Worker actions in the 1st 50 turns

[stevenburns]

Like many others, I'm struggling with the jump up to deity level. Unlike many others (at least that's what I'm getting from the other threads) I dont feel I have a problem with city placement or build orders but I feel I'm losing time, i.e. turns or commerce, within the first 50 turns or so after the worker is out.

I often find myself competing for a crucial spot, whether its a resource or strategic position with the AIs third city, the settler it has to build on its own.
But that's just one example where time is an issue. Time that only worker management can get you.

So here are a few questions I always worry about and like to hear your opinion about.

1. It's common to stop the worker after the first of its two moves and build a road or a less important improvement for one turn and move on to the important improvement the next turn.

But what do you do in the following case: you're standing on a tile with no road, typically the first mines. The neighbouring tile has a road and the situation makes it that you reach the next tile that you want to improve in 2 turns if you move right away or in 3 turns if you buil a road on the tile you're standing on.
What do you do?

2. When you have a second worker out and the most important tiles are improved, do you move both workers onto tiles that'd lose them a movement point at the same time, e.g. a solid riverside grassland mine, to improve it in 3 turns but having used up 6 worker turns or do you improve the tile with 1 worker and only use 5 worker turns?

3. The first city is almost always very close to my capitol so there is very often the case that i have the choice of roading the final tile, the future city spot or not. The difference is 2 used up worker turns vs. a 1 turn earlier city placement.

4. Chopping forested hills. Do you mine the freshly chopped hill immediately or do you waste the turn it takes to climb those hill again when you dont need the mine right away?

5a. Roading into the AIs for trade commerce vs. improving own tiles. I almost always road for the commerce but that often leaves me with working unimproved tiles in a city for a while.
5b. How do feel about hooking up recently popped horses or copper vs. the 6 turns (it takes to improve and hook up those tiles) of lossed trade commerce?

There are more questions that might come to (my) mind but these are the ones popping up first.

 

[Izuul]

1) I would only spend an extra turn to build a road in that scenario if i needed that road for something important; i.e. it's on the path to my 2nd/3rd city spot.

2) I never do that unless it's something really important and very time sensitive. If you can finish an important wonder that's up for grabs 1T earlier by double teaming a chop it's worth it. Sometimes getting gold or something like that online 2T earlier by using 2 workers rather than 1 can pay off.

3) If you don't have any really strong tiles to improve, spending 2T on a road to settle your city faster is definitely not a bad move, especially if that road helps connect your city, because the 2 commerce from the trade route between your capitol and your 2nd city is pretty important early.

4) Only if i really want that mine immediately or in the near future. If it's a plains hill I'm rarely going to mine it (especially early) because i don't like working PH mines in many cases. If it's a grass hill mine and i plan to work it soon then i will mine it unless there's something else more important to do like more chopping to complete a wonder or what not.

5) That really depends on many factors like how many tiles need to be roaded to make the connection, how many cities you have that will benefit from the +1C, how important are the other things that your worker could be doing, how long would it be before you could get trade routes in some other fashion (Sailing), and so on.

If you haven't noticed a theme with my answers, worker actions are all about constantly weighing the priority of all possible worker actions against each other and then trying to balance that with efficiency. It's great to not waste worker turns, but sometimes there are just things that are so important and so high priority that efficiency needs to take a back seat to getting that done ASAP.

 

[Seraiel]

I believe your greatest problem is your aversion to working unimproved tiles in the beginning.

You i. e. should be aware, that the difference between an unimproved FP against a cottaged one is only 1 . When you're still that early in the game and build Settlers, what is better, a 2 riverside Cottage or a 1 Grassland Forest?

In the beginning, it's really only important to improve the special resources, apart from those, working unimproved tiles is only very slightly worse, than working improved ones. In the example with the Cottage and the Grassland Forest, the unimproved tile is even better.

On Deity, it's important to grab sufficient land fast enough, so AIs don't get those spots, as you've noticed, that there isn't even a chance to get a 2nd city before AI gets its 3rd city. I often build up to 5 Settlers, before I build the 2nd Worker. I let my initial Worker only improve the most important tiles, and then hop over to the next fresh city, to again only improve the 2 most imprtant tiles. Roads I don't build at all in that stage of the game, because they're not needed yet, Settlers and Workers move fast enough to do without Roads.
I often let my Capital stay at size 3-5 and do nothing but building Settlers 'til about 1500 BC.

So I unfortunately cannot answer any of your questions, because I play completely different. If you have problems with founding enough good cities, you should build more Settlers and not Workers. I don't even understand the logic, how more Workerturns would help you expand faster.

 

[stevenburns]

@Izuul

Thanks, I'll have a look at your answers when I start the next game and see whether I would've acted different by intuition.

@seraiel

Yeah, you answered some aspects of my questions. And you do see where my worker turns limit my speed of expansion. You are saying I'm using too many worker turns at all. But there are some things about your opening suggestion I don't see playing out.

Where is your early commerce coming from if you are willing to work unimproved tiles in non-connected cities? Rivers/river tiles help of course but you can't always rely on that.
Same goes for early luxuries.
I can hardly believe you are staying afloat with 5-6 cities and only 1 worker. Or does this approach require a capitol gold mine and you just bend that commerce until it breaks?

As you rightfully suspected, I try to avoid working unimproved tiles. It seemed common knowledge among the experienced players on here.
If I can't grow a newly found city on at least a flood plain I build a 12/15 turn worker on the best 3-yield-tile available. If you don't build workers, what do you build? Military, barracks or if already available granaries, I guess. I try to get along with the initial warrior + 2 from the capitols growing phase after the worker. (Only if there is a lot of land I build more warriors.)

Deity told me to go for the second settler before the second worker in a lot of situations but I never would have considered to build a third settler before at least building my second worker.
When do you build your workers? Or do you whip them into granaries and start improving cities afterwards.

(Btw, I'm talking about Pangaea, Standard, NHNE. It seemed the way most people play, so I could compare more easily.)

 

[Seraiel]

I build the 2nd Worker after the 5th city at latest. If I really build 5 cities while only having 1 Worker, also depends on how crouded the map is.
As I play for HoF, I play without Barbs and usually with 1 or 2 Goldmines in the capital and go Alpha or Maths beeline, depending on how large the map is, the larger, the more often I go for Maths. Now you think “great, how does this help me“ . I know, that reaching Alpha early is possible without Goldmines but therefore some Scientists, and it's really the fewest maps, on which one cannot claim any luxury resource with the 2nd or 3rd city. If starting with Gold, the Food on the map is usually low, so some of your cities having good Food and a Library and works 2 Specialists is only slightly less efficient. Also, claming a luxury has the greatest priority from all cities one settles, except playing with barb and needing to claim Horses / Copper.
Also, don't forget, that you got Palace commerce.

As builds I chain Settlers in the capital and the arbitary cities are allowed to build Warriors. If I start with Mysticism or research Pottery instead of AH, they may also build Granaries. If they got good Food and grow fast, I may also start with a Library if Granaries aren't available. Sometimes, I also let the arbitary cities produce a Worker at size 2, 3 or 4.

Hth.

 

[stevenburns]

Ok, no barbs obviously makes a huge difference. And HOF certainly does, too.
(Though there are some things I adopted from your posts not made in this thread, like beelining alpha but this doesn't belong under this topic. It works well, btw. And I'll pay attention to prefering a library in a city with a strong food resource.)

Obviously the number of cities one builds depends on the decision to REX or to rush one of the nearest AIs.

But in both cases I find situations where I'm not sure what the most beneficial worker move is. Especially if one decides to rush I feel that every turn counts. Your HOF approach makes it different, of course, because your tech pace will be very quick due to capitol quality.

Otoh, going for HOF you must pay a lot of attention to your one worker's moves, don't you. But maybe due to the rather perfect conditions you focus on different aspects as you don't have to worry about the problems standard games bear.
As I'm still starting to play deity I obviously play strong starts with leaders I feel comfortable with but I prefer playing "good" starting positions rather than the ones in the "awesome" thread. Pangaea doesn't provide them that much anyway I feel.

Anyhow, everybody feel invited to contribute to worker tactics or moves or respond to my opening questions or put up another question.

 

[Seraiel]

Yes, when rushing, I only found 3 cities.

You unfortunately didn't get 1 point though, which was/is that maps with less Golds often have more Food, which imo is as good, because 3 cities with a Library running 2 Scientists are as good as 2 Gold mines, and getting 3 cities with Libraries is not rearly more difficult if the capital got 4 Food which the other cities can share while having a food source on their own too.

I do pay attention a lot to my Worker moves, because worker management is below the most imprtant things in CIV, but what I do once I have Workers, Izuul already described very well. Always ask yourself “what does this do for me, and do I really need that“ ? Also, you must set priorities. Improving the Food or a Hill is more important than building roads. I actually usually buold ny first roads directly before a rush or very late. Improvements are just way more important.

 

[stevenburns]

As I appreciate your advice, somehow the examples you come up with don't match my experience with what the map generator provides me with.

I choose starting positions that provide a certain comfort. But i think your approach is so different to mine that it is hard to follow your advice. Regarding roads especially, that is.

Worker first is a given. Best source of food is next. (At my stage it's almost always riverside corn.) But from here on my questioning begins.
As I have a preference to pick leaders with The Wheel as a starting tech or another combination that allows me to tech TW early (1st/2nd), I always run into the decision whether to road or to move the worker without doing so.
I play starts where not roading into your first cities causes a viable impact to research so I consider this important.
You say you dont road. But how would you make a city pay that's not paid for by the capitols gold mines?
If the leader is IMP/EXP, wouldn't a mined plains hill (though I know why it's considered a weak tile) help in short/mid term?

If the AI is close, road in and speed up teching or further improve?

These are choices I find way more often to make than building five cities provided by 2 capitol gold mines or fed by 4 capitol foods

Maybe these are choices your style of playing doesn't bring up too much.

Nevertheless, don't consider this ungrateful. I'll try to take your advice to my game if it sees fit. I'll let you know how it worked.

 

[Seraiel]

If a leader is IMP or EXP, it's best to tech BW and whip Settlers and Workers.

Regarding Roads or Improvements: If your Worker can reach his designated spot 1T earlier if he moves 2 tiles, then you should let him.

Did you btw. read the example with the 3 Libraries? Having a TR between the 3rd, 4th and 5th city only gives 1 commerce, it's really not needed to road for that. Founding the 2nd city sith a river connection can help, but even then, 1 Scientist already produces more research.

I btw. don't even tech TW, because I skip all techs that are possible, so that I don't need for improving resources, except somtimes, I research BW. BW is also interesting, because one can 1pop-whip Warriors, which gives quite a lot Gold way before Currency.

 

[stevenburns]

I have had the same intuition about whipping settlers/workers so that s a nice confirmation.

And, like Izuul, you suggest to move directly instead of roading. Surprisingly you don't seem to consider the TW important at all, so no Pottery?
No TW obviously makes a huge difference in the valuation of worker turns as you you don't have the choice to road. The fact you are sacrificing this choice will definetly make me think about TW some more.

Regarding commerce from trade routes and beakers from scientists I cant see where you are coming from. Even being Creative you cant have the library and the necessary food up as soon as you can have roads and open borders.

Two extra scientists in a city additional to the capitol is better than any amount of commerce trade routes are giving you early on, I can see that though.

Once again, I suspect your HOF approach might make the difference.

 

[Seraiel]

Once again, I suspect your HOF approach might make the difference.

I guarantee you, that that is not the case. I played a game where I started with 4 food resources. I split them between the capital and the first 3 cities, so that cjty 2, 3, and 4 could have double food on the cost of the capital only having 1 food. I founded a 5th coty completely without problems ar the same river that the capital had, this city only had a single source of food.

Rexing to 5 cities went really very fast. I don't remember the exact date, but with the capital working sources of food in the beginning, I doubt that it was later than 1800 BC.
As builings I prioritized Libraries over Granaries, also because I didn' even tech TW and Pottery. I hired 2 Scientists in every city, and I was astonished. My empire conducted 56 BPT at 0%, and it reached Alpha only slightly after I reach it with 2 Gold starts, but instead of super early Alpha, I would have had super early GSs!

Then Toku dowed me and I didn't yet further compare that mass food tactic to the typical HoF 1-2 Gold start.

 

[stevenburns]

Then Toku dowed me...

Yeah, you gotta love that.

Too late for me right now. I'll put some thought to the rest and I'll reply tomorrow. Thanks a lot anyway.

Edit: serious about no Wheel and Pottery? Still bugs me...

 

[Seraiel]

Yeah, you gotta love that.

Too late for me right now. I'll put some thought to the rest and I'll reply tomorrow. Thanks a lot anyway.

Edit: serious about no Wheel and Pottery? Still bugs me...

Today, I would research TW and Pottery most likely, but I wouldn't know if before or after writing.

 

[Dhar Khosis]

BW is also interesting, because one can 1pop-whip Warriors, which gives quite a lot Gold way before Currency.

In my version of BTS, you just lose the hammers that you "overwhip" (can't take more than the hamer cost plus the turn-production into the next round). Are you' playing with some strange mod there, or is this some other trick?

To the topic, I think the answer to many of your questions is: It depends (so maybe post concrete examples?).

1) if the tile I will be going to is important for my city and I will work it as soon a possible (e.g. newly discovered copper-resource), I skip the road. If I will not work that tile asap, or the improvement is minor (cottage), I will delay that one turn by building the road.

2) If I'm going to work that solid tile as soon as it's ready, I will move both workers there. If not, I may move one worker there roading it first to get the other worker there without move-loss then double-building the tile or just use one worker.

3) I usually have more urgent things to do than to road the tile I will be settling on.

4) If I'm on that tile only to chop, then I'm either building a wonder and want more chops so I'm not mining it after that - or I used a one-chop (for a settler, worker, monument), then I'm most probabely mining it after, if there's not a really important resource tile to improve.

5a) Can't tell you about this, I'm usually not trading with AI. But I'm quite sure in the case of 5b) those resources are more important than a trade route.

 

[Seraiel]

Unused OF getting not translated into gokd is a bug that is in the unmpdified version of BtS. Afaik, both, BUG + BUFFY fix that. Slight advantage and not 100% unaltered gameplay.

 

[stevenburns]

@Dhar Khosis
Yes, everything depends.
I know it's hard to give general advice on CIV games on the high difficulties.

I ran a quick test game over the last hour where I forced myself to build 3 settlers after the initial worker. I chose Hatty, obviously a strong leader.
Solid capital, only two sources of food nearby so those had to be the first two cities.
Queued three settlers at size four, usually I go at size 3, but I wanted to work an oasis additionally to pigs and two mines as I expected the commerce to matter.

I chose to road into the first two cities instead of improving the first settler's site. Turned out a mistake. The commerce loss of the second settler's site not being connected would not have been as bad. Should have improved at least the rice.

Third settler was connected by river but could't settle a site with food of its own. City was intended to grow a few flood plains cottages for the capitol while the capital hired scientists.

From this game I get that the first city should be connected no matter what. I tested the first city without connection to the capital and the drop in research felt too significant. As I said, the next city I shouldn't have connected but should have improved the first new city.

Tech path was AH for pigs, Mining, Writing, Alpha. Reached Alphabet in 2240BC. The only tiles providing commerce were the city centers, riverside pigs, one riverside mine and an oasis in the capital. Later a sheep tile and a worked flood plain in city #3, and two flood plains in city #4. The capital built a quick library in 5 turns and contributed two scientists.

When I reached Alpha no AI had writing, among those Mansa and Pericles!
And I might have even skipped mining.

Interesting fact: my usual questions about how to split and use my wiorkers' turns were almost completely irrelevant, as I couldn't chop or cottage. (And I still made a big mistake in not farming the rice in the first settled city.)

So, new approach there for me that looks very promising. I'll run a more serious game tonight maybe and see where using less workers in the opening phase may lead.

 

[Pangaea]

I sometimes build a worker in new cities to eventually help out. Takes a while without growth of course, but once the city gets its food improved by the 'starting' worker, then it's faster.

Sounds like you ran an interesting test. Pretty fun to get Alpha when most AIs don't have Writing

 

[Seraiel]

In spite of getting all minor techs very early, you'll notice, that this approach has 2 further great advantages: 1. You can have a very good diplomacy with gifting the AIs minor techs you got through trade (or even gift them Alpha) and 2. You can sometimes bribe the AIs against each other while it's still really cheap.

2240 BC Alpha btw. is really good, I usually reach it slightly later, probably because I don't connect the 1st and 2nd city but go for agressive land blocking.

 

[stevenburns]

I sometimes build a worker in new cities to eventually help out. Takes a while without growth of course, but once the city gets its food improved by the 'starting' worker, then it's faster.

Sounds like you ran an interesting test. Pretty fun to get Alpha when most AIs don't have Writing

Yes, it was. I didn't even have a :happy resource. One of the reasons I stopped playing any further.

I think it has to do with the AIs reacting to the player's research path. After Alpha, I probably would have whipped workers in city #1 and #2 into granaries.

Possible trades for writing were Myst + Hunting, Pottery, BW w/ one turn of research in, Mining would have obviously been possible if I hadn't teched it myself, though without the production the capital would have the library delayed.
I was able to back fill everything and still have the monopoly on Alpha.

AIs were not hand picked. Mansa, Pericles, Isabella, Shaka, Napoleon and Gilgamesh.

 

[stevenburns]

In spite of getting all minor techs very early, you'll notice, that this approach has 2 further great advantages: 1. You can have a very good diplomacy with gifting the AIs minor techs you got through trade (or even gift them Alpha) and 2. You can sometimes bribe the AIs against each other while it's still really cheap.

2240 BC Alpha btw. is really good, I usually reach it slightly later, probably because I don't connect the 1st and 2nd city but go for agressive land blocking.

I guess Hatty is very strong in this scenario due to starting techs and CRE.
I have to think about the options early Alpha provides. It'll take a little time to get used to that. And it felt that road into the first city was necessary. Following cities not that much.

Diplomacy was a fun side note. After the ten turns of open borders Shaka, Nappy and Isabella made demands to stop trade relations with different AIs.
And, strangely enough, Isabella and Pericles founded the first two religions and shared a very long border but weren't enemies once.