I've been reading several posts here to try and find a good build order for your first city. A lot of the strategies seem to depend on game difficulty (and number of barbarians). I know the answer here for many seems to be "it depends", but I'd like to try to figure out some things that are consistent.

Using workers to chop down forests seems to be a consistent strategy. But how large should your city be before you build that first worker and stop city growth.

For the record, to date I've only played on Noble. I used to be a heavy Monarch player, but don't feel like I have a good enough sense of game mechanics yet to go any higher. The games feel close enough as they are.

Personally I feel uncomfortable sending out settlers without units to defend them. Wolves seem to find those settlers very tasty.

At present my strategy has been to build scouts (to explore, max 2) and warriors (to explore nearby regions, defend new settler expansion positions, to be upgraded to archers ASAP) until my city size has reached 3. Why 3? I'm uncertain.

After size 3, my build order goes Worker, Settler. Usually I'll start a repeating cycle: Archer, Worker, Settler, until I've expanded as far as I can go, then focusing on defensive and worker units until my road network is built.

My question is, what are other people doing in those first 50 turns or so? Assuming you want to find a good balance between scouting out new city spots, settler production, and continued wolf starvation, is there a better strategy?

Everything else I've read here seems to indicate I should stop automating my workers, but I think I'll post another thread about that.

I usually build a worker first thing. Even before any warriors or scouts. In fact I often play farmer's gambit and not build warriors at all. Animals will not come into your boarders, and barbarians will not show up for a couple dozen turns.

I never wait for my city to grow for that first worker. If you have no improved tiles for your new citizens to work, the benifits of letting your city grow are not as great. if you build the worker first, you'll be able to have two improved tiles at just about the same time your city grows to use both tiles.

My general build order is...
1) Worker,
2) a partial build of a structure or a warrior until size 2 or 3 *depends on situation*
3) settler

Then I make a choice, either max food production in the capital for a worker/settler factory, or use my new city for that.

I usually build a worker first thing. Even before any warriors or scouts. In fact I often play farmer's gambit and not build warriors at all. Animals will not come into your boarders, and barbarians will not show up for a couple dozen turns.

I never wait for my city to grow for that first worker. If you have no improved tiles for your new citizens to work, the benifits of letting your city grow are not as great. if you build the worker first, you'll be able to have two improved tiles at just about the same time your city grows to use both tiles.

My general build order is...
1) Worker,
2) a partial build of a structure or a warrior until size 2 or 3 *depends on situation*
3) settler

Then I make a choice, either max food production in the capital for a worker/settler factory, or use my new city for that.

Just for the record, what difficultly level are you playing on? That seems a critical question to a lot of people playing the "farmer's gambit"...

CC - I'd love to always build a worker first, but most of the time it simply isn't viable. There are so many side constraints to take into consideration:

1. What use would it be? How significant would having that worker out 8 turns earlier really be? Is there a rice paddy that can be turned into a full loaf, and cause the city to skyrocket? Sometimes it doesn't do enough good to put everything else on hold.
2. Can the worker be helpful yet? Sometimes you have to wait on techs, culture expansion, etc. to do anything truly useful.
3. What are you giving up? Sure you can sometimes delay having a warrior sitting around, but not always. And you are usually giving up a turn or two on discovering that first/second tech due to lack of growth.

Worker, settler.

Use the worker to change one 3 tile yield into a 5 and you're on track. If you have bronze working you can do a forest chop and kick ass in the beginning.

You can get away with this start (especially if you beeline to bronze working) even on the higher difficulties. You're more at risk of another civ stumbling upon you defenseless (especially in MP) than you are to barbs before 3000 BC.

I've only played on Noble so far... but this is what works best for me...

Build a WARRIOR. Have the FIRST Warrior go exploring for huts & a second city site. While building a warrior, my city will usually grow, giving me MORE food &/or production. This, to me is VITAL--2 pop > 1 pop in every way...

Then, it depends on what techs I have already, and what resources are in the area. If there's some juicy beef down the way, yeah, I'll shoot for a worker, but I'll time it so my Animal Husbandry research and my worker pop at the same time.

By this time, I've already got two warriors, right? So *IF* there wasn't a good resource nearby, I make the settler instead of the worker, and don't have to worry about barbarians, b/c I HAVE a garrison warrior already.

Then, I build what I didn't build, ie, a settler or worker, respectively, and hook up the two cities and all the resources in the vicinity.



That's what *I* do, anyway...I don't consider five or so turns of delay (while making the 2nd warrior) a drawback, as I'm GROWING the city in the meantime...sometimes, if my techs are coming slow, I'll even let the city grow to size 3... :)

In games where I built a worker first, I'm often beat to polytheism.

If I reload the exact same game and wait for 2 or 3 population to build a worker, I find I can get polytheism just fine. (This is on Prince level.)


A worker-first strategy, in my mind, will crucially cripple you in getting those first sciences, especially when on a polytheism/monotheism track

A worker-first strategy, in my mind, will crucially cripple you in getting those first sciences, especially when on a polytheism/monotheism track

It depends on your starting location and your starting techs. For example: I've been playing Rome (mining) and China (mining, agri) a lot lately and theres been a few times when I've started out with gems/gold/silver & a food bonus in my city radius. In that case its sheer madness not to go worker first. The mine gives a gold bonus that increases your research by 50-60% (as well an extra hammer) and the food bonus aids growth.

I think there are only 3 builds that work early: You can worker-chop for settler, go warrior-settler, or settler-warrior.

I strongly advise you get the second settler ASAP. As soon as you can protect it, a quick second city gives you a large advantage.

So, my builds are all about how quickly and safely I can get that second city. Building more than one Warrior or Worker, before that key second settler, is a waste.

In fact, one pretty much has to go worker, settler, warrior in some mix until things actually kick in.

If you haven't tried it yet, try going Bronze Working + Worker and chop down a few forests for a nice settler build.

Yah, if the stars align like "dar" says, I usually do that... but NOT if I have to wait for the tech...then I go for the warrior :)

If you haven't tried it yet, try going Bronze Working + Worker and chop down a few forests for a nice settler build.
Yeah, when I realized that worked for Settlers, it changed my early game CONSIDERABLY :eek: :goodjob: :king:

I dont understand why 3 seems to be everyones magic number.
I get my Capital really humming and a few specialists going before starting to expand.
Even on Noble the AI takes forever to expand and I dont see the rush. Maybe the Civ3 mentality dies hard. They tried to change nearly everything that was common place in Civ3 so I figure there is no set strategy yet. I purposely watch the AI and they are happy to get their capital pumping and be well defended before they start expansion.

Three isn't really a "magic" number, but it's desireable to have as many (defendable) cities as possible as early as possible... for a variety of reasons. "Expand as fast as you can...but no faster" ;)

I dont understand why 3 seems to be everyones magic number.
I get my Capital really humming and a few specialists going before starting to expand.
Even on Noble the AI takes forever to expand and I dont see the rush. Maybe the Civ3 mentality dies hard. They tried to change nearly everything that was common place in Civ3 so I figure there is no set strategy yet. I purposely watch the AI and they are happy to get their capital pumping and be well defended before they start expansion.
The biggest reason not to expand is due to maintenance costs. Those only hit after your third or fourth city. Until then, you should expand as quickly as possible, IMHO.

That's why I think my builds make the most sense. Getting multiple city + warrior to defend/scout + workers building stuff is entirely what the extreme early game is about. The worker chop build does this extremely well (at the expense of tech).

My best game recently (I've aborted quite a few games early when my strats didn't work, like my Roman Pyramid-Rush) was with Peter of the Russians.

My starting city was in a decent starting spot up in the frosty north. A lake nearby would provide 2 farms within range. On the ocean. With 1 deer within initial range, and 3 within extended range.

Thanks to all the forest/hill type tiles around, I could produce a worker in 15 turns. But bronze working was 21 turns away. So I went for animal husbrandy...warrior/worker/warrior/worker bronze working chop settler.

As far as 3 the magic number, my capital was kind of food deprived for a while. I ran at size 2 for a long time. I had 3 cities established before my capital hit size 4.

My typical pattern is build worker first, then barracks (I don't really need the barracks, but want to give the city time to get to 3 or 4), then settler, then archer. I almost never build warriors.

The barbarians do not spawn until around turn 35 on Noble, so you are safe for about 40 turns.

But lately I have been playing custom games with barbs turned off anyway, after a while they are just a pain.

when i start brand new game first thing i build is 1 war and barracks by the time this is done, my city as at 3 and grown culturly and i manged to, explore next city site, i knock out a settler run toward the site. by the time my settler is there worker is done. I send the worker to create road to the next city and start on farm/mine production. Around the new city to give it a boost to grow, then i have both cities nock out 1 worker, and 1 settler each.

While settlers setting up new cities, 2/3 workers are on auto development and 1 is conecting the cities togather. By this time i'm half way done with tech tree and my gold is on the rise.

Even on Noble the AI takes forever to expand and I dont see the rush. Maybe the Civ3 mentality dies hard. They tried to change nearly everything that was common place in Civ3 so I figure there is no set strategy yet.
Funny that you said that, it seems at Regent level the AI strategy is a settler rush. I certainly hope the AI here makes the all around settler rush strategy obsolete in Civ IV.

The main argument for two cities or more is that multiple cities grow faster than one, produce more and generate more income. Maintenance really kicks in from city 4 or 5. In either case whether you are cultivating one city or multiple, a worker makes a huge difference. Changing a 3 yield tile into a 5 will really help.

So my basic starting order is Worker first. Except maybe on coastal cities with fishing as starting trait. This worker basically takes 15 turns. During those 15 turns I research whatever I need to work my closeby resources, unless I already have them as starting trait. If I start with mining I tend to go with Bronze working (12 turns) to allow forest chopping. When the worker is done I start a settler. The worker improves a resource tile to improve total tile yield from 4 to 6, which allows the settler to be done 7 turns earlier. Then the worker moves on to chop 1 forest to have the settler done around turn 29. A few warriors are prabably next some protection and exploration. Meanwhile the worker is improving a few tiles around the capital and the new found city. Then I build another worker and settler to get city 3 and 4 founded.

That gives a nice base to I start expanding.

I've never tried the worker gambit. However something doesn't make sense to me. Worker will work if you have the techs to take advantage of their improvements. Mining, Animal Husbandry, and Agriculture. I'm not sure what these improvements do without these techs. Can they still be used effectively?

My first build queue pretty much followed the Civ3 method
1. Warrior
2. Settler
3. Warrior/Archer if available or Barracks
4. Worker

I triend to change that up:
1. Warrior
2. Worker
3. Warrior/Archer
4. Settler

That didn't work so well because I found the Settler taking just as much time at 4th as it did at 2nd. Plus, by that time the barbs are running amok, which would threaten my warrior/settler "army" and also lessen the time between that 2nd city's first defense unit and the attacks of the barbs.

So, I'm back to Warrior - Settler - Warrior - Worker. Typically, in the early going I build something useful (building, worker, settler), something defensive, and alternate between the two in order to fight the barbs. This typically occurs until the discover of Iron.

I've try warious starting queues in the same map to light up the best open strategies in the beginning.

For me, I do not construct wroker/setter instead the city is 3 Population size.
Meanwhile, I construct 1 or 2 warrior and 1 or 2 scout depending of the unit I have at the 4000BC.

When my first city is 3, I start to work on worker in order to improve the ressource alvailable.
Then, I construct a setter or a granary according to the situation.

LeSphinx

The biggest reason not to expand is due to maintenance costs. Those only hit after your third or fourth city. Until then, you should expand as quickly as possible, IMHO.

That's why I think my builds make the most sense. Getting multiple city + warrior to defend/scout + workers building stuff is entirely what the extreme early game is about. The worker chop build does this extremely well (at the expense of tech).

It seems to me like you are saying that you can build your second city and then stop the expansion until your economy is ready to build the third without incuring the penalty.

Mind you, if you've popped a couple of huts and gotten money, then you might have upwards of 150g to pay for the thrid city's maintenance.

It seems to me like you are saying that you can build your second city and then stop the expansion until your economy is ready to build the third without incuring the penalty.

Mind you, if you've popped a couple of huts and gotten money, then you might have upwards of 150g to pay for the thrid city's maintenance.


Is there some kind of guide to go by that tells me how many cities I should have at certain points? I find that sometimes my tech has to go down to 30% just to stay in the black.

Things I have been known to build first:
Worker <- if u got rice/corn/wheat and you got farming
Fishing boat <- when I play Spanish and I'm on a coast with fish, Good thing is the city grows while building, bad thing it only builds using hamemrs so it may take a while.
Obelisk <- No joke really when I dont need to build anything else
Settler <- yey :/ it does work sometimes, usually if I start near floodplains since after that my city can grow with no improvements from workers anyhow
Warrior <- initial scouting unit died prematurely or Im feeling paranoid on a small map. Usually I wont start with warrior just apend it to the list in middle of building soemthing else

As far as sending naked settlers, first settler yes, second and third I usually have a unit at the future city site. If you have animal problems you are probably planting the city too far away! The animals dont go into your culural borders! Also while planting far away beware the maintenece will be steep, I usualy pland 2-3 tiles away from Cap in a circle, to keep early maintenece down. Ofcourse if I need to secure a bottle neck I might venture further but I wouldnt go naked. If you are goign with a settler and you spot a critter, you might aswell plant the city right there if you think you wont get away from it.

edit: too much g before n

As I've progressed I find that its better to let your city grow as much as possible. I find that if you build a worker or a settler too early, you end up handicapping yourself. Also on the higher difficulties, founding a city isn't just a simple matter of building a settler and plopping down at the right spot. I usually send a worker and an archer up ahead to my desired spot. So usually I pump out a couple warriors first. Around city size 4 is when I look at getting a worker built. One thing you can do is that with Civ 4, when you change production you save what you've already built up. So if my city is close to growing in say 4 or 5 turns, I'll start up on a building, and once my city grows, I'll switch to a worker/settler. I also like to build a worker before a settler first, because chopping trees becomes a crucial part of your early game production. So my build order ends up being something like:

Warrior
Warrior
Building/worker
archer
settler
archer
worker

Its worked well in Prince and Monarch, I've been able to build up enough of an economic base to have a successful swordsmen rush to take out my nearest neighbor.

I've never tried the worker gambit. However something doesn't make sense to me. Worker will work if you have the techs to take advantage of their improvements. Mining, Animal Husbandry, and Agriculture. I'm not sure what these improvements do without these techs. Can they still be used effectively?


Many civs start with agriculture, the wheel or mining. And the first worker typically takes 15 turns, which gives you enough time to develop one or two worker techs, depending on on your starting resources.

I have been doing the worker-chop since the beginning and I pretty much stick to it. Most of the civs I start with have either mining or agriculture, which allow me to build a farm or mine while waiting for bronze working. This has worked for me since the beginning and on difficulties up to Prince.
Here is my original thread with my strategy which involves getting three cities AND a guarenteed religion.
-UberCivver
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=135748

I agree with Ghraabthar 's building order. It is the same as mine. I would pick archery as my first tech to research so that maybe, just maybe that second military unit would be an archer.

The worker gambit does not cut it. If it takes me 15 turns to crank out a worker and to 6-8 turns to grow, I will be stuck on population one for 21 turns. The worker will be improving, but not fast enough to make a difference for that first population increase.

Early population increase is essential. Workers improve land resources, but only the population works them. I rather err on an undeveloped resource being used than have a developed resource left unused.

Yah, if the stars align like "dar" says, I usually do that... but NOT if I have to wait for the tech...then I go for the warrior :)

That was just an extreme example. I tested quite a bit when i first got civ4 to determine which method worked out faster. Except for low resource starts, or starts with cows and without agri/hunting as a starting tech, the two are pretty much neck and neck (i tested for 3 cities, a barracks & 3 archers) when ignoring early religion. When you factor in forest chopping however, worker first becomes more and more attractive.

The worker gambit does not cut it. If it takes me 15 turns to crank out a worker and to 6-8 turns to grow, I will be stuck on population one for 21 turns. The worker will be improving, but not fast enough to make a difference for that first population increase.

Of course you will also be cranking out settlers from 6 turns to as little as 3 turns with a double chop, ie: you catch up in growth during periods when your city would otherwise be stagnant while building settlers.

Civ 3 people are totally stuck on settlers. I recommend trying a few other strategies (with the appropriate technologies)

- Warrior, Barracks, Worker, Horse Archer, Horse Archer, Horse Archer, Horse Archer, Horse Archer, Horse Archer, Archer, Settler, Horse Archer (Tech: beeline up to horse archers, and then grab bronzeworking afterwards)

- Warrior, Worker, Archer, Settler, Oracle (Tech: beeline up to priesthood, stop back for bronzeworking, and try to time the oracle with a major medieval technology)

Also, don't underestimate the value of building missionaries. The number of people who "found and forget" religions is startling, and they're the same ones who complain that the AI always hates them because of their religion. Convert aggressively.

Of course you will also be cranking out settlers from 6 turns to as little as 3 turns with a double chop, ie: you catch up in growth during periods when your city would otherwise be stagnant while building settlers.

Or magnify the growth of a booming city. The warrior / warrior / worker / warrior / settler build order doesn't prohibit this tactic. It can crank them out faster, with a tree chop and a bigger city, and have a working economy to keep you alive in the tech race.

The worker chop, you need have three things.

One worker. It has to be made and several of its turns committed to chopping trees.
Bronze working. It must be discovered first before this tactic is viable. For the worker gambit, a civ would have to commit themselves for bronze working from the get go.
Forests. You need to have access to trees. Clear cut around your city and you loose long-term production. Cut away from the city and you need turns to get there and may need protection. If you start on floodplans or a jungle, then forests are scarce in your vicinity.

Not to beat the dead horse - but my strategy (based on my worchop-start)

City #1
1 - Worker <- the _only_ 'sure thing', not sure how this would work if I didn't start with mining (so far, I've played persians and Russians, both start with mining). Worker + Bronze working = ramp up production ASAP.
2 -Warrior (chop)
3- Warrior (shields from last chop), 5 turns - One chop = 2 warriors. One for my city, one as mobile-production protection
4 - Settler (chop), 10 turns - Take the second warrior and find your second city spot - move the worker back and escort that settler out to its new city location.
5 - Warrior,Warrior/Archer (chop), 5 turns - Depends on a lot of things, how vulnerable do I feel (I'll probably be much more defensive when I move up to Monarch for my next game), both 2 warriors allow me to protect 2 workers much faster...

At this point I hope I have the wheel - if I do, I build a road to the new city, before I get there, I chop once in the new city to:

City #2
1- Worker (worker #1 chop)

With that cities worker- if I've produced a spare warrior at city 1, I move that warrior to protect the worker and start chopping

City #2
2- settler/archer (Worker #2 chop) - how vulnerable do I feel? expand if I'm comfortable, otherwise defind

City#1
5- settler/archer (Worker#1 chop) - Same as above.

After this - Its entirely a 'play it by ear' game... and even above can vary highly... I've done (out of city #1)
1- worker
2- warrior (chop)
3- warrior (remaining sheilds)
4- warrior (chop)
5- warrior (remaining sheilds)
6- warrior (chop)
7- warrior (remaining sheilds).
OR
6- archer (chop)

in 15 turns from my first worker, I have six warriors (or 4 warriors and an archer), who were able to easily overwhelm a very close rival, giving me my #2 city as fast as if I'd built a settler.

Either way - this all depends on having plenty of forests near-by- but I don't go overboard with the chopping - just enough to get the first few units out.

In games where I built a worker first, I'm often beat to polytheism.

If I reload the exact same game and wait for 2 or 3 population to build a worker, I find I can get polytheism just fine. (This is on Prince level.)

A worker-first strategy, in my mind, will crucially cripple you in getting those first sciences, especially when on a polytheism/monotheism track
In my mind, any strategy that depends on getting to any specific technology first is bound to fail at higher difficulty levels. I try to remove as many dependencies as possible.

So ask yourself - what am I getting from having an early religion? Is there any way I can replace that benefit in another fashion? Just a thought, since if it's tight on prince, you may lose the race every time on monarch.

I tried a new strategy last night that worked great (although it went against my settler rush tendencies.) The basic theory is that two points population allow you to work two more squares, which is the same as one new city. However, it is faster to get those two points than the settler, and doesn't give you another city youi need to defend. I have not tried this on Monarch yet, but this resulted in an easy victory on Prince.

First build a worker and start out researching agriculture.

Then maximize your city growth until it hits the happiness cap. While it is doing this, take more food at the expense of hammers or commerce. Use the worker to increase food output only. You should be able to produce a couple military units and buildings during this time. Research things that let you use your worker for better food or roads or mining. Once you are getting close to the maximum, start building some mines.

Then, redistribute your population for no growth. You should get some great production, and maybe have a specialist available once you can use them. Build archer/settler pairs to found new cities - build archer first. Each new city follow the pattern of growing until cap before building a settler. The first worker should hold you for a while, but later you will need to build more.

I am trying this tonight on Monarch.