A fast way to get your second city

[Xaltotun]

I usually play PTW and always Deity difficulty.

One thing I tried to get my second city as fast as possible was to get my starting worker to join my city on the very first turn and start producing a settler right away.

I tried that in GOTM16 and I was very surprised to notice I was the first civ to get is second town... hummm

Is this a good move ?

 

[Moonsinger]

Since I have never tried that before, I can't say if it's good or bad. However, I will do some testing on that.

 

[el_kalkylus]

I wonder. It probably hurts you more than it helps you in the longer run.

 

[civ_steve]

Well, you can definitely give up on getting any Free Settlers from Huts!

I haven't tried this myself, and my first 'gut' reaction is that it isn't a good idea. Since you have to wait 10 turns for the city to grow in size anyway, why not use those turns making roads, or maybe 1 road and 1 mine, and then join the worker to the city? In GOTM16, Rome is producing 3 shields with the Game space, so 10 turns is all that's required, and you would have some tile improvements, also.

 

[DaveMcW]

This has been discussed before, and the general agreement is your worker is more useful improving the terrain.

You might consider joining your worker for an OCC rush, probably as the Aztecs.

 

[Cartouche Bee]

I did this in GOTM11, it's probably only of value when you have a really poor start position. The time you lose developing your start position hurts your long term development prospects. The Civ3 physics of expansion in action.

 

[Ribannah]

In fact, it often pays to build a second Worker asap. If the capital has any extra growth (and Rome has when you develop the Deer), you will catch up in empire size around the time you found your third city, while still having that extra Worker and with almost double the tile improvements.