Thought Process for when to create settlers?

[elitetroops]

Why are you people talking about losing food.

Because growing the population back costs food. Growing back from pop 1 to pop 2 costs 15 food. Growing back from pop 7 to pop 8 costs 75 food. (= build settlers in low pop cities, if possible)

 

[Ronald Gordo]

...slinger slinger slinger builder...

Even in minor difficulties, some AI will attack if you have no means to defend your city.
Create 3 slingers, 1 builder, improve 3 tiles and create another 1 or 2 slingers before discovering archery. Upgrade slinger to archers.
Use the warrior to show the map... with a little luck he will find a good village and win a scout.
Only create the settler after he has one or two archers to escort.
The settler reduces population by 1 (it is a mandatory rule) and should not move without escort (it is a rule of common sense). Creating before you can move damages the production of the city.
Repeat the process until you reach 200 cities and win by simple brute force.

 

[Lil Sassy]

I never realized how huge the difference was in creating settlers early rather than later due to that difference in 15 food for +1 pop vs 75 food for +1 pop. So food management did end being somewhat more important than I would have realized otherwise!

As of now it looks like I was close in that you develop your first city as much as you can until you can get your hands on that +50% production towards settlers civic and then you switch to a fast expand and just pump settlers out around 3-5 population. In theory I'd like to aim for +1 population before a settler pops out but I definitely need to play around with this some more.

It then looks like should you should try to expand as much as you can early before you get the +50% production towards builder which is when you switch around to developing the cities that you've already founded.

 

[jaegybomb]

I always used to go scout, slinger, settler but watching twitch it seems like everyone waits longer.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I never realized how huge the difference was in creating settlers early rather than later due to that difference in 15 food for +1 pop vs 75 food for +1 pop. So food management did end being somewhat more important than I would have realized otherwise!

As of now it looks like I was close in that you develop your first city as much as you can until you can get your hands on that +50% production towards settlers civic and then you switch to a fast expand and just pump settlers out around 3-5 population. In theory I'd like to aim for +1 population before a settler pops out but I definitely need to play around with this some more.

It then looks like should you should try to expand as much as you can early before you get the +50% production towards builder which is when you switch around to developing the cities that you've already founded.

I would suggest using your capital to generate just one settler. This should happen before the +50% Hammers for Settlers policy is available. You definitely should not necessarily wait for this policy to build your first settler. There after, you should allow your capital to grow, and start building districts (commercial hub should be highest priority, unless you have good reason to build other districts first). All your new cities should sent a trader to your high population capital with maximum districts to get the largest possible trade in food and hammers to help the non-capital cities grow. This is the reason for growing your capital tall and fat with districts.

Your second city and subsequent cities will become your settler pumps using the +50% hammers for Settler policy. They should build Builders at Pop 1 and start Settlers at Pop 2. Get the +30% hammers for Builders policy ASAP. The Builders can chop forests (Mining) and Jungles (Bronze Working) into the Settler builds. Builders can also improve resource plots for improved food or hammers. A few (3 to the number needed to defend all cities) Slingers should also be built, which can be upgraded to Archers as the need arises. You may need to swap between Settler and Builder builds to swap between the policies that accelerate them as you complete civics for the free policy changes. You will also need to build Traders to make use of Commercial Hubs built in all your new cities. Coastal cities can build Harbors instead of or even in addition to Commercial Hubs for even more internal trade routes.

Why start Settlers as early as Pop 2: The growth formula is 5 + 10 * n food to grow from Pop n to Pop (n+1). So growing back from completing a Settler at Pop 2 -> Pop 1 -> Pop 2 would be 15 food. Growing from Pop 2 -> Pop 3 would take 25 food. Growing from Pop 3 -> Pop 4 would take 35 food. Growing from Pop 4 -> Pop 5 would take 45 food (This is already 3x as much food as growing from Pop 1 -> Pop 2).

If you are planning a military rush, either improve two horses or one horse and a Capital Encampment and build/gold rush Horsemen there or built Warriors, improve one Iron and upgrade them all to Swordsmen. There are of course many other timing rushes possible or just build Archers for peaceful defense. You can research Archery until there is one turn left to continue building maintenance free and cheap Slingers; Quickly finish Archery when threatened and upgrade Slingers to Archers at 30 gold each as needed (make sure leave enough gold in your Treasury to upgrade all Slingers if/when needed).

A second Warrior backed by 1-2 Archers to help clear out Barbarian encampments would be prudent. Barbarians can spawn extremely fast if their encampments are not cleared out.

I hope this helps.

 

[Victoria]

A great post, I think we are all still finding our feet amd there are options. One thing I have as a back burner to try is a food city. Getting those extra production points with Cz, Iz Ez Hz help. But maybe having a fast growth city could help.
There is balance in what to build in the captial as well, pumping out a builder for another city may be better than getting a builder locally. Getting those districts in place and where
One tricky variable is the land and what tiles to buy.
I played a game the other day where my capital pumped out settlers. It seemed to work Ok and I am trying to get in my head the difference between getting a settler out faster and growing too fast in the capital so you need amenities before needed. In that game I had peacefully got 5 cities in just under 50 turns.
I guess the only way to properly understand the difference is to replay the same map a few times.
The game of the month helps in understanding all this too.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Thanks Victoria!

I tried my plan above on a King Standard Size Map Inland Sea. It's a really nice map type with lots of rivers to settle cities next to.

I followed my plan, but skimped on the military. Gilgamesh surprise DoW'ed me. I was able to turn back his attack and my Warrior pillaged his capital, because he left it undefended. I became Suzerain of a Cultural City State and had just enough gold to get his 6-7 Warriors and an Archer on loan for 30 turns. I plan to capture Uruk (Gikgamesh's Capital) with it. There was also some Barbarian activity near my capital that I had to handle at the same time.

My plan is now amended to become Suzerain of a city sate and hire their military units out as the need arises. You really need at least one Slinger or Archer per city. I'm playing Gandhi, so I build two Varus (his unique unit) too.

Anyway, my plan was working well and I'm back at it again. It is working quite well, other than the DoW.

I just wanted to share my experience of being DoW'ed by Gilgamesh and facing his War Carts. It's nice to be Suzerain and hire the City State's military out as mercenaries.

 

[ansa]

Why would you bother with a settle, reducing a pop in your precious capital, when you can just slam into your closest neighbor (or some city-states) and take their stuff, all improved?
And usually they have a free settler waiting in the capital as well.
I very rarely build settlers early, that being on Deity.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Why would you bother with a settle, reducing a pop in your precious capital, when you can just slam into your closest neighbor (or some city-states) and take their stuff, all improved?
And usually they have a free settler waiting in the capital as well.
I very rarely build settlers early, that being on Deity.

Using settlers allows one to place cities where one wants. Not everyone is playing Deity games where the AI starts with three Settlers, allowing either quick capture of 1-2 settlers or the cities they found. Some players just prefer peaceful play even though its suboptimal. Sometimes, you just need a Settler to get a Strategic resource or group of Luxury resources. There may be other reasons for settling a city rather than captuting one that the AI may have improved already to some extant.

 

[MyOtherName]

While a larger city has to produce more food to regrow, don't forget it also has higher production. If you do everything one population higher, then if it takes 10 turns to build a settler, then the extra 10 food cost of regrowth is balanced by getting an extra production from a 3 yield tile for 10 turns. If you have a useful 4 yield tile, the balance is at 5 turns!

I suspect that the advice to start settlers earlier is correct, but I'm not yet convinced. The main counterargument is that your first few population points are fairly cheap as compared to settlers. I haven't figured out how to analyze the problem, and haven't tried making a simulation, so I'm not yet really sure what's best.

 

[elitetroops]

I think this issue is so situational that it is impossible to go by any rule. Very often I find it is much better to build units than settlers, but sometimes I might open with slinger-settler. On deity units will more often be the way to go, on lower difficulties there aren't necessarily enough cities to conquer for an army to quickly pay off. The layout of the land and the amount of empty land around you for barbs to spawn also factors into the decision. In general getting a lot of early cities one way or another should be the target.

 

[jaegybomb]

While a larger city has to produce more food to regrow, don't forget it also has higher production. If you do everything one population higher, then if it takes 10 turns to build a settler, then the extra 10 food cost of regrowth is balanced by getting an extra production from a 3 yield tile for 10 turns. If you have a useful 4 yield tile, the balance is at 5 turns!

I suspect that the advice to start settlers earlier is correct, but I'm not yet convinced. The main counterargument is that your first few population points are fairly cheap as compared to settlers. I haven't figured out how to analyze the problem, and haven't tried making a simulation, so I'm not yet really sure what's best.

That 1 tile turns into 2 the second the new city is founded though and the production cost of a settler increases later as well as the food cost.

 

[Acken]

The main advantage of an early city is that it starts to grow/produce that much sooner.

 

[Captain Potato]

Can someone elaborate on the conversation on the first page? So you lose one population when you pop a settler yes, but what happens to your surplus food?

Say you're at 3:30 (3 population and 30 surplus), if you spawned a settler would you be at 2:0 (all surplus gone) or 2:30 (30 surplus, which is already ready to go 3 population) or something in between.

Very different advice depending on how it works.

 

[Acken]

2:30 but cant remember if you grow right away or the next turn.

 

[MyOtherName]

IIRC, you grow right away and are even left with 5 food in your food bar.

 

[gatorsurgeon]

I haven't been able to bring myself to experiment with a peaceful start because the following is so powerful:
Research:Animal Husbandry, archery
Build: Slinger, Slinger, Slinger, Archer, Warrior
Upgrade the 3 slingers .
By now your original warrior has found the nearest civ.
Go kill it.
While you are doing that:
Research: mining, bronze, iron.
Build a builder and chop a settler. Then two more warriors and more archers.
Put the settler wherever you need to get an iron and get that hooked up.
Upgrade your warriors to swordsmen.
Go kill the next closest civ. They will not be able to withstand you.
Unlike previous games, Civ6 lets you just go nuts with early conquest, with no worries about bankrupting your economy and no early worries about happiness.

 

[The Highwayman]

I build 1 settler prior to getting Early Empire. I like a second city online ASAP to hedge my bets during my usual nearest AI rush, since some games my conquest of my neighbor is slower than others.

With a few Civ specific exceptions, I'll do Scout > Slinger x3 > Second Warrior > Builder (sometimes rush this with gold) > Settler. When I get to the settler I'm around pop 4-5 in my cap depending on the available yields. The Settler builds fairly quickly and that pop loss is replenished in no time.

So my early empire is my cap + quick second city, and whatever I take from the AI. Once I get Early Empire I switch to the +50% Settler card and pump a settler from 3-4 cities, basically doubling my empire. I build more settlers if I'm playing a peaceful game post initial rush, since I won't be taking too many more cities thereafter unless I'm a civ like Rome or Arabia.

 

[A+ombomb]

The biggest restriction in the game is health, towards growing a robust economy. Therefore, it is best to expand as much as safely possible asap. Worker -> settler should be a common start. Some starts, if you can grow in 3 or 2 turns, you might even swap to a settler immediately at pop 2, and heavy production to finish it quickly.

Remember bonus tile yields even without improvement are very high, so a new city planted on a premium tile with a premium 1 tile worked yield will likely have a net of +4 prod/food upon being built. Compare that to growing a city 1 size bigger, which will generally be +2 or even +1 net yield (a population costs 2 food). To simplify, a new city gains 2 tiles immediately for your one pop, since it has the base city + 1 tile, so a settler is worth 2-4 populations of an old city.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

Summarising the entire thread, the two main approaches to opening builds seems to be:

• 2/3 Slingers > Builder > Settler
• Builder/Slinger > Settler

On a similar tone, which locations do you prefer to settle in the beginning? Fresh water availability aside, do you prefer an initial tightly-packed cluster with overlapping effects in mind (3-4 tiles between cities), or to settle farther away (5+ tiles between cities) and back-filling the spaces in the early-to-mid-game?

I often try to make it compact, but enemy cities are often farther from my cluster than I'd like. So I end up needing "too many Settlers" after my initial conquests to fill the space around (i.e. makes it hard to decide between one more Settler or a new Builder/district in my core cities).