Settlers - how do they work?

[TsarAndreas]

Apologies if there is a clear explanation of this already somewhere, but I haven't been able to find it.

How does the "use settler to build buildings" function work? Specifically:

- from which date/era/technology does it kick in?
- which cities can you use it on (e.g. core cities and/or colonies)?
- which buildings are built?
- does it change depending on the era?

My experience is that it seems to appear randomly. This is obviously not the case, I just don't know enough to recognise a pattern yet...

Thanks in advance

 

[Hickman888]

Starting in the Medieval era, there are certain buildings that are "free" for that era. That is, new cities settled will receive those free buildings, and settlers used on existing cities will build those buildings if they are not already built. Off the top of my head, some of these buildings are:
-Medieval Era: Granary
-Renaissance Era: Library, forge, harbor, smokehouse
-Industrial Era: Lighthouse, market
-Global: Jail

I'm sure I missed a few, but those are the big ones. You can use this ability on all cities. If you want to look for more of these buildings, scroll through the Civilopedia buildings list. These buildings will say something like "Available for free in the X era"

 

[revori]

Mostly Settlers are actually cheaper than building for example the library itself.

 

[Aradziem]

Settlers use food to get produced, so they May be produced fast

 

[BaneFire]

Would be nice to get Settler free buildings in the Civilopedia

 

[Temujin8k]

Would be nice to get Settler free buildings in the Civilopedia

If you see something like this on the Civilopedia, using Settlers on cities will give you that building from that era onwards. Same thing applies for when you found new cities.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Perhaps there could be a list in the Settler's pedia page, or even an additional Pedia overview over the eras and their differences like we have for units, buildings, civs etc.

 

[Publicola]

Or an auto-generated line: "Provided for free by settler during and after Renaissance Era". That'd minimize the amount of extra work needed to include the information. Though yes, a list in the Settler page would be vastly more convenient.

 

[danpat]

The free buildings 'rebuild' gives, are especially important at renaissance era.

 

[Nyayr]

Digital age doesn't give a Factory?

 

[Pavel Chichikov]

Starting in the Medieval era, there are certain buildings that are "free" for that era. That is, new cities settled will receive those free buildings, and settlers used on existing cities will build those buildings if they are not already built. Off the top of my head, some of these buildings are:
-Medieval Era: Granary
-Renaissance Era: Library, forge, harbor, smokehouse
-Industrial Era: Lighthouse, market
-Global: Jail

I'm sure I missed a few, but those are the big ones. You can use this ability on all cities. If you want to look for more of these buildings, scroll through the Civilopedia buildings list. These buildings will say something like "Available for free in the X era"

This is certainly a new an interesting feature, makes sense, I remember near the end of any age trying to decide whether settling any new city was worth it, usually it wasn't unless you were trying to block off or cheese a neighbour.