How do you cope with spawning in zero production terrain?

Athenaeum

Prince
Joined
Mar 20, 2015
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599
(Assuming Quick Pace)

Let's say you spawn in an all out jungle...obviously one of the first things you want to do is get bronze working and clear off the hills so you can have at least some production.

But it's going to take 20 turns or so to steal a worker and get it back to your base. And even then, its going to take a few more turns to clear off your first jungle tile.

Or even if there aren't any hills, plains, or bonus resources anywhere...this makes it to where it will take a long time to finish building national college among other things.

Do you consider going Liberty instead of Tradition (for that one extra shield and a much-needed starting boost)?
 
Or I consider not settling on spawn. It quick makes that a much harder choice. You just have to be aggressive and try to steal multiple workers to cut down the jungle fast.
 
Not settling on turn 0 seems to be a fatal mistake. As you said the risk is probably magnified from playing on Quick, but I still imagine that it would be unadvisable to do even on Standard.
 
Not settling on turn 0 seems to be a fatal mistake. As you said the risk is probably magnified from playing on Quick, but I still imagine that it would be unadvisable to do even on Standard.

There is no rule as to whether you should settle in place or not. I've moved my settler hundreds of times and it has worked out in my favor quite often, and it's very very rare that it makes the situation worse. You sort of have to have a knack for where you should move your warrior and then settler on turn 0.

To the OP, almost every map roll has production. Are you playing on strategic balance? This ensures iron and horses in the cap, which are both production. Combine that with the one (or more hopefully) hill that you should get in your cap, and you should have enough early production for settlers, NC, etc.

If you get something ridiculous like non-river flat jungle or desert with no bonus resources or mining luxes in your vicinity, than I would consider moving my settler or re-rolling altogether. I can only remember a handful of times that resulted in close to no production whatsoever, but they were all desert starts with a desert civ.
 
When you talk about moving your settler, how many tiles away are we talking? Moving him 2 tiles over and waiting an extra turn to settle? Or moving like 10 tiles away and taking 5 turns?

I will happily move my settler over one tile and still found capital on turn 0 if it's optimal to do. But I've always been of the mindset that it's best to take what your given and not delay capital founding. I guess that's close-minded, but it makes pretty good sense to me.

Your suggestions might solve the issue of NC taking too long to build, but it still leaves the question of what to do about your 2nd and 3rd cities? I usually don't have a problem with these, but sometimes it is complicated when the land around me has luxuries and production-terrain separated, so I have to pick one or the other.
 
When you talk about moving your settler, how many tiles away are we talking? Moving him 2 tiles over and waiting an extra turn to settle? Or moving like 10 tiles away and taking 5 turns?

Sometimes I just move 1 tile and settle turn 0. Other times I move ~4 tiles and settle turn 2 or 3. The vast majority of the time, I either settle on turn 0 or turn 1.

But I've always been of the mindset that it's best to take what your given and not delay capital founding. I guess that's close-minded, but it makes pretty good sense to me.

Well the map should be the defining variable here. If your start isn't great and you discover better land with your warrior, why in the world wouldn't you move?

Your suggestions might solve the issue of NC taking too long to build, but it still leaves the question of what to do about your 2nd and 3rd cities? I usually don't have a problem with these, but sometimes it is complicated when the land around me has luxuries and production-terrain separated, so I have to pick one or the other.

It is solved on a game-by-game basis. Some maps are so horrible that you either bite the bullet and do crazy things like liberty with early war, or you quit and re-roll. This is extremely rare, though. I almost always find good enough lands to 3 or 4 city tradition into mid-game wars.
 
The reason you might not want to move away from bad terrain is because you are suffering the lack of culture accumulation and research during that time.
 
The reason you might not want to move away from bad terrain is because you are suffering the lack of culture accumulation and research during that time.
Which is made up for by finding better terrain.
 
The reason you might not want to move away from bad terrain is because you are suffering the lack of culture accumulation and research during that time.

+1 culture and 1 turn towards pottery isn't going to slow you down. A pop ruin and/or culture ruin will exponentially outweigh that 1 turn. Even finding a cattle/banana/wheat will outweigh that turn, as your cap will grow faster which = more science.

I've had games where I moved my settler 3 turns, found a great city spot and a pop ruin, and was therefore at pop 2 faster than I would have been if I had settled in place. Even without the pop ruin, the settlement location was so much better that I would have grown to pop 3 quicker than if I had settled in place. The first few turns aren't as important as you seem to think. It's more or less about how well your lands/decisions 'scale' into the mid and late game.
 
I don't play low hammer starts.

Okay that isn't helpful.

If I decide to try and play out a start like that, I usually go Liberty and get extra workers than I usually do. Yes, I will hard build them if I need to, although in a case like this I'd probably try and save the gold and purchase one, along with stealing.

At some point you just got to accept that bad starts are... bad. You aren't going to hit the same benchmarks or the same finish times. Take the extra handful of turns to get everything on line, then try and make up the difference in the mid-game.
 
Moving your settler for 5/6 turns is no issue if you find a solid capital spot. Take for example Acken s LP with brazil in the dcl. He settled turn 8/9 in a great salt spot when original spawn was an ugly jungle mayhem. He won then ang still managed to keep good times for nc and edu
 
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