Why growing to 5 is bad OR the value or a warrior

[DaveMcW]

By this time, the capital had reached size four...

...Even though I still didn't have Masonry

You only had three 5-yield resources at the time, you should have built a settler at size three.

 

[Abegweit]

You only had three 5-yield resources at the time, you should have built a settler at size three.

With just one warrior in my entire civ? And only one worker too. And what would I have done with this settler? Let it struggle to build its own workboat when it can barely even pay for itself?

 

[vicawoo]

I replayed the opening I described above, attempting follow your rule. There are some errors in the way I described it. Here's how it actually worked. It's from the latest Emperor Cookbook, BTW, so if you want to try the start feel free. I moved one north from the starting position, reasoning that the Blue Circle had probably spotted seafood. Sure enough it did. If you replay it, please do the same.

The capital was built on a plains hill and had a pigs, a fish, a forested deer and plains stone in the BFC. We start with TW and Hunting. Not the best starting techs but certainly useful given the position.

I started a worker while researching Fishing. Next came AH, Mining and Masonry. Right? Work those five-resource tiles. When Fishing came in, I switched to a workboat. Back to the worker who finished just in time to start corralling the Pigs. Road, then camp and road the Deer. Move on to the Stone.

Meanwhile my scout died early to a lion, defending on a forest hill Build continued with two warriors. By this time, the capital had reached size four. The first warrior went out to explore. The other looked around a bit and then came back to fogbust at the selected site of my second city.

Next I trained a second worker. Even though I still didn't have Masonry, the two workers could build a few roads and then work together on the Quarry.

After I finished the second worker, I switched to a third warrior. After all, the capital needs an MP. I discovered that the warrior would arrive in two turns with growth in three, so I switched to working the lake. This meant that both the warrior and growth would arrive in three, giving me some extra commerce on top of it.

Result: I arrived at size five and my fifth tile was only a three resource (with potential to become four once I learned BW, which was my next tech).

Is there something wrong with this sequence? Should I have only trained two warriors? That means that either I would have had no explorer or no MP in the capital. The latter is possible I suppose. Surely you are not going to send the settler out on its own. I should add that, after the settler, my next build in the capital was a workboat for the second city. I couldn't have done that without the MP.

This is my general experience. I arrive at size five before I am ready for my first settler. Not always, obviously. But usually.

Possibly, it might have been better to finish the sequence with settler-warrior-workboat instead of warrior-settler-workboat. I'm not convinced though, because the second city is not valuable until it has its food. In any case, the difference between the two is very small.

Hopefully this becomes more of an example than a derailment, but no you don't need that military police until barbs threaten to enter your borders. And you said your worker was building roads, which is not an early priority, when your health caps is sound.

Not all would agree, but if you had built your worker first before a workboat, you would have netted more worker turns, if they were needed. This works well if you have extra hills to mine for later on.

And again, a second city is far from useless. Is your capital useless when you start? No, it builds a worker and around 30 turns goes from 5 to 17 yield. Your second city is a lower yield capital that starts with an initial worker.

 

[Abegweit]

Hopefully this becomes more of an example than a derailment, but no you don't need that military police until barbs threaten to enter your borders.

I didn't say that. I DID say that I needed the MP in order to build a WB for my second city.

And you said your worker was building roads, which is not an early priority, when your health caps is sound.

Just using him efficiently. Perhaps I could have gotten up to size five even faster if I had skipped the roads? How exactly does this advance your argument?

Not all would agree, but if you had built your worker first before a workboat, you would have netted more worker turns, if they were needed. This works well if you have extra hills to mine for later on.

No way. There are no hills to mine until after BW. I do agree that when you have lots of hills to mine, it is a good idea to get the settler out sooner. In the typical case, there's about zero to one. More often, as here, zero.

And again, a second city is far from useless.

It is pretty close to useless, making about 1 gpt, and the opportunity cost is stark. This really is the point. I can have a second worker, two more warriors, a workboat and a capital at size five in exchange for a second city which is barely able to support itself. The workboat will probably be ready at about the same time either way. But what a cost!

 

[Skallagrimson]

It is pretty close to useless, making about 1 gpt, and the opportunity cost is stark. This really is the point. I can have a second worker, two more warriors, a workboat and a capital at size five in exchange for a second city which is barely able to support itself. The workboat will probably be ready at about the same time either way. But what a cost!

Balance the cost with the benefit. More cities = more land. Land is power. It brings in greater short-term benefit to just grow one city, but the long-term benefit of grabbing resources and strategic positioning outweighs that by far.

For the cities to pay for themselves, they need to border-pop into their food, work the strategic resources, and eventually get libraries and scientists flipped. Cottage to taste. That's an eventual payoff which is by far worth the early investment.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

More cities drastically increases your production in the short term, and in the long term increases everything. City sites aren't around forever without war though.

 

[Soirana]

And what would I have done with this settler?

settled of course. We can argue for ever. But on that map you do not necessary need workboat in scond city.

Any place with seafood is actually not blocking/claiming enough land IMO.

The only time it is worth to grow into using plain hill is if you plan whip for two. And the only case i whip my second settler is i am trying outflow something out of him, which is either wonder or half priced granary in flodplained city.

 

[Abegweit]

settled of course. We can argue for ever. But on that map you do not necessary need workboat in scond city.

True. Not every location needs seafood. But it sure does need a worker. Training a settler before you have workers to develop its land is simply wrong. The opportunity costs are enormous.

 

[madscientist]

Alot depends on what your land is.

My first build is a worker if they have or will have something to do, otherwise a warrior. If I start with fishing and seafood access it's always a workboat.

Next is a warrior unless there is something better.

THe first settler depends more on my neighbors. If someone is close I am not rushing and need to cut them off fast, speed is more important and I will start ASAP on the settler (size 3 or 4). Otherwise I will max out the population for the first settler unless I have weak food/production lands.

 

[Soirana]

True. Not every location needs seafood. But it sure does need a worker. Training a settler before you have workers to develop its land is simply wrong. The opportunity costs are enormous.

You missed the point.
Worker normally goes with a settler. Capital builds another. I did that pretty routinely lately and i like results.

Workboat is another sorry. Which might change preferences.
And what is oppurtunity cost for not having land to settle?

 

[shyuhe]

I prefer to build the settler at size 4. Size 4 and 5 are roughly equivalent for whipping purposes so I never see the reason to hit 5 unless I have a crazy good start. If I have 3 food specials, I'll grow to 6 to whip my first settler out though.

 

[CivCorpse]

In a food heavy start I usually grow to size 4 before starting a settler. 4 allows me a 2pop whip and with heavy food I can regrow to 4 before the whip anger (30 turns on marathon) wears off.
If I am playing a civ that starts without worker techs I tend to find myself building warrior warrior settler at size 2 while I research the needed techs for a worker. Especially in a heavily forested start.

 

[Abegweit]

You missed the point.
Worker normally goes with a settler. Capital builds another. I did that pretty routinely lately and i like results.

Workboat is another sorry. Which might change preferences.
And what is oppurtunity cost for not having land to settle?

There is plenty of land to settle. Too much for the economy actually. Dave's solution was to only build three cities and it sure seemed to have worked.

I'll give your technique a try but I must say that I sure like sending two workers after the settler instead of one. And I like having a few warriors before I send the settler as well. I don't think that three is too many.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

I replayed the opening I described above, attempting follow your rule. There are some errors in the way I described it. Here's how it actually worked. It's from the latest Emperor Cookbook, BTW, so if you want to try the start feel free. I moved one north from the starting position, reasoning that the Blue Circle had probably spotted seafood. Sure enough it did. If you replay it, please do the same.

The capital was built on a plains hill and had a pigs, a fish, a forested deer and plains stone in the BFC. We start with TW and Hunting. Not the best starting techs but certainly useful given the position.

I had never even gone into the Emperor Cookbook page. It's a bit too late to get in, but I'm definitely going to try to shadow game it this weekend. I have been getting too many total forest starts. This would be a welcome change.

I would settle in place from that initial map though, even if someone told me I could get seafood by moving north one tile N to that plains hill. (Unfortunately, I don't like pushing my capital farther into the water when I'm already on the coast... it's a personality quirk I guess.)

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

My head hurts. Y'all must be playing on the uppermost levels. This kind of thing makes very little difference on Prince.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It makes the same difference, it's just that on prince the AI is so much worse at it that you're probably in good shape just by not automating workers.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

My head hurts. Y'all must be playing on the uppermost levels. This kind of thing makes very little difference on Prince.

Hmm, good point. Monarch and Emperor are the only two levels I play, honestly. Hard enough that I need to at least partially optimize my play (hence my interest in these optimization threads), but easy enough that I can still have fun. Emperor, I lose more than win. Monarch, I win more than I lose.

Anything past Emperor and I have no fun. Since it's more profitable to just leverage the predictibility of the AI and let them build most of my cities and wonders for me, I have to war, and I get crushed if I make a small early mistake or have too many bad rolls in a row trying to pry my future city from that computer player.

Prince and below, I found I get bored self-researching almost everything. The AI simply can NOT keep up unless I let them.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Automating workers doesn't do you much good in Noble, either. I was struggling when I first went to Noble (having read the forums, I manually assigned workers) and decided to automate workers after getting obliterated. Well, that didn't help at all. It became worse. So I only improved my Noble game thanks to the forums.

Honestly, Prince isn't a cakewalk for those of us who aren't as good! The AI still gets bonuses!

 

[oyzar]

My head hurts. Y'all must be playing on the uppermost levels. This kind of thing makes very little difference on Prince.

The average level on the forums were monarch last time it was checked which means roughly half of the people are at least 2 levels above prince... On prince you can do basically anything you want and still win if you have half a clue what to do(of course if you don't have a clue how to play it might still be hard...).

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Well, oyzar, I's pretty sure I's knowing hows to play purty well. Considering I's followin' the War Academy and have been reading deeze here forums for over 2 years now. It seems dat i's just slower and dumbers than yous.