Starting virtues beyond Prosperty?
- Thread starter Calapine
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PhilBowles
Deity
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I actually prefer a production start - the prosperity early virtues seem a bit weaker than the industry one (or, at least, not as immediately relevant and so less of a starting boost), and industry bonuses give you a boost to settler (and all other, including trade depot and convoy) production while you're still waiting to get along the tree to the settler. The industry synergy bonus is an energy boost, so you're well-placed to buy things you need as well.
Prosperity, though being more like Liberty, is pretty much BE's Tradition. You CAN go another way early, but it's not a great idea to do so. Given the insane power of trade routes, whatever you can do to get more of them going is the way you want to go. Period. The free colonist REALLY early in the game is pretty much your springboard. You should, by all rights, have 3 cities by ~t50, and 4-5 by t100-125. Mind you, this is presuming you've virtue'd/tech'd/built to remedy your health issue.
I've now completed 3 campaigns, plus a bunch of short experimental ones. I've never gone beyond 5 cities that I built myself. It just hasn't been necessary. Given the way victory works in BE, you're better off going really tall and b-lining for the stuff you need to trigger your chosen VC.
I've now completed 3 campaigns, plus a bunch of short experimental ones. I've never gone beyond 5 cities that I built myself. It just hasn't been necessary. Given the way victory works in BE, you're better off going really tall and b-lining for the stuff you need to trigger your chosen VC.
GhostSalsa
Emperor
Industry does not have any general (non building, sat, or wonder -specific) production bonuses until Independence Network and Social Investment (then Civic Duty and the tier 2 bonus). Industry is seriously limp on non-building stuff aside from Independence Network trade route boost. Not sure what you mean by it boosting settlers.
Prosperity is the strongest tree right now because what it provides bonuses to - growth (food), expansion, gold - are not very sensitive to unhealth penalties. It's a mostly pace-limit-free set of bonuses, as well as combining what made both Tradition (food, gold, happiness/health) and Liberty (fast settlers/colonists and workers) strong in CiV into one place.
Actually the Prosperity free colonist isn't the most attractive use of a single virtue, since it's not bundled with another bonus and not required for tree progress / tier 1 & 2 bonus. Situational.
You can't beat Prosperity until trade routes get nerfed and health penalties get fixed.
Promethian
Warlord
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Eudaimonia is also just too good. Every single time it spikes me above positive 20 health even if I am just coming off of a war. Magnasanti is good, I have used it very effectively to get and stay positive but its not a sure thing like Eudaimonia.
GAGA Extrem
Emperor
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I prefer to grab Knowledge first to get the -40% city penalty virtues and actually skip the free worker and settler from Prosperity. It makes for a somewhat weaker early game, but I am also running a lot less into the "City Spam" AI penalty (that usually leads to lots of wars).
There's no question that Prosperity is vastly superior with the current state of the game, but you can still do well with all the others imo. I really like industry and I'm challenging myself using it and the balanced trade routes mod.
The problem with prosperity is that the tier 1 bonuses are best in the early game. Increased outpost growth and free colonist is totally pointless when you are not actually settling cities anymore.
I typically go prosperity tier 1 (unless i cant expand because of starting locations) -> knowledge for culture/science boosts -> industry for building bonuses.
0.25 culture/science per pop in the city tile makes a huge difference in the early game and reduced culture costs for more virtues are more valuable in the early game because they arent retroactive (another bad design choice).
I typically go prosperity tier 1 (unless i cant expand because of starting locations) -> knowledge for culture/science boosts -> industry for building bonuses.
0.25 culture/science per pop in the city tile makes a huge difference in the early game and reduced culture costs for more virtues are more valuable in the early game because they arent retroactive (another bad design choice).
TheGrumpyBuddha
King
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How so? Early on you're not getting more than one or two science from this, and once you get 2+ cities you're going to get 5 or 6 beakers from a single trade route.
Ryika
Lazy Wannabe Artista
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Mhh. Apollo is a joke, you can get the upper hand with all virtue trees. ^^
I have pretty much tried all combinations I can think of for now, and really all of them seem to work more or less (~turn 220 virtue victories although I stopped most of them before I actually won), as long as you pick the free Colonist rather early. Most fun is probably Prosperity+Industry or Knowledge, trade posts + terrascape spam early enough that the terrascapes actually have some time to be active. But you can even get away with picking might and only farming aliens but never attacking other civs... although I really don't know why you'd ever want to do that.
Overall I think you can pretty much do whatever you like right now, due to a lack of challenge. But if you want the fastest victory times, then prosperity seems to be the one virtue to rule them all. Well, except for some slingshot-abuse, obviously.
GAGA Extrem
Emperor
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Think of it as a free Old Earth Relic and Laboratory per 8 citizen. That's actually a pretty decent advantage. Not only that - I recently read that the game rounds down city culture yields when below 0 health (so 2 culture becomes 1, 3 becomes 2, etc). That means even just having +1 culture from 4 pop is a big advantage while unhealthy (even more so when you didn't pick Artist colonists).
You also can't guarantee that you have a secure external trade route during the early game - or that you will run an external one at all, considering how powerful internal ones are for the early game.
Because its free and doesnt use up a trade route slot.
Think about it this way. Its pretty easy to hit 8 pop. Thats an extra 2 science and 2 culture per city. The culture is the biggest part as early game culture is hard to get.
Meanwhile you still have your trade routes for internal routes for food/prod or external ones for science/energy. Personally i go internal routes to get my cites up and running ASAP as prod is a huge roadblock to building buildings. More food/hammers = more science/energy as well.
Thats certaintly a fast way to win if you want to run a conquest game.
I think they need to bring back massive unhappiness penalties to stop you from just spamming military units though.
But at the same time they need to buff mgiht because its embarrassingly weak at the moment. And make it easier to get health in the early-mid game.
I think they need to bring back massive unhappiness penalties to stop you from just spamming military units though.
But at the same time they need to buff mgiht because its embarrassingly weak at the moment. And make it easier to get health in the early-mid game.
mnf
King
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Prosperity isn't just about health. It opens with 10% food after city growth and the first synergy is 10% growth. These are not affected by unhealthiness.
The point in ICS disregarding health is that beyond a certain point, the penalty to science and production doesn't get heavier, while you can keep growing unobstructed, giving you more pop to work the lands and for research (1 pop = 1 science).
The point in ICS disregarding health is that beyond a certain point, the penalty to science and production doesn't get heavier, while you can keep growing unobstructed, giving you more pop to work the lands and for research (1 pop = 1 science).
Like I said in another thread, the problem is that there are no wonders like the national college or some tech or whatever that provides a better alternative to rushing early game units. To me it is either make some doomed attempt to peacefully expand or just build 20 ranged units and smash the three nearest neighbors. At that point it doesn't matter what strategy you use.
