First turn moving

craney1987

Warlord
Joined
Nov 14, 2016
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234
What is everyone's thoughts on relocating their settler. From my own experience at emperor and below I've never moved my settler, but from reading these forums I can see the better players do.
I've always been terrified of losing a turns worth of yields to do this. Is it a completely unfounded fear? Is it always best to move to a better location? How long before you must settle?
And please answer any other questions relating to this that I should have answered but don't know to ask
 
you'll be well behind the ai tile yields for the first half of the game on higher difficulties.... you'll consolidate and catch up in time. Two apples and a hammer in turn one is a poor alternative to a sweeeeet city>commercial>harbour chain on a river, or a tidy farming diamond, a potentially massive panthenon, or any one of a number of civ-specific gambits.

always move warrior first, and yeah. dont be afraid of losing a turn or 2.
 
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I do it if there's a spot to increase production, especially if it's a plains hill with water (becomes 2 production). You lose 3 production (2 from palace and 1 from city tile) for every turn you move, so it needs to make up for that. There's also a small loss of culture/science/gold yield but that's hardly a big deal because of eurekas and huts.

There's also the case for settling bonus resources too, though note that would take away potential eurekas for improving things.
 
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It really is a situational decision. Either you spot something good with your warrior when moving it, or notice a place with abundant early production, or see a lux that you might as well settle on considering it will make a "meh" tile, or because your starting warrior reveals a lux 4 tile from your starting point in an area that wont leave room for another city, etc.

There are many reasons to not settle T0. All you have to know is that it wont kill your game. If you sacrifice 1 or 2 turns of hammers (the most critical early resource), to settle in a place where you get 2 workable 3h tiles for example, you wont suffer much from it and will even do better after a few turns.
 
You lose 3 production (2 from palace and 1 from city tile) for every turn you move
So the three production mentioned plus the tile you would have been working is the loss per turn... normally 1-2 prod. So lets just assume 5 production.

A common reason to move is to the top of a plains hill. You will loose 5 prod for each turn to get there but will gain an extra prod on getting there so can quickly make up for it. Moving one turn to a plains hill means you gain an extra production after 5 turns but did loose prod initially. It really is a common thing to do. Two turns can be riskier on higher levels and 3 turns I start to doubt.

Moving to a grassland hill gives no benefit beyond defense, its not something I will do typically.

Moving on to a luxury if it takes half a turn I will always consider. The extra trade it will give and 5% initially until trade is worth consideration but especially if it gives science or culture it is a significant benefit in the early stages.

Having cows immediately screams Great Zimbabwe and so moving to get more resources is an option. One problem is you do not have 3 tile visibility when you start so there is always some unknown in there.

Cows,sheep,horses - God of the open sky - that cultural bump early is beyond good.
Horses rush for horesmen is always tempting. If nothing else they sell well.
Plantations? Oral tradition.... get those bananas within the first 2 rings

Moving far has its risks, especially when you are unknowingly moving towards another civ. I tend not to move far and this makes sense as you realistically should be only moving toward something you can see (revealed by warrior moving first)

If settling on a featureless grassland with nowhere else better in sight you may be better if determined not to restart, of just settling on turn 1 where you are. You still get 3 production worst case for your capital.
 
I am much more likely to move my starting settler in Civ 6 than I was in any previous iteration of Civ.
 
I am much more likely to move my starting settler in Civ 6 than I was in any previous iteration of Civ.

Reminds me of a game I had in Civ 5 where moving two turns landed me in a place with 3 sheep and 5 crab. With the panteon for production on fishing boats it was a win from the start.
 
Well, the start was bugged but even if there was nobody nearby, I'm pretty sure everyone would move. :p
 
Generally I'm not very good at picking decent city locations (noob alert) so I never move my settler just in case I then settle it somewhere that's even worse. It has abused me many times but I still trust the game to give me a good start. :hug:
 
About 50/50 on how often I move and not move first settler (deity). The first turns of the game are usually the biggest gamble anyway (think close by barb camp with horses) so spending a few turns for improving your long term prospects is a good idea. If it all goes bust because of the first barb attack, it very likely would have gone bust anyway. The game is far from optimal in finding the best nearby spot for your capital so improving on that manually is IMHO advisable, unless you somehow did end up spawning in a really good spot.
 
Very rarely do I, unless I start on a resource. My current game my settler was sitting on a diamond, I moved to a regular rainforest square. It was worth it to lose a turn for that.
 
This is something I should do more often. Heck, even just to get a better 1st ring tile, it's likely worth it.

By moving for 1 turn, you give up 1 turn of production plus science and culture, so something like 5 production/2 science/1 culture, give or take.
But if you move and get a better ring-1 tile - if your move gets you the spices or sugar in ring-1, or even just gets you a plains/hill/rainforest tile, you'll likely catch up to what you lost by turn 10-15. And if it brings a better resource into tier 2 instead of tier-3, that might be where your culture expands to instead having to buy it later.

Now, it's not always the case. If moving loses you the freshwater bonus, or if you can't actually figure out if you'd be better to move to stay put, then the default is usually fine. I hardly ever move, but probably should experiment a little more with it just to see if it goes better.
 
Very rarely do I, unless I start on a resource. My current game my settler was sitting on a diamond, I moved to a regular rainforest square. It was worth it to lose a turn for that.
Why do you move from the resource? You acquire it Simply by settling I thought
 
Why do you move from the resource? You acquire it Simply by settling I thought

Yes, but you don't get the benefit of the improvement which you can build over it later. In case of diamonds this would also happen to be a mine, which over the course of the whole game translates to quite a bit of lost production. Definitely more than you lose from moving :D
 
Yes, but you don't get the benefit of the improvement which you can build over it later. In case of diamonds this would also happen to be a mine, which over the course of the whole game translates to quite a bit of lost production. Definitely more than you lose from moving :D

Well, whatever tile you move to you lose an improvement there, and in many ways, maybe you're better to settle on a resource, since non-resource tiles can also be used for districts and wonders if you change plans.
 
I play mostly island maps and I usually only move if it seems to give me space for another city in the opposite direction. Nothing's more annoying than settle your capital and a few turns later notice that your capital's location is seriously messing up the ideal way to make use of the limited land tiles. But moving my settler in hope of finding better surrounding resources? Nah, feels too random and also a bit pointless in the long run.
 
Well, whatever tile you move to you lose an improvement there, and in many ways, maybe you're better to settle on a resource, since non-resource tiles can also be used for districts and wonders if you change plans.

Well, there is much better chance that you will be working that resource tile in the end. I believe this is individual preference and doesn't matter that much. I for one prefer to not settle on resources if at all possible.

On a side note, I've never spawned on a resource tile too...
 
If you start on a plantation resource though, it probably doesn't matter as that improvements is not so hot and requires irrigation. If it boosts the city center tile I can just sit on it and enjoy the luxury right away.
 
If I settle on tea, I get a science boost as though it's been improved. Is it not the case if I was to settle on iron that I'd also get a production boost?
 
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