So we've had these fine discussions in a few threads on when to build the first settler; the worthies generally consented that (beyond worker first) it'd be a good idea grow populous enough to work the first BFC's bonus tiles (and their 5+ yields) before halting growth with settlers or more workers.

I thought, wow, this is by far the best way of timing this that I've seen, far better than just settling on 3, 4 or 5 as a target population. And I know it's still contingent on the circumstances of the game.

But one situation (which I've seen briefly addressed) is bothering me. Crappy starts. I know, in general, the rule is with a crappy start you want to think about getting a settler out somewhat quicker, rather than growing a bunch of citizens in the first city who'll just sit on 3-yield tiles or worse.

But, how much quicker? The instant that another citizen will yield <5 resources? <4? Depends on which?

I got a 1-pig, 1-rice, lots of hills woody start just now and I found myself wondering "What do I do? Chop a settler out once the pig and rice are worked (pop 2) or work a 4 hammer plains hill as well? I'm not sure if I even had BW so chopping wouldn't have started until a good way into the settler anyway.

EDIT: On reflection this might have gone in the city spec thread Futurehermit bumped. There's even a post from me in feb asking a similar question, lol.

I'd probably grow to 4 and whip repeatedly. The problem is that the 3rd tile will not have as high of a yield in this scenario. I'm not sure if you'd want to chop the settler out working the food tiles at pop 2 or if you'd want to grow to 4 then whip it.

Placing a 2nd city is probably a good idea but it depends on the worker techs you have. If your 2nd city can't improve its tiles right away growing might be better...still not sure myself.

A new city working a forest is a "6-yield tile". ;)

A new city working a forest is a "6-yield tile". ;)

They start slowing down the tech rate too much after a while though.

It gets pretty difficult for me to pay for a lot of cities before I gain access to sufficient :) sources (usually monarchy is needed pretty early unless I'm CHA or have high resource luck). I have a *really* hard time getting important techs if I settle more than MAYBE 1-2 *very* early cities, and close to the capitol, but even then a 2nd one will hurt if it doesn't have access to at least some commerce.

Is it really worth doing this if it means delays in things like pottery, archery without metal, etc? I'm guessing no...

I try to at least be able to improve my good tiles and have access to pottery/writing before my early commerce-based research tanks entirely. I seem to run into trouble doing even that though, because research to things like aesthetics or alphabet to trade for monarchy tends to come to a crawl.

Of course, crappy research doesn't matter if you get 12+ cities I guess. Getting that many pretty much means "stay alive in wars/avoid them and eventually you catch up/take the lead easily".

Edit: I'm talking about immortal difficulty in the above. Reduced maintenance and more expansion time make difficulties below it seem much easier now. I'd have to screw up pretty big to lose on emperor, even though immortal is kind of hard for me...

If the Pigs are on a hill, consider postponing AH and simply mining them. A 2F3H tile isn't bad (think Horses), and you'll get to BW a lot faster. In this case, you'd probably stop growth after 2 warriors to fogbust/escort, which is probably size 3.

If the Pigs are on flat grass and you have to tech all of Ag-AH-Mining-BW before you can chop, your worker is going to spend some time idle or roadbuilding (I wish the start generator didn't cover every tile in forests. It makes BW a required tech to build mines or cottages). In this case, you should build the settler as soon as it's safe, which is likely size 4.

Obviously if your start is completely forested you'll want BW before anything else. While waiting for it is a good time to build warriors.

I would allow the city to build to one less than the happy cap before building settlers in case you have a city that has quite a few bonus food tiles to avoid growing so fast that you get unhappy citizens frequently.