage, and the food spikes Foodbasket surplus, so it helps it up the scale faster.

Artists really only spike the start for Prosperity early Colonist strats. Without the early double city, the better Virtue acquisition starts to become marginal soon, and I buy most of my tiles anyway (even with Artists).

 

[tommynt]

I think you are missing the point. Early culture is the best not because filling virtue faster is better, it's because free colonist snowballs you. The main issue here, is free colonist.

Thats kinda it.
Food should be close to 2nd best as Food =Pop = everything. But with Trade routes giving everything too (but lot more of it) getting them up asap is key.

But to be honest - Balance of this game is atm so bad that discussing Balance stuff isnt worth the time as it will be fully revamed - HOPEFULLY

 

[Masquerouge]

I like engineers, mostly because I hate how slowly new cities build stuff.

 

[Roxlimn]

I did refugees again. I know what I'm doing better now, and holy crap. They're Maritime City States! That's essentially what they are; 2 permanent Maritime City State Allies starting on turn 0. Artists are pre-BNW France with Meritocracy. Both of them have strengths.

 

[Soffacet]

But no matter what you equivocate the Refugee bonus with, you can't pretend that it's strengths are equally as compelling as Artists. Scarcity of early culture vs food, importance of earliest possible free colonist, importance of subsequent SPs in general, general abundance of Food due to ITR, increased food bin exponent, etc. There's just too much working against Refugees.

 

[Bandobras Took]

Not to mention the lesser value of specialists.

 

[Cannonballninja]

Well, the patch has certainly shuffled things around!

Trade Routes have been changed immensely. No longer do new cities get an over abundance of food and production! And without the ability to buy trade depots, getting new cities up is now a far more arduous task.

This increases the value of Refugees and Engineers substantially - both of them allow new cities to get off the ground far more quickly than otherwise possible. Scientists and Aristocrats remain quite good (Scientists have obvious benefit, Aristocrats buy you more colony pods!).

Artists are still very strong - especially after going up to three culture - but the super early city snowball is now much weaker. I feel they remain exceedingly attractive, even if they're no longer significantly better than the alternatives.

 

[RealHuhn]

I think refugees are great for the capital because you can work an extra mine in the early game which speeds things up quite a bit. Later it's decent for an extra science specialist. But it loses value for getting new cities up and running because you often can't settle near a hill at first ring.
It must be in first ring because without artists/OER it can't acquire new tiles.

So I tend to say that engineers are better during the expansion phase of the game.

+2 science always felt weak to me but I haven't used it since the patch, same with aristocrats. Both got indirectly buffed due to TR nerf though and could lead to some potentionally powerful stuff like fast biowell or academy beelines.

Artists are probably still the best choice, not only because you reach virtues a lot quicker but also new cities get important tiles faster which can completely offset the minor production boost of engineers as long as you have enough workers to improve the land asap.