I've been lurking for quite some time now, and it appears that most of the people here favor the worker>let city grow for N population>warrior/settler/worker build. But everytime I try that, AI would always beat me to juicy spots in the map. So that is why I'm forced with a worker>settler>settler opening (and thus mining>BW, so you can chop the 2 settlers).

So, does the worker>settler>settler works in emperor and above? Can somebody explain to me the merits and demerits of this kind of opening? Thanks.

P.S.> I already posted this in one of the threads, but I think this merits a stand-alone thread. BTW, I play in Monarch, I've been trying in Emperor, but I've been WTFPWND in my three attempts. Thanks :D

It's map-dependent. I would only every try something like that (1 settler only and a choke point) while Imperialistic and a lot of forests to chop. The other problems are your economy is going to be in shambles after such an opening, you will be lacking workers very badly and you won't have any barb protection therefore.

You can't get every good city peacefully.

Chopping can't keep up with high yield food tiles.

For really tight situations you might open worker -----> grow to whatever pop lets you work your best specials -----> settler (even if the settler is at pop 2). In one of the immortal U games I saw some gold/cow between myself and gilgamesh and did just that, because it also served to block him. I think I was one of two people who got that site peacefully.

Normally, though, it's a balance. Without barbs going recklessly into new sites isn't bad. If they're there then you do need some units to spawn bust and guard new cities, and you have to build them some time. I wouldn't work unimproved tiles to build them though.

What happened to the old worker>worker>settler opener? I know I've often found myself straying from it for more earlier warriors as I've gone up in difficulty and barbs come sooner, but I thought that it was still supposed to be the landlocked optimal production? Or am I behind the times?

I vary some based on map, but I'd say my most common now is like:
worker>worker>warriors growing to 2-3 depending on tiles>settler>warriors growing to max>settler
It's a little slower on the 1st settler, but overall seems to work ok as I can improve tiles then dual chop. Any thoughts?

It really is map and leader-dependent.

My current game as Willem, I started with Coastal Fish, Coastal Clams, and nothing to mine or irrigate. Obviously a Worker wouldn't make sense in that situation. I think I built 2 Workboats before I started a Worker to improve my Cows.

That's a really obvious example but there are other cases where you would go Workboat or maybe Warrior or Scout first (if there would be nothing for the Worker to do).

Settler first is generally not good, but there may be situations where that's the right play.

Well, I assumed we were talking just landlocked here as the initial posts were dsicussing workers rather than workboats. I think the coastal discussions usually came down to the math between workboat>workboat or workboat>worker.

But you're right, it's a bit more leader dependent than I originally thought. I'm used to starting with mining and/or agriculture, so I can always improve a tile then chop, then usually have 1-2 more tiles I can already improve. If I had to wait on an extra worker tech or two I'd move the 2nd worker to later in the build order cause he couldn't do anything.

I play a lot of water-heavy maps (went back to Willem because I wanted to break a losing streak, lol). But even on a landlocked map, if you start with Pigs/Cows/Sheep and/or a lot of forest, your Worker may be twiddling his thumbs for a while, if you start with some combination involving Hunting/Mysticism/Sailing/etc.

Worker->Worker->Settler died when they nerfed initial chopping from 30 to 20 hammers, or so I understand.

Ah. I knew that was one of its stronger points, but I thought that thread had been updated since the nerf...Some of these threads stick around so long I lose track of if it was Vanilla only or is still good.

TMIT in that game I got the site as well by going worker-settler. The reason is that we have a cow which the worker will pasture giving us a 4F2H tile. After the tile is hooked up the settler goes quick at 1 pop. The alternative was size 2 and work the cow and work a mined plains hill or some other 4 food/hammer tile. Which is really only a 2 turn difference?

EDIT - and the really important thing was getting BW before you settled there since otherwise the optimal spot was on top of the unseen copper!

I generally build a worker, warrior, workboats(if seafood is present), then warriors/archers until I hit the point where I am working all the improved tiles or the happy cap. Then it's settler/worker/settler/worker....until I get my best sites settled, often whipping the last settler and worker. If there's a competitive choke point though, I will build a settler at population 2 to ensure I get it.

Worker-Worker only works on Marathon.

Worker-Worker only works on Marathon.

It's ok if you get one of those BUGGED Forest spam starts, and you have Fast-Workers.

But then I veer off and do the Worker->Worker->Wonders trick

TMIT in that game I got the site as well by going worker-settler. The reason is that we have a cow which the worker will pasture giving us a 4F2H tile. After the tile is hooked up the settler goes quick at 1 pop. The alternative was size 2 and work the cow and work a mined plains hill or some other 4 food/hammer tile. Which is really only a 2 turn difference?

EDIT - and the really important thing was getting BW before you settled there since otherwise the optimal spot was on top of the unseen copper!

I settled it w/o knowledge of BW. I just wanted to block more so I went there so I'd get more cities peacefully X_X.

I settled it w/o knowledge of BW. I just wanted to block more so I went there so I'd get more cities peacefully X_X.

I did the same. I grew to pop3 first though, and had no problem getting it peacefully.

Settler at pop1 is so rarely a good idea. If you are just scouting with 1 warrior you usually haven't even seen enough land yet to determine where to put the city. If you are this hard pressed for land you should probably be considering a rush and not settlers.

I did the same. I grew to pop3 first though, and had no problem getting it peacefully.

Settler at pop1 is so rarely a good idea. If you are just scouting with 1 warrior you usually haven't even seen enough land yet to determine where to put the city. If you are this hard pressed for land you should probably be considering a rush and not settlers.

If I don't see very early horses or AGG copper I HATE rushing though. It goes sour so easily.

Chariots >>> axes on normal speed IMO. The AI loses its ability to react on DoW if you have them early.

Chariots >>> axes on normal speed IMO. The AI loses its ability to react on DoW if you have them early.

Agreed. They are cheaper and faster. I am happy to suicide piles of them.

I always go Worker/Worker/Warrior (then possibly Settler) usually because if I don't I would always underwork my tiles, and the one warrior escorts my settler (I always tend to lose my first unescorted Settler to wandering animals), then after that locked build, it becomes map dependent from there.

Worker worker settler became less effective because:
1) AI got better at dealing with attacks. Warlords was very aggressive, it's often about the axe or UU early rush.
2) AI bonuses got changed. Fewer free workers meant that that you had more time to get your second city out
3) Happy cap got boosted, meaning you can grow to size 4 in your capital without needing a garrison and you don't need a garrison in all your expansions to grow above 2. Warlords you could just get your first two improvements and start chopping, and it turned out that if you chopped your 2nd worker working off 2 tiles, your settler came out at about the same time. Or put another way, the greater your production, the fewer turns chopping saved. You can get larger cities in BTS initially (and it was less desirable to delay expansions in warlords), so chopping has less of an effect.

Example
For example, warlords, let's say you have a 5 resource tile and some hills. Grow to size 2, your production is 5+1+2=8. Chopping gives 5 hammers per turn, so the second worker adds another 5 hammers/turn over the first one. Worker one builds in 5 turns if you chop, 8 turns if you don't (37.5% decrease). Settler comes out in 13 turns if you don't chop, at most 8 turns if both workers chop. In BTS, let's say you have 2 5 resource tiles and some hills. Grow to 4, your production is 5+1+3+2+2=13. A second worker will build in 5 turns, if you chop it will build in 4. Settler builds in 8 turns without chopping, 6 turns with one chop, 5 turns with 2 chops.

In my monarch and emperor games I usually build worker->warriors til pop 2 -> settler -> worker.

Early settler for securing that juicy piece of river + floodplains land, the horsies or the copper that turned up while getting BW, possibly AH in the meantime (if there's livestock in BFC or I'm persians looking for teh killer rushing UU).

Not an awful lot of barbs around at these levels either and they generally wait until the time you've got three cities up and running before entering your borders, at which time you should be able to have a few chariots/axes/archers up and running. So no need to go overboard in warriors, I'm thinking.