Settlers vs food

[MyOtherName]

In addion to allowing yet another copy of buildings, building a settler has several obvious effects on your overall empire productivity:

• +2 food +1 cog, or more depending on city tile
• +1 amenities (because the first 2 pop points are free in this regard)
• +1 to +5 housing, depending on water
• +0 to +2 population towards district requirements (because you can build one at size 1)

Your first few settlers are already a good deal just by this metric; for comparison, building both a granary and a water mill (without grain) is only work +2 food +1 cog and +2 housing.

However, the main thing I want to try and quantify is the effect on food -- specifically, the food cost for building a new citizen.

The cost of growth at size N is something like 10N + 5. (this gives similar figures as does the formula thread, and I'm not actually convinced the formula thread is right)

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Pretend for a moment that the food cost for a citizen stops increasing at pop 4.

Growing 4 new population in your established cities would then cost 180 food.

However, if you were to build a settler in a size 4 city, you can get 4 new population points by regrowing the city and growing the new city -- the food cost for that will be a mere 110 food.

In both cases, further citizens will cost the full 45 food.

Since it takes 70 fewer food to gain those population points, we can tally this as part of the value of a settler:

Building a settler credits your empire with 70 additional food​

Of course, it's really more than that since the food cost for citizens continues to increase; but I think the analysis here is a decent proxy for the study of early game rapid expansion with small cities.

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But what if our cities are bigger? Redoing the analysis at pop 6 instead of 4, a settler is worth 160 food credits. Pop 8? 290 food credits.

In other words, as you tend to grow your cities larger, the value of a settler in food credits increases rapidly -- in a 'tall' empire, building a settler would more than pay for itself just in terms of the food credits towards further growth!

In my opinion, this, more than anything else (possibly even more than district spam), is why Civ 6 encourages massive expansion.

 

[Ryika]

The factor that I find is missing is that cities can produce more food when they have more population. I agree that the food curve is way too steep later on (or rather, that the opportunities to boost food growth if you want to grow specific cities don't match the curve well enough), but comparing flat numbers like that only tells you half the story.

Because let's imagine a simplified scenario where each Population produces on average 1 more food than it consumes and that's all the food you have. To grow a city to population 4 you would require roughly (160/3 ~=) 50 turns. But to grow a city to pop 8 you would only need (290/7 ~=) 40 turns.

That example is of course not representative of reality, and very unfairly skewed towards tall cities, because buildings only give flat Food and average tile quality goes down as the city grows, both of which in the actual game heavily favor smaller cities (although ironically that of course means that in this example building new cities would be even more favorable). But it does show that comparing flat numbers doesn't quite make sense, because the value of "1 food" varies on a city by city basis. When you expand, your "food required per population (empire-wide)"-ratio becomes more positive, but you will gather that new food slower than the food you used in your old city. But it's still a really quick net positive of course.

 

[MyOtherName]

Cities can produce things other than food when they have more population too -- having more citizens doesn't change the need to invest your resources wisely, it just means you have more resources to invest.

I don't follow your simplified scenario at all. I get that even under those conditions it's slightly quicker to grow from 1 to 4 than from 4 to 8 -- and the conditions really downplay how quickly small cities grow. Starting with a 3 food surplus rather than 1 means you grow from 1 to 4 in just over half the time it takes to grow from 4 to 8.

But the real point is that rather than try to grow a city from 4 to 8, I could focus instead on producing cogs rather than lots of food, and get my productivity boost by building a settler and still having lots more cogs left over to invest in other things. Since food and cog production are to some extent interchangeable via planning and citizen assignments, spending your food efficiency means you get more return on your investments.

The main line of thought that led to this analysis is the problem of trying to actually quantify the return on your investment so you can make an informed decision on things like whether a granary, builder, or settler has the best cost/benefit ratio. (food focus vs cog focus to build more citizens can be included in this comparison)

 

[Victoria]

Not sure I am convinced with all of what is said... If I settle a new settler on some ice near a new luxury then I am +4 amenities. If I settle at a river mouth with lots of rice and wheat I will very soon be minus a few amenities. Its just not that simple.

What I do strongly feel with regard to settlers vs food (still struggling with the concept a bit) is that if I pump out my settler sooner and in a smaller city then I much faster have a larger Civ. Hopefully this makes sense to all.

If later on I have a city that is not growing so fast I can pump out a settler. I in no way think of this as a food benefit which is why I am struggling. The way I think of a new settler after turn 100 (arbitrary change time frame for middle game play) is

1. I can see an amenity benefit over there (sometimes even a double to both deny another civ and to use for bribery)
2. I need another city as my empire is still not large enough for my victory condition.
3. I need a city there because I can get some trade routes in place
4. I need a city there with a holy site as a forward settled healing ground for apostles.
5. I need beach front or national park space and can see the opportunity
6. I really want to annoy that Civ with a troll city... or even a gift city has its benefits.
7. I need a forward settled military base or in the case of England I want some musketmen but have no niter. (they will appear even without the resource)

I do not think of these things in terms of food cost or food benefit. I think of them as are they more strategic to build now as opposed to a campus for example.

There is also some validity in questioning the value of granaries and aqueducts. Why bother, just chop food into cities