general opening strategy: noobish question

[henrebotha]

It's not a topic often touched upon (as far as I've seen, anyway), but it seems to me most of the experienced players here have their capital build a worker right off the bat.

Until discovering this site (ie when I was still trying to figure this stuff out myself), I had far better success procrastinating via warriors/scouts/work boats/even a barracks, allowing my city to grow to pop 3 or 4 before I start building workers.

Is this a good idea or no?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Almost never is it good to delay a worker (unless it's just IMPOSSIBLE to have something for him to do when he gets out, such as landlocked toku with a ton of forest or something). The exception I can think of is low difficulties where you can vulture huts and get incredible things from them such as...workers and settlers.

Improved tiles have MUCH higher yields than unimproved...the difference is staggering enough to make an early worker that important.

Edit: Think of it this way: You're going to get a yield of 3 max working unimproved tiles. Most specials in a capitol BFC are worth 5 or 6. Mined grassland hills are worth 4. The amount of time growing beats worker first in yield is staggeringly short...although I thought of a 2nd exception that fits the purpose of working unimproved tiles: the warrior rush. Of course, the yield of doing that is a city and possibly even a worker on top of it, so it wins.

Neither super huts nor warrior rush targets are in supply on higher levels however.

 

[nbcman]

Normally no. It is better to start improving tiles as soon as possible rather than growing.

edit: xpost with TheMeInTeam

 

[SlipperyPeople]

Delaying a worker-

-You're building fishing boats.
-You have no worker techs and are researching fishing in order to build boats. Might as well build a warrior or partial a barracks.
-You have no worker techs and are trying to found hinduism or buddism. Might as well get started on the henge and decide whether or not to finish after the religion race is decided.
-You're pumping Quechas.

 

[henrebotha]

Haha, okay cool, got it. Thanks gice.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

There's another option too (high risk)...

You are stealing a worker.

 

[Iranon]

...and another one: you're Imperialistic and can scrape together 4 hammers straight away. Here it's worth to at least consider starting with a settler (depends a lot on the land and tech path though. Sometimes I do this with Charlemagne or Justinian if I want to found an early religion).

 

[henrebotha]

...I would imagine people read other posters' sigs at least once.

I'm playing Vanilla Civ so Imperialistic is right out the window (I don't even know what that trait does, so *shrug*). Also, the whole point of me not wanting to start with a worker is that the worker prevents growth, which a settler also does so it kind of kills the whole thing.

EDIT: sorry, didn't mean to sound like an ass...

Stealing workers (at least before I have a real army) doesn't really appeal to me.

 

[troytheface]

workboat, or a scout (depends on map/civ and settings)
"You are stealing a worker"
yes- and is really easy to do. Find civ - send warrior , take worker while your building a barracks. The cottage builders like building workers tho.

 

[Iranon]

My apologies... actually putting such info there seems a pretty good idea and could clean up many misunderstandings if people read it

***

Many people start with Worker, Settler or even Worker, Worker, Settler (especially if they can accelerate their start by some chopping).

Generally, an unimproved tile gives you 3 (mix of food/hammers) at most. The citizen working it, however, gobbles up 2 food, for a net gain of 1 hammer for eventual worker/settler production.

If you had built a worker first and improved some riverside corn, you have a tile producing 5 food... fully equal for worker production to a size 3 city, available more quickly and growing quickly while your worker improves some more tiles.

 

[henrebotha]

That makes sense... Only recently (after reading part of an article on improvements and city placement) did I come to think of tiles in terms of "will working this actually give me more production/commerce, or just increase my population to no effect?"

 

[DMOC]

workboat, or a scout (depends on map/civ and settings)
"You are stealing a worker"
yes- and is really easy to do. Find civ - send warrior , take worker while your building a barracks. The cottage builders like building workers tho.

Barracks are a waste that early in the game.

On topic, I typically build my first worker right from the start or once the city grows to size 2 or even size 3 (rare, this is usually when I have fishing boats).

 

[Joshua368]

...I would imagine people read other posters' sigs at least once.

I'm playing Vanilla Civ so Imperialistic is right out the window (I don't even know what that trait does, so *shrug*).

What is this, 2005? Get up with the times. BtS is well worth the money as long as you enjoy Civ. You'll get plenty of people automatically assuming you play BtS and giving you inaccurate info here, sorry.

By the way the Imperialistic trait gives you +50% hammer production (not food) for Settlers, as well as +100% Great General birthrate. (not that you'd know what those are, you silly vanilla man )

Also pretty much echoing what everyone else says here, worker first is best like ninety percent of the time...

 

[henrebotha]

If I see BtS being sold in a store I'll probably buy it, assuming it's not like $40. Games are so expensive...

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Order it on the net! Shaka demands you do it, you wouldn't want to make Shaka angry now would you?

 

[henrebotha]

Truth... He'll probably invent a new kind of spear to kill me with.

Seriously, though, shipping costs to South Africa are ridiculous.

 

[sinergistic]

Truth... He'll probably invent a new kind of spear to kill me with.

Seriously, though, shipping costs to South Africa are ridiculous.

Can you use Steam?

 

[Sian]

buy it on directdownload or something like that (can't offhand remember the actual sitename) where you get it as a download ... true ... i'll take some time to download it but theres no shipping fees, and its slightly cheaper than DVD's even due to no physial object ...

 

[swordmaster]

Sometimes I wish I had no CivIII experience at all. Worker first always seemed like a dumb thing but starts making sense now.

 

[henrebotha]

I guess what I'll do is start with a worker unless I have fishing tech and water resources available, in which case I'll put out the requisite work boats first so my commerce can have a nice boost while I get that worker.