Not using builders until Serfdom?

[Scipio1]

Last game I didn’t get any builders until
I got the serfdom perk (allows 5 charges instead of 3 per builder). At that point I have almost each city produce a builder and that upgrades the whole empire. Seems a pretty viable strategy, no? Do you guys use builders much earlier than this?

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

You miss out on alot of insperations and eurkas. Also you will miss out on resources, so if anything you most likely are hurting yourself by waiting for serfdom.

 

[Scipio1]

You miss out on alot of insperations and eurkas. Also you will miss out on resources, so if anything you most likely are hurting yourself by waiting for serfdom.

Ah okay. That’s helpful.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Serfdom come around the same time as mines and farms actually become useful for normal tiles. +1 production and +1 food is not interesting but +2 production from mines and up to +4 food from farms is possible with feudalism. Early builder charge is as much if not more about the eurkas and insperations and getting resources (which I often sell to the ai), the early yields from improvements are simply very low, so mines and farms is something I only really use on resources, however in a pinch getting the 3 mines or prebuilding farmland so you get the eurka and insperation is still very much Worth it and I value the production cost of builders less than I value the Culture and science gained and once you get the Techs and Civics the old improvements get alot better anyway.

 

[MrRadar]

Last game I didn’t get any builders until
I got the serfdom perk (allows 5 charges instead of 3 per builder). At that point I have almost each city produce a builder and that upgrades the whole empire. Seems a pretty viable strategy, no? Do you guys use builders much earlier than this?

No, that's not good, you're hurting yourself and slowing yourself down a lot.
Better look for ways to get additional charges much earlier than Serfdom, e. g. by hiring Liang and building the Pyramids, if possible.
If there are immediately improvable resources/tiles next to your start, it may even be good to start with a builder.

 

[UWHabs]

I do sometimes hold off the big builder rush until that point. Like my current game, I had a few builders beforehand to lock up my resources, and pre-built most of a builder in every city so that when I hit feudalism, I basically had a new 5-charge builder for every city ready to go within 2 turns or so of discovering the tech.

 

[Casworon]

The only way i can see this working out is if you do some serious early expansion through military conquest and settler spam.

As a general rule more cities = better for Civ VI. So if you are delaying improving your tiles you are going to be wanting to getting control of a lot of cities to make up for it

 

[Zdarg]

And if you play peacefully, you probably should build Ancestral Hall early and have at least 3-4 free 3-charge builders way before serfdom. More is better.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

In vanilla Civ 6, it you almost always wanted to build a handful of workers early game, then produce one in every city and swap 1 turn before completion, have a civic with 1 turn remaining, then micromanage it so that you finish 5-10 builders in one turn, switch to another civic with 1 turn remaining. That was a lot of work, and it somewhat held you back, because you produced something you didn't finish until later. It was a cool strategic element, but perhaps too much micromanaging.

In Civ 6, it mostly does not matter. I have found it to be most optimal to get some workers early, then hold out and time your feudalism with your second golden age monumentality. I could often purchase 3-4 workers, switch out of the policy, and then another 5-10 turns later do the exact same thing. It's much less production focussed, but still a lot of micromanagement.

 

[Casworon]

I mainly use the Serfdom boom for farm spamming. Before this only using my builders to improve resources.

Once that serfdom hits though i go around improving everything in sight

 

[DJ_Tanner]

Last game I didn’t get any builders until
I got the serfdom perk (allows 5 charges instead of 3 per builder). At that point I have almost each city produce a builder and that upgrades the whole empire. Seems a pretty viable strategy, no? Do you guys use builders much earlier than this?

There are just so many ways to get builders, that saving everything for those extra charges will hurt more than it helps. Get a couple and get your cities humming, but if you are close then it makes sense to hold on, and get Liang and rush the rest that way.