how to take maximum advantage of settler level?

I was wondering if anyone has experience with this:

playing settler level at maximum efficiency. What leader would be good for that? What kind of strategy?

I've looked at the bonuses and it seems that your maintenance is significantly reduced. So organized seems out. Furthermore, tech research is much cheaper, so industrious seems a bit of a waste, as you're going to get any wonder you want anyhow. Imperialist might be nice, to crank out all those cities you have safe space for and can afford. Financial scales pretty well to difficulty level obviously. Spiritual seems unnecessary, since the war-based civics are unnecessary if you wage wars with ridiculous tech advantages. Same for aggressive, and charismatic is pointless also because happiness bonuses are so high. Philosophical? Meh, you get lots of wonders to generate heaps of GP anyway. Creative? Could be nice. Lots of cities, all with extra culture, this could mean a super-early domination victory.

So, I think Victoria or Catherine would be best. But it's really hard to decide, as all traits (except for financial and creative, which unfortunately can no longer be combined) are more or less superfluous. Any thoughts/experiences?

 

I think this is actually a very interesting question. Most people tend to discount the lower levels of the game, but lately I've been playing hall of fame games and am actually having fun trying to race through some of the lower levels. After beating my head against the wall on emperor or immortal, it is a quite a bit of fun to crush my enemies, see them driven before me, yada, yada, yada.

I'm not sure that I agree though that a given trait is unworthy because of the advantages at settler though. I think it depends on the victory condition you are going for and how quickly you want to get there. As you mention, maintenance isn't as much of a problem for example, but if you are going for domination early on a huge map, it is still something of an issue and industrious may be just enough to help you get there a few turns faster.

If anything, the traits magnify the bonuses already received and allow for extreme strategies and beelines. Aggressive may not seem to be worth much when you have cavalry against longbowmen, but if the extra promotions allow you to race through an opponent's territory with fewer units that have to rest less often to heal, then that can be an advantage in a fast conquest win.

So, IMHO, a lot of the leader combinations/strategies that work on higher levels, work really, really well on settler. The Mongols and Keshiks are great for those conquest wins. Financial leaders are fantastic for cultural or space, etc. I just think that on settler, you are less constrained by map issues or early tech path (because you get everything so quickly anyway).

 

On settler you do not need financial or ony other perk.

The biggest advantage will give you trat that speed up initial development.
I do not have Warlords, but in Vanilla the best leader is probably
Cyrus.

Expansionist speed up early development with cheap Granaries and Creative will let you to take advantage from fat cross as fast as posible.

IN addition Cyrus UU is very effective on low dificulty.

 

No doubt about that. But which works best? No trait would become useless, but some seem to have reduced efficiency. Expansive's health bonus seems almost worthless for example. Almost, because it means you never have to build an aquaduct, but that's just not good enough. But you're right on organized probably: when going for domination that will still pay off.

 

I really like Mansa Musa for low-level builder games.

Spiritual - Micromanage your civics and religions as much as you want.
Financial - Needed to beat your human opponents in comparison games, even if you don't need it vs. AIs.

 

Elizabeth has to be a good choice as Financial and Philosophical will let you win the technological race with one hand tied behind your back... being ahead in tech means you can build any wonder and the wonders give double GPPs. I guess her UU won't be a lot of use as ordinary rifles will beat macemen and longbows just as easily. The Stock Exchange might help finance the huge empire you could acquire very rapidly.

She would allow you to win by any victory type but makes Cultural absurdly easy... get nearly all the religions and loads of money and loads of GAs = an absolute doddle.

 

I think I'm struggling with the concept of "best" here. It gets into the discussion of whether there is "one sure fire way" to win. Not really a relevant discussion at settler level since almost any strategy will lead to a win, but I keep coming back the the maximum efficiency thing. I read into that the goal of fastest win or highest score, etc.

I will concede that there probably is a killer leader at the settler level and it is probably Liz with the financial/philosophical combo. Mainly because tech is vitally important for a quick win in most victory conditions.

However, getting back to your initial posting about maximum efficiency, I'm not sure Liz is the best choice in all situations. If I'm going for a conquest win on settler, I'm not sure Liz is the choice. An early useful UU (preferably with 2 movement points) is more attractive to me in that case than financial, since the goal is to end the game before tech becomes an issue. For a domination win on a smaller map, creative can be a bigger deal than usual since there is less overall land area needed for domination relative to base city size. So while I would agree that Liz is a very good general purpose leader, I think there are strategies out there that would be more efficient with a different trait combination.

So, I think that the best leader still depends on the victory condition (and whether speed of victory or score are important) one wants to pursue, type of map, map size, etc. even on settler.

 

If you are aiming for culture victory, the 'bottle neck' is that you cannot build enough cathedrals and wonders to get maximum multipliers. Therefore you need everything that can speed up hammers, for the buildings you will build, e.g., templesx7, wonders, granaries, theatres. I think spiritual and industrious provide maximum benefit (7 temples and wonders which are expensive). Plus India has fast worker UU. Therefore I vote for Mr. Ghandi.

 

Take the Romans and stomp over them.

 

Any Civ that starts with a Scout instead of a Warrior is a plus, since popping settlers and workers out of huts is key to that level.

 

India's fast worker has move 3. If your warrior pops a worker earlier from a hut, that worker will be better than a scout.

 

Only if barbarians are off. But I guess you turn them off too if you're into maximum advantage.

 

What type of economy do you recommend for Lizzy then? It seems a hybrid is the way to go. Farm the food recources, use mines and planations on the other resources. With enough food resources you just cottage the remaining I suppose.

Think I will give her a try; haven't played as her before.

 

Sorry if I was unclear, but highest score is indeed what I meant. I've seen many polls/discussions about which strategy and which leader is 'best', and I think that's a rather strange question to ask without regarding the difficulty level, which changes so many factors. And it just matters at which moment you reach a 'tipping point' after which you're probably going to win. You need a wholly different strategy if you know you can't handle a war with most of your neighbours at least in the early game, or if you could handle the top dog one-handed. So I want to discuss Settler strategy, not just for Settler's sake, but also to get a better perspective on thinking about strategy (and the connected issue of best leaders) in relation with difficulty levels.

 

For conquest, since you can roll over everyone, any civ that starts with a warrior to take over a nearby capital and can get to chariots fast (starts with wheel+agri or wheel+fish or you can reroll until you get free techs so you can research animal husbandry out of the gate).

 

Animal barbs won't attack you. Units appear quite late in settler level, so I assume it's pretty safe to leave barbarians on.

 

Its gonna depend on map type. On pangea may as well go for vanilla romans;praetorians and cheap courthouses for the cities you plan to keep.
If you need ocean travel eg continents then maybe go for any financial civ (or philosophical and lightbulb techs with GS) and stomp over opposition with maces and cats.
If I get the time might be worth trying just as a break from warlords 2.08 monarch.