Early expansion: Building or whipping settlers?

[civtilidy]

Hello civers,
How is the best way to build settlers and workers early game, please let me know your strategy?
Lets say you have some food resources or flood plain, is it best to build warriors and only whip+chop workers and settlers so your city can grow or is it best to just hard build them?
Is granary the decisive factor?
Do you grow into grassland hill mines and hard build them or whip instead?
I guess there are many answers depending on the circumstances, it would be nice to hear your tumb rules or speculations

My current strategy is usually to build them by whip+chop+overflow but depends on food and mines. Would be fun to hear from deity players but also from less experienced ones

 

[krikav]

It depends on a myriad of different map-specific factors.

Most important I would say is ammount of food available.
If there is alot of food you will want to whip alot.
Is there little food, then the time it takes to regrow your cities makes the whipping less favorable.

For EXP/IMP leaders you get hammers that get multiplied by whipping, while if you slow-build with food you don't get the bonus...

Do you have something worthwhile to build that you can put overflow into?

etc etc

 

[Gumbolt]

I would say worker, warriors to size 3 or so. Then double settler. Fog bust key sites with the warriors.
Mines early on are not great use of workers unless you have no high food resource to work on?
Whipping can be good at times. Chopping too.

Basically you want to grab the land asap and secure the best spots. My second worker normally comes from a new city at size 1-2 pending if I plan to whip/

Each map is different but aiming for 4 cities by 2000bc is possible on most maps. Even more with imperialist trait.

 

[sampsa]

First settler I usually slowbuild (often with chops though), usually at size 3, but obviously depends on the tiles available. If many high food tiles available it makes sense to grow to 6 and whip the first settler, especially if spiritual.

Second settler usually straight after first like Gumbolt says, but sometimes grow now to whip @6, especially if expansive to one-turn (OF+chop) the granary right after whip. From then on usually have granaries and thus whipping all settlers/workers unless no -resources, in which case you are not able to whip as much as you want. Mined hills are pretty weak (compared to chopping for example), but sometimes there is nothing better.

Do you have something worthwhile to build that you can put overflow into?

Nearly always OF into worker/settler, then grow, then whip, repeat.

 

[civtilidy]

Thank you that is some good answers,
Are grassmines really bad?
My reasoning:
Pro-mine: they convert 1 into 3 but whipping with a granary converts 1 into less than 2.
Pro-whip: get settler and worker faster and the extra production they create will compensate for whipping instead of working mine. Also you need to spend workerturns to build the mine. (ev the tile can also be used to cultivate forests. Maybe this will even compensate for 1/turn)

 

[Snowbird]

Thank you that is some good answers,
Are grassmines really bad?
My reasoning:
Pro-mine: they convert 1 into 3 but whipping with a granary converts 1 into less than 2.

With granary most desirable 4>2 whip is ~2.6. (without it is probably half of that). 6>4 is more than 2.2, so mines are not that good after granary (but might be close enough to consider if riverside or growing higher size).

Without granary...
If you do not work mine you probably work something like grass forest, which is 3 yield tile vs 4 yield mine. Now, 1 food is >1 hammer so it is less than 1 hammer per turn loss due not having the mine. problem is mine takes longer than chop, so unless you are not able/willing to chop mining ends being down 1.25 chop behind (mining - 1 turn to climb the hill 4 to mine, chop 1 turn to run onto forest 3 chop..) or 25 hammers. With less than 1 per turn gain it takes close to 30 turns to regain tempo... but by that time chopping gets early yield from 2nd/3rd city (center alone is 2f1hammer per turn)... so early on chopping easily beats mining.
Now, since due to chopping your third/fourth citizen works tiles which give effective +1 hammer per turn, whipping them to get earlier chance to reap 5-6 yield tiles in other spot is once again very attractive.

I think improving non special tiles (especially something like FP farm) is often more of a trap than benefit.

 

[sampsa]

With granary most desirable 4>2 whip is ~2.6. (without it is probably half of that). 6>4 is more than 2.2, so mines are not that good after granary (but might be close enough to consider if riverside or growing higher size).

Where does the ~2.6 come from? I'm pretty sure it takes 11+14=25 to grow back to size 4 from size 2, meaning that the ratio is exactly 2.4per. In more detail: Shadow Game for an Old Dude

edit: oh and 1-pop whip at size 2 is 11->30 i.e. 1->~2,727. I understand we are discussing 2-pop whips, but just useful to know how good 1-pop whipping can be if -cap allows.

I think improving non special tiles (especially something like FP farm) is often more of a trap than benefit.

I assume this is compared to chopping. Agreed, though obviously sometimes there is nothing better to do than farming fp...

Thank you that is some good answers,
Are grassmines really bad?
My reasoning:
Pro-mine: they convert 1 into 3 but whipping with a granary converts 1 into less than 2.
Pro-whip: get settler and worker faster and the extra production they create will compensate for whipping instead of working mine. Also you need to spend workerturns to build the mine. (ev the tile can also be used to cultivate forests. Maybe this will even compensate for 1/turn)

Like Snowbird points out, "a granary converts 1 into less than 2" is not correct at all. I'm not sure if you are talking about slow building settlers/workers or just slow building something, I'm assuming the latter. I'd label them (grass mines) as slightly bad, as even an unimproved floodplain or grassland farm is usually better (2>3). Certainly they have their uses, as there is no unlimited -cap and wonders needs some raw .

 

[Snowbird]

Where does the ~2.6 come from? I'm pretty sure it takes 11+14=25 to grow back to size 4 from size 2, meaning that the ratio is exactly 2.4per.

I looked at some old xls sheet. It might not be accurate (or I missed some extra conditions).

However I am pretty sure that under normal conditions it is not '11+14' as two consequential growths should not differ by 6 points.

 

[sampsa]

However I am pretty sure that under normal conditions it is not '11+14' as two consequential growths should not differ by 6 points.

Then you didn't understand the linked post. I agree it's counter-intuitive (as two consequential growths don't differ by 6 points), it is because of what your food bar will be when you whip down two pop.

Edit: "But when you grow to size 4 without any food-overflow (food bar will be 13/28) and whip immediately, you will end up at 13/24 food bar."

 

[civtilidy]

Where does the ~2.6 come from? I'm pretty sure it takes 11+14=25 to grow back to size 4 from size 2, meaning that the ratio is exactly 2.4per. In more detail: Shadow Game for an Old Dude

edit: oh and 1-pop whip at size 2 is 11->30 i.e. 1->~2,727. I understand we are discussing 2-pop whips, but just useful to know how good 1-pop whipping can be if -cap allows.
I assume this is compared to chopping. Agreed, though obviously sometimes there is nothing better to do than farming fp...

Like Snowbird points out, "a granary converts 1 into less than 2" is not correct at all. I'm not sure if you are talking about slow building settlers/workers or just slow building something, I'm assuming the latter. I'd label them (grass mines) as slightly bad, as even an unimproved floodplain or grassland farm is usually better (2>3). Certainly they have their uses, as there is no unlimited -cap and wonders needs some raw .

I dont understand. According to this source: "https://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/game-mechanics/city-growth/" it takes 33 to grow to size 2, so with granary its 16. When you whip the pop you get 30, 30/16=less than 2turn. Is the link incorrect?

 

[sampsa]

I dont understand. According to this source: "https://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/game-mechanics/city-growth/" it takes 33 to grow to size 2, so with granary its 16. When you whip the pop you get 30, 30/16=less than 2turn. Is the link incorrect?

"All numerical values are applicable for the correct game speed (epic speed)". I think you get 45 per pop on epic, but I'd just rather calculate using normal speed. Food bar on normal speed, size 1, is 22, that I can guarantee. Hence with a granary, 11->30.

 

[Gumbolt]

Yeah the example above is from epic speed. Many on forum now use normal speed. Primarily as epic speed gives the player a bigger advantage. E.g units like HA/Cuirs have a longer life span.

Sampsa has a pretty good understanding of Civ 4 mechanics.