Building settler, does food convert to hammers?

[anandus]

Maybe I'm totally wrong here, but I've always had the assumption that there's some sort of food to hammer conversion going on when building a settler.

Does anybody know how this works?
Does food get converted into hammers?
X food turn into Y hammers or something?

And in this context, when starting out, is it worth it building a granary before building the first settler?

 

[Tabarnak]

It does translate to hammers. I don't know the exact formula, but i will build a granary before settlers if i can catch 2+ deers/bananas/wheat tiles. Otherwise you better build your settlers before a granary, excepted when you wanna catch a wonder or the NC before pumping them.

 

[FeiLing]

Granary yes, especially if you got deer, bananas or wheat nearby. You (well I) don't wanna build a settler before size 5 usually (so the granary will help grow quite a bit before the building of the settler temporarily negates the granary (mostly)).

Yes food does get converted into hammers when producing a settler, not sure how much exactly, but usually it is best to work all hammer tiles and even remove all pure food tiles to make them unemployed unless the tile gives 4? or more food (or other benefits like gold, science or culture).

The governor does not work the most efficient tiles when building a settler.

 

[EEE_BOY]

excess food to hammer ratio is 4:1

 

[kamex]

Just change to production focus when building settlers, it is more efficient than the conversion ratio.

This. Also, I think its impossible for a city to starve while building a settler (if I'm not mistaken) so you could stop working ALL food tiles and purely work hills. Better change it back on the last turn of production tho!

 

[EEE_BOY]

This. Also, I think its impossible for a city to starve while building a settler (if I'm not mistaken) so you could stop working ALL food tiles and purely work hills. Better change it back on the last turn of production tho!

The last turn of building settler is still ok, no food lost or population lost when finishing the settler.

 

[Deau]

Not exactly 4:1 theres a ramp up conversion price making it potentially best in early game


food overflow/hammers
1/1
2-3/2
4-6/3
7/4

+1h per 4 food beyond 7 (so at 11 15 19 etc)

 

[PrimEval]

In my test you get 1 bonus production during settler production at 1/2/4/8/12 base food (total food - food eaten by citizens). Video here.

 

[Acken]

Yes food translate into hammers but it's not linear.

When building settlers I proceed as follow:
Put every citizens in highest hammer tiles (hills, mines, stone quarries, horses...).
I then move around some citizens from the lowest hammer tiles to mix tiles or good pure food tiles (+4/5 wheat etc).

Sometimes doing the last step will provide me an extra hammer toward settler production.

 

[Scarpa]

Just change to production focus when building settlers, it is more efficient than the conversion ratio.

Depends if you have the hammers to begin with. I had no idea food converted to hammer until a recent game where I did my normal 'focus on production when building settlers' and the time to build *increased*!

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

Keep in mind that is excess food, but you can starve your citizens without depleting the food bucket while building a settler... somehow.

 

[Deau]

In my test you get 1 bonus production during settler production at 1/2/4/8/12 base food (total food - food eaten by citizens). Video here.

That's quite possible. I hesitated before writing 7. I had in mind the width of steps were linear increase by step but it could very well be power of 2 increase. It extremely rarely matter beyond +4 food though from tile allocation perspective.

The best example of good food to hammer conversion is a pop 4 city working 2 plains+2 hills(all unimproved). If you complete granary before starting settlers, the created overflow food actually turns into +3 hammers per turn.

 

[EEE_BOY]

In my test you get 1 bonus production during settler production at 1/2/4/8/12 base food (total food - food eaten by citizens). Video here.

You mean
Excess food 1 =1h
2f=2h
4f=3h
8f=4h
12f=5h
16f=6h and so on?

 

[Deau]

Yes - There was a good write-up specifically about this 2 months back. I just failed to recall the way ramp-up was done in my post and Primeval corrected the step function for 4h and on.

 

[sanabas]

This. Also, I think its impossible for a city to starve while building a settler (if I'm not mistaken) so you could stop working ALL food tiles and purely work hills. Better change it back on the last turn of production tho!

I haven't properly tested it, and probably shoud at some point. Normally I just fiddle with tiles, swapping food for hammers, until my hammers per turn is highest.

But while you can't actually lose population, nor food from the bucket, my impression is that if you are not feeding your citizens (so food is less than 2 x city size) then that comes off your production. So switching out all food tiles will be counterproductive.