Civilization 4 was a little different with where you might want to settle, and in Civilization 5, there is no real benefit of even settling next to a river for your capital. Sure, you will lose out on some water builders, but overall, they aren't worth the hammers they cost to build them anyway.
So like this question which asked how important it is to settle next to a river, I'm curious: If your settler spawns on a hill, is there ever any reason to move him to another tile?
Correct me if I am wrong, because I have only completed one settler level game and now I'm running immortals and deity, but doing the math, a hill tile is always better. You get the additional hammer for production early on, which means you can strike out a monument 3 turns earlier. The earlier monument means that if you go the pottery > writing route, you can slingshot into medieval by getting the Great Library.
I restart all of my games at about turn 100, but from what I can gather, settling on a hill means I get Liberty earlier, and get my Settler about 7 turns earlier.
Is a hill start the best start you can get?
Is it worth wasting a turn to settle on a hill?
Best Answer
I would say that the only reason not to build on a hill is because there is a better spot. That might seem like dodging the question, but I guess the point is that while hills are good, they are not so good that there aren't plenty of situations where something else would be better. Maybe building off the hill gives you access to a resource you would otherwise miss. Maybe building on the hill keeps you away from the coast when you want to be able to build naval units. Or maybe you play a very Great Person heavy strategy and want to be by a river to build a Garden.
I almost always build my capital in the location that my settler starts, regardless of whether it is on a hill or not. Generally the starting location is dead center with a bunch of resources, and even that one turn of not building your capital does have a multiplied effect over time. So I would say that you should definitely take hills into account when planning city locations, as they are quite nice, but don't get so focused on them that you miss out on other locations that might be better.