Early settling guide

[aelf]

It's been a while since I've written a guide. I got into Civ6 late and never felt I got a handle on it until the last few years. This time, I'm here from pretty much the start, and I may have insights to share based on my experience so far and some lessons learned in Civ6 that are still applicable.

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There has been a lot of complaints about the AI's bad settling. Part of that is the AI seemingly going out of its way to forward settle and/or settling between the player's cities. It definitely happens. But you can do something about it, especially since in Civ7 currently, the AI doesn't start with free settlers.

So here is a guide, with illustrations, on how you can get ahead of the AI and get a good empire going at the start without having to declare war.

A good example is a game I played as Khmer (Immortal difficulty), where I started in the south of the continent. To the west was the sea. Amina's capital, Waset, was quite close to the north, but I had no neighbour to the east. This was a pretty ideal starting position. It meant I only needed to preempt Amina to give myself some breathing room.

So here's how I did it. I don't build early settlers. I buy them. In Civ6, this was a powerful move that could be done by selling luxury resources to the AI. In Civ7, you need a bit of luck with goodie huts and narrative events, but there's a good chance you'll be offered gold as an option. Take the gold where possible. The Lydian Lion memento (+200 gold at the start of each age) also helps.

Once I had enough gold, I bought my first settler immediately - probably before the AI could build its first. I sent it north.

My second city, Indrapura, sat just outside Waset's borders. I bought my second settler as soon as I could afford it and planted my next city not far to the east of Indrapura. I went that way because there was room and there was an IP somewhere to the east, which Amina was only just finding out with her settler.

This was an agressive settling strategy designed (together with the IP, Divodurum) to seal off this portion of the continent from Amina's settlers. Be warned that this does seem to piss the AI off. Amina became my game-long enemy soon after, but having her capital within firing range actually gave me an advantage in war.

This was what it looked like at the beginning of the Modern Age. Indrapura was now named Wilwakita and Waset had been annexed. The AI did slip some cities into my part of the continent - my ally Hatshepsut, who took advantage of being able to cross my borders So be wary of open borders and your friends. In any case, the two cities, Behdet and Khemenu, eventually revolted and joined my empire.

 

[aelf]

By way of contrast, let me show you what happened in my next game.

This time, my closest neighbor, Catherine, is to the east. But she isn't as close as Amina had been in my previous game. Again, using the same approach, I forward settled at Taksasila.

But I got greedy and settled my next city up north to make sure I grabbed the camel and gold resources. Lo and behold, Catherine settled Phokaia in between my capital and my second city.

Luckily, I realised all was not lost. The two IPs had been bothering my cities, but now Phokaia was right under their noses. So I retreated all my units out of sight and let them beeline to Catherine's city, which fell quickly. Then I swooped in and conquered it. It wasn't the best location, but a free city early game is a free city early game.

(Catherine ended up as my enemy as well. By the end of Exploration Age, I've fought a world war due to her.)

So to sum it up, here are a few pointers:

• Buy settlers early by taking gold from goodie huts and events (and maybe Lydian Lion memento)
• Settle strategically to seal off a reasonably-sized territory for yourself
• Take the location of hostile IPs into account. They help to ward off the AI early game.
• Be aware that open borders and alliances allow your AI friends to settle in between your cities

To use the cliched saying, this is more an art than a science. But I hope with these pointers and the illustration from my games above, this guide can help you refine your early strategy to deal with AI forward settling.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Interesting. I've picked Lydian Lion almost constantly since I realized that it allowed me to either get a Warrior immediately for defense or a 2nd scout immediately for faster scouting (and more 'goodie hut' equivalents)
- Never thought to use it for a faster 2nd city/settlement: will add that to the list.

But, to be contrary, I don't mind forward settled AI cities that much: such a city is frequently, as your examples show, isolated from any help and also frequently vulnerable to hostile IPs as well. Also, by letting the AI put a city more or less at your mercy, it makes you a gift of 2 points along the Military Legacy path. There is also the consideration (also shown in your examples) that such cities are more likely to 'flip' to you if you surround or crowd it with several of your own cities/settlements.

Forward settling is still aggravating, but it is not the completely negative event it was so often in Civ VI: in fact, it can in many cases be the AI giving you a gift of sorts, if you know how to unwrap it.

 

[chazzycat]

Buying settlers with Lydion Lion was a bit more attractive before the nerf to Imago Mundi, IMO. Nowadays I have been using "Groma" (+1 expansionist point) with "Gold & Sapphire Flowers" (100 food in capital when spending expansionist point). It really speeds up getting to 5 pop, with the +25 bonus production to settlers as well being really helpful. Carthage of course takes it to another level...you will always have your choice of first two expansion locations.

 

[aelf]

Wow, it's almost been a month since I wrote this. I think I was still influenced by Civ6 when I talked about using gold to get settlers out early. Lately, I've been hard producing settlers and I find that it's not too late. For some reason, I've not been forward settled by the AI either. I suppose it's about positioning your first few cities more than anything. The AI in Civ7 isn't that fast in getting settlers out, even on Deity, so there's time to place your cities in a way that prevents the AI from being annoying.

I know it's not the end of the world, but AI city placement can be questionable, so I'd rather avoid having an AI city planted between mine.