When to build first settler?

[siggboy]

Please stop quoting troytheface, it bypasses my ignore list.

God, I just wanted to say that in reply to rolo. But yeah, please don't sabotage our /ignore efforts.

 

[siggboy]

even "odd" numbers (a term generally used only when referring to base-10 numbers)

The term "odd" (meaning "divisible by two with a remainder of one") applies to any integer, where it does not matter which base you're using to represent it in written form.

I would say that most often when the terms "odd" and "even" are used (namely in mathematics), you don't even refer to concrete values but integer variables instead, and mathematics doesn't really care about which base you prefer anyway (an integer is an integer).

 

[Divaythsarmour]

In my last game, I never built settler. And I only built one worker.

 

[Emac78]

Thank you guys for your interesting advice. It will definitely give me some more to think about for my next few games and hopefully I can get BTS soon.

 

[SirLamphead]

I usually build a settler right away and scout for a nice site for the new city.
After that I build a warrior and so forth.
I am not the best CivIV player, is this a good or bad strategy?

 

[r_rolo1]

Ok, siggboy and Dave, no more troytheface quoting

I just don't do that as well because trolls are fun in small doses ( not more than 1 per week )

On topic: the key is get the best pop level to spit the 1 settler out and that probably varies with the game ( OTAKU made some work on this but never published it ). My rule of thumb is pop 2 for worker and pop 3 for settler... but this is completely empirical.

 

[Genv [FP]]

I usually build a settler right away and scout for a nice site for the new city.
After that I build a warrior and so forth.
I am not the best CivIV player, is this a good or bad strategy?

You're killing your economy, growth, and terrain improvement all at once.


Go Worker > Warrior, or Warrior> Warrior > Worker

( The first most people prefer )

 

[siggboy]

I usually build a settler right away and scout for a nice site for the new city.
After that I build a warrior and so forth.
I am not the best CivIV player, is this a good or bad strategy?

You generally want two things to happen in the beginning:

1. Have your city grow so it will become more productive.
2. Get your tiles improved to get the most out of the few citizens you have in the beginning.

If you start with building a settler at turn one, neither of the two will happen: your city doesn't grow and you can't improve the tiles because you don't have a worker yet.

Now you can't have both at the same time either, because building a worker also halts city growth, but workers don't take as long to build as settlers do, and often you also need a few turns to research a technology for building an improvement (e.g. Animal Husbandry if you start with pigs or cows).

Putting the above together, you should build a worker before the settler and at the same time research whatever the worker needs to know in order to do something useful around your city. Very often this will be a "support tech" such as Agriculture, followed by Mining and/or Bronze Working. The latter is very important because it allows you to chop forests, speeding up the build of the settler.

In short: worker first, then improve tiles while you're building warriors and research Bronze Working, then chop out a settler.

You will end up with (a) getting the most out of your initial tiles, (b) a larger city, (c) a worker who can improve your second city as well, (d) some military and (e) a settler.

If you pay close attention you'll even realize that your first settler won't be out THAT much later at all compared to building it right from the start, because the tiles that your worker has improved for you will greatly speed up settler production (as does the chopping).

Also keep in mind that you will need to garrison your new city anyway, and delaying the settler for a few turns as described above gave you the time needed to build that garrison.

The very early game turns are crucial because what happens then has a very big impact on your further empire development. 1 turn in 3500 BC generally is much more important than 1 turn in 1750 AD.

On the lower difficulty levels you have a lot of leeway so it's often not apparent but as soon as you start to increase the difficulty you will feel it (mainly because the AI players get a lot of starting units that you don't so you have to catch up fast).

 

[SirLamphead]

Thank you Siggboy. I really appreciate the advice! One last question...
When should I stop building settlers?
Cities cost maintenance, what is the right amount of cities before code of laws (and after)?

 

[r_rolo1]

^^rule of thumb: 4 cities pre CoL ( not very rigid... feel free to get more if you think it can pay up ), unless Zulu or Sumeria ( that have special maintenance cutters ).

After... the ones you can get in your hands. land is power

 

[Ibian]

Well actually, its not "after CoL" but rather "after cottages". Or alternatively, "after caste system" if you are running a super merchant gold city.

 

[Stevepac]

My friend and I both go through the same method. Scout around and build a worker, while researching archery or agriculture(if your america go straight to archery) as soon as your city becomes a 2 hit villiger, and get more workers. You dont need people to guard your cities early, not until you can get archers. Works wonders for me

 

[Bradlius]

I find it very map-dependent as well. I play small maps (limited computer capacity) and it gets crowded fast. I gotta get that first Settler out quick, but no, you don't want to make it your first build.

 

[siggboy]

Thank you Siggboy. I really appreciate the advice! One last question...
When should I stop building settlers?
Cities cost maintenance, what is the right amount of cities before code of laws (and after)?

Code of Laws is OVERRATED as far as early expansion is concerned. In fact, and it has been pointed out above already, all you need for expansion is Pottery (to build cottages) or alternatively Sailing (on a water map, to build the Great Lighthouse).

Code of Laws opens Caste System (rather weak until your cities are large enough to support more than two specialists) and allows you to build Courthouses (these are very hammer intensive and don't save you a whole lot of gold early on to begin with).

As to answer your question: the right amount of cities is what you can support while still maintaining a reasonable research rate ("reasonable" entirely depends on your difficulty level and overall tech situation). If you find that it takes 50 turns to research Currency on Epic game speed, then you have probably overexpanded... it's something you will find out rather quickly on your own.
Don't overrate the tech slider as there are other ways to increase your research (specialists, great people, certain wonders).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Code of Laws is OVERRATED as far as early expansion is concerned. In fact, and it has been pointed out above already, all you need for expansion is Pottery (to build cottages) or alternatively Sailing (on a water map, to build the Great Lighthouse).

Code of Laws opens Caste System (rather weak until your cities are large enough to support more than two specialists) and allows you to build Courthouses (these are very hammer intensive and don't save you a whole lot of gold early on to begin with).

As to answer your question: the right amount of cities is what you can support while still maintaining a reasonable research rate ("reasonable" entirely depends on your difficulty level and overall tech situation). If you find that it takes 50 turns to research Currency on Epic game speed, then you have probably overexpanded... it's something you will find out rather quickly on your own.
Don't overrate the tech slider as there are other ways to increase your research (specialists, great people, certain wonders).

The thing about "overexpansion" is, in the early game, this can be defined as "losing money at 0% science". If you build libraries and run scientists off of them, even 6 cities doing so will give you 45 BPT - an average/workable amount at 1 AD. This is assuming 0% science...which you won't be at long if you're working cottages and pick up currency. It also assumes no great scientist, which can be settled for a pretty nice beaker boost, bulbed for trading, or later on used for an academy once you can actually use science spending again (a strong choice for cottage bureaucracy capitols).

CoL IS overrated though. Currency lends to expansion recovery much more quickly due to the instant trade route and potential to use resources for gold, and of course pottery is probably more important than either (but who skips pottery? Even SE needs the granaries!).

Anyway, my opening build is usually: worker, worker, settler.

If I lose my starting unit, I often will work in a warrior somewhere. I will also put hammers into something else initially if building a worker right away would give the worker nothing to do. I tend to chop out the 2nd worker and settler. I chop very aggressively to expand as this often nets the best city sites and it runs away in terms of early game hammers.

 

[Ibian]

For me its worker, 2-3 warriors, stonehenge, settler, oracle. Or henge oracle if i get them too fast to build a settler.

Am i really the only one who goes for early wonders?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

For me its worker, 2-3 warriors, stonehenge, settler, oracle. Or henge oracle if i get them too fast to build a settler.

Am i really the only one who goes for early wonders?

I go for them too but not THAT fast in the build order, and usually not both of them...

Sometimes I don't even start the oracle until I have bronzeworking and writing as well.

 

[Ibian]

I tech BW before i tech to oracle most of the time, but that still doesnt leave much time to spam settlers.

 

[Gooblah]

Try this:
Worker-Warrior (until next pop and/or Bronze Working is in)-Settler-Warrior

Have the Worker improve the land, then chop the Settler. If the next pop hits and BW isn't in, then build mines to help pop out the Settler.

 

[CivCorpse]

A binary system would be the description of an OCC. You start with ZERO cities and then you have ONE city. Either you stay with the ONE city or you go back to ZERO cities (and thus lose).

Now, if you want to represent a base-10 number (2, 4, 6, 7, etc...) using binary (base-2) any number can be represented, even "odd" numbers (a term generally used only when referring to base-10 numbers)

The other way to look at binary is to take expression 2^n for n = 0 .. infinity; in this case your sequence would be 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32,etc.... 6 is not a valid result (restricting n to an integer).

Now, I realize that you may not have advanced far enough in your study of math yet (this is generally taught before or during high-school in the states), so don't feel too bad if what I've said makes little sense to you.

You made my brain bleed.

It's easier to take the number of cities you have and mulitply them by your birthday then smear lime jello on your screen and spin around in your chair making noises like a wounded aardvark.