2 Workers before the first Settler?

[rfcfanatic]

Hi everyone,

I recently happened to watch AZ's YT let's play about how to do a Crossbow rush with Sitting Bull. There were many interesting things I discovered but one of them was particularily interesting. I noticed that AZ trained 2 Workers before the first Settler. For me it sounds like a very useful strategy. Here are the good points I see:

• The recommended Workers/city ratio 1.5 gets exceeded before you found your 2nd city
• 2nd city later with improved tiles is better than 2nd city earlier with unimproved tiles
• One Worker can prepare a trade route connection while the other one improves tiles

But still - is it a widespread strategy that can be applied anywhere besides SB's Crossbow rush?

 

[Si_Lurker]

In multiplayer teamers people almost always settle plains hill (if within 1 turn) and build 2 workers. Some even go 3 workers as 3 workers can chop a settler together.

The reason for this is that starting tech gets combined between teams and bronze working and animal husbandry are researched first in multiplayer teamers (you need bronze ASAP). Also research in multiplayer is faster than in single player.

Thus your two workers can start farming and chopping immediately. If you are at the front in a teamer or need to explore with starting warrior or with scout start, you generally go worker warrior, worker, settler.

If you are behind teammate in teamer, you go worker, worker, settler, worker.

If you are playing single player, you may not have starting techs for 2nd worker to be useful and he will just sit idle. For example Spain has fishing and mysticism, so 2nd worker won't have anything to do. With Babylon with wheel and agriculture, 2 workers are good.

For example you start next to a pig or sheep. The best thing to do is to improve pig first, but to get to animal you need hunting (agri will take too long for worker to start improving upon completion). First worker improves pig. Now if you haven't yet researched wheel or bronze working, the 2nd worker will have nothing to do. This is why in single player it's sometimes better to do 2nd worker after first city.

Also in single player in some strategies early religions matter for diplomacy, so you may want to go there.

Otherwise it's generally always better to go 2 workers before settler if the 2 workers can improve food or chop. Also wheel is big benefit for workers as you can build roads

For example worker moves one tile, builds half road, cancel, move another tile, improve farm, move back, complete road, move through roaded city on forest or another resource.

 

[Strickl3r]

I remember that let's play i think. He wanted to beeline metal casting, so he had to get some cottages online very fast.

On a normal start worker, 1-2 warriors, settler is often best though. It depends on how much there is to improve and if you have to build a road to your 2nd city and how much turns that will take. It's a common mistake by players to found a 2nd city very early, which is not connected to the capitol. So try to calculate, if one worker will do the job in time(improve the first few tiles and build the road), if you are going for an early settler. (the worker also then must improve a tile for the 2nd city. Since the capitol would then grow to unimproved tiles this is also a good time to build the 2nd worker.)

€: -> Or you have BW by now and you can whip the 2nd worker for 2 pop at size 4

 

[chessplaya]

I've found that in 80-90% of starts, building a settler before the second worker was the best option because the difference between having 2 contributing cities and only 1 is huge, even with temporarily working unimproved tiles. Typically the second worker needs to be built right after the settler to "catch up" on improvements. The critical question is: which method gives me a trade route between 2 cities that are at least size 3 and working only improved tiles in the fewest amount of turns? Also, sometimes if you build a second worker before the settler, some AI will settle there first.

Usually it's best to have the first worker build a road to the second city (or if on the same river as the capitol, whatever roads are need to get the settler to the city 2 site fastest) while the second settler is being built, but I've occasionally gotten better results by building critical improvements first and creating a trade route shortly afterward.

 

[Fippy]

Imo one of the hardest decisions, what plays in heavy here: forests.
If you tech BW early, another worker means more production quicker.
If you have big plans (for example an expensive wonder, but you also want at least 1 settler) you will need all of these forests fast.

Now a new city often needs help (worker!), so doing settler first you will have 2 options usually: send a worker there from your Cap (already 160h spent for that city), or build one in your 2nd city (should be very slow as usual at the beginning).
If you play on higher levels, this can easily put pressure on your wonder plans.
You might reduce that pressure if you have 2 workers first, get your (hopefully plenty) forests cut much faster, important tiles (mines for wonder prod maybe?) and then worry about a new city.

Sometimes you could also delay that 2nd worker, example..you farm corn with your first, start on 2nd worker. Once you have your food tile, you build something else so you can grow.
First worker improves another tile (let's say a green mine), and at size 2 when you work both corn + mine you finish your 2nd worker. Now getting another 2h for that, and some delay did not matter cos you needed time for new worker techs..

 

[vranasm]

another reason why 2nd worker (at size 3 typically) before settler is pottery+flood plains (aside from the forests mentioned by fippy)

I don't usually do 2nd worker before 1st settler, but in the heavy forests/flood plains scenarios I usually do

 

[pomthom]

Forests might be the exception I think because a 2nd Worker brings lots of production and because the 1st Worker's movements can't be optimized because of all the forest.

But most of the time the 1st Worker can be micro managed to work tiles in time and I prefer grabbing land so I actually often build a 2nd Settler before my 2nd Worker (that 1.5 Worker/city is an old rule that really doesn't apply early game IMO)

And obviously, Workers can be stolen but it depends on who and where your neighbours are

 

[Amao]

Forests might be the exception I think because a 2nd Worker brings lots of production and because the 1st Worker's movements can't be optimized because of all the forest.

But most of the time the 1st Worker can be micro managed to work tiles in time and I prefer grabbing land so I actually often build a 2nd Settler before my 2nd Worker (that 1.5 Worker/city is an old rule that really doesn't apply early game IMO)

And obviously, Workers can be stolen but it depends on who and where your neighbours are

right, i normally use 2 worker per city ratio for my games which serves me pretty well.

 

[pomthom]

right, i normally use 2 worker per city ratio for my games which serves me pretty well.

Well obviously you can alsmost never have too many workers

But early game I'd rather use my for Settlers before the available land gets taken by somone else. I'm more of a 0.5 Worker/city guy now (until I have to grow my cities), it also works

 

[Amao]

Well obviously you can alsmost never have too many workers

But early game I'd rather use my for Settlers before the available land gets taken by somone else. I'm more of a 0.5 Worker/city guy now (until I have to grow my cities), it also works

well, i have to admit that i'm only playing lower levels (Noble/Monarch most likely, Emperor sometimes) and likes big map scripts such as Big and Small for fun nowadays. and maybe you are doing higher levels and regular map scripts like Pangaea?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

2 workers/city is a great ratio when stealing workers . Otherwise it strains early investments that could go elsewhere without too much drop off in improvement quality.

 

[pomthom]

Just to be clear: a lot of workers is not bad I used to build a lot (careful though, too many too early comes with maintenance). But building Workers when not needed is a bad investment.

I play Immortal (but I should be playing Deity ) on Pangaea and Fractal maps. If I have a 3 tile on Imm-/Pangaea I might not even build a first Worker because I'd rather swamp my neighbours with Warriors to steal theirs

 

[Olson]

Hi everyone,

I recently happened to watch AZ's YT let's play about how to do a Crossbow rush with Sitting Bull. There were many interesting things I discovered but one of them was particularily interesting. I noticed that AZ trained 2 Workers before the first Settler. For me it sounds like a very useful strategy. Here are the good points I see:

• The recommended Workers/city ratio 1.5 gets exceeded before you found your 2nd city
• 2nd city later with improved tiles is better than 2nd city earlier with unimproved tiles
• One Worker can prepare a trade route connection while the other one improves tiles

But still - is it a widespread strategy that can be applied anywhere besides SB's Crossbow rush?

Any heavy jungle/forest/hill start and/or leaders with the Expansive trait and not a coastal bonus seafood start. So that narrows down when I use it.

So far, on Prince, I can still avoid a lot of chopping until after Mathematic Forges (MFs) (except for any hills or riverside adjacent to capital). Then I can decide if my starting capital will function well in Bureaucracy or if there's a better site.

- A coastal settle-in-place (SIP) usually calls for workboats, not so much for workers, esp. if the 2nd city will also be coastal (not usually a good sign).
- Settlers, being 2-movers, don't usually require roads.
- A pop 1 (2nd) city works 2 tiles and one is going to be a bonus food so I'd rather get that second city out there a.s.a.p., especially if I have Imperialistic trait (in which case a 2nd settler might be the second build of the game...after a mined hill workboat whip).

I guess what I'm getting at is that chopping for 20P (instead of MFs~37P?) seems such a waste and I can manage 1 worker/city just fine, given that each city will have 8-10t before it needs that next tile improved...and that's assuming the 2nd city isn't sharing a food tile w/ the capital.

 

[Robert FIN]

@rfcfanatic: Sounds interesting. Good points indeed. I'm not pro, as you know, buddy. Still (IMO) it'd be good idea to power up your plan with very underrated Expansive- trait. This would also help keeping even 1 worker/city ratio in my case. Great idea!