Worker first... In all your cities?

[CivIVMonger]

Just an idea. It seems to work very well for me. Building a worker first in all of your newly settled cities can be especially nice before pottery when the granary isn't an option. I still think your granary would be produced faster if you had your land pre-improved by going worker first and this can almost garuntee that you never go to a shortage of workers.

I have heard emphasis on granary first post pottery and maybe a monument if you need a border pop for a bonus or such. I argue against that. On normal speed, a level 1 city can build a worker in 15 turns, granaries usually take 30 under normal circumstances. To be exact, the tile that your city covers will always have 2 food, and 2 hammers. Granaries and workers cost the same initially, but workers take both food and hammers into their production. Making the worker take half as long. Taking half that time away building your worker first, doubling the hammers with your worker building a mine or increasing food to work more hammers later via forests or such allows you most likely to be able to build the granary in about the same time as going granary first and would be better IMO.

It also helps me get my settlers out faster in my capital. I can expand much more quickly this way. It takes a lot of stress off of your all too important capital's constant build orders. I don't know, just an idea.

What are your thoughts, opinions, alternatives to this?

 

[vranasm]

Just an idea. It seems to work very well for me. Building a worker first in all of your newly settled cities can be especially nice before pottery when the granary isn't an option. I still think your granary would be produced faster if you had your land pre-improved by going worker first and this can almost garuntee that you never go to a shortage of workers.

I have heard emphasis on granary first post pottery and maybe a monument if you need a border pop for a bonus or such. I argue against that. On normal speed, a level 1 city can build a worker in 15 turns, granaries usually take 30 under normal circumstances. To be exact, the tile that your city covers will always have 2 food, and 2 hammers. Granaries and workers cost the same initially, but workers take both food and hammers into their production. Making the worker take half as long. Taking half that time away building your worker first, doubling the hammers with your worker building a mine or increasing food to work more hammers later via forests or such allows you most likely to be able to build the granary in about the same time as going granary first and would be better IMO.

It also helps me get my settlers out faster in my capital. I can expand much more quickly this way. It takes a lot of stress off of your all too important capital's constant build orders. I don't know, just an idea.

What are your thoughts, opinions, alternatives to this?

I never build worker first in new cities. i build mostly monument if I am not creative, if i am... warrior/defense.
for workers there is cap which I let grow to size 4/5.
My cap usually builds first 3 settlers and around 6 worker. Then ideally should catch up with settler/worker pump another city, but sometimes I don't do it properly.

Btw welcome back, everything is alright with your PC etc?

 

[pollock]

It certainly isnt a bad idea Cause it likely wont have any improved tiles and the same calculation that means should build worker at size one in capital applies. However you can arrive with workers from somewhere else there and improve a resource and chop a monument . Also growing to whip a monument or granary can be correct.
Still more workers is good

 

[Cusanus]

It certainly is a bad idea.

Your capital should (usually) get a worker first, but none of your other cities ever should.
It's just so much faster if you send one of the workers you already have along with the settler.

 

[pollock]

What if it is your second city or a land grab city or In the jungle with 1 good tile to start?
An ideal set up of a city with enough workers is sometimes hard to achieve. Especially rexing on deity :S
Edit: I read again and you mean that worker first in all cities is a bad idea. Its certainly not best
Id suggest that on lower difficulty levels for beginners it would be a decent learning rule . Cause they very often under build workers

 

[Aoxomoxoa]

I've gotten into the habit of building the worker before the settler and that has been a real boon to my production. The exception is usually my first city expansion when I will usually go worker first.

I'm finding it's easy to time a chop for the worker, then whip a settler a turn or two later to get the next city out. It makes for a pretty efficient pattern.

 

[Inso]

Its much quicker and more efficient to spam workers from the capital to go with settlers to new cities, preferably building a road in advance to the city site and timing it to finish roughly when the settler will get there. 15 turns of building a worker in a new city is 15 turns missed growth. Whip monument first always unless creative or there is enough useful tiles in the first ring to make use of all the citizens. Then granary or barracks can follow depending if its growth or military needed.

There are exceptions of course, like if an important site is close to an AI or there is a danger of being boxed in fast. In this case it can be better to make settlers quickly without workers then build a worker in the newly founded city, especially if it is far away. But most of the time its much better to grow the new city ASAP.

 

[Gwynnja]

I usually try to let new cities grow and let the capital build the workers unless I'm running out of good spots to settle and I need to concentrate on settlers in the capital. The way I see it, the problem with building workers in a new city rather than a granary/monument/unit is that it can't grow and start working tiles.

 

[vicawoo]

No, it's definitely better to grow to a second special resource, assuming you have decent food.

Usually you should grow to a size 2 non-special improved tile, although it's dependent on your food:hammer ratio

90% of the time build a worker before growing to an unimproved tile (assuming it will take a long, long time to improve).

grow to special resource > improved tile ~~ worker > unimproved tile.

Only build granaries if you don't need a garrison somewhere for happiness and you're not afraid of barbarians. And learn to maximize your workers, don't waste time improving tiles that you'll never use or long roads that do nothing. Just send them to a new city.

 

[Grashopa]

If you are going worker first in your cities than you need to rethink your worker turns. This is incredibly inefficient.

 

[Aurelius321]

I usually play on Prince (win fairly regularly) or Monarch (sometimes win) and I generally do worker first for the first unit in my capital, unless I'm playing with a civ whose starting techs don't match up with the resources on the map (and don't have Wheel). If not that than another Warrior/Scout to REX with. I usually don't do Granary until I have Slavery and I can whip it, as I don't want to loose turns on making it when I could be producing units. I produce other workers early but from whatever city seems the best at the moment.

 

[Kadazzle]

I tend to build Monuments, Workboats or Warriors in my newly settled cities depending on how many barbs there are and if they're archers yet. Worker first in a city is only an oddball case, but it usually happens atleast once in one of my games.

 

[lymond]

I focus on getting culture building first or if creative - granary. I want my cities to grow and expand borders asap. The cap or other developed cities can get out enough workers in the meantime. Workers are easy 2 pop whips or you can chop out a few. Have one head to new city to improve, one road to new city to open trade route, while building another one in cap.

 

[NihilZero]

Sometimes I find I have to do it, if there is land I need to grab fast before it's gone, meaning I am forced to build settlers at the capital in greater numbers than workers. However, it's extremely bad because a new city should start to contribute as soon as possible. A brand new, size one city with no improved tiles is effectively a dead weight dragging your economy down. The aim of the game when settling cities is to get them contributing quickly and positively.

 

[vicawoo]

Well you shouldn't have so many workers. Given that you do have them, this is what you can do:

The capital has more improved tiles that it can use right now. The second city is stuck on 1 good tile until the borders pop. Therefore, if I had 3 or 4 settlers, I could get 3 useful cities up and running with our workers.
What can I do to get to that state as fast as possible?

Spoiler :

Well, workers can chop! We need an escort, so we grow to 4 to make an additional warrior, and afterwards we reassign our tiles to pure mines to get the settlers out that much faster. Roads do not help us do this. Note the capital is perfectly happy at size 4 without the warrior, so he's gone off to mark another city.


And now one of our workers can do something useful: improve good tiles

And through our chopping efforts, our 2nd settler (not even the first settler!) arrives in time to steal the gold/cow city.

It's prince, so this small city has a good shot at...

The great lighthouse! Note that we should have skipped the granary.

Pre-requisites for settling: sufficient escorts, a good enough economy, and enough workers. You have the latter two, and one or two warriors gives you the first. Note I also go sailing so you can get trade routes, since you have writing.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Usually you should not build worker 1st in cities after the first. There are exceptions though. A big one is if you are spamming out cities ASAP to grab land to block etc. In that case, working an improved, 1st ring special to crank out workers is fine. I would still recommend growing onto multiple specials if they're available, but if the city only has 1 there and you need workers you can use it to give yourself a boost.

 

[Aurelius321]

I think TMIT has it right. I always build a worker first in my first city, as the tiles that it can improve can drastically improve your early game food/production versus waiting until you've built other units/buildings while there are unimproved specials floating around.

 

[Framesticker]

It certainly is a bad idea.

Your capital should (usually) get a worker first, but none of your other cities ever should.
It's just so much faster if you send one of the workers you already have along with the settler.

Not always. Sometimes you're too busy building stuff in your capital that are essential and cannot be delayed - a critical wonder (Pyramids, TGL, TGW, etc.), warriors for spawnbusting or units for a rush.

While I generally don't do that, there's nothing wrong with that. I like to settle my cities with their good tiles in the first ring of the BFC (if I'm not Creative/have Stonehenge) since waiting for a Monument border pop (which is usually the option unless you play the Incans or something) can take 20+ turns, which is a LOT in early gameand tends to snowball. If that's the case, going for a Worker first is not a bad idea.

EDIT: Just read "in ALL of your cities." Now, that's definitely a bad idea and while you do want 1.5 workers/city you definitely don't to produce all of these workers in your new cities. That'll tremendously hamper your growth.

 

[UWHabs]

I used to do that, but it does go really slow. If all this new city is doing is building a worker, then you're usually better to wait to settle it if you can.

There are cases when you have to (ie. rex), but I've discovered that the new cities get online a lot faster if you can send both a settler and a worker to them.

 

[CivIVMonger]

Usually you should not build worker 1st in cities after the first. There are exceptions though. A big one is if you are spamming out cities ASAP to grab land to block etc. In that case, working an improved, 1st ring special to crank out workers is fine. I would still recommend growing onto multiple specials if they're available, but if the city only has 1 there and you need workers you can use it to give yourself a boost.

You've told me that it, 'usually' isn't a good idea but you never said why. I'm not fighting for a debate, I am curious if there is a problem with the strategy. It is in a general sense, note. The map and neighbors determines the game.