The title says it all =)
When i have a coastal start with seafood, i usually build boats asap (which is on turn 0, or as soon as i get Fishing, which is the first tech i research in this case).
But there are different ways of building a boat, by managing the tile(s) you work. For example, i've ran a number of simulations for a couple of starts i've rolled, and every single time, it seemed to be much more efficient when i worked the tiles that allowed me to get the boat out asap. Typically (luckily?), this would be a forested hill plains tile. From my calculations, i came ahead in food, hammers, AND commerce when i did roughly the following:
- hammers first to get the boat out, even if it means stopping growth
- grow to size 2
- again work as many hammers as possible to get the second boat out
- grow again
- etc if you have more than 2 seafood.

What do you think? How do you make the choice? What is your experience? Thank you =)

If you have Fishing, Fish, and a forest plains hill, working the hill is obviously the best choice.

It gets trickier when you are missing one or more of those. :)

I build the first boat just like you, with a high hammer tile. Then I work the seafood tile to grow to size 2 while building the second boat. Once I hit size 2, I keep working the seafood tile but work a high hammer tile with it. My rationale is that I want to keep growing and get the benefit of some commerce to get me to bronze working faster.

If I have more than two seafood tiles, I will usually only build two boats until I can raise my happiness caps or if I am using the whip heavily, in which case I want maximum food.

I concur with both. Build the boat with a forrested hill, work the seafood tile until size 2, then build the second boat by working the fishfarmed and forrested hill tile.

The earlier the WB is completed the better. Work a 3:hammers: tile if you can, stunting growth. Then grow to size two, working sea food.

the funny thing is, people say "Boats > Workers because they don't stop growth", that's why i asked the question in the first place. In the end i find myself stunting my growth too =)

Yeah, but that's only for the first boat. If you do want to build something after it, like a second boat, a scout, a warrior to guard your settler to your second city, you can do all that while growing really fast. Once you get the worker done you're still stuck with (at most) a +3 food tile. With the workboat fishing you'll have a high food tile instantly growing as fast as you want between worker/settler builds.

the funny thing is, people say "Boats > Workers because they don't stop growth", that's why i asked the question in the first place. In the end i find myself stunting my growth too =)

Ironic. But on many occasions where you're in a position to build a boat right away (you have Fishing and a seafood tile), you probably wouldn't have anything for the worker to do right away anyway.

And besides, the growth is only slowed/stopped for the first boat, after which you can work the first seafood tile.

My argument for Boats > Workers (with a seafood start, of course) is that a worker can't always improve a tile in the BFC to 4 or 5 food and 2 commerce (what you get with seafood) with the starting techs at your disposal. The best case scenario for a worker out of the gate is an irrigated food source (or some calendar resources) on a river, and it assumes that you start with or will finish agriculture as the worker is completed. Of course, later techs enable better yielding worker improvements, but the one-shot workboat is still a winner for getting early food and commerce going.

Oh, i agree with all of you guys =)
I was just wondering if i was indeed making the good choice and reasoning when doing that, because of the comment about "growing while building a boat" when i found it was, in fact, optimal to stop growth to build a boat faster. I was curious if any of you would have indicated that it was better to use, i dunno, a forest or whatever.

As somewhat of a civ4 beginner I say go for growth first. If I dont play a nation with mysticism as starter tech (practicly impossible to found budd/hinduism) I like to get the commerce as fast as possible so that I can found Judaism fast. And if you say have a river+dester (the 3 :food: 1 :commerce:) tiles, I always pick that one first. After that I pick any resource at the coast ( 2 :food: 2 :commerce:) and then 3rd tile will be whatever is possible with hight food/commerce.

I always go for maxsize in my capitol (prince, so thats usually 5 or 6 with religion) before I start a settler. Dunno if thats the wisest thing to do :)

I've tried building the boat slowly (working a 2 or 3 food tile until size 2, then adding a hammer tile) and at medium speed (working a plains forest tile for 1 F 2H), but the fast boat is the best. Love that early game food/commerce from seafood!

By the way, this topic is one of the reasons I love playing as America ... I start with both Agriculture and Fishing, so I almost always have an immediate way to get some food going, and I'm two steps closer to Pottery and Sailing for even more food growth.

As somewhat of a civ4 beginner I say go for growth first. If I dont play a nation with mysticism as starter tech (practicly impossible to found budd/hinduism) I like to get the commerce as fast as possible so that I can found Judaism fast. And if you say have a river+dester (the 3 :food: 1 :commerce:) tiles, I always pick that one first. After that I pick any resource at the coast ( 2 :food: 2 :commerce:) and then 3rd tile will be whatever is possible with hight food/commerce.

I always go for maxsize in my capitol (prince, so thats usually 5 or 6 with religion) before I start a settler. Dunno if thats the wisest thing to do :)

The problem is that the longer you delay improving your tiles, the longer it takes you to get your empire up and running and new cities settled. That's why a lot of folks build a worker or workboat right away, or at the latest when the city is size 2. The short term benefit of growing quickly (without improving your land) doesn't pay off in the long run. Although I suppose if you started with a bunch of floodplains you could grow to size 3 or 4 and hope to research Bronze Working, then whip out a worker.

Generally speaking, though, even if you have great land to start, that land can always be made better by a worker or a workboat.

Alvan: Ofcourse if you want an early religion work a tile with as high :commerce: as possible. But the price you pay for that religion is slower growth of your cities and empire, you have to decide if it's worth it and what path to walk.

You always want to improve food asap because that increases your rate of growth overall. With a coastal start, that means getting a workboat asap although if you don't start with fishing, but do start with ag and you also happen to have a farmable (rice/wheat/corn) then worker first while teching fishing is a good plan. In that case bw will be next cuz you can start whipping asap with that much food

There is no clear best in the question workboat or worker. It very much depends on the situation.

If there are land food resources that can be improved and sea food resources that can be improved, then the situation becomes the most difficult. The advantage for the workboat is that it only costs half as much. The advantage for the worker is that it can improve multiple tiles without disappearing. And thus it depends on the amount of work that is available for the worker when it is finished.

In my last game as the Dutch, I started with 2 sea food resources (clam) and wheat (with fresh water) and pigs. It was a good starting position, allthough the surrounding lands turned out to be pretty poor. The Dutch start with access to farming and fishing, so you can directly build workboats and improve the wheat tile with a worker. I calculated the optimum path and if I remember correctly it was workboat -> worker (so no growing to size 2 before building the worker) while researching mining and bronze working. The improved sea food resource helped to build the worker quicker and the commerce from the tile helped research bronze working quicker. The worker could first improve the wheat and could then start chop rushing the massive forests around the capital as bronze working was just finished at that point in the game. After the worker, the second workboat was build. The city was growing very quickly at that point. Pop rushing from the slavery civic was also very valuable. Only then did I research animal husbandry to be able to improve the pigs tile.
The huts that I discovered (all 5 of them) gave maps or barb uprisings, so no discovered technologies to quicken the research path.

It is clear that when building a workboat, then building a workboat with maximum production is best. The earlier that the workboat is finished, the earlier that you can use that valuable tile.

Another random workboat thought:

The fact that the workboat is a one-shot unit (used up after it builds the seafood improvement) means that its relative is value is less the longer it takes to build it. In other words, if you take 10 turns longer to build it, you'll never get the extra 20 food and 10 commerce (+2F+1C/turn). Ever.

Put another way, you are transforming 30 hammers now (the cost of the boat) into a future stream of 2 food and 1 commerce per turn. Why not make that stream as long as possible by building the boat faster?

Put another way, you are transforming 30 hammers now (the cost of the boat) into a future stream of 2 food and 1 commerce per turn. Why not make that stream as long as possible by building the boat faster?
Ah, but precisely, one could argue that by growing your city you can best prepare for a worker, for example (i'm not saying it's the case, i'm saying one could intuitively think that).
For example, if i were to try and counter your argument, i'd say that this is valid with a Worker, because a worker stunts growth to improve a virtually infinite number of tiles, but since a Workboat disappears after being used, the efficiency of not growing your one and only city might be questionable.

Anyway, as i've said before, i do try and get my boats out asap =)

Ah, but precisely, one could argue that by growing your city you can best prepare for a worker, for example (i'm not saying it's the case, i'm saying one could intuitively think that).
For example, if i were to try and counter your argument, i'd say that this is valid with a Worker, because a worker stunts growth to improve a virtually infinite number of tiles, but since a Workboat disappears after being used, the efficiency of not growing your one and only city might be questionable.

Anyway, as i've said before, i do try and get my boats out asap =)

I'm fascinated by the distinction between production capacity (PC) and production (P). Civ rewards us in the long-term when we invest in our PC. The catch is that we also want to produce stuff that lets us win the game.

Early rush strategies are all about P -- chopping and whipping a force of units to defeat the other guy and take his PC. Conversely, the various beeline strategies are invariably about PC -- acquiring an advantage that lets you produce something new or more of what you already have.

The game favors a balance between P and PC, though at different stages, one is the predominant focus.

Sorry for the tangent. :P

Back on the subject, I'd be interested in a comparison between a city that grows and then whips a workboat or two compared to the city that built the workboats by working a high hammer tile.

Riddle me, riddle me, rot-tot-tote!
A little wee man, in a red red boat!

tech path is fishing, then straight to bronze. if you don't start with fishing making a worker first is best.

fastest way to get the boat out is usually make warrior till 1 turn from growing to 2. Then turn on the boat. When u hit population 2 slave the boat. (On quick speed its in general 5-6 turns to grow to population 2) Carryover, if any, will go into warrior which will likely finish 1 or 2 turns after the boat. Then make worker unless you have nothing for him to do which should take 5 turns maybe 6 depending on if its clam or fish or whatever.
So in 11 to 14 turns you made work boat, warrior and worker. Not too shabby imo.

If you dont start with fishing, work the highest food tile first. Once you get fishing, switch to a workboat, but keep working the highest food tile. After growing to size 2 maximize hammers to get the workboat out.

If you start with fishing, and have a plains hill forest in your initial 8 tiles, as would be obvious, workboat and plains hill forest. If you dont have a plains hill forest, or dont have it in your initial 8 tiles, I would follow the high food approach again (Work high food until size 2, then work max production). In the long run it maximizes food while losing a bit of commerce.

So going by what u just said you'll have one workboat on about turn 10
and no worker and no defense.

I think u should re-read the post above yours :P

Basically, with forested hill option (or forested plains, whatever with 2-3 shields):
Say work boat will be finished after nine turns, no growth, on 10th turn work boat start working seafood, city takes 5-6-7 to grow to size 2, instantly You get +2:commerce: (or +3:commerce: with Financial, I'm addicted to this trait) on a highfood tile, which can shave off few turns from starting technologies. So after ~16 turns You have size two city, earning commerce and growin nicely.

If You'll wait with boat, city takes 11 turns to grow to size 2, after that 15 turns to wait for workboat (if You want to maximize growth, or 6 if You want to get workboat asap). You'll start earning :commerce: 17-26 turns after start.

So workboat first for me :D

tech path is fishing, then straight to bronze. if you don't start with fishing making a worker first is best.

fastest way to get the boat out is usually make warrior till 1 turn from growing to 2. Then turn on the boat. When u hit population 2 slave the boat. (On quick speed its in general 5-6 turns to grow to population 2) Carryover, if any, will go into warrior which will likely finish 1 or 2 turns after the boat. Then make worker unless you have nothing for him to do which should take 5 turns maybe 6 depending on if its clam or fish or whatever.
So in 11 to 14 turns you made work boat, warrior and worker. Not too shabby imo.

This assumes that you have bronze working (for slavery) shortly after starting the game. That is unlikely unless you find it in a goody hut and you can't base a strategic approach on the chance that you do happen to find it in a goody hut.

Riddle me, riddle me, rot-tot-tote!
A little wee man, in a red red boat!

Thanks a lot VoU =)

If you have another high food source (usually grains), make a worker first, and grow to size 2 on the boat, and chop it (if you don't mind using up the forests). Fishing boats do not have further improving value, so they don't increase food/hammers in the longterm as a worker. Conversely, you don't have to wait 4-6 turns for them, so it's better after the worker. In theory, the turns you save, your worker can use to chop another forest.

If you have only seafood for food (flood plains don't count), and you don't want to do a worker-worker-settler build (not enough forests or mines, didn't start with mining and all the hills are forested), build the boat ASAP. It'll save you a turn or two on bronze working.

If you have a high food land source and not enough forests, you can just skip completing the workboat until after the settler. And remember, unless you're doing a really late settler (aka wonder) build, you're only going to be running 2 population while you're building your settler.

You're assuming you have access to all the techs you need, which is almost never the case =/

If you have another high food source (usually grains), make a worker first, and grow to size 2 on the boat, and chop it (if you don't mind using up the forests). Fishing boats do not have further improving value, so they don't increase food/hammers in the longterm as a worker. Conversely, you don't have to wait 4-6 turns for them, so it's better after the worker. In theory, the turns you save, your worker can use to chop another forest.

If you have only seafood for food (flood plains don't count), and you don't want to do a worker-worker-settler build (not enough forests or mines, didn't start with mining and all the hills are forested), build the boat ASAP. It'll save you a turn or two on bronze working.

If you have a high food land source and not enough forests, you can just skip completing the workboat until after the settler. And remember, unless you're doing a really late settler (aka wonder) build, you're only going to be running 2 population while you're building your settler.

You're assuming you have access to all the techs you need, which is almost never the case =/

Joao II (fishing and mining) could pull it off. Any leader with any two of fishing, mining, and agriculture can do it, because only bronzeworking and the third tech would be missing. Everyone else is stuck with a different strat, though. (You would need spare forests to use, of course. I've been hit with forest poor starts recently.)

That's the coolest part of this game! No one strategy is ideal across the board. Even the strengths of the individual leaders can change the math (if you don't have the tech, you can't chop, or farm, or fish until you do). We almost have to say, "given a particular math AND a certain leader" to find an ideal for the case.

I usually go for worker and bronze working or warrior->worker and mining->bronze working anyway. I could chop out the work boat(s) later. Your growth turns out to be faster that way. I call it "make haste slowly".

IYour growth turns out to be faster that way. I call it "make haste slowly".

Do you have hard numbers to back this statement? Such as the analysis made by VoU in the thread he linked.

Riddle me, riddle me, rot-tot-tote!
A little wee man, in a red red boat!

Not the "little man in the boat" I was expecting. Pity. :p

Another subset of this subject is when do you STOP making boats and switch to workers? After all, It's not unusual to have 3 or more seafood tiles in a BFC.

I usually play on Monarch difficulty. With a happy cap of 5 for most starts, I can usually only work 2, possibly 3 seafood tiles until I get a religion, hereditary rule, etc.

My seafood start build is usually:

1. Workboat #1 (hammer tiles worked),
2. Workboat #2 (working the seafood tile to size 2, then add the hammer tile back in at size 2)
3. Warrior until I hit size 3 (working 2 seafood plus other food tile)
4. Worker (working 2 seafood plus best food/hammer tile, possibly whipped to completion)
5. Worker
6. Finish Warrior
7. Settler
8. Workboat #3

After I get my workforce, warrior, and settler built, I will usually go back and chop/whip out another boat.

I suppose you could go seafood-crazy and develop 3-5 seafood tiles right out of the gate for some insane food production, whipping out the last three boats, but I think you'd hit some serious happiness problems. Once you have that going, though (with stable happiness) you can crank out workers and settlers like nobody's business.

Given a choice of 3 total production tiles in the beginning, say a forest/plain/hill, a forest/plain and a forest/grassland, and choosing to build a workboat first, it makes sense that forgowing food for production will be the best because the quicker you produce the workboat, the quicker you are working a 4 or 5 production tile rather than a 3 production tile. It is true that growing sooner allows another worked tile, and more production, but each extra unimproved tile adds only 1 food or production since you have to feed your citizens. The key is to work the most improved tiles the soonest.

The question with the workboat depends on whether getting the workboat out quicker is worth more than the city growth. Well, you either gotta do the math, or reload the game each way and see how you come at after X# of turns.

Here's the math on epic speed, assuming workboat first, in one case working a 3H tile, and in the other a 2F1H tile. For the 3H case, we will look at both fish and clams, as fish give 1 more food. This difference doesn't matter for the other case, because we will be done with the study when the more slowly built boat finishes. Each case will be broken down at what has been produced at turns 12, 17, 19, and 21, turns when growth happens or a WB is finished. Production is for after the turn is completed.

Case 1, work 2F1H forest grassland tile.
At each turn will have produced:
Turn 12: 24F, 24H
Turn 17: 34F, 34H (grow to size 2, work another 2F1H, resulting in 1 more hammer per turn)
Turn 19: 38F, 40H
Turn 21: 42F, 1H overflow after completing workboat.

Case 2, work 3H, have clams to improve. Will switch to 2F1H on turn 12 as that will be enough to complete the boat.

Turn 12: Complete work boat, 2F, 1H overflow, now working 4F2C tile
Turn 17: 20F, 5H
Turn 19: 28F, 7H
Turn 21: 36F, 9H plus 18C (27 if financial) (grow to size 2)

Case 3, same as above, but have fish.


Turn 12: Complete work boat, 2F, 1H overflow, now working 5F2C tile
Turn 17: 25F, 5H
Turn 19: 35F, 7H (grow to size 2)
Turn 21: 45F, 11H plus 18C (27 if financial)

So if we grow as quick as possible, when the workboat is completed, we are size 2, having produced 42 total food, and have 1 hammer additional production from overflow.

If you make the workboat as fast as possible, and have clams, after the same # of turns, you have 6 less food produced, but have produced 8 more hammers. Since a worker is the likely next build, 8 hammers is definitely better than 6 food. But we have also produced 18 more commerce from working the clams for 9 turns.

It's really a huge difference if you have fish to improve. In the end, you have 3 more food and 10 more hammers. Not to mention the 18 commerce.

It gets more interesting if you have floodplains available to work ... you will grow to size 2 quicker, and be getting some commerce. I'm not going to go into it right now.

But here is something a bit more interesting ... suppose you start with fishing and mining, and can complete BW by the time a worker is built and have plenty of forest around. By far the quickest way to grow the city is to go worker first and then chop for production. If you have enough forests, you can chop until your worker(s) have something else to do. Chop Work boats, chop a warrior, another worker, a settler.

If I start with mining I will usually build worker first then chop out my first workboat. I play on epic so I'm not sure of the exact numbers. but you can get much higher production with worker first though you get more commerce by going workboat first. basic numbers as follows (epic speed)

23 turns for bw
23 turns for worker (less with Expansive)
9 turns for fishing
45 turns for workboat at 3 food--grows in 11 turns(?)
15 turns for wb at 1f 2h--grows in 33
11.33 turns at 3h

people are seeming to agree that 3h tile is best to use so let's look at those numbers:

12th turn boat pops 2f or 2h overflow. food is good if growing hammers are nice if building another wb, let's go with growth.
33 food needed for pop 2 that's 28 more food so 8 turns so that's 8 of the hammers needed for second boat so we still need another 37(or they are used to build something if worker is second and you just want to get to pop 2) so again we want to suppress growth and use max hammers or work the fish and use the 3 hammer tile and still get +2f , if we stagnate we can get 5 hammers and have the boat out in 8 turns, so we have a +6 food surplus for our worker after 27-28 turns, 10 more turns for worker, we should have BW and another tech done by then so after 38 turns we are pop 2 and have gained about +14 commerce.

worker first out at 23 turns 6 turns for moving and chopping workboat for 22h (I think)so workboat out at 29th turn, then grows in 8, during wich time the worker can easily mine a plains hill or grassland hill to decrease the time for the next wb. so basically with wb first you will have a second food source up for about 5-6 turns so 10-12 food while the worker first build gives you 13+ worker turns to build mines or whatever, I'd say it's pretty even it just depends what's more important to you and the map set up.