Building Early Improvements

[Jon Shafer]

What are everyone's techniques regarding building of city improvements in the Ancient Age? The Ancient Age is the most important one, and every unit and every improvement has to be carefully planned and built for an explicit purpose.

So how do you decide what to build?

[Master Zen]

Depending on my initial terrain assessment, I'll usually go for a Granary. However, if I plan on early warmongering (especially on small maps and with militaristic civs like Aztecs or Germans) I'll go for a Barracks instead and prepare and Archer Rush.

The other early improvement, Temples, I don't really build unless I'm religious, I'd much better try and get Libraries soon, more important if I'm a scientific civ. Cheap libraries are just soooo sweet.

[ZargonX]

If I've got some nice lands around me, it's a clear shot for a granary. If the land is looking pretty crappy, or I literally have a neighbor right on top of me, it's a switch over to war mode and a barracks for some quick expansion into other people's property. I do build a lot of temples once I have my cities up and running, as I'm just a sucker for big culture.

[Egbert]

I want a granary straight away. Build several units first for defence and exploration then the granary. If starting location is bad I restart otherwise I would get a settler out and send him somewhere suitable for a granary.

[Chemical Ollie]

I often build temples as the first thing in the 3rd town and on, to expand the borders and get early culture. If some city fits as a pure settler farm, I build a granary. I normally build a barracks in at least one town and pump out units for the other towns.

[bongo]

Thats very circumstancial but granaries or barrack are usually high on my list. I even build some wall where needed(or where I suspect I may be needing them soon, besides, they're dirt cheap)

If there are little room for expansion and I don't feel very warlike today I may go for some early cultural buildings. As their culture per turn double after 1000 years It's often worth getting some of them early.

[Chemical Ollie]

I stopped building walls when I understood they have no effect on size 6+ towns. Sometimes I build them at border cities later in the game, if I have no river or aqueduct.

[randomturn]

I think you have to build cities to specialize. I try to have my first two be a "food" city and a "production" city: food city by flood plain and wheat (and ideally by fresh water so you don't have to build an aqueduct), production city by hills with gold/iron. Build granary straight away in food city and start churning out settlers and workers. Build barracks right away in production city and start churning out units you will use for an early rush. Don't bother with a granary in your production city; build population by having settlers from food city join. Your food city with a granary will churn out settlers to burn. Try to have one hill for faster production of settlers early) and at least two flood plain and/or wheat.

I like cities 3 and 4 and maybe 5 also to be production cities, and I use them to build improvements and wonders and more military. One of them should also have a barracks and produce military units -- whichever one is furthest from city 2. Then around city 5 or 6 I like to have another food city.

Your empire is kind of like a factory floor; specialization makes it more efficient. I find this is the only way to at all keep up with the AI on deity and, as I said, it is essential to have 1 or 2 early wars and turn your neighbors into vassal states.

[Arrian]

Olaf, actually, due to a bug in PTW, the walls DO still work after size 7... it's just undocumented. It's because of the addition of "civil defense."

Anyway, early improvements...

I'm sold on the granary. I now build it before my first settler in most of my games. I play on Standard maps. If I was playing on smaller ones, I might use it less. On bigger ones, probably always.

I build early temples, particularly if I'm religious. I like to lock up my borders, keep my people happy, and get the cultural edge. I usually warmonger, and the cultural edge is really nice to have.

Being a warmonger, barracks are obviously key. I build them all over the place.

Walls are useful, even if they worked the way they're supposed to. If I can deny a resource or sneak in and grab a luxury without hampering my normal expansion, I may build an outlier city that is hard to defend. However, especially if I'm militaristic, walls make sense. Build the city on a hill if possible, build the walls (10-20 turns) and either then build barracks (poprush assisted) or poprush a spearman or two. The AI will either fail to take, or not try to take, that city.

As soon as I can, I will build courthouses. I loathe corruption, and the earlier I can reduce it, the better.

Harbors are an "as needed" sort of thing - usually for growth purposes at first. Being militaristic really helps for that.

Markets often come before Libraries. Markets are just incredibly important. Plus, I'm often not doing much research in the mid-ancient age, so markets make more sense. Why build a library if you aren't ready to use it?

Libraries are important once I'm ready to research myself. The timing of that varies.

Aqueducts get build as needed.

Colosseums are usually just prebuilds for wonders until the middle ages... but not always.

The truth is that I want it all. I want my Cake, and Death too... errr... no, wait, that's not it. I want my Cake and want to eat it too - yeah! There we go. It's one of the reasons I don't like Emperor, which forces me to make uncomfortable choices that usually result in sucky culture.

-Arrian

[Jon Shafer]

A few early Granaries are a must (most of the time), and a Barracks or two is also useful. I'm not a big fan of Temples unless I find myself without any Luxuries and need to transition to Republic. I try to build Libraries when I can, but I always seem to have a hard time getting them built.

Walls can also be fun, especially with the PTW "exploit" which actually makes them useful.

[Nor Me]

As with everyone else, I build granaries in many cities unless I'm going to war and barracks in many if so.

Generally a granary comes before the 2nd settler out of my capital but exactly when varies. In general building granaries reduces corruption compared to building settlers because the increased rate of growth tends to happen in a city closer to your capital. Experience has shown that this is more important than the unhappiness cost of size.
In more corrupt but high food cities, I often pop-rush part of a granary if it's not too unhappy.

Later in the ancient age, it becomes more difficult.

Harbours are generally built for their civ-wide rather than city-scale effect i.e. for trade routes or possibly even veteran ships. Only if I'm militaristic will I build one just because I have a fish. Unless I'm on an island or peninsula when otherwise weirdly placed cities need one because they have no other tiles

A scientific civ will normally build Libraries as its first improvement not including barracks in a city.
Non scientific civs will only build them if I intend to build before fighting unless I need tech for gold for an upgrade rush (that sometimes makes sense).

Courthouses get built everywhere reasonably corrupt often unless their are other priorities. I've just realised that the gain from a courthouse in a Republic is never smaller than the difference between in Republic and in Despotism. This means despotic corruption is a reasonable indicator that there will be some benefit even after a switch.

Marketplaces go everywhere important. For core cities, they normally take precedence over all other improvements when I've got currency. If a city is big, you often aren't going to lose out from both its effects so the decision is simple. Unless your planning an upgrade rush soon.

Aqueducts go in places that need to build wonders or just because I feel like them in core cities. If a city has high food but later in the ancient age, it's too good to keep building workers or settlers then it gets one.

Temples are most often for border expansion. I don't build them that often early. Even as a religious civ, They'll often pop-rushed in border cities while core cities wait until they get big and so possibly after aqueducts.

Colosseums are always prebuilds for something else.

As a warmonger, I tend to build improvements only if calculation gives them a short-term benefit. If I'm playing the builder, the balance between short-term and long-term is much harder. The long-term benefit is often hard to estimate so is often just intuition.

[Konquest02]

Originally posted by Arrian
I'm sold on the granary. I now build it before my first settler in most of my games. I play on Standard maps. If I was playing on smaller ones, I might use it less. On bigger ones, probably always.

-Arrian

This strategy is mostly useful if you are playing an expansionnist civilization. Since you pass most of your time building a granary, you quickly fall behind the average number of cities of all the civilizations, a prerequisite for getting settlers from a hut. By making one of your first builds a granary, you maximise your chances to get a settler from a goody hut. Those chances are even higher if you use and exp. civ.

I did this in one of my games with the Arabs and got 2 settlers from huts, before building my first settler in my capital. With that kind of a boost, I managed to pull ahead easily, even in the ancient age.

--Kon--

[DaveMcW]

I only build a granary before my first settler if I'm industrious. A non-industrious worker can't keep up with growth so you lose a lot of the advantage. I always build one before my second settler.

[skizzed]

I build only settlers in all my cities until I reach another civ. I find defenders are unnecessary as the AI isn't too aggressive early on. Then I build temples. I dont go for granaries as they cause unhappiness problems by growing the population too fast.

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Building granary immediately is good, but I usually build 3 or 4 warriors first, then settler. One of my first two cities then has to build a granary and become responsible for REX phase.

Early warrriors are important for exploring, fending off babs, contacting other civs and attacking setller/workers.

Temples, Barracks, more warriors and then spearman are top priority for a planned swordsmen rush.

AJ