Any reason not to go full production for building settlers?

chris. · Jul 3, 2015

Switching your citizens to production tiles doesn't seem to cause starvation when building settlers, and your city isn't growing anyways. The only consideration might be gold from working certain tiles (but not often early on). Is there any reason you wouldn't switch all of your citizens to production tiles (besides the tile having a food yield that is converted into more hammers than a production tile)? I've been doing this to build settlers in around half the usual time with no noticeable downside.

This is especially helpful for my first and second settler builds. Am I missing something?

Erneiz Hyde · Jul 3, 2015

Nope. You are doing it right. You can starve your city while building a settler. If you stole a worker and have several gold/silver hills nearby, even better.

DutchJob · Jul 3, 2015

Every time I forget to do this I shout "Doh!" and feel like Homer Simpson.

Bimblecrumbs · Jul 3, 2015

Your city should always be at it's maximum possible production when building settlers. There's no downside, just remember not to starve it afterwards. It's sometimes worth buying an extra high production tile to get settlers out even faster.

Sometimes the maths is a bit confusing and, for example, a grassland horse may add more production than a hill. Be sure to spend a few seconds playing around with tile assignments, as the "production focus" setting doesn't always choose the highest possible production. I think this is because food counts towards production for settlers and the AI doesn't take that into account.

Basically get as many hammers out of the city as possible and obviously work as many gold tiles as possible in the process.

revelation216 · Jul 3, 2015

Try this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5vSKAahXT4

Explains how food gets added to production

z284pwr · Jul 4, 2015

Erneiz Hyde said:
Nope. You are doing it right. You can starve your city while building a settler. If you stole a worker and have several gold/silver hills nearby, even better.

One trick regarding starving a city while building a settler, if you get barbs in your terrain causing your city to start and possibly lose population....just queue up a settler, no more lost population

noonex · Jul 4, 2015

revelation216 said:
Try this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5vSKAahXT4

Explains how food gets added to production

Yeah e.g. sometimes 5F 1H gives more hammers than 2H tile while building settlers

Dushku · Jul 7, 2015

noonex said:
Yeah e.g. sometimes 5F 1H gives more hammers than 2H tile while building settlers

Well it will always give at least as much since it takes 4 food (after the first 4) to make another hammer.

Resipsa · Jul 7, 2015

z284pwr said:
One trick regarding starving a city while building a settler, if you get barbs in your terrain causing your city to start and possibly lose population....just queue up a settler, no more lost population

Yes you can also dedicate a city to produce your GWAM and once you can work all your Slots for Culture and Science you can starve your city and maintain population by maintain by continually building settlers.

noonex · Jul 7, 2015

Dushku said:
Well it will always give at least as much since it takes 4 food (after the first 4) to make another hammer.

Well, in my recent game 2F2H contributed more than 3H tile (with collective rule). I don't calculate formula, just play around trying which combination gives the most hammers

Dushku · Jul 9, 2015

noonex said:
Well, in my recent game 2F2H contributed more than 3H tile (with collective rule). I don't calculate formula, just play around trying which combination gives the most hammers

Somebody said something to me recently that helped me explain how this works. I used to think that it was 1st, 2nd, and 4th food equated to hammers, along with every 4th food beyond that. However, this is true of EXCESS food, not food in general. So if it's early game and you're building a Settler at 3 pop, the first 6 food won't count.

So in the scenario you mentioned, chances are your other tiles exactly fed your citizens. Meaning the 2F 2H tile was treating the 2 food as the 1st and 2nd excess food, and therefore hammers each.

Acken · Jul 9, 2015

Yes only excess food. This by the way means that a high number of food is necessary for hammer yield so only food heavy starts really benefit from that or if you already have food bonuses like the granary or landed elite.
However if you have the choice between X food or X production the production will ALWAYS be better so it's only necessary to make some checks if you go from say 2 production to a 2food 1production tile.

Finally the liberty policy do not multiply food yield.

Silverfuturist · Aug 2, 2015

Here is the funny thing about starving a city to make a settler - if you leave the game and the AI takes over for you while you are starving a city (this happens in multiplayer) - the AI will not "unstarve" the city when the settler finishes. I have seen many a person leave the game and the capital shrinks, then the capital stays tiny for a long time!

Any reason not to go full production for building settlers?

chris.

Chieftain

Erneiz Hyde

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DutchJob

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Bimblecrumbs

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revelation216

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z284pwr

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noonex

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Dushku

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Resipsa

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noonex

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Dushku

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Acken

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Silverfuturist

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