Producing Settlers/Workers in the opening

[Shearscape]

Hello CFC,

I'm a Prince-level player that's working up to Monarch, so I've been able to hold my own so far w/ the basics. (Actually Prince is pretty easy, but I've been too scared to move up to Monarch )

My question is how one should be producing Settlers / Workers in the beginning, mainly in the capital. I've mainly relied on 6->3 whipping for Settlers and 4->2 whipping for Workers, with my 2nd and 3rd cities usually assisting in Worker production. Is there a rule of thumb to follow when slowbuilding Settlers / Workers? Maybe growing to the number of good tiles you can work, and then building Settlers / Workers at that point? (And if so, what counts as a 'good tile?' Riverside farmed grassland, or just real food resources?)

Thanks for your help!

 

[Grashopa]

Be IMP?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=455381

Check my game in the thread. Capital was *settlers, 2nd city was *workers.

And mainly relying on whipping settlers and workers may be a mistake, definitely if you have no happy. The reason I whip them is to take a food heavy city and convert food to hammers with overflow.

 

[Grashopa]

If you are willing to 'play' deity just to check out the start you can play this food heavy map and see how many settlers you can get in before the barbs or the AI kill you

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=454872

 

[Htadus]

If you are willing to 'play' deity just to check out the start you can play this food heavy map and see how many settlers you can get in before the barbs or the AI kill you

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=454872

Well in Deity, it is not the AI or Barb that will kill you if you do careless expansion. The economy will do a better job of killing the game. Well the AI will come and helpout after a while.

 

[chopster]

Is there a rule of thumb to follow when slowbuilding Settlers / Workers? Maybe growing to the number of good tiles you can work, and then building Settlers / Workers at that point? (And if so, what counts as a 'good tile?' Riverside farmed grassland, or just real food resources?)

In general I find that there should be more important things to do with my workers if I'm considering building more than about 1 grass farm while still expanding.

Roading to the future city site is usually better than the additional food a grass farm will contribute to producing a worker or settler.

Chopping is where many of my early hammers in settlers and workers come from.

In my capital, I'll generally build settlers and workers while working as many specials as I can - in the early game this is usually only food and copper or horses if present.

 

[cseanny]

With a decent capital and room to expand I'll generally do one of two methods. 1st is go worker>warriors to happy cap>worker>more warriors to fog bust (generally 5total)a 3rd worker>then settler spam (4-6). If CRE I'll get a Library first too. This generally works better on Monarch and below because your 2nd city comes quite late but the rest come very quickly. The initial 3 workers chop away and as each new settler pops out a worker follows. This means you normally end up building 2-3 settlers with no chops.

Your initial warriors need to be doing a good job of fogbusting . I tend to have the first few new cities grow to size 2-3 with a few improvements then chop out a couple workers. The Capital should make around 3 more workers after the last settler and those should prioritize hooking up cities/roads. Once again, this works very very well on Monarch and below, or with good tile/worker management emperor. More skill is needed on higher levels because you need to balance maintenance which is more problematic with delayed roads.

The second method is to go worker>warrior>Settler immediately at 3Pop>workerX2. 2nd City then gos warriors to 4pop then worker spam. Ideally this is a strategic resource city and revolt to slavery.....just in case you need an emergency whip for barb defense. The warriors from Capital and 2nd city should be enough to fogbust just fine on Emperor and below. Then grow your Capital to happy cap and settler spam. This is my preferred method because The Capital usually get settlers in the 6-7 turn frame while the 2nd city gets workers in the 5-6 range which means you have more workers early and can get roads and resources online immediately. Once again, if CRE I'll squeeze out a library in Capital, but this time after 1st settler and while growing to happy cap.

If AIs are close then I'll generally go worker>warrior to 3pop>settler>workerX2 and adjust from there. I generally play Immortal as my default so I do this more often than not....AIs expand faster and it's nice to get strategic resources hooked up for barbs a lot earlier.

 

[Seraiel]

In Replay #3 (my Sig) Keilah did some Math and found out that 4->2 is better for early Settlers, as production starts way earlier. Having 3+ tiles the city grows faster from 4-6 than from 2-4 but production starts so much earlier, that one will have more Settlers earlier (very important for IMM+) . Later, especially if one has blocked some land, 6->3 gets better because it's more efficient.

 

[goldys_lackey]

I usually won't whip a settler if I can get him out in under 10 turns. At pop 2 with wet corn/pigs/wet wheat and a good hammer resource, and a settled PH cap, you can do this. No need to grow or whip until you have something to whip into, like a granary or library or wonder, or units.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Whipping is too powerful in the early game to allow slow-build settlers. I'll slow build workers after chopping a third, but whip whip whip settlers and let the overflow go into units (if copper/iron available), Granary (if not built yet), Library (if not built yet), or a worker (if none of the above is available). Usually, with a good food city, you can overflow into a worker and have him pop out in 3-7 (marathon) turns after whipping the settler.

After watching several One_Legged_Rhino games, I've learned the power of farms, food, specialists, and whip whip whipping! Thanks OLR.

 

[Shearscape]

First, thanks everyone for the responses! Your comments are all very helpful.

Whipping is too powerful in the early game to allow slow-build settlers. I'll slow build workers after chopping a third, but whip whip whip settlers and let the overflow go into units (if copper/iron available), Granary (if not built yet), Library (if not built yet), or a worker (if none of the above is available). Usually, with a good food city, you can overflow into a worker and have him pop out in 3-7 (marathon) turns after whipping the settler.

This is generally how I use the Settler/Worker overflow, so I'm glad I'm doing that right. Do you generally 2 whip or 3 whip Settlers? And what do you do if you need to spew out Settlers really fast (in cases where your AIs are close)? I actually posted this thread because as I'm moving up to Monarch I'm finding that my usual Settler/Worker production is too slow to grab the city sites I want. Just chop them out? Double whipping?

 

[cseanny]

I usually won't whip a settler if I can get him out in under 10 turns.

Agreed, although I typically don't build them in force until they are 6-7 turns. With trees around I will definitely not whip settlers. I don't like the loss of commerce from working fewer tiles and I get slower long term worker/settler production. When I don't whip I usually get my 3rd settler out 160-200 years quicker on Immortal/Normal speed, have more workers, more improved tiles, and a higher population capital when my 3rd settler finishes.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

First, thanks everyone for the responses! Your comments are all very helpful.



This is generally how I use the Settler/Worker overflow, so I'm glad I'm doing that right. Do you generally 2 whip or 3 whip Settlers? And what do you do if you need to spew out Settlers really fast (in cases where your AIs are close)? I actually posted this thread because as I'm moving up to Monarch I'm finding that my usual Settler/Worker production is too slow to grab the city sites I want. Just chop them out? Double whipping?

It depends on the amount of trees nearby and how close the AI is. If I see close AIs, generally I'll chop and whip settlers overflow into units (archers if no nearby copper and AI has copper or horse). In these cases, I often have new cities build workers while slowly regrowing the whipped city by working tiles and building another axe or archer. If I have a happy resource or religion (or, God forbid, BOTH), I'll usually let the whipped city grow into 1 more pop point and start another settler, chop/stack whip, overflow into a unit, let the city regrow to happy cap then worker.

This way, I get settlers out fast, some workers to improve land, and they have some defense from barbs & y AIs.

EDIT: If I get lucky with copper in the capital fat cross, I might forgo mass chop/whip of settlers in favor of settling a single economy city and then amassing axes for a rush. If the AI is really close, I probably would just chop/whip axes and rush.

But if the AI has some room, I won't abuse the chop so badly with settlers and overflow will just go into workers while new cities build units. It seems to work pretty well on monarch level. My issue is midgame with commerce poor land. I can't seem to keep up with the midgame AI when running a specialist economy.

I usually won't whip a settler if I can get him out in under 10 turns.

Is that on normal, epic, or marathon speed? 10 turns is an eternity on normal IIRC (since it translates to 20 turns on marathon which is what I play).

 

[happysheep]

Is that on normal, epic, or marathon speed? 10 turns is an eternity on normal IIRC (since it translates to 20 turns on marathon which is what I play).

30 turns actually