Settler factories

[rainmaker]

I can't seem to develop cities to produce large numbers of settlers early in the game.

In PTW the cities I use to produce settlers don't seem to grow larger then size 3. They barely get large enough to produce enough shields and food before the settler drops the pop down. Between settler production I ssometines have to build a unit to let the pop increase.

How large do these cities usually have to get before they can become factories? What do you do in the meantime?

 

[WackenOpenAir]

for a settler factory, you need to get 30 shields in the time you need to grow 2 citizens.
You can make 4 turn or 6 turn factories, depending on 4 or 5 food surplus.

say you have 5 food surplus (agricultural + 1 bonus) and thus a 4 turn factory. You will need 30 shields in those 4 turns.

your citie grows between growing the 2 people for the settler. so you could have 2 turns with 7 shields and then with the extra person, 2 turns with 8 shields for a total of 30 shields.

So see how many citizens you need for 7 shields while maintaining the 5 food. Usually that would be like 1 from the city, 1 from the cow, 2 from a shielded grassland, 2 from another shield grasland, 1 from an irrigated plains, making 4 citizens.

So you start producing a settler when you just grown to 4, then 4 turns later (7+7+8+8 shields) at the moment you grow to size 6, your settler is finished and you immeadiately go size 4 to start the next one.

While growing to size 4, you build the granary and some warriors for scouting.

If you don't use the governors, you get a kind of bonus: When your city grows, the new citizen will be placed on what the AI thinks is the best tile, you get the shields from that tile. If this is a 2 shield tile, you can do it with size 3-5 instead of 4-6.

Both situations do require 2 shielded grasslands though. More if your food bonus is not a cow but wheat.
If you dont have those 2, you probably need one more citizen.

You just need to calculate a bit to see what size is needed. But before you truly know what you are doing, ignore the "bonus" i just explained. That will come later.

 

[Randy]

A granary can help but it's not all ways needed.

 

[Tomoyo]

A 4-turn settler factory is possible if:

1) There is a 5 food surplus
2) The bonus tiles that produce those 5 food are not all Floodplains or Grassland wines
Unless
You have three Bonus Grasslands, Fur Grasslands, or Plains wines, as well as another two-shield square (usually a forest)
Or
If you are agricultural.
3) Well, you need a granary
4) If a forest is missing, you need an extra shield each turn.

And by the way, if you select the governor option "Emphasize City Production", the governor will auto-pick the forest or whatever and you get the shields.

 

[Tomoyo]

A granary can help but it's not all ways needed.

Explain...

You need five grassland cows for that!

 

[Randy]

Size 5+ towns can make it work. I think i had it once with Flood plain w/wheat, cow and forst w/a deer and size 5 town I don't remember the other 2 tiles but it was a 4 turn factory. Just as it went to size 6 you got the settler. I don't think I had a granary.

 

[Tomoyo]

I think you had a granary.

Forest game is 2.2.0, and even if it was chopped and irrigated, you would only have seven extra food, not the ten that you need.

Actually, do you mean that when it got the size 6 you got a settler, meaning the turn it hit size 6?

I think you forgot that settlers in unmodded civ cost two population points...

 

[Randy]

Yes at the turn the pop went to 6, it got the settle pop went to 4 but I think it grew to 5 the same turn. That may have happed the next turn? I may have had the granary I can't remember. But I don't build many.

 

[Grille]

With a bit of extra-luck, you could sometimes have a "1 settler plus 1 warrior every 4 turns"-factory thing going.
Imgine an agricultural civ starting with e.g. 1 grassland cow, freshwater and 4 BG tiles.
Irrigate cow, mine BGs, build granny. With city center square, that's an amazing 10spt/5fpt at size 5, so you could go for a neat warrior(1turn)/settler(3turns) cycle.

 

[rainmaker]

Thanks that's very helpful
For clarification - If my first city could be a factory, should I hold off any settlers until it is large enough to produce the settlers. If it isn't, should I build a settler and make my next city one to produce the settlers. Very simpistic I know!!!

 

[bob rulz]

Let's just say this...you have to be really lucky to get a four-turn settler factory for your starting position.

 

[Shabbaman]

When you build a granary first, the city has probably increased enough in size in the mean time.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Thanks that's very helpful
For clarification - If my first city could be a factory, should I hold off any settlers until it is large enough to produce the settlers. If it isn't, should I build a settler and make my next city one to produce the settlers. Very simpistic I know!!!

Very big YES. If you have food bonus at your capital, immeadiately start calculating what is needed for the settler factory and build all that.
In this case, my usual build order is 1 or 2 scouts (depending on the situation) - granary - settlers......

It is very important to get the factory running asap, you wont need to produce any other settlers than those from the factory. Normally i make settlers from only the factory, and workers from every city as soon as its build. To clarify the effect of a settler factory:

In Deity/Sid games, i only play games with food bonus at start. In 1000 BC, i usually have 12 or 13 cities, all of them being productive, growing and with some barracks.

I am now in the last classic gotm on regent. NO food bonus, no factory, i don't know exactly, but i had like 9 or 10 cities @ 1000BC and they were all not growing because i was building settlers and workers everywhere. The impact of an early factory is huge.

If your capital can't be a factory, i just build a settler at growth to 3. If i can build another factory, i will do so, but in this case, i do not rely on the factory since it would be active far too late to have it build all my settlers.

btw, in some cases it is also good to go for a granary without your city having a food bonus. In this game i am now playing without factories at regent, (low diff = less corruption) the cities near my capital started out with 3 after mining the BG. after growing, it became 4. In that case, i just build a granary first. It will delay the settler only a few turns, but after that double growth is pretty nice and the settlers come out every 10 turns instead of 20.

 

[rainmaker]

wackenopenair - very helpful response. It seems my usual situation is many cities all trying to produce settlers, workers, and units. None larger than 3 or 4 until AD. I'm so anxious to expand I have never taken the time to try for a factory.

 

[Tomoyo]

Yes at the turn the pop went to 6, it got the settle pop went to 4 but I think it grew to 5 the same turn. That may have happed the next turn? I may have had the granary I can't remember. But I don't build many.

If the settler was built as the pop grew to 6, it would have shrunk to size 4 with an empty food storage thingy.

 

[Randy]

If the settler was built as the pop grew to 6, it would have shrunk to size 4 with an empty food storage thingy.

I'll have to check, but I think it grew to 5 with an empty food storage thingy.

 

[alamo]

I thought the granary was cleared at size 7, not 6.

Basically you take whatever food bonus you can find near the start and build a granary ASAP. Micromanage to get right growth+production.

 

[bingen]

I thought the granary was cleared at size 7, not 6.

The granary is never cleared, it is just the food box that doubles in size but tou still retain as much food as when going from 5 to 6.

Example: city with granary.

Size from 5 to 6: food box is half emptied(10 food retained) on growth. It now has 10/20(half full) food in the box.

Size from 6 to 7: food box is half emptied(10 food retained) on growth. It now has 10/40(quarter full) food in the box.

Size from 7 to 8: food box is half emptied(20 food retained) on growth. It now has 20/40(half full) food in the box.


If you build a settler just as the city grows to size 7, 10 food are retained. The result is a size 5 xity with half full bread box.

 

[BasketCase]

Settler factories built according to the above rules are nice (i.e. faster), but you can still get good settler production by building a couple of tiny cities solely for churning settlers.

A size 1 city with a mined bonus grassland (producing 2 excess food and 3 shields per turn) with a granary will grow from 1 person to 3 in ten turns, and build a complete settler in 10 turns. In the early game you can drop a few of these right next to your capital city, and abandon them later once your capital starts really growing and your initial settling phase is complete.

 

[viper275]

Read this tutorial: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3acad_deity_settlers.shtml

It's extremely helpful.