How would I turn this city into a settler factory?

[Ultimate_Waffle]

Hello, I've had this game since 2004; but I never really got good at it. I read the War Academy article on settler factories, but I just didn't understand it. Here is a picture of my capital city:

Spoiler :

Please show me a turn by turn process of how to set this up as a settler factory, and explain how it works out. Thanks for any help.

PS: I forgot to mention that this is the gold edition of the game. I'm assuming it's the latest patch.

 

[Opies]

mine the flood plain tiles and the wheat, build a granary and let the city reach 5/6 population, then produce settlers indefinitely.

There is not necessarily any specific set of steps to make a settler factory, the goal is simply to have the city grow twice in the same number of turns it takes to produce a settler. Once you reach that point, you can produce settlers non stop, usually 4/5 turns per settler

 

[Raliuven]

Greetings!

I am by no means an expert, but I can set up settler factory successfully most of the time. You have great terrain here.

Like Opies said, what you need to do is gain 20 food and 30 shields in 4 turns, making sure that you time it so that your settler is produced on the same turn that you grow to population 7. First, for the set up. First thing you need is a granary. I usually produce a few warriors or scouts before I do this. You have the time anyway before your factory is ready to produce and exploration is key - for GH and scouting for the many city sites you will need.

Without talking about maximizing worker moves - I love industrious Civs - road the FP wheat (you can't mine a floodplain I don't think - I loaded a game a tried and you can't do it) and the grassland wheat - add the city center for a total of 5 food and 2 shields. So food is done - it will produce 20 in 4 turns (10 per turn). Put a mine and road on 3 BG (+2 shields each, two to work when you are size 5, and work 3 at size 6). Road one more bonus grassland (+1 shields) - no need to make mine, or mine and road a grassland for 1 shield.

Put a worker on the wheat tiles at all time. Work two BG+M and one BG (or mined grassland) when at size 5. At size 6, work all improved tiles.

Stat production when you grow to size 5. Turns 1&2 (size 5)=5 food, 7 shields. Grow. Turn 3&4 (size 6)=5 food, 9 shields. Grow, but produce settle, back to size 5 with a full granary. Rinse, repeat.

Cumulative shields - turn 1=7, turn 2=14, turn 3=23, turn 4=32.

That is the basic idea. One problem - since you will be working the floodplain the entire time, disease will be a random problem. I've never had much problem with it, but it can throw things off at an inopportune time. There is no way around it in this location, though.

You don't NEED the roads, obviously, but . . .

Since you are an industrial Civ, the total worker turns will be about 23 I think.

 

[Ultimate_Waffle]

Thank you, I shall try this out soon.

 

[templar_x]

@ ultimate - Raliuven´s plan will work, but it´s not optimal.

the main point is, irrigate the FP wheat!
plus mine 3 bg.
build a granary.

that´s it for the SF from size 4-6.

turn 1 (town size 4, granary half-filled, no shields in box):
city center, 3 mined bonus grass, irrigated FP wheat: +5 food +7 shields
turn 2 (town size 4, granary 3/4 filled, 7 shields in box):
city center, 3 mined bonus grass, irrigated FP wheat: +5 food +7 shields +1 shield on growth
turn 3 (town size 5, granary half-filled, 15 shields in box):
city center, 3 mined bonus grass, irrigated FP wheat, e.g. river grass: +5 food +7 shields
turn 4 (town size 5, granary 3/4 filled, 22 shields in box):
city center, 3 mined bonus grass, irrigated FP wheat, e.g. river grass: +5 food +7 shields +1 shield on growth

this sums up for 20 food and 30 shields every 4 turns exactly. you lose 2 pop points on growth to size 6, thus falling back to size 4, and the town looks exactly like described in turn 1 again. if not, you made a mistake.

[in case i just err on this, not having the game in front of me, and an irrigated FP wheat gives only 4 food, you´ll need to go size 5-7 with your SF including working the grassland wheat all the time for 1 additional food. or you irrigate it and share it with another town and work it only every 2nd turn.]

of course roading all tiles you use will help, but not your SF but your commerce production. therefore, make sure to always work (roaded) river tiles over (roaded) non-river tiles, too.

just try it out, and look at the city screen every turn. handling of a SF has to be learned, and inevitably you´ll make mistakes in the beginning. this is one of the easier ones to start with, so it should go well (as long as you don´t suffer disease from the FP). good luck!

templar_x

 

[Raliuven]

I see that Forum Rule #137 says "Don't argue with Templar X" I bow to your wisdom.

I think your math is correct on the FP wheat (base 3, -1 despo, +2 wheat, +1 irrigation)=5. I your plan better because (among other things) you can then allow a tightly placed city to the NE on the river use the grassland wheat instead. If another bonus is nearby, you could irrigate it and turn that city into a worker or settler pump.

Although I didn't go into maximizing the worker moves, what would your opening moves look like? Would you move directly to the flood plain (cross the river)? You would lose the first movement point no matter where you go, but a road won't help coming back and all of the rest of your work is on the other side (not to mention I would be tempted to spread NE first, AWAY from the desert)? I would road it anyway once I got there because you will be working this tile for the entire game and you might as well collect the gold, bridge or no bridge.

Or would you try to build up shields instead to get the granary built faster? The way I read it, the fastest you can receive your first population boost is turn 6 (counting the opening turn). Thereafter the irrigated FP wheat will have your grow 1 pop every 4 turns until the granary. The real drawback (if you want to call it that) of this site is gathering shields. Maybe the explosive population would make up for this? By the time you pop grows on turn 6 (irrigation or not), an industrious Civ could have the first BG mined and almost roaded. That would give you 7 shields in turn 6 and a perfect 10 shields in round 7 if you wanted to build a warrior first for extra scouting.

One last question - since the tribe is industrious, do you worry less about a wasted worker move to the FP wheat than you would if you were a non-industrious Civ?

Or am I completely off the mark which is why I am still trying to beat Monarch?

Thanks in advance if you have time to share your wisdom!

 

[templar_x]

# 137? i wouldn´t have an idea why this rule would come so late???

re your question how to find out the optimal worker moves: you´d have to draw a starting spreadsheet. (my friend Megalou despises those, though, so don´t tell him i said that)

losing a single worker turn can be important or not, this depends on whether you urgently need that improvement in order to reach something (+1f, +1s, ...).

my feeling tells me that a worker has to be built here before the granary. this might even save a few turns towards the first settler, but most importantly, another worker helps to build roads to the places you want to settle.

to me, this looks like a logical rcp3-core situation. but this depends of course on the vc chosen. if you know my playing style from the forums, you´ll guess i would go for a densely packed core in nearly all situations.

let´s go back to the initial worker moves. if i had to make a guess *without* making a spreadsheet, i´d guess that irrigating the grass wheat first might even be faster. you won´t have the FP wheat available for ten turns. but you can get tiles done within that time. so 1NE (irr+road) might be a good idea, then improve the bg reachable from there. this automatically connects e.g. 1e2ne for a 2nd town.

maybe this is even a situation for: worker-settler-granary.

but you´d need to know: settings, intended vc, difficulty level, and the amount of mm you´re willing to engage into.

templar_x

 

[Fiddlin Nero]

Too complex for me to follow. I would just irrigate the floodplains and mine the grassland and keep the population at 6 or below. You can fiddle with the citizens on the city display to maximize the food/production ratio but I usually don't bother. You rarely get the kind of food production you have in this instance. I usually produce a Unit or 2 for every settler to give them time to recover citizens.

 

[Ultimate_Waffle]

Awesome advice, Templar. I shall resume the game now and try out what you say.

 

[GamezRule]

To the OP, I think that the war academy article should be replaced with one that is easier to understand. Also need's to include the fact that all you need a granary, and 30 shields and 20 food in the same number of turns to make a settler factory. The optimal number of turns is 4, but I think 3 is possible. (3 can be done, just takes a city instead of a town.)

 

[Aabraxan]

Yes, but IIRC, towns grow at 20 food (10 w/ granary), while cities grow with 40 food (20 w/ granary).

There are several articles in the War Academy that are instructive on settler factories: Cracker's Opening Plays, RFHolloway's Spotting Settler Factories, and Bamspeedy's Deity Settlers. The bottom line is just that 30 shields needs to be gathered in the same time it takes to grow 2 pop. I have a hard time planning out settler factories. I often just fiddle until I get it right.

 

[Ultimate_Waffle]

I tried it out, and it worked. I had to reload a couple of times to get it right. Once because my city got too unhappy and revolted, so I had to raise the luxury slider. I also got a free settler and a couple of free techs from villages. It appears that there's barely any good land left to settle, though. What are your opinions of what I should do based on these pictures?

Spoiler :

PS: I realize that there's actually quite a bit of good land left to settle, but some of it seems to be kind of an "out of my way" kind of thing. Go easy on me, I'm practically a newb at this game .

 

[Aabraxan]

I tried it out, and it worked. I had to reload a couple of times to get it right. Once because my city got too unhappy and revolted, so I had to raise the luxury slider. I also got a free settler and a couple of free techs from villages. It appears that there's barely any good land left to settle, though. What are your opinions of what I should do based on these pictures? . . . .

PS: I realize that there's actually quite a bit of good land left to settle, but some of it seems to be kind of an "out of my way" kind of thing. Go easy on me, I'm practically a newb at this game .

My opinion: Keep the settler factory running, use your other cities for building troops, then go conquer the world. (You may have a different VC in mind, though.)

I'm glad to hear that you got it working. Like I said, I'm not good at planning SFs just by looking at terrain, but I use them constantly, and it's a very powerful tool.

 

[GamezRule]

By the way, make sure that your cities are a bit closer together then Washington and New York are. You will reap many benefits.

 

[Ultimate_Waffle]

How so? How much closer?

 

[GamezRule]

Well I would use CxxC spacing, but if you are on Monarch or lower, you can get away with CxxxC spacing. Why put the cities so far apart when you can't use the tiles until the industrial age anyway?

 

[Ultimate_Waffle]

I see your point. By the way, I'm on the second easiest difficulty.

 

[GamezRule]

Well you still get a bonus on warlord, so you could get away with CxxxxC if you wanted to. The best is probably to have some high food areas CxxxC and other areas CxxC. Kinda like CxxCxxxCxxCxxCxxxC

 

[Ultimate_Waffle]

So, you're saying I should have food cities a good distance away from other cities so that there is no overlap?

 

[Hellfiredoom]

Even at lower levels I would use the higher level technique, ie. get used to your cities being closer together. I used to play CxxxC, but learned the errors of my way by the many experts on this board.