Settler factories?

[Pacioli]

Do settler factories ever lose their usefulness? Do you continue to use them in the later stages of the game, i.e. after all the land has been claimed? Is the city placement pattern you're using a key factor? Do you ever change them to produce workers vs settlers?

 

[TheOverseer714]

You rarely have too many settlers. One thing I do if I get to railroads is create a couple on the outskirts of my core so that marginal cities keep producing settlers while the central core does more important work.

 

[Pacioli]

Thanks Overseer! My settler factories are always in the central core. If I find one or two early in the game, I generally do not look for anymore. Your concept of moving them to marginal cities is good advice. Once again, I have a lot to learn.

 

[Takhisis]

You can stop whenever you like. It's always useful, if you engage in war, to have a few spare settlers marching a few tiles behind your front line.
You'll probably raze a few cities, especially if you're using airplanes and bomb them repeatedly, slaughtering the population, or if you're trying to hold citites with 12+ pop. which will surely rebel in a turn or two. Sometimes it's better to create anew. If you're being attacked by fast-moving/penalty ignoring troops -Ansars, Keshiks, Riders, etc.- you can just burn your cities and leave one or two of them to be defended, then when your slow, heavy Pikemen have decimated them you can rebuild quickly.

 

[Aabraxan]

Unless you're playing an variant, such as a 1CC or 5CC, settler factories have a very, very long useful life. As long as you're expanding, you need settlers. When you run out of expansion room, if you war for more, you need settlers. If not, you probably need workers & you can use the settler factories for workers.

 

[CommandoBob]

Remember, the maximum number of cities for the entire game is 512 (combined total of you and all the AIs). If you can build them, generally, you should.

 

[Fiddlin Nero]

Besides all of the above, settlers can be used to move your border closer to that enemy city so you can take it this turn instead of having to take 1 or 2 moves to get to the enemy city.

 

[Spoonwood]

Besides all of the above, settlers can be used to move your border closer to that enemy city so you can take it this turn instead of having to take 1 or 2 moves to get to the enemy city.

As in the examples here

 

[Fiddlin Nero]

Your example talks about taking a turn or two getting the settler within 4 tiles of the enemy city you want to attack. Why not build a city on the edge of your territory move a another settler to the newly claimed enemy territory, disband the new city and build a second within range of the enemy city. I usually can get within range with one settler and at most two. This way you can take that city this turn instead of one or two turns away. The only thing this requires to work is roads/railroads already in place and being careful not to get surrounded by enemy territory.

 

[Takhisis]

Your example talks about taking a turn or two getting the settler within 4 tiles of the enemy city you want to attack. Why not build a city on the edge of your territory move a another settler to the newly claimed enemy territory, disband the new city and build a second within range of the enemy city. I usually can get within range with one settler and at most two. This way you can take that city this turn instead of one or two turns away. The only thing this requires to work is roads/railroads already in place and being careful not to get surrounded by enemy territory.

If you control The Internet, you can just build a lot of cities inside enemy territory and they won't defect. All you have to do is airlift a few trrops to defend the cities.

 

[Pacioli]

I appreciate everyone's comments and patience. I'm trying to learn some concepts that many of you learned years ago.

 

[Fiddlin Nero]

I like your approach, single, short, to the point questions, thanks for the good example!

 

[Pacioli]

Thanks Fiddlin Nero. I've never been a man of many words. My wife will back me on this!