Turn 1 Worker build and related questions

Usually when worker stealing you are also planning to take out the target quite soon, so the diplo hit doesn't matter that much. A single warrior of yours can totally cripple an AI from expanding. Especially if you manage to get Woodsman II from winning a few barb animal battles. The WMII warrior can move around swiftly and do sneak attacks on unprotected workers. You can also just hang out in a forest next to his capital and the AI will only build archers, but not attack you until they have a lot of them. Mostly it is better to stay outside their borders to let them build new workers for you to steal.

When you get a couple of free workers to speed up your own start and the AI is prevented from improving his lands at all for a very long time, they are easy pickings as soon as you get any suitable offensive unit online.

LincolnOfRome said:

At lower levels, the best strategy is often the warrior rush--another warrior first strategy. You just build six warriors as quickly as possible and attack the nearest AI.

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Yeah, right on thru Prince, I abused the hell out of warrior rushes (sometimes to the point where I thought the game was a bit of a joke). Then I moved to Monarch and away went the warrior rush. The thing with warrior rush is that you immediately eliminated the civ you were rushing so, generally, there were no real repercussions.

Worker stealing sounds like poking the bear. But as elitetroops explains, if you are already planning on being aggressive with that neighbor and utilize AI stupidity (warrior parking), the diplo hit doesn't matter much. That's pretty awesome. On my next game, I will try this strat out (if it makes sense).

elitetroops said:

But it's also a bit risky, in case you can't find any available target nearby.

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Yes. In practice I will always start with worker. However, if I make contact with an AI in turn 2-4, I'll switch to warrior because I know an AI is near.

blitzkrieg1980 said:

Worker stealing sounds like poking the bear. But as elitetroops explains, if you are already planning on being aggressive with that neighbor and utilize AI stupidity (warrior parking), the diplo hit doesn't matter much. That's pretty awesome. On my next game, I will try this strat out (if it makes sense).

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Good luck! A lot of people don't realize what a huge difference an early warrior steal can make.

blitzkrieg1980 said:

On my next game, I will try this strat out (if it makes sense).

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Yes, good luck with that! You might end up pleasantly surprised!

Just make sure that you start your war by stealing a worker. If you declare and enter his lands in search of a worker, he will hide it in the city. Parking a warrior just outside his cultural borders next to a resource that he will improve is a good way to catch his worker. Or park it on a hill with good view of his lands so you can see where it is going. With WMII promotion this gets a lot easier as you get 2 moves.

Also, make sure he doesn't hook up any metals. If he gets an axe out, run. If he manages to kill your warrior, he will be thinking that he is winning the war and won't take peace very easily.

elitetroops said:

Yes, good luck with that! You might end up pleasantly surprised!

Just make sure that you start your war by stealing a worker. If you declare and enter his lands in search of a worker, he will hide it in the city. Parking a warrior just outside his cultural borders next to a resource that he will improve is a good way to catch his worker. Or park it on a hill with good view of his lands so you can see where it is going. With WMII promotion this gets a lot easier as you get 2 moves.

Also, make sure he doesn't hook up any metals. If he gets an axe out, run. If he manages to kill your warrior, he will be thinking that he is winning the war and won't take peace very easily.

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All great tips. Thanks again. I'll drop a post in here on how it goes when I try (still finishing up a NC with Sury right now)

Working stealing isn't a super consistent thing. The AI isn't always close, and even if he is he won't necessarily expose your worker to a one tile per turn warrior. Also if the AI is a maniac declaring war may hurt you more than the extra worker helps you. Also you still have to escort your worker back to your base through barbville, etc. And on higher levels you may not be able to make peace without trade bait like HR and giving it away. And if you're giving him a tech then you haven't really hurt the AI, and similarly if you've been in a long early war you're probably more behind than the free worker gave you.

I don't think building warrior over worker first is ever advisable, unless you're on the really low levels.

The coastal / fishing boat exception is also greatly overrated. For starters not all seafood is made equally. Clams/crabs/whales/sealions are a much different story than FISH. Unless you have fish as seafood, you'd probably be better off improving whatever land resources you do have, and going BW / chopping all your forests for an early second city.

On levels below Monarch worker stealing is much less effective for two reasons:-

1) The AI doesn't start with a worker so they have to build it before you can steal it!

2) As they don't start with a Scout either (unless they have Hunting) they explore with their initial warrior so make sure it's nowhere near your unguarded Capital!

You can make the AI always close.

High seas + Cold climate. Each civ only gets room for about 3-5 cities, it gets hectic and fun fast.

drewisfat said:

Working stealing isn't a super consistent thing. The AI isn't always close, and even if he is he won't necessarily expose your worker to a one tile per turn warrior. Also if the AI is a maniac declaring war may hurt you more than the extra worker helps you. Also you still have to escort your worker back to your base through barbville, etc. And on higher levels you may not be able to make peace without trade bait like HR and giving it away. And if you're giving him a tech then you haven't really hurt the AI, and similarly if you've been in a long early war you're probably more behind than the free worker gave you.

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Well, I wouldn't implement worker stealing any more haphazardly than I would implement any other strategy. Everything is map dependent, of course. From reading the other posts, there are other ways of maximizing return on this kind of gambit such as having a Woodsman2 promoted warrior (from animal killing) for speed and parking such a promoted warrior in a wooded hill near capital to prevent AI from building anything but archers (kinda cheesy but I'm told it works).