[GS] Rush Buying vs Chopping vs Hard Building

[Fluphen Azine]

This pertains to Deity, Standard Settings, Pangaea or Continent Maps.
I was reading about how some players save gold to rush buy settlers.
I played a couple games and it seemed to work out pretty good.
I am sure it is situational like everything else though.
I settled on irrigation luxuries and sold them quickly to buy settlers.
I never bought any tiles and waited some time to upgrade archers.
If I was close I would sell 1gpt for lump gold to be able to buy the settler sooner rather than later.

Just curious if this is viable or a good idea.
The downside was that I wasn't able to take advantage of Ancestral Hall and Free Builders.

I'm interested in reading your own personal experience.
What is considered to be the most optimal.
Is it better to just save the gold for upgrading your Army in most situations??

 

[hr_oskar]

It seems like a Civ5 habit to me.

I consider policy cards in deciding what to rush buy and what to build/chop. In the early game there are cards that give us production bonuses on the following:

Settlers +50% and a potential +50% on top from the Ancestral Hall
Builders +30%
Most land units +50%
Naval units +100%

Technically available early is the card that gives +30% to harbor and encampment buildings but you probably won't have it until after Feudalism.

As you can see there are no early policy cards that boost building construction (ignoring stuff that can't be purchased such as wonders and walls) and not really any civ UA's either that I recall. The bonuses above are also quite big.

It kind of follows that you ideally want to build or chop units while boosted by the right cards and save the gold to buy buildings or land tiles or upgrade units. City state bonuses could affect this as you might have an early +2 hammers in your capital for buildings.

Personally I still buy builders some times since the builder card is the smallest bonus and as an economic card competes with other strong cards. I avoid buying military units unless I'm facing an immediate and unexpected threat. Buying a ship feels like I messed up my planning because that +100% bonus is so huge. One reason why I never buy settlers, apart from the production bonuses available, is that it requires me to save up a big sum instead of making smaller purchases earlier that could give a more immediate return on investment.

 

[LMT]

I usually play on Emperor and occasionally on Immortal. Standard settings, variety of maps.

I'm sure I don't play optimally (actually, I know that I don't since I usually try to found a religion), but there are very specific things I use gold for. Usually, I don't buy settlers--they always seem so expensive. I use the policy card + AH to build them, although I do use faith to buy them if I get those Golden Ages.

I do use gold to buy tiles, to buy builders, and absolutely to upgrade my military (especially after slotting Mercenaries). I'll sometimes buy cheap units in a new city just so it has some type of garrison. I also use gold to buy a spaceport with Reyna.

And it's funny, I never use gold to buy Great People, but I will use faith to do that.

Chopping? I use that mostly for wonders and sometimes for settlers and districts and buildings. Though I do hard-build most districts and buildings (and military units).

I have no idea if this is a good strategy or if it's common. Just the way I've developed my play style.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Thanks for the replies.
I figure saving gold and buying settlers isn't optimal.
I was just trying a different approach.
I think it was more optimal in Vanilla when you could sell units.
You can make it work though.
I just played a game where I went back to Encampment First and Army.
I actually delayed the war since I was in no danger.
I used the gold for many things and bought a few Settlers as well with trades.
When you get decent faith generation from the map and golden ages it certainly is easier to buy settlers and builders.
I guess the best thing to do with gold is to get the best value from your purchase.
Return on your Investment.

 

[_hero_]

I'll sometimes buy the 1st settler if I have the gold to get it faster than I can get around to building it. It doesn't seem worth it after that unless I'm playing as Mali.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I usually use gold to buy tiles and builders--probably not the best but I get impatient

 

[Victoria]

Just curious if this is viable or a good idea.

Sure, in my view. It’s extra early production converted in the best way IMO but I would not slow down a settler for a buy because traders and monuments also are great buys as are useful other things including a key early few tiles.
If you’ll use monumentality to later why should you not use gold earlier if the opportunity presents itself.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Sure, in my view. It’s extra early production converted in the best way IMO but I would not slow down a settler for a buy because traders and monuments also are great buys as are useful other things including a key early few tiles.
If you’ll use monumentality to later why should you not use gold earlier if the opportunity presents itself.

I agree.
I suppose it is like you said a few years ago about how to use gold.
You said something like you want to buy things that will give you the most return on your purchase.
You mentioned how sometimes it could be something like a granary that makes all the difference.
I was just playing around with saving up gold to purchase settlers.
I was a bit surprised how well it worked to get out 1 or 2.
Add in Religious Settlements and you can get up 4 cities pretty quick.
As usual, map and situation dependent but I noticed I could settle on luxuries and get it rolling pretty good.
It is important to note that it is a bit of a risk if you have to fight off an invasion.

 

[IMADAJ]

How I use my gold vs production

If (my gold earned per turn) x (turns to produce) > (gold amount to purchase) then I’ll purchase instead of produce.

So say I’m making 50gp a turn and I want to build something that’s going to take 10 turns.

50gp x 10turms = 500gp earned in the time it would take to produce. I’ll buy it if I can get it for less than 500gp.

Say it only cost 250gp to purchase it this turn. I figure it saves me 5 turns to buy instead of build. If it cost 1000gp, as an example, I would rather wait 10 turns to build it since it would take me 20 turns to get enough gold to buy it.

It works well with catching newer cities up with the rest of the empire.

Hope that makes sense, and I’m curious of what others think of that logic.

 

[Cedbird77]

Makes sense I like it!

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Thanks for the replies.
I figure saving gold and buying settlers isn't optimal.

I think it is optimal, actually. @hr_oskar makes the great point that gold should be used to rushbuy things that do not have a production bonus, while things with production bonus should be built. I generally agree, but not on settlers.

for me personally I always produce 2 settlers very early, then get ancestral hall in the cap while building 2 settlers in my expansions. then I build settlers in all 3 cities. you can produce settlers AND buy them, faster expansion almost always ends in faster finishing times.

personally I would stockpile gold until you get monumentality and then try to buy a settler either with faith or gold in your magnus city every single turn for a few turns. that way 1) new cities gain the AH builder 2) new cities do not cost population 3) you're still pushing production into settlers 4) you get the monumentality gold-buy discount, which is huge.

I personally stop rushbuying settlers as soon as their cost shoots up (around 15), just finish my last produced ones and spend faith on builders.

however buying one settler with gold before ancestral hall might actually be worth it. in the end it could net you one more settler-factory which would be a very big deal. I'd guess the earliest would be around t30.