2 Workers before a Settler

Well, on the China map whipping the settler seems "standard" to me. I'd never grow to 3 to slow build here (two good tiles), so the alternative to whipping is slow building at size 2. Whipping allows you to put into warriors though, so it mostly depends on how highly you value those fog busters in the given circumstances. Given the difficulty level, they are probably rather moot so maybe slow building is better.

 

@Fippy How big is the difference on T30? You chose a 2nd city spot where the difference in settling time is 1T. The plains hill, plains sheep I suggested would be 2T difference. Anyway I'm surprised that worker-worker does decently, I would have thought it straight out loses some /.

 

I forgot checking hammers sowy, but i assume in both cases Bejing has not that much overflow now (worker in 1t was already a bit lucky from settler whip + 1 chop probably).
edit: 6h overflow actually, not that lucky at 66 Still had that autosave.
I would say there's some food gained thou with double worker first, sets up okay for a first whip at 4 next.

Working in favor of double worker is plains hill city + waiting time for corn improvement.
I already gained 20h before corn was ready, and did only grow on improved tiles. Maybe this could be fine tuned thou for settler first as well, i used standard warrior here after 12t.

 

Hi Fippy,
A few notes here:

• You have an extra warrior
• City #2 actually comes 2T earlier because you'd normally go Hunt-AH (or AH-Hunt) before The Wheel
• You're already in Slavery (which I don't think is the case with the other game, correct me if I'm wrong), which puts you another turn further ahead of the double-worker setup
• You're up a forest

So all in all your position here is significantly better than in the double worker line.

Oh and hi Krikav! Should get back to playing Civ pretty soon

 

I did not see this post overnight, sorry.

5 hammers per turn for as long as there is something useful for the worker to do. That implies we can consider building a farm or a mine to cost hammers.

60 hammers for the worker.

I get a yield of about 7.5% if the worker has useful work for about 32 turns. This drops to 6.67% if there is useful work for about 25 turns.

I can try to type in a formula later in the day. It is still morning where I am living, the land where freedom is defined as the freedom to use archaic units of measure.

Also note that after mathematics, this increases to 7.5 hammers per turn in the infinite forest assumption.

Added formula:

C = 5 hammers per turn, infinite forest
Y = actual yield, equivalent hammers per turn
Worker = 60 hammers, fixed
N = turns

N = ln{C/(C-Y)} / ln(1+Y/60)

 

@Harv Yes when one start to value worker turns in terms of aprox 5H, then it's all of the sudden much more difficult to justify many things.
5 worker turns @25H to get a plains hill mined doesn't look that fun anymore.

I don't think one should take the number too litteral though, it's just good to have a very rough measurement to think about opportunity cost when weighting different options against each other.

 

This is the t30 I played yesterday on this map. Would you really settle that spot with a single worker ?

Spoiler :

Size 3 Beijing now has 34 hammers into another worker/settler. Likely the 3rd worker is better.

Alternative, doing it all at size 2 :

Spoiler :

 

@krikav - The worker moved one turn to the hill and spent four turns mining it, five turns total. He could have moved to a forest, chopped it, and moved to another forest, which we value at 25 hammers.

The mine yields 4 hammers, compared to 3 hammers for a plains hill forest, for a net yield of 4%.

It is always a bit more complicated than that, but that makes it interesting. It is also interesting that on this forum, we often talk about the compounding effect of early mistakes in the game, and here we are talking about compounding yields. (interest)

 

@Harv I'm not a maths guy, so I don't really understand your posts (especially those percentages). One thing I can say - mining a hill adds one (1) (and requires pop to work it, which also means you won't be whipping). From experience I can say that it's not going to be competitive with chopping.

 

I've arrived late to the thread and don't have time to read through it all right now, but I can drop off some anecdotal/empirical evidence.

In all 3 of my last multiplayer pitboss games I went double worker before setter. Those games involved extensive simulation and long term planning. FWIW all of them had double food resource, some forests and a 2H capital plant.
For me double worker before settler is the rule rather than the exception if you're dealing with a rich starting location and you can complete the relevant worker techs in time.

 

@Rusten does it play a role that it was multiplayer? I mean do you have to be a bit more careful with settling more cities?

 

Not really. It was played with a mod where everyone starts with a scout instead of a warrior and mapmakers over there rarely (if ever) place strategic resources in the starting BFC.
The game mod has moved pastures to hunting for balance reasons which means it's easier to get the relevant techs compared to vanilla BtS, but the situations were comparable to the China start referenced in this thread I'd say.

 

Interesting nevertheless. Now I have a new tool in my box. Still, I don't think in the China-game in question worker-worker is better, it's worse, but by not as much as I expected. Assuming that the 2nd city is by the river. Haven't really digested BIC's contribution yet.

 

BIC's approach looks right to me and may change your mind.

edit: You are likely to feel the benefit of extra worker turns when you try to get early granaries up. And the benefit of those aren't obvious until much later. State of empire on T50 will usually give you a good idea.

 

Nice
I think you guys are right with the China map, double "super food" and not much else puts 4-2 settler whip into a too strong position.
(double worker can somewhat keep up, but Pedro summed this up well).

Double worker shines more on starts where several tiles can be improved early, or where less food makes whipping not so attractive.
I also like BIC's example for a further away city with tiles that should be improved asap (food + gold), and where another worker can speed up settler movement via roads.

 

@ Sampsa :
The capital is not linked to the river network. Let's clear that up.

I settled what I think is the best spot for city 2 (play the map, right ?). Initially thought of going on the plains hills by the grass cows, which was the best productive tile in sight in OP's thread. Put bluntly, I don't see the appeal of working tundra furs at size 2 with the second city. With city 5, maybe. What I want with my 2nd city is that it contributes to expansion - rice/gold isn't great for that purpose but the gold is good enough to justify the city.
Scouting the gold changes the city location with gold and rice in 1st ring.
Anyway.

Say you have 1 worker and settle Shanghai as I did : what do you do with it ?
- Start on a 15 turns worker while your other worker attends to Beijing ? This is clearly awful : the city wants to grow to size 2 asap to work the gold.
- Possibly, you leave Beijing unattended and send a worker forward. You won't get a road network anytime soon but might settle the city sooner with 1 worker on standby.
Or :
- You get a second worker in, save on travel time because roads and have a healthy development for both cities.
Sorry my words have been scarce, I thought the pictures were meaningful enough.


What I really want to say in this thread is that researching The Wheel can be better than Bronze Working, when your settler has got to cross 3 hills to reach its destination. Just roading the hills can be better than chopping forests. (Well maybe you've got Bronze, too, but then you're not chopping and you're roading instead.)

~~

Settling a city a few turns sooner is important but comparing worker turns is fine, too. Having 10 more worker turns and settling a city 2 turns later can be quite worth it because : roads, cottages, faster developement and Rusten mentions Granaries.
Say we go settler first. What I want to know, now, is if the 3rd city comes down sooner. Or if it comes down earlier with the 2 workers approach. I'm quite sure the 2 workers end up in a better snowball.
(So, a better comparison point would be around t45, rather than t30.)

~~

I've played plenty of openers where I rushed 3 cities with a single worker, only to find that they were sizes 3, 1, 1 with no improvements and starting on workers at size 1.
Unlike Rusten, I do think Settler first is the norm but it implies a 2nd city that is close by and easy to set up.
Look at each map with new eyes is all I can say.

 

I sense that the "double worker"-trend is picking up speed.

 

Do we have a new paradigm here?! Not worker first but 2 workers first!

Is SE back in vogue?

 

Yeah, what will be next ? Caravans ? These youngsters won't stop at nothing these days, sheesh !

ps : 2nd worker is at size 2