Lets talk about expansion build orders

[teks]

This is kind of the next logical step from a similiarly titled thread. We discussed our build orders at the capital, what about for all those cities we spam out in the first 100 turns?

I typically start right away with a worker in every city. He can maybe harvest, make a mine, get some farms up, get those resources etc. Afterwards I normally try for commercial then either a trader or another builder, depending on my progress towards feudalism.

I'd love to hear other ideas on this. Whats the best way to get them early cities moving?

 

[MyOtherName]

Any city can build that builder; only Newville is capable of building a commercial hub in Newville. Don't try to make each city do everything itself; let your more established cities help develop the new ones if you have the capacity to do so.

That said, I might have nearly every city building a builder when I have the appropriate card active, similarly with building many settlers at once.

 

[teks]

Thats a good point, but home base has this huge backlog in its own build order. I'm typically building all settlers in home base until I hit my mark. Once its finished it will need to build its own commercial district. Along with serveral other things as well, and due to the population costs of each settler, my capital is not super-productive.

Where in your order do your settlers come from? Are you doing as I do and building them all from the capital (plus a couple from the 1-2 other developed cities I possess) or are your building them in several places at once?

At this time what I've been running is classical republic with +1 production, faster workers, and faster settlers. All at once. This is post early expansion, which I settle to conclusion quite early after walls come up.

The idea I have is that by popping several workers simutaniously I am making my hammers most effecient across all cities. If each worker makes a chop, they practically paid their own hammer cost into the district, and they can additionally provide at least some housing, production, food, and resources. Depending on where those next two charges go.

I think the real competitor is granary, which gets built first in all coastals, as they really need that housing. Even on rivers. Its a food buff and a +2 housing buff, but I think if I look at what a worker can net me, the worker is better.
- A worker could build 3 farms for +3 food, and +1.5 housing.
- A granary provides 2 food and 2 housing.
Thats pretty tight, but the worker can also do other tasks which may be even better. Grabbing resources, finishing eurekas, chopping for resources. I think the worker wins here.

 

[FurballRocker]

As i usually capture my first few cities my capital has usually built everything it immediately needs by the time i start looking at creating extra cities so i tend to let my capital focus on building transferable units such as settlers, traders and builders while my new cities concentrate on building up their infrastructure which for the settlers in particular helps to keep it under the amenity cap and then once other cities are established i will produce extra transferable units in them to speed up my expansion.

As to what you build in new cities, it depends on the situation but i generally go for commercial districts in all cites to start with as the extra gold and trade routes really snowballs your growth spurt. If i have a really good campus spot i might build that first although i tend to prefer commercial hub still. If i have settled a really food poor spot i might pop a granary first. I don't tend to bother with monuments until late on as if i want to expand my borders to take tiles before the AI i tend to just buy them (helped by all the extra gold from commercial hubs and trade routes).

 

[chazzycat]

I usually build monuments or granaries in expansions, depending on fresh water (so mostly monuments), and try to buy a builder with gold if not building it in a core city with the discount policy. they are pretty cheap to buy in the early game, and the monuments speed up border expansion which saves you gold on purchasing tiles, so it kind of balances out. But it has the huge beneficial side effect of getting faster civics & governments (just try playing as rome to see the power of monuments in getting through the civic tree).

 

[whacker]

The very first 1-2 cities usually help building up my military and settlers afterwards. In later ones i usually start with a monument or a granary, depending on wether i have fresh water or not. Builder if Ilkum is about to expire. I place districts as soon as pop allows but finish them later.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

The second city will usually first build a military unit (be it Warrior or Archer), then it's Settlers all the way.

My third and onward cities will usually start either a Builder (if on fresh water) or a Granary (if without fresh water). If in case of Builder, I don't complete it; when the city reaches pop 2 or 3, it's Settler time. I let the Granary finish since I need housing in the water-starved cities, and then Settlers for them too. Of course, always locking down the important districts.

I keep producing Settlers (with the right card) till around turn 70. Then I prepare for the Feudalism rush, and finish Commercial Hubs and build/buy Traders. Sometime around it I slot a Monument in my core cities. Those aren't such a priority for me because taken cities usually have them, and you just need a few turns to repair it.

I'd say it's pretty inefficient to build units without the right card, except on emergencies. And also, I never let more than one of these take up a precious slot. I usually slot a card in (say, Colonization for Settlers, or Agoge for early military) and keep producing that type of unit in almost every city.

 

[The Highwayman]

General build orders for expands:

-Supplemental military if absolutely needed
-Monument
-Builder (if it doesn't come from more established city)
-Commercial Hub
-Whatever adds to housing/growth (i.e. granary, second builder for mowing/farms, Aqueduct).

 

[teks]

I like it
Thanks for the suggestions

 

[fortydayweekend]

I build in "waves" with the appropriate card - e.g. military, settlers, builders, settlers, builders (timed with feudalism). I try to have every city building the bonus production units at the same time - this can mean one city builds 2 while other cities might take 2 waves to complete a single unit. If a city has a spare turn or 2 I'll put some cogs into monuments.

I'm not sure if having half-completed stuff is good but I'm aiming to have almost every cog with a production multiplier in the first 100 or so turns.

I try to settle fresh water first then fill in the other spots later so I don't build granaries until after expansion is over.

 

[Captain Potato]

- A granary provides 2 food and 2 housing.

It's just 1 food and 2 housing for a granary.

The other way to look at workers is that (provided all builds go to improvements rather than chops) the first worker gives you 1 housing, but the second gives you 2. So imagine you've already decided on a worker first for a city. At what point does a second worker make more sense than a granary? You get the housing benefit regardless of whether the tiles are worked, so the answer is basically when you get +1 food or an equivalent yield, which is when one tile is worked. So the second worker only needs you to be at (or approaching) 4 population to be generally better than the granary.

Just food for thought on how good workers/builders are.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

It's just 1 food and 2 housing for a granary.

The other way to look at workers is that (provided all builds go to improvements rather than chops) the first worker gives you 1 housing, but the second gives you 2. So imagine you've already decided on a worker first for a city. At what point does a second worker make more sense than a granary? You get the housing benefit regardless of whether the tiles are worked, so the answer is basically when you get +1 food or an equivalent yield, which is when one tile is worked. So the second worker only needs you to be at (or approaching) 4 population to be generally better than the granary.

Just food for thought on how good workers/builders are.

But then there are the rising cost of Builders, and the fact that many improvements don't add to housing (especially MInes, Quarries and Lumber Mills, the most important improvements to production). It's not much of a stretch to say that 2 Builders might only add up 1 housing.

You dismissed this with your hypothesis, but the fact that Builders can be produced in other cities, while the Granary cannot, is quite important. The Granary might be a good first build for a new city while it catches up with the other in population and improvements. It's one of the first builds my cities get (usually I buy it if I have the money, though).

 

[teks]

Well, the theory is that builders at a minimum can provide housing, but they can provide things other then housing is we deem those other things to be more valuable. If we build a mine, we did so because we believed that the mine is worth more then the farm.
I mean sure there are instances where we can't build a farm, but this is just a generality, and generally we do want our cities to have farmable plots anyway.

But the rest of your comment is totally true. Then we gotta get into the policies. If we have a policy that reduces the cost to produce workers is it better to be building granaries in new cities over workers? Or is it better to have all cities building workers?

 

[Captain Potato]

Ah yeah of course it's going to be more ideal having a pre-built builder from another city.

How do people feel about water mills? I think situationally they can be good first builds. Obviously you need the river location and some rice or wheat to benefit from the additional effect. I think the main use is in a city you intend to be pumping out settlers with; you don't need any extra housing in such a city to begin with, but you do need some extra growth to offset the population loss.

 

[A+ombomb]

Thats a good point, but home base has this huge backlog in its own build order. I'm typically building all settlers in home base until I hit my mark. Once its finished it will need to build its own commercial district. Along with serveral other things as well, and due to the population costs of each settler, my capital is not super-productive.

Where in your order do your settlers come from? Are you doing as I do and building them all from the capital (plus a couple from the 1-2 other developed cities I possess) or are your building them in several places at once?

At this time what I've been running is classical republic with +1 production, faster workers, and faster settlers. All at once. This is post early expansion, which I settle to conclusion quite early after walls come up.

The idea I have is that by popping several workers simutaniously I am making my hammers most effecient across all cities. If each worker makes a chop, they practically paid their own hammer cost into the district, and they can additionally provide at least some housing, production, food, and resources. Depending on where those next two charges go.

I think the real competitor is granary, which gets built first in all coastals, as they really need that housing. Even on rivers. Its a food buff and a +2 housing buff, but I think if I look at what a worker can net me, the worker is better.
- A worker could build 3 farms for +3 food, and +1.5 housing.
- A granary provides 2 food and 2 housing.
Thats pretty tight, but the worker can also do other tasks which may be even better. Grabbing resources, finishing eurekas, chopping for resources. I think the worker wins here.

This analysis does not include the opportunity cost of being forced to work the farms the worker improved. Most normal farms are very poor, and you'd be much better off working a different tile. With feudalism it's a little better, but by then you should already have a granary.

 

[teks]

This analysis does not include the opportunity cost of being forced to work the farms the worker improved. Most normal farms are very poor, and you'd be much better off working a different tile. With feudalism it's a little better, but by then you should already have a granary.

The housing bonus isn't linked to working the farm. Though, it is an interesting proposal. I'll have to pay more attention to what tiles I'm valuing more in the early game.

 

[4N4C0ND4]

From my empirical experience, granary can be delayed for a long time, depending on the dirt obviously. I think old timers are sometimes trapped with the habit of granary first from older iterations.
5 housing cap is quite a lot. Add a couple of farms and other improvement and you hit 7, 8 quickly. Then I build the granary in 3 turns and we Gucci

 

[fortydayweekend]

Like a lot of things granaries are length-of-game dependent - if you're playing til turn 300+ the extra pop they allow has more time to pay off. If you're aiming for 200 turns or fewer you'll skip them (and aqueducts and neighbourhoods and banks etc etc) in most cities.