The Fastest Route to the First Social Policy

Social Policies are obviously critical to development of your empire and more often than not have a lot to do with your victory strategy. Lately, I've been obsessed with the best Policy purchase order. To give an idea of what I'm talking about, typical web searches have included "best social policy purchase order" or "Civ 5 policy purchase strategy". Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a lot of specific help.

Thus this first blog post and the topic - How Fast Can I Get a Policy?

The beginning of a Civ 5 game is a bit like chess. Starting moves dictate your strategy and establish whether you are off to a "good start" or not.

Playing as Korea's leader Sejong, he founds Seoul on the coast and the tool tip shows that +1 Culture is produced by cities and that it will currently take 36 "next turns" (on Epic speed) before gaining the next Policy. It also warns that each city you own will increase Social Policy cost by 7%. Thus, at Turn 0, Sejong decision dictates that a Social Policy rush will not involve expanding too much, or else there will be diminishing returns.



Waiting 36 turns for the first Policy would be a drag, so the first question that pops into Sejong's mind is, "How can I speed that up?" There are two options available at turn 0:  Explore in hopes of finding a ruin with +30 Culture, and/or build a Monument which once constructed will generate +2 Culture per turn for 1 Gold maintenance.



While there is a chance that a ruin may net me +30 Culture, the sure bet is the 15 turns it will take to build the Monument. Once Seoul has it, the Turn 0 estimate of Next Policy: 36 Turn(s) will be shaved down depending on how fast they can build the Monument. At 60 cost, the 15 turns is a calculation based on the city's production of +4 Production per turn. The next question is, "How can I speed that up?"

One option would be to forgo any population growth at all by using the Citizen Management screen to direct the 1 population to work the +2 Production hill instead of the +2 Food grassland. Doing so would cut the Monument production time down to 10 turns, but would mean 10 turns of 0 Population growth. In hindsight, settling the city on the hill may have made this choice moot by giving the City Center +2 Production, but for now Sejong sticks with the decision of settling the coast.




If Korea went the all Production route, barring any ruin bonus, the fastest time to get a new Social Policy would be Turn 19 (10 turns of +1, 9 turns of +3). This poses the question, is it better to Stagnate 10 turns for a Turn 19 Policy? Sejong decides to investigate by looking at the default Citizen Management choice.



By default, the game has the 1 population working on the grassland with silver for a bounty of +2 Food and +2 Gold. With this selected, Seoul is generating +4 Production (+3 from the Palace and +1 from the City Center on grassland) and will grow a population in 11 turns. The assumed benefit from the +2 Gold is that in 15 turns, Korea will have 90 Gold which will allow them to buy ... nothing. In fact the cheapest thing they could buy (on Epic speed) is a Scout at 190 Gold. Since the goal is to get the fastest Social Policies possible, Gold seems like a nice-to-have versus the +1 Production they could get from the grassland with stone.



With this selected, the +2 Food and +1 Production reduce the Monument build time to 12 turns while retaining the 11 Turns until a New Citizen is Born. If they only factor the +1 Production, this choice would net a new Policy in 20 turns (12 turns of +1, 8 turns of +3). At turn 11 a new Citizen will be born, but that won't play a factor in the Policy rush because the Monument will be built by the time the Citizen could impact Production of any Culture bonus.

Given this starting location, Turn 19 would be the fastest way to a Policy. Giving up 10 turns of no growth seems harsh compared to a Turn 20 Policy plus Population growth. Sejong leaves it on the +2 Food +1 Production and decides to see how it goes.

Since it is still Turn 0, Korea must also choose a technology to research. Sejong's initial inclination would be to go for Writing as soon as possible so that his science bonus for building science buildings in the Capital can kick in as soon as possible.



Keeping the Policy rush strategy in mind, the Great Library might be a good way to get +1 Culture as well as Sejong's science bonus. Sejong wonders if that is really the fastest way to get more culture. With the DLC that provides the Temple of Artemis (a potential +1 Culture), going for Archery could net a Wonder faster. Culture will increase with more cities, so perhaps a Settler should be in the queue after the Monument. For now, Sejong sticks with the tech choice of Pottery to Writing in order to go for the Great Library.

Time to roll the dice on whether or not the solo Warrior will find some more culture.

Turn 3 - Meet Bismark
Turn 4 - Ruin provides 90 Gold (106)
Turn 6 - Ruin provides +1 Population

The random find of +1 Population brings up an interesting question. Would Seoul have been better off working the hill first?

For now, the extra Citizen will Seoul to shave a few turns to get to the first Policy, but only by going into the Citizen Management screen and switching to a Production focus. Perhaps the Turn 19 Policy is going to happen after all.



Back to the Warrior exploring.

Turn 11 - Monument construction is completed. This bring the Culture per turn from +1 to +3. Time to switch the work focus back to "Default" and select a Settler as the next build.



Turn 15 - Pottery research completes, next up Writing
Turn 15 - Ruin provides technology: Calendar
Turn 17 - Ruin provides a crudely-drawn map
Turn 19 - First New Policy!



While the prediction was for Turn 20, the first Policy arrives on Turn 19 because the Warrior found the +1 Population. Since it is uncertain what ruins you might find in the early game, the sure bet was still on Turn 20 so that the city will be at Population 2 when the Policy arrives.

In hindsight, had Sejong settled the city on the hill and found the +1 population, the first Policy might have been earlier than Turn 19. Surely a leader such as Napoleon (+2 Culture) would beat this time, but the example shows some basic strategy for rushing the Social Policy regardless of which leader you may be playing. Perhaps in a future blog we can explore how Napoleon would fare in this scenario, but for now we'll stick with Sejong.

Next up will be an investigation of which Policy selection would be the fastest route to the second Policy.

See you next time,

TheHiredGun
civ5strategy.blogspot.com
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Note: The above example is based off a Normal Difficulty Game at Epic Speed in the God's and Kings expansion on a Large Map. Even though the examples use Epic Speed build times, the logic may still apply to other speeds.