How far are you willing to move your Initial Settler?

I was curious how much people were willing to move their settler in favor of better land. The vast majority of time I will settle on Turn 1, with the occasional move and then settle on Turn 2. Do people find that sometimes the land is good enough to warrant a Turn 3 or even 4 settle?

 

I'm like you- I almost always settle t0 and only occasionally the next turn. I have a hard time thinking of a justification to move further than that. Maybe if my scout or warrior found a natural wonder at t0? I can't remember that happening so perhaps natural wonders just can't appear that close to capitals?

 

When playing Inca, I found it's worth it to explore nearby mountain areas if you don't start next to a mountain. I am fairly sure that you should always put your capital on a mountain as Inca, the difference is so huge that even settling on turn 4-5 I'm still able to beat AIs to Stonehenge and to have superior capital.

 

I would only go 4 or 5 tiles if I found something really odd, like a natural wonder.

I commonly settle on turns 0,1, or 2. The most common reason to take longer for me is settling on top of a hill luxury (especially marble)

 

It feels like every time I do move my settler I always semi-regret it as the map reveals itself, you just have so little info 1st turn.
The only time I feel like it's worth it is to move to the coast or away from the coast.

 

What? You have majority of info to decide if to settle or move like 1 tile. You only don't have info about bonus and strategic resources and won't have until you research techs, so you need to settle anyway. I hope it goes without saying that you should move scout and warrior 1st to reveal more

 

What about when you discover a Natural Wonder with your Pathfinder that's a few turns away by Settler?

 

Moving once is about my average, most of the time I'm willing to move to get a better start, I'm never willing to settle on a 2/1/1 title. Double move sometimes for a lux that gives an extra production and maybe 1/2 gold

 

Obviously I always move the pathfinder and warrior to see my surroundings. I like settling on hills or next to rivers but I never delay settling more than one turn. Anything more and I feel like I’m giving up too much time/yields.

 

As others have noted, I generally settle on T0 or T1. If I can see (or hear) water very close by I will either more towards or away from it.

Sometimes I can also get an extra luxury within range of my capital, or I can get obviously better yields by moving 1 turn. Doesn't happen super often though!

True, although I've consistently found that the initial tile your settler starts on does not contain a bonus or strategic resource. ^^

 

I'd probably only move to avoid being a tile or two away from the ocean or river. I dont see how it would be worth it when starts are pretty consistently good.

 

I would guess it is impossible for you to start on a hidden resource. You can certainly move onto iron if you have strat balance on with the right setup.

 

If you don't move your settler it should never be on a resource. Unless you play a modded map or something like that.

 

I rarely move but I did so in my most recent start. I was next to a river and 2 crab with Arabia, but my pathfinder revealed a third crab and good floodplains farmland 1 turn away. Since I could still keep the two initial crab in radius, I decided to walk a turn and lose the river in exchange for a faster/taller monopoly and the chance to build Petra. I think this was well worth it, but for me to move the settler takes something with a good edge like this, because those bonus resources (particularly fish and horses) can make a big difference in where I'll wind up actually wanting the capitol. Also, turn 1 yields are actually a pretty heavy penalty.

 

So it occurred to me that it might be worthwhile to apply some math to the present question.

So here's a pretty outrageous start location.

So if I settle on the initial tile, here's what I get in a single turn and what I'll miss out on if I settle on the Amber on the adjacent tile.

5 - Food
6 - Production
5 - Gold
1 - Culture
6 - Science

Which is a total of 23 yields.

If I settle on the Amber, I'll be gaining 1 Production and 1 Gold per turn. As far as yields are concerned, that'll pay off in about 12 turns. It also places me closer to other Lake tiles, which is relevant seeing as my borders probably won't expand by the time I have 4 population - a very strong case seeing as there's so many lakes around.

The extra Production and Gold also seems like a good deal paired against that 6 science - I'll be able to build everything faster, and I sense that that 6 science will be recovered later.

So for 12 turns, this isn't a bad deal. A 2-turn wait would take 23 turns to recover from in terms of raw indiscriminate yields. This is...potentially worthwhile in some cases I guess, but yeah, this is majorly stretching it I'd say.

I'll toss in here that my 1 move here is actually generating 2 new yields because it's on a resource. That's the only time we'll get a 12-turn recovery time with net positive results from the future onwards. So unless one is moving onto a resource tile, or exposing a tile that offers WAY more yields (e.g. moving from 6 grasslands to an Oasis), it's hard to say that it's worth it to wait that one turn. The only exception I can think of is if you're on a flat tile with no fresh water and the Food yields nearby are more utter crap...if a city never grows enough and fast enough to build Settlers to expand, one may as well find a nearby river tile to get that Food, because it might be all you ever have. I personally don't think that the Well or even the Granary sufficiently makes up for this, hence my argument in another thread that base city yields should share 4 of Food and Production and always have a Gold - that kind of yield is necessary for catch-up with other civs who have landed way better starts with actual yields.

 

Hmm that's a fair point. Working that 3rd lake by pop 3 is going to be another huge boost, although possibly countered by not being able to set up a farm triangle north as soon. Those would be what, 6 food each?

Edit: good point. There are almost certainly rocks and animals all over.

 

Maybe, but hard to factor that in since you don't know where animals live yet.

 

My instinct would be to settle in place and immediately research Animal Husbandry.

 

I rarely settle on the first turn. Most of the time there will be a better spot to found capital within 4 turns reach. Examples are:

- There is a close desert tile, so I move to try to build Petra.
- Initial spawn is 2-3 hexes away from coast, so I move to have a coastal capital.
- There is a tile that can reach +4 luxuries. This is extra strong for mining luxuries as they are improved sooner. So it is worth to move there.
- Incan quest for mountain chains. Once I moved for 6 turns but reward was excellent (grand mesa+kilimanjaro)
- Recently I discovered settling on marble gives wonder production bonus immediately without need to research related tech.

 

So regarding the pic I posted above - the automatic citizen AI is pretty stupid. While the first citizen is placed on a Lake, it always places my second citizen on the other Amber - EVEN if I set the city to Food Focus. The result is that the city starves as soon as it reaches 2 popultion. Revision needed!