Do you still have to Settler-Rush?

[LlamaGod]

I've only tinkered with the game some, but i'm wondering, do you still have to do the old tactic of mass producing settlers?

It's been awhile since i've played Civ and i've forgotten the best way to do that and also, I must be honest, I absolutely hate this tactic.

Thats the main thing I dont like about 4X games, the 'hurrhurr make settlers/colonists non stop then fill in later' "tactic" having to be such a major one.

It all boils down to who builds first and then can leech the most when it comes to production and after playing so many games in that manner, it gets so old and boring.

FreeCiv pretty much forces you to play that way.

It's very boring and removes alot of strategy.

So anyways, whats the deal?

 

[TyranusBonehead]

I'm probably not the best person to respond, but here's my two cents worth...

It appears that some degree of settler rush is still necessary. Not just from the perspective of keeping ahead in score, but also in gaining strategic resources, having enough cities to build up a conquering army, etc. I've played about 4 games now in Civ4, and have felt compelled each time to settler rush.

 

[RIT Beast]

Yes, but cautiously. Settlers are a pretty big sap on resources while they're being built, so you want to make sure they're out of the way quickly. I find that you still want to expand quickly, but you need to do so cautiously using advanced cities.

Edit: I too am not the best to respond.

 

[woodelf]

Early to mid game there is a fine balance between too few and too many cities. When you found a city and your budget drops 8-12 gold per turn you might need to hold off until later in the game when civics and banking starts kicking in. I found out the hard way that an early over expansion crippled my R&D leading to a pair of Space losses. Sadly it seems that the AI never aggressively tries to restart their expansion in the late game. 8-10 cities is all I ever see from them.

 

[oopsy poopsy]

Well, I think it depends on the level your talking about. So far for me Civ 4 is not a game where you get two settler pumps, a worker farm and one or 2 unit factories and just expand as much as you can. Of course expansion is a major priority, but even on simple difficulty levels (only one's I've tried so far) you won't end up with more then 10 cities before the land is basically full and it will take longer a lot longer then it did in civ3. Also, since roads don't equal commerce anymore and you pay for cities not just improvements you will need to do other things otherwise you'll get to 5 or 6 cities and be 100% broke and behind in tech. Also, I haven't even tried tight spacing of my cities, mostly only 2-3 tiles of total overlap where it gets me extra resources and mostly try for as close to OCP as possible.

 

[PoweredBySoy]

Sure, you could certainly do the "settler rush" in this game. That basic principle is still necessary in order to grab valuable land before your enemy does. But, if you focus too much on settlers, and building as many cities as possible early in the game, you're gong to be hurting on production and military, and quite frankly, the other guy is going to wipe you out. I know I would.

There's a fine balance in this game between quality and quantity.

 

[Gufnork]

No, there are no settler rushes anymore. I tried it once and my maintenance costs shot through the roof, leading to reduced research and ultimately my defeat. When and where to build a new city is now a big strategic decision.

 

[chris8b]

A Civ 3 style Settler rush will shut down your growth fast in this game, more often than not. It's far better to concentrate on founding a more modest number of well-placed specialized cities.

-C

 

[Dr. Broom]

On one game I was playing as Frederick the Great and I was the most advanced in technology and culture with only 3 cities and my closest rival was Alexander the Great with 9 cities. I was winning in technology and culture but he beat me with a large army and I lost the game. I think from this you can say you need a fair amount of cities to stay ahead it is probably best to have no less than half as many as your closest rival but it isn't like civ III where more cities = win.

 

[Anzak]

I have found that settle rushing is still very doable and if I hold off I find myself in trouble very quickly. There seems to be an early area where the AI will not expand quickly then there will be a burst where it will rush as much land as it can then it still settle down again. You need to beat the burst or you will find yourself in trouble. Now I don't go full out settlers I stagger them a bit and build settle then building/military unit. This slows me down enough that I don't get hit with crushing expenses as I grow but still gives me a quick turn around on gaining land. I have noticed that if you set your workers on auto (which I do because the game takes long enough without having to do tasks for every worker) they will build up your production fast enough to counter a land rush. Keep in mind first 2 things a town builds warrior then worker. As long as your workers = your cities you will be ok most of the time.

 

[BlytZ]

I've always liked to think that every city I make has a duty, it builds itself a wall and barracks, then a settler, spearman and a worker, these 3 then go off and found another city that does the same, this way you are constantly growing without your main cities feeling the real burdens of expansion

BlytZ

 

[Life]

I have only been playing for a couple of days but I noticed that in the begining it is beneficial to have at least a small rush. What I like to do is wait until my capital has about a population level of 4 or 5. Then I will create a settler and send him next to resource(s) that I feel are most valuable. After I make sure that I get that resource, I start looking at where the nearest civilization's border is at. On a normal sized map, chances are it just takes a couple of settlers to block the civ in a very small corner of the map. So I have my capital pump out two more settlers, block the civilization, then take my time building up the rest of my empire.

When I do this though, I use the a leader with the creative trait. The extra 2 culture points that you get with every city REALLY helps in the begining. The cities will start expanding and will cut the enemy's movement a lot.

 

[The Apple]

Like everything else in Civ4, 'it depends'. In this case it depends on the map settings your playing on. If you playing on an archipelego type map, feel free to take your time building up your capital since the AI isn't going to be able to be able to bother you anytime soon. If you're playing on a terra/continents type map, it's probably a good idea to rush some settlers by cutting down a forest or two in your cities general vacinity, more to make sure you can get as many resources as possible. In any event, all you really need in the game is 6-8 cities, which you'll have well before the medevil era is over, so it's not like you're going to be spamming settlers throughout the entire game like you sometimes did with Civ3.

 

[dh_epic]

Not only do you not have to do this. But if you do this, you'll probably die.

It costs a lot of money to support a lot of cities, so your economy needs to be doing well before you expand. The cycle is more like "improve your city, stabilize your economy, expand, improve your city, stabilize your economy, expand".

If you just "expand, expand, expand", you will lose. You won't even have enough of an economy to fill in those holes, let alone fight off the raging barbarians that attack your thin and weak civilization.

 

[EridanMan]

A settler rush (or Early military mass-conquest) on a par with what you would do in Civ-III is an absolute recipe for disaster in Civ-IV...

Bleeding to death financially is not fun.

That said, a huge empire is possible, but you must stage your growth much smarter... I focus my early city development on "denial of access" locations (creative is key for this strategy, that culture bonus works wonders)... using this strategy, you must defend well and _NEVER_ accept free-transit deals.

Once you've cordened off your "spot", then its a matter of ramping up your financial prowess (tons of villages, currency is a must) and then slowly growing only as fast as your economy can support... you'll know your reaching the 'tipping' point when your upkeep costs start to go from 0 to ~10 per turn... keep in mind its an exponensial system at that point, so stop growing- shore up your economy, and then resume again.

I have a huge, 3 million population empire (~10 cities) covering half of a huge continent right now (Medieval time)- and my economy is still healthy... There's no doubt that such resources are a god-send later in the game, but building this empire up has taken FAR more care than it ever did in Civ-III.

I love this game.

(note, I am a big proponent of using forests to ramp-up settler production early in the game to hit your 'denial-of-access' points before your oppenents get there... my thinking is that the larger empire/resource base allowed by 'getting there first' _FAR_ outweighs the lost milled forest tiles.)

 

[LlamaGod]

I've been getting more involved in the games and definately I like Civ 4 far more then 3.

I'm balancing my use of settlers, expanding to places that they will expand well while also securing some resources for me. I head for forests so I can speed production on useful things such as barracks and walls, so they arnt just useless outposts with horrible production.


The depth of strategy in this game is how a 4X game should be. It's great.

 

[KevinTMC]

Having to balance expansion is truly one of the best changes in Civ IV.

The magnitude of the change, and just what it meant, didn't really sink in for me however until my most recent game. I share a small continent with Isabella; and since it was not possible to wipe her out with an Archer rush like I might have in Civ III, even though she only has two cities (another positive change!), I decided the best thing was to quickly lay claim to the bulk of the continent. I spread out my cities a bit more than I would have with Civ III; but even so, I looked up after completing my city-building plan, and noticed...holy cow! I'm down to 30% research, and I'm still losing money!

So now Isabella with 2 cities is way ahead of me, with 8 cities, in research. But she's resource-poor so I can still crush her if I can just get Catapults built fast enough...how long was it again until I get off from work and can play some more?

This is fun, and shows how hard and long Firaxis and friends worked to play-balance this thing.

One reason I am so pleased is that, like the original poster, I always dreaded having to spam out settlers everywhere. I enjoy building up a core of cities and expanding in a deliberate fashion from them, and really appreciate the fact that growth is now much more of an "interesting decision" that requires thought and planning and balancing of priorities.

And it just plain makes more sense that scattering a bunch of underdeveloped settlements all over the map is a noticeable drag on one's empire, rather than a net plus.

-- Kevin​

 

[TheBarnacle]

i've yet to play on huge maps, but i'd have to agree that doing a set rush yourself can put you way behind in tech/$.

that said, i've noticed SOME civs still do the set rush on you (which is what prompted the set rush from me in the first place!!). that is, they'll run that one settler WAY FAR away from their capital right near your borders. of course that makes it easier pickings for you to torch.

 

[BlytZ]

Do the earnings of a large Empire not counter the costs of such an Empire anymore?

BlytZ

 

[trogdorix]

it is not as necessary as in CivIII, but at least on Warlord, I have been able to settler rush, and deny open borders to other nations long enough to make a blockade and give myself more time to settle the open areas that i have just blocked off before i open my borders up