producing settlers?
- Thread starter hiya1
- Start date
jeremiahrounds
Prince
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2003
- Messages
- 404
Well i can tell you that if you dont manage to get 3 food from one square then you end up waiting for growth instead of shields even after granary.
Thats prolly the only thing that will cause me to move instead of just settle on turn 1 is the sight of wheat stack.
Thats prolly the only thing that will cause me to move instead of just settle on turn 1 is the sight of wheat stack.
general_kill
Deity
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2003
- Messages
- 2,870
Ya, you need to get that food surplus up and high, this way you cann have growth at least every 5-7 turns even with only 1 population. Before actually going ahead to play a game I usually check for a river and a wheat stack near my starting position. Just get 1 or 2 cities with alot of food to produce setlers and for the slow growing cities with lots of shields, just make spearmen or warriors with them early on.
You really need a settler farm. If you have a city that can produce 5 surplus food per turn and 7 to 8 shields per turn at population 4 to 6 then build a granary there and it will grow every two turns and churn out a settler every four turns. You do need a little elementary school math to work it.
To achieve this food level you need grass or irrigated plains for all your citizens, and then you need three extra food from some of the tiles. Remember you will be doing this in Despotism, so you lose the third food or shield that any tile produces.
- An irrigated flood plain with wheat will give three extra food per turn all by itself, so that's perfect.
- An irrigated grass with cattle or wheat will produce two extra food per turn.
- There are various combos that produce one extra food per tile - irrigated flood plains, irrigated grass with wines, irrigated plains with cattle or wines.
I hope you get the picture - find enough tiles you can irrigate to give three extra food per turn. That adds to the two produced in the city itself to give five per turn in total. Then you also need one or two shields per citizen so that you produce a total of thirty shields over the four turns.
During the four turn sequence your population will increase by one on the second turn, and increase again at the same time the settler is produced. So you can actually start at pop 5, grow to six on the second turn, then drop back to five again as you produce the settler on the fourth turn. Don't ever stay bigger than pop six though because that will empty your granary as the food required per new citizen doubles over pop 6, and you will have to refill the granary to get back into the sequence.
There's a trick you can pull if you are a little short of shields. Each time your population grows you get an extra one or two shields, depending on what other tiles are available. The new citizen is automatically put to work on the spare tile with the highest shield value, and produces that tile's value as a bonus. So if you have a spare forest tile in the city radius you'll get two more shields at turn two and turn 4. This means you only need the regular activity to generate 26 shields in four turns. For example you could have two turns at pop 5 producing six shields per turn, and two turns at pop 6 making seven shields per turn. Every two turns you will have to reallocate the new staff to ensure that the food budget of 5 fpt is met.
Have a look at some of the succession game discussions and GOTM timelines to see examples of settler farms in action. There's also a classic article in the Strategy Articles forum that focuses on this - Bamspeedy's Deity Settlers.
To achieve this food level you need grass or irrigated plains for all your citizens, and then you need three extra food from some of the tiles. Remember you will be doing this in Despotism, so you lose the third food or shield that any tile produces.
- An irrigated flood plain with wheat will give three extra food per turn all by itself, so that's perfect.
- An irrigated grass with cattle or wheat will produce two extra food per turn.
- There are various combos that produce one extra food per tile - irrigated flood plains, irrigated grass with wines, irrigated plains with cattle or wines.
I hope you get the picture - find enough tiles you can irrigate to give three extra food per turn. That adds to the two produced in the city itself to give five per turn in total. Then you also need one or two shields per citizen so that you produce a total of thirty shields over the four turns.
During the four turn sequence your population will increase by one on the second turn, and increase again at the same time the settler is produced. So you can actually start at pop 5, grow to six on the second turn, then drop back to five again as you produce the settler on the fourth turn. Don't ever stay bigger than pop six though because that will empty your granary as the food required per new citizen doubles over pop 6, and you will have to refill the granary to get back into the sequence.
There's a trick you can pull if you are a little short of shields. Each time your population grows you get an extra one or two shields, depending on what other tiles are available. The new citizen is automatically put to work on the spare tile with the highest shield value, and produces that tile's value as a bonus. So if you have a spare forest tile in the city radius you'll get two more shields at turn two and turn 4. This means you only need the regular activity to generate 26 shields in four turns. For example you could have two turns at pop 5 producing six shields per turn, and two turns at pop 6 making seven shields per turn. Every two turns you will have to reallocate the new staff to ensure that the food budget of 5 fpt is met.
Have a look at some of the succession game discussions and GOTM timelines to see examples of settler farms in action. There's also a classic article in the Strategy Articles forum that focuses on this - Bamspeedy's Deity Settlers.
Ribannah
Fighter Druid
In the game I'm playing now my first two cities are each a 3-turn Settler factory in Despotism. Luckily there is a lot of terrain. 
Jurimax
Duke of Flanders
I find myself having difficulties on deciding when to build a Granary. My initial build order would be a unit to scout, one for defense and then a Settler. Should I build a granary then? Or will that decrease my growth potential too much?
Greetings Jurimax.
Greetings Jurimax.
Trev
Prince
A settler factory sounds like a great way to go, but I have found that if I get a very good settler factory of the types in this thread, I always end up too militarily weak to defend all the cities I have founded. It makes much more sense to have a settler city with not as much surplus food so that you can build settler-spearman rotations, this provides defence for the settler and for the city when it is founded.
Some people would say that the spearman can be built in other cities, true, but if these cities only build military units they get too big and become unhappy. All cities need to build the occasional settler and/or workers to keep their size down to the level where they stay out of disorder. So my preference is for 2 semi-efficient settler factories supplemented by the odd settler from the other cities.
Of course the whip can be used to rushbuild units and limit city size, I do use it, but too much use of it causes excessive unhappiness anyway and therefore defeats the aim of limiting city size under the disorder limit
Some people would say that the spearman can be built in other cities, true, but if these cities only build military units they get too big and become unhappy. All cities need to build the occasional settler and/or workers to keep their size down to the level where they stay out of disorder. So my preference is for 2 semi-efficient settler factories supplemented by the odd settler from the other cities.
Of course the whip can be used to rushbuild units and limit city size, I do use it, but too much use of it causes excessive unhappiness anyway and therefore defeats the aim of limiting city size under the disorder limit
Darkness
Shadow creature
I don't agree trev. IMHO a settler factory is great and the lack of military production from that city can be compensated by producing military units from other cities, if you even want to have military units (besides exploring warriors) in the beginning of the game...
Trev
Prince
I play at Emperor level, if the AI suspects you are weak, they will attack to take your iron resource, it is necessary to adequately to defend all your cities and resources in the early game at that level, at lower levels it may be possible to get away with a weaker army.
Also the units are usually needed to maintain order in the city at that level, occasionally it may be possible to get 3 luxuries early and roaded to all cities so units in cities are not necessary, but this is rare
Also the units are usually needed to maintain order in the city at that level, occasionally it may be possible to get 3 luxuries early and roaded to all cities so units in cities are not necessary, but this is rare
JustBen
Prince
Please confer:
Tutorial: Babylon's Deity Settlers
More than you'd ever want to know about how to start a good game.
Tutorial: Babylon's Deity Settlers
More than you'd ever want to know about how to start a good game.
Darkness
Shadow creature
You don't have to defend all your cities, not even at deity level. I played GOTM20 (deity level) as a farmers' gambit (no military in the early game) and I won. There is even a story in the strories forum, by Charis IIRC, who won a game on deity level without ever building a military unit the entire game!
In short, you can build military units in the early gamne, but it's definately not neccessary...
I usually leave two defenders in every city -- realistically probably only need one in the late game, with a decent sized "roving defense force" of inantry/MI and maybe artillery type units as well. This is a more effective use of railroads, and depending on the map size and government, the savings from support costs or the ability to deploy additional units to the war front could make up for it.
USC
Unity Scout Chopper
This is inefficient.
USC
