Exceptions to worker first?

I wish I could post screenshots. (I am playing the Windows version on a Mac using Wine, and it lets me install mods, but not take screenshots AFAIK.)

Anyway, here's a gamesave. Is this one of those times where one should not do worker first? Should I go WB>Worker? As best as I can figure, even though it's going to take longer than normal for the worker to come out (20 turns before border pop!) the worker is still going to be idle for a while, whether I research AH>Mining>BW, or Mining>BW>AH.

And more generally, when would something other than worker first be better?

Your only building worker because you want to improve the food resources. If theres no food then theres no point in building a worker. But if you do go warrior first its better to steal a worker from an AI.

Definitely a WB first start.

Start a WB. When border pops in 2 turns, work the 3H plains hill to speed the wb. I would probably then go second WB, working fish and then PH again.

Definitely go to BW and 2pop whip the worker at size 4, buiding warriors while you grow. The OF from worker can go into a settler (1 turn) then back to warriors while you grow gain. 3rd fish is not urgent. Get up 2 mines.

I would probably not prioritize AH here unless the land says other wise. 2 fish is plenty of early food and you have 3 hills to mine. This is plenty sufficient for expansion in the short term

The exceptions in general to worker first are usual coastal start like this one where land resources are minimal. For instance if I had seafood and wet corn and workable mines, I might go worker first on a coastal start and delay seafood. (If civ does not start with fishing tech, I would either start a warrior (grow) then switch to WB when fishing in and work max hammer tile or worker first then switch to wb. It all depends on the land and how fast you want the worker after netting the fish. If I have a 3F tile, non-Fishing start, I will grow on warrior to size 2 as Fishing comes in, and then switch to 2 high hammer tiles for WB...or instants 2 1F2H tiles.)

Also, there is worker stealing strategies that involve pumping out a few warrirors first, but that is more advanced. Of course, there's the Incans too.'


Edit: There are also rare cases, non-coastal, in which your leader has such bad start techs - like Charles - that depending on land, you would have so many idle worker turns. So I might delay the worker for warrior and build one at size two while I wait for decent worker tech like AH or BW, again dependent on land

Another notable exception to worker first, is when you play a civ that starts with mining, and you have access to a 3-food resource within your first ring.

Then you can grow to pop2 with a warrior or such, and then start building a worker.
Once BW arrives, you can revolt to slavery and whip out the worker.

The worker will arrive in time, and you will have enjoyed the benefit of working more tiles.


But in reality... this is just as much worker first, as any other worker first start. It's just abit more fancy. ^_^

MP, (unless you're playing a coop game against the AIs or play a 'x' number of turns grace period.)

rah said:

MP, (unless you're playing a coop game against the AIs or play a 'x' number of turns grace period.)

Click to expand...

Or start far away from each other, or have a high vantage point/production capital, or play risky.

I just got a start where I was on a small (~ 5 tile) island, all tiles near to the city was jungle. There were no seafood resources, and there was plains cow and stone within the BFC but on another island, and jungle rice on my island.

So, a worker could have done nothing until I either built a galley to get across to the cow or got iron working to chop the jungle.

I didn't play the start (though maybe I should have done for the challenge.) However, I wish I'd saved it just to post in the 'lol ridiculous starts' thread.