There's been a lot of discussion regarding getting 'free' settlers from Goody Huts. Since the Zulu are Expansionistic, this would seem to be a good game to employ a style that would maximize the odds of getting 'free' settlers. As I understand it, before you encounter a barbarian tribe, you make sure that all Settlers you have found cities, and all current builds are changed to something other than Settler. If either case exists, than the barbarian tribe will never generate a free settler for you. If I've mis-stated how this works, or left something else out, please feel free to elaborate.

I thought it would be enlightening to set up a poll and see how many of the respondants actively try to get settlers from barbarian tribes, how many don't, and in general the number of 'free' settlers that were received.

In my game, I encountered 8 barbarian camps, and actively tried to get settlers from them. I got 1 set of maps, 1 conscript warrior, 4 techs, and 2 settlers. (The last settler was way over behind the Japanese; it was something of a struggle to get him where he'd do some good.)

Until your post I had no idea how you can entice them.

I also only got one great leader in my whole game which I can't figure out because other people said they got 5 or 6.

Now that I know there is some sort of secret to getting free settlers I'd be a fool not to try it next time.

Cheers

Only 7 votes yet, but so far everyone got 1 or 2 settlers. :p

I didn't know this tactic either!

No offense guys but i don't buy that.
I actively try to get settlers still rarely do that ( ONE settler in 40 huts in 4 games, of course none in GOTM 12)
You should add some more options like:
"I actively reloaded until I got 1 settler form the closest hut"
"I actively reloaded until I got more than the average number of cities and therefore only got 2-3 settlers"

I'm not accusing anyone directly but I believe massive reloading took place.

Please state how many huts you popped and how many scouts you have used if you want me to belive it was just luck.

I changed settler production to other things in the city before entering into hut and got only 1 settler in beginning of the game. Further I ended my trying for remote huts because it's not need and no more free settlers was in my game.

Yes, there are actually 3 conditions for getting a settler.
1. You can't have any settlers running around anywhere.
2. None of your cities can be producing a settler (just get around this by switching to something else before popping the hut, then changing back to settler before ending your turn).
3. You must have equal to or less than the average number of cities/civ.

Yndy kind of mentioned #3. So that means you will never get a settler at 4000 B.C. because 1. If you don't build your capital, you have a settler 'running around' and 2. If you do build your capital, you have 1 city while the AI has 0, so you have more than the average # of cities.

So I almost never pop a hut at 4000 B.C., but will wait until 3950 B.C. to pop it, so I don't ruin my chances of getting a settler. And most people after they have popped 1 or 2 settlers, should then have more cities than the average AI, so they won't be getting anymore (unless playing Deity, I suppose). On lower levels if you expand faster than the AI and get your second city before the AI does, you won't ever get a settler because you'll always be above the average AI in terms of # of cities (but the odds of getting a settler is better on lower levels, so if you are behind, it's easier to catch up).

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
(but the odds of getting a settler is better on lower levels, so if you are behind, it's easier to catch up).

Bamspeedy, do you happen to know the odds given requirements 1, 2 and 3 that you have mentioned?

I would like to make a point here but I may be wrong.
What's the number of huts you need to pop to get 90% chance a free settler? How is this related to difficulty ?

Thx.

Ever since cracker posted this info about the key to getting settlers from goody huts I've been making sure that the conditions were right when popping a goody hut.

Still, the settler I got in this game :cool: was the first ever for me during a GotM.

When I replayed the game to see who had the most cities I see that when I got my settler from the south east hut, I had the same number of cities as all the AI. When I built the city with the settler I had more than everyone else and from then on I had more than the average as far as I can tell.

I also built two scouts as my first two builds since my assessment of the terrain plus the knowledge of the map type (Pangea) make this a good move for expansionist.

I doubt anyone reloaded as there would be no point in dicussing it on GOTM if they did.

And in previous experiments, I've discovered that reloading won't change your fate for that turn. All you can do is make alternative decisions (i.e. not pop a hut cos it has barbarians for example). this is unlike previous versions when a reload would re-randomise the huts.

I didn't get a Settler in GOTM12. Out of the GOTM's I've played (8?), in 3 of them I got Settlers. I'm careful about the first few huts I open up, but after 15 turns or so there isn't much point to getting a Settler. I'd rather have techs then. For example, a Settler at 3950BC is worth 14-20 turns, one at 3300BC is worth 7-10. Meaning that normally it takes that many turns to reach the hut increased number of cities.

I got one. I optimize the chance, but it's usually zero or one for me.

Bamspeedy, do you happen to know the odds given requirements 1, 2 and 3 that you have mentioned?

I would like to make a point here but I may be wrong.
What's the number of huts you need to pop to get 90% chance a free settler? How is this related to difficulty ?

Aargh, the search feature has been disabled by the administrator. :(

If the search function of the forums work later you should do a search of threads that mention 'goody huts' and are posted by Sumthinelse. Sumthinelse has done extensive tested on the probabilities of what you get from a hut. The easier levels have better odds of getting good stuff (like settlers) from huts. Don't quote me on this, but IIRC, on Deity you only have a 5% chance of getting a settler (I don't remember if that was for expansionists or non-expansionists). 5% is from each hut, so you would need to pop 18 huts on average to ensure that 90% of the time you get a settler at some point in the game (for deity level), assuming there are that many huts available. Lower levels would require less huts to get a settler in 90% of your games. But if someone got a settler in 9 out of 10 GOTMs, I too would be suspicious.

In this game, many players may have decided to build a granary in their capital as the first thing. Building a granary first, will slow down how fast you get that first settler out of your capital, but it allows your scout(s) more time to grab more huts and hopefully get that free early settler. And of course after the granary is complete, the settlers will be coming out of the capital left and right.

I started one game (can't remember the level I was playing) and had my capital produce nothing but scouts. Got at least 3 settlers. But obviously the 3rd settler was so far away (because I couldn't get it until each AI had an average of 3 cities each). So, if someone was playing an OCC game they could get several settlers from huts. Otherwise, if they get 2 or more settlers from huts, either they are playing deity, or they started on really crappy land, or they are really bad at expanding.

Thanks to Bamspeedy for noting the 3rd rule. (I'd forgotten about it.) Since you have to have equal to or less than the average number of cities of all the civs, the free Settler is self-policing. If you get a lot of Settlers, you're already so far behind that this just starts to get you caught up. So, in retrospect, the poll options should have been for 0, 1, 2 or 3+.

I built a second scout as my first build, so I had two scouts moving around. I believe the 3rd hut I opened gave me a settler (I probably still had only 1 city.) I did build an early granary which probably allowed the other civs to catch up in total cities. The second settler came from my 8th hut, which was a long way away, as I mentioned earlier. I established an embassy with the Japanese, and got a ROP, which allowed me to get the settler close enough to create an impi escort and bring it home.

Number of reloads while opening huts: 0. (My only reload in this game was when my 2 year old decided to move an impi into some mountains rather than along the road as I intended. 2 year olds don't make good generals! ;) )

I can see using the free settler strategy to intentionally build more early city improvements, knowing that I can potentially catch up on city builds later by popping huts. However, that 2nd settler was not very convenient for me, so in reality I would assume, at best, 1 free settler in a game.

I got a settler out of my first or second hut. So I build my second city with it way before I could finish the first settler myself.

Bamspeedy, I checked the thread you mentioned shortcut below (if it works?)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=24911&highlight=goody+AND+huts (http://)

The people there thought that there was a strong connection between warrior and settler. They calculate that probability of a unit (which might be settler) varies from 5% to 15 % depending on difficulty and expansionist trait.

They did not know of the pre-requisites for obtaining settlers and therefore never got a clear separation between warrior and settler.

So for this GOTM the chance of a unit was probably up to 15%. On one occasion they quoted settlers being 5% of the units. That would make .75% chance but that seems too low even for me.

If I would have the time to test I'll post results.

I voted 1-2 without actively seeking. I keep forgetting to check for these conditions when approaching a hut (as you see I will never become an elite player) but popped one none the less - excellent!

As the poll is showing I would consider 1-2 the norm for this GOTM for two main reasons:
1. Expansionist , and
2. an early scout to get to a high numer of huts

I started the goody huts test last night. I begun testing with an expansionist civ. I have only 80 records so far so can't really draw a conclusion about settlers.
Still the probability is more than 1% so the previous testing was flawed probably due to lack of knowledge regarding settler pre-requisites.
On the other hand, in order to get the results recorded in this poll (75% got a settler) you should have opened a LOT of huts. It's either that or the guys who didn't get settlers never voted.

Yndy, the contents of huts are partly predetermined. Everybody who settled Zimbabwe across the river and then opened the hut to the SW got at least one Settler.

I concur with Yndi.

Bamspeedy do you agree with Ribannah, if the content is pre-determined then that would explain why Yndi got only 1% so far in his test ...but is that really so ?

Because of the way the RNG works, everyone who opens a hut after following a certain series of moves (from turn 1) will get the same result. So huts nearby starting locations are going to show increased %'s in the 'common' method of opening it in any given game.

In the first Tourney game, there was a Mountain visible from the starting location (Elite Division). The obvious move with the scout is to move it onto the Mountain. Next to the Mountain was a hut, which you can't get a Settler from in 4000BC, so moving onto the mountain was still the obvious move. As long as the capitol was founded in 4000BC, the obvious move was to open the hut in 3950BC. Everyone who made this choice got a Settler from the hut. The % was much higher than would have been expected because it was the obvious way to play.

I'm not too sure how obvious the early (3900BC) Settler sequence was in GOTM12. Going back to figure it out, the move sequence seemed rather counter-intuitive to me in several ways. I also don't know how many people started out in that fashion, but I would think it would be a very small percent which would open in that manner. I certainly didn't.

The reason I crossed the river (and of course first founded and only then opened the hut) was that I was going to play OCC and the other bank looked a touch more attractive (of course once I got there ... nah, only much later I learned that there was no shielded grassland under all those forests. :mad: )
Surely I'm not the only one who went for OCC in game 12? :D
Or maybe everyone else changed their mind when they got that settler. ;)

The contents are not 'pre-determined' the way some of you are thinking. They can be 'pre-determined' if everyone followed the EXACT same unit movements, like Aeson pointed out. There have been some posts in the past that shows you can get different results by popping the same hut on the same turn. This can be done by using up RNG numbers by worker automation, units (like scouts) on auto-explore, and battles. And popping huts on different turns will get different results, so especially on the further away huts you will get vastly different results based on what kind of exploring route your scout took to get there.

If you want an accurate test, create a custom map where you have 100+ huts around your capital. Make a unit that only your civ has, be able to move 100 tiles/turn (this would be easy to do if you are expansionists and none of the AI are, so you can give the scout 100 moves). Start popping the huts, and disband the settlers you get so you don't ruin your chances for more. (Don't start popping the huts until 3950 B.C. of course).

Guys,

I'll post the results in my settlers test (part one expansionist civ).
Bamspeedy, I didn't want to do a moded game because issues were raised by guys tested that modding the game flawed the tests.

So I started a Deity game with americans on a large, max land, Pagaea, raging barbs, 8 AI civs and I switched OFF the 'Preserve Random Seed'.

I built one military unit and a lot of scouts. By 2470 BC I identified 8 huts and did not open them. The test was 63 reloads of the opening of the eight huts in 2470BC and reloading. Because of mis-clicks I only got 498 valid results.

The results were:
Deserted: 45.6%
Technology: 21.0%
Gold: 8.6%
Maps: 6.8%
Warrior: 8.4%
Settler: 9.2%

Previous tests by others suggested the most probable way the probabilities work to be in this case :
Deserted: 45%
Non-deserted: 55%

Out of the non-deserted:
Tech: 40%
Gold: 15%
Maps:15%
Settler:15%
Warrior:15%

This percentage is larger than I have imagined and I am still to test the percentage when non-expansionist civs are involved.
Moreover, previous tests suggest that the lower level you play the better your changes are for good events. By a rule of thumb, GOTM 12 chances should have been:
Deserted: 35%
Non- deserted: 65%

Implied chance for a settler: 9.75%

Any comments?

Where did you come up with the numbers for Monarch level? Of course, the odds should be better than Deity, but I don't see how you figured out how much better the odds would be on Monarch. 35% of huts being deserted seems a little high, but I guess I don't really know because I usually lose track of how many huts I'm popping because I have so many scouts on auto-explore.

But if there is a 10% chance of a settler from a hut, you just need to pop 10 huts to give yourself very good odds of a settler. And with the Zulu and no other expansionist civs around, it's not that hard when you build an extra scout or two (or three or four :) ).

The 'search' feature doesn't even work at 6 AM? :mad:

But I did find a thread that I started where Sumthinelse posted a quote from Firaxis that states some rules on what you get from huts. Not sure if this was in the thread you looked at, Yndy.

It's not really that it's difficult; it's just that it was implemented by an intern . Here are the conditions:

Gold:
*The tile must not have any type of resource or luxury on it.

Maps:
--always available

Nothing:
--always available

Settler:
*Player must not have a settler (active or in production) or any unit with the Settle AI strategy.
*Number of player's cities must be <= (TotalCities / NumActivePlayers).

Mercenaries (skilled warrior):
*There must be a unit available to the Barbarians as well as the player and that unit must be able to be built (or have been built) by some player in the game.

Tech:
*Player must still be in Ancient Times.

Barbarians:
*Player must not have Expansionist trait.
*There must not be a city within a 1-tile radius.
*The player must have at least 1 city.
*The player must have at least 1 military unit.
*The unit popping the hut must not have the "All Terrain As Roads" ability.


__________________
Mike Breitkreutz
Programmer
FIRAXIS Games


Last edited by Mike B. FIRAXIS on Aug 01, 2002 at 09:37 PM


So, some situations may skew the results on how often you'll get gold from huts, if one of the huts was on a luxury or resource. The person who said mods may affect results is correct, as you can see in the chances for barbarians, settlers, and mercenaries where some cases would skew results if someone was using modded units (however, unit movement points would not affect the results, just attributes and abilities like 'treat all terrain as roads' and 'settle city'.

And the rules for barbarians is a nice to know, so using a worker to grab a hut, may not be as dangerous as it seems, if you haven't built any military yet (or settled a city yet). I think Zachriel had a situation like this when playing Japan and alot of people thought he was crazy for popping a hut with his worker. But I would do more tests before doing that in a GOTM, especially the 'at least 1 military unit' rule.

The chances of getting a map (and possibly also barbs) diminish if you have explored more of the surroundings.

I don't know about that. I have gotten maps that didn't even actually 'reveal' any tile that I hadn't already discovered.

I knew about the settler conditions but the others are new for me. Great to know the barb conditions!

Originally posted by ProPain
I knew about the settler conditions but the others are new for me. Great to know the barb conditions!

Watch out for the "Treat all tiles as Roads" ability. It refers to Explorers only not to Workers as many tend to think.

Basically the only thing you can do is not to build any military units to avoid barbs. But you have to keep the people content in the same time. Tough call I'd say.