There are many options on using builders, and I still hate the lack of automation for using builders. Builders have a short life, so what's the best strategy for using builders before turn 150?
A- granary, builder for first two resources, other build options, add builders as city growth/production fails to improve,
or
B- builder(s) til city pop is above 4, then granary, then whatever
or
C- builder, granary, others items and hold off on more builders until new strat resources needs builder
or
D- granary, builder, something, builder if any worked tiles are not enhanced.
So four different approaches. Has anyone really examined to see which method yields the best production?
Thanks
I think that a good long term strategy is to build a large gold economy. This is even more important if you want to settle many cities. The reason why is because new cities always take a while to develop if they are dependent on local production. Their borders expand very slowly until you get the monument built or some other source of local culture. It is often advantageous to save enough money to immediately buy a monument when you settle a new city so that the city border will begin to expand immediately to the second ring. Knowing that the borders will expand quickly can influence which hex that you choose settle in.
Builders play an important role. You can get luxuries developed to trade and some improvements, like plantations, provide +2 gold. The +2 gold is helpful, but you really need trading partners to make the most money from luxuries. Strategic resources are also a great source of wealth. Consider the development of strategic resources as a race. The first to acquire a strategic resource has the potential for the greatest profit. Horses and iron are both available in the ancient era. If you are not going for an early war strategy, make friends with your neighbors and sell to them. Coal and niter are both very valuable soon after, but all strategic resources will lose value as more modern strategic resources become available. You can make a technological research strategy around or including the acquisition of strategic resources and usually have a healthy game and such strategy has value on any difficulty level.
Districts have to be built with local production unless you have Reyna or Moksha at level 4. In the later game, with Reyna at level 4 you can develop a city very quickly with gold by purchasing districts which are often built slowly in a new, lower population city. Gold is portable and can be used anywhere. If the goal is multiple districts, a new city would ideally be settled in growth friendly terrain and you could invest into creating a quick farm triangle, after having feudalism for the farm bonus, to grow the city to 4 or 7 even more quickly.
As for long term city development, ideally, you will improve each hex that is being worked, and those that will soon be worked, by the city population as soon as possible, unless there is a good reason not to, such as barbarian invasions or some other circumstance.
If for some reason you settle a city that has very low initial housing, for example if you settled on a strategic resource away from any source of water to gain immediate accumulation, but still wish the city to grow to accommodate the construction of districts, such as a city center, entertainment center, and theater square triangle which would require a size 7 city, and don't want to wait for many turns, you might consider purchasing or building the granary immediately, or placing improvements like farms or pastures which give .5 housing each, so that the growth of the city is not long slowed by overcrowding.
My tip to you and other players is to learn to develop your gold economy and to bear it in mind throughout the game. There are caveats to any strategy and more advanced players may be able to provide insight into when investing more heavily into the local production of each city is more helpful than building up your gold economy. I suppose if you plan to expand less and to grow taller, you might wish to prioritize improving worked tiles, or creating a large area of farmland, rather than expanding to new luxuries and strategic resources. Both Reyna and Pingala have level 3 abilities that take advantage of large populations. Each point of population naturally gives a small amount of both science and culture. With the appropriate promotions, Pingala provides 1 point more of each per population and Reyna provides gold for each population point.
In the end, a fully developed city is worth it's yields like gold, culture, science, and faith to the empire. After all the desired districts and buildings have been built, the production is usually worth the great people points and 15% of the local city production of whatever yield is produced by the city project you are running, if the city isn't used for creating units and has nothing to do but city business. Consider that city project to be the city's end game and each city has its own end game, but that end game may change throughout the game as the city grows and new districts are built making new city projects available.
High production cities can be very important. If you plan on building many units from a single city, perhaps with an encampment and military academy, or if you are producing many settlers from a city with the government plaza and ancestral hall, or producing many builders in a city with Liang with +1 builder charges, or you need high production for any other reason, then developing the city for high production is important. High production doesn't hurt any city, but particular cities might need it sooner. Also, when electrical power is available, some industrial buildings, like the coal power plant, extend a production bonus to other cities within range. It is important to consider how you will locate your industrial zones and power plants in later eras and having higher regional bonuses helps all cities within range.
Sorry if some of what I have written applies to later expansions rather than vanilla. I think the general principle of building a thriving gold economy is still a top goal and long term strategy in vanilla. Portable wealth will accelerate your new cities greatly. I still think local production is very important because it is hard to buy everything with gold. I am still honing my strategy, but I suspect that if I can never finish all the districts and buildings in time to take advantage of city projects, then my local production and gold output is either too low or I may be building unnecessary things or spreading my gold around too much. The city projects are important because they produce great people points. It is hard to get great people on high difficulty levels and it is still something I am trying to master.
