Which is your favorite starting resource?

[StrideCollosus]

Surprised to see so many people go for stone and luxury resources.

Stone is great to have early on, even better if it's at your starting location. But investment in getting the stone hooked up and building Stonehenge at the expense of population could mean you're often well behind in terms of expansion and development, especially at higher levels.

In my experience, it's food resources every time. Even on the higher levels I've found that a nice big fat food surplus from the outset allows you to:
- build workers quickly, thus getting your land developed quicker
- still get Stonehenge (since the AI rarely seem to attempt it)
- and then build settlers for expansion

Luxuries are pretty much useless in comparison to food resources at the start since the food/production bonuses are not that useful initially and there isn't any happiness issues so early in the game.

 

[DaviddesJ]

there isn't any happiness issues so early in the game.

This is just not true, at higher difficulty levels. An extra early happiness is quite significant at emperor and higher. I'd say it's even significant at lower levels than that.

 

[Desert-Fox]

gold.. only to mine it and I'll get a nice commerce... 2 or 3 golds are even better.

 

[Rayjr]

It wasn't on the list nor was it mentioned in any of the posts and frankly I am not sure if it qualifies but what I really love to see in my starting position is a long river with my initial settler being placed at the mouth or far enough away so my next city can be found there. being able to build two or more cities along the same river really makes me smile simply for the automatic trade route. with that it becomes less important to build the road connecting to two it still needs to happen for troop mobility but the initial benifit is right there and at least then what ever resource you have is automatically shared between cities.

 

[ducker]

yet another vote for stone... yet I almost picked something like cow... since you can utilize it really quickly and it helps build up an empire fairly quickly with the fast gains realized with the added food!

 

[CivCorpse]

I think my favorite starting resouce is "waffles". Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But you said starting resouce and I usually have breakfast AFTER my all night civ session/addiction.

 

[JoshuaOst]

Stone is always a good starting resource because of it's value when creating wonders like Stonehedge.

 

[Nuke_Exchange]

Ivory on grassland + Iron on Hill.
The happiness is nice; but those War Elephants kick ass!
And Iron means Praetorians...
My thoughts are:
Praetorian+War Elephant=Conquest.

 

[Thalassicus]

Ivory - playing as Catherine:

Can hook them up right away (starts with Hunting)
Significant hammer and commerce bonus, and often comes in clusters.
+1 happiness, +2 with Markets
Unlocks the powerful War Elephants, which have no counter stacked with Axemen
All those 10-xp Elephants then upgrade directly to uber Cossacks

Stone is OK, but I find War Elephants and +2 happiness to be a bigger help than Representation (with +3 beakers for specialists, +3 happiness in 5 cities, and the cost involved in building the Pyramids).

Fish would be my second choice. Nothing like building a Work Boat and having massive food and commerce early in the game.

 

[Salarakas]

Stone is fantastic if you're planning on getting the Pyramids. Not really needed for the Stonehenge if you do some chopping although it helps of course.

My fave is gold. Super commerce helps a lot if you want to get some of the early religions and with forges you get +2 happy to your cities when you most need it.

 

[Znabel15]

Pigs. i thought that they gave more food than anything else? Mmmmm. Bacon...

 

[Angoth]

I can deal with any starting resource, but, when the map spawns, I'm looking around to find Stone. Every game. It's a hard climb if you don't. Smaller hill to climb if you do.

 

[Zombie69]

Unlocks the powerful War Elephants, which have no counter

War elephants are countered quite nicely by spearmen. Same strength for both, but the pikeman costs a lot less.

Stone is OK, but I find War Elephants and +2 happiness to be a bigger help than Representation (with +3 beakers for specialists, +3 happiness in 5 cities, and the cost involved in building the Pyramids).

The cost of building the market in your 5 cities (for the extra +1 happiness), at 150 hammers each, far outweighs the cost of building Pyramids with stone connected, which is only 225 hammers.

 

[Gato Loco]

Wheat. Gems and cows and gold are nice, but a wheat or corn will give you lots of extra food and can be farmed with only one tech and a worker. Cows and pigs, by contrast, force you to appreciably delay bronze working to get animal husbandry. Of course, i'd love pigs for my second city.

 

[46Bubba]

Interesting thread to read... So many different opinions, all with valid arguments. I voted marble, but after reading the value of gold, gems, and ivory, I appreciate them much more. I still get giddy when I start a new game and see either stone or marble in my starting city. My current game (Huge continent, Noble, Elizabeth) had marble and gold and London has about 7-8 wonders and 9 Great People Specialists. It's a GP producing machine as well as highly productive. Currently leading all civs, but the game is only about mid-way. We'll see how the starting location did in the long run...

 

[Tarindel]

Stone for the win.

With Stone, I can usually get the Pyramids. With Stone and Industrious, I can get the Pyramids with no sweat.

Stone stone stone stone

Stone.

Stone stone.

 

[niffweed17]

I love stone, marble, and any water food resource.

but i'll take gold or gems anyday. gimme the commerce and the happiness bonus.

 

[Patriarch]

Yup, stone for faster Stonehenge and Pyramids.

Second would be some good clam/fish/corn resources so I can grow quickly and whip my citizens into making units and buildings.

 

[Vonreuter]

Stone. I like to improve my chances of getting the pyramids, and losing by one or two turns would be disastrous. This is especially true for civs without the Industrious trait, having stone eliminates the lack of Industrious.

I can always settle near the other resources later, but I want Stone. If it's not on the site of my first city, I want to make sure it's on the site of my second. This does not always work, of course. Even now I'm playing a game with the English, who haven't seen a rock of stone and it's the 1920s.

 

[StrideCollosus]

This is just not true, at higher difficulty levels. An extra early happiness is quite significant at emperor and higher. I'd say it's even significant at lower levels than that.

Of course happiness is important, but the thread was about the best resource to have at the start of the game, i.e. few cities and generally low pop. At this stage of the game happiness is not a problem whatever level you play at (assuming you are managing your pop of course).