Worker first, then Settler strategy

[Bezhukov]

Actually, I think organized is an ideal trait for an all-out mil civ (Japan has the right trait combination here), as your military civics have high upkeep, the half-price CH's can be a life-saver to keep down maintenance costs on newly counquered cities, and needing less cottages to pay the bills means more workshops.

 

[fightcancer]

Thank you for the well-written tutorial. I look forward to trying it out!

 

[Marquis Mark]

No, this is a fabulous strategy, although it needs some modification. It isn't clear to me what you see as the downside as it beats a conventional start in almost every way. In fact, I predict that some variant of this will be a key in successful MP online strategies in the future, as well as for GOTM winners. There is simply no other strategy that can really compete with it.

I am currently in a game using a modified version of this strategy, and from the beginning, my score has been 2-3 times that of any of the other civs. My early tech path was bronzeworking ->monotheism (for the religion) -> pottery (for cottages) ->alphabet (to trade techs).

Here are the important takehome messages.

First, the chopping of lumber is key to productivity at certain times. Later in the game when cities are well developed, the 30 productivity from forest chopping adds little. But early on when cities are producing just one or 2 hammers per turn, lumber chopping can really jump start your civ. This can be used for many different things -- settlers, workers, wonders, etc. But it makes the most sense to chop the trees early as this can put you way, way ahead at a time when other players are spending 17-25 idle, stagnant turns waiting to pump out a lone settler.

Second, it makes the most sense to use tree chopping for workers and settlers, NOT for other units or buildings. The reason is simple: while building military units or buildings, your cities continue to grow. While building workers and settlers, they do not grow at all. Other things being equal, it is a tremendous advantage to shorten the build time of settlers and workers, because this minimizes the time that your city is stagnating and not growing.

Third, I employ this strategy on a rolling basis. I didn't stop at 4: I went up to 15 cities this way on my large pangaea map with great success. Of course, you have to diversity. I pumped settlers and workers out of some cities by chopping trees, and after the trees were gone, I developed the economy by building cottages and mines, developing resources, and later, building watermills. While I was chopping trees in one city, another was building military units, another was building missionaries, and yet another was building city improvements. You get the idea. By doing this, I was able to keep research constantly at 90-100% and had a very solid economy.

Fourth, I reserved forests around a couple cities for wonder building. Forest chopping is a fabulous way for non-industrious civs to get key wonders very quickly. Say you want to build a wonder with speed doubled with stone, and have stone (while other players don't) due to your rapid expansion (+100% build speed). You also switch to organized religion (+25% build speed: it DOES work on wonders, not just regular buildings, I saw from my current game). This gives you a +125% hammer bonus. For harvesting one square of forest you get not 30 hammers toward your wonder, but 67 hammers! Harvest a few squares of forest, and of course no one can keep up with you in wonder building. For the next wonder, go to another city you have plopped down in another area of forest. I was able to get every wonder that I wanted. I had to be selective, but got stonehenge -- hanging gardens -- notre dame -- chichen itza -- etc. etc. on a large map with 8 other civilizations! This is such a good technique that honestly I am happier with non-industrious civs (expansive/financial is how I played my current game -- the boost allows fast granaries and makes up for any health benefit of all the tree chopping), and will likely find little use for the industrious trait in the future.

Finally, the concept that taking down forests will harm productivity is nonsense. Forests offer little food, often even enough for sustenance, and so cities that rely on forests for productivity often stagnate. Upgraded watermills give +2 production, as well as economic and food benefits of flatland. The forest productivity is easily replaceable. Chopping the trees has helped me to vastly increase, not decrease, my city productivity by allowing much more time for growth, bypassing large amounts of stagnant time waiting for worker/settler production without this strategy.

Through this whole game, all my settlers have had military escorts, and my borders have been well defended. Those who have declared war on me have been quickly crushed. I have maintained a constant flow of gold, high (90-100% research -- now way ahead of the other civs by the mid middle ages), and city development, and have gotten all the wonders I wanted.

My thanks to Alexfrog for bringing the forest harvesting idea to my attention.

Best wishes,

Falconhurst

Interesting. I would think a blitzer would be able to quickly conquer these small, fledgling cities, but I'll have to try and see.

Now, has anyone thought of starting this off for the first few cities then using remaining wood to spam units early to get a rush?

 

[incubuspawn]

Hmm I usualy build few warriors and a scout before my first worker or my first settler. I want to know a few things, first. Like DO I run into another civ relatively close to me? If yes I immediately build 2 settlers and create a border. If no I immediately build a worker then my settlers.

 

[Yahzi]

Alex's idea of chopping wood to rush that first settler is just brilliant. Of course 30 wood on turn 20 is worth 300 wood on turn 200.

And thanks to WK for the nice write-up. I did not know that Organized Religion and wood chopping helped Wonders. I guess the Forge does too - that's why the forests you chop later in the game give so much more wood (I've seen like 107 before).

Well, dang it, now I have to go start a new game and try this.

 

[stegootje25]

ok, i play on noble level.

And when i start a city i useually start it near hills (for production later in the game),
cities:
warrior->warrior->worker (when city is 3) -> settler
techs:
Mystemism->monotheism->agriculture techs

This is my usuall stategy:
With my worker i first irrigate wheat or lay a pasture when cows are nearby.
This means my first settler will be rushed with food. After that i lay mines to speed up the production of my first wonder (stonehenge)

When i should have choosed the chopping strategy my techs should've been:
Mystemism->monotheism->bronze working.
In this case when bronze working is ready i already have a worker for 5 turns or so, and i have no agriculture techs. 5 WASTED working turns
Can somebody explain the advantage of the chopping strategy??

 

[majk-iii]

In the early game everything takes time and the hammers are lower then the food-output.... so my first build is usually a baracks or work-boat or something...BUT, and here's the thing; i don't finish it... since you can save your work on a build for later... i'm really only waiting to grow to size 2 (or 3) and then change to a worker/settler, wich will now be built pretty fast because of the higher food-output... i then use the worker to work the proper hammer-tile and hence speeding up my initial build.
Saves time... i do this in every new city.
I haven't counted, but you could probably save between 10-30 turns on those firs buildings... by NOT hurrying to build them and by never trying to build a worker in a size 1 city.

 

[LittleRedPoint]

Majk-iii's idea is good, that is śomething to try

 

[ÆnigmÆffect]

I tried this with my current game (prince, small map, 7 civs), and I'm really glad I did. 3 or 4 civs found me within 10 or 20 turns, and having 4 cities up and running asap to create borders guaranteed a lot of resources which I didn't think others could get to.

However, the only drawback, as he mentioned, is the huge maintenance cost. I haven't found a great way to counter this, so any pointers would be great (I had to run like a 50 or 60% science slider just to stay slightly negative...)

 

[秦始皇]

A good beginning is very important .But there are many way leading to that .If the terran is not so bad ,I think it is better to begin with it rather than starting again to get a terran you want.

 

[Grunthex]

ok, i play on noble level.

And when i start a city i useually start it near hills (for production later in the game),
cities:
warrior->warrior->worker (when city is 3) -> settler
techs:
Mystemism->monotheism->agriculture techs

This is my usuall stategy:
With my worker i first irrigate wheat or lay a pasture when cows are nearby.
This means my first settler will be rushed with food. After that i lay mines to speed up the production of my first wonder (stonehenge)

When i should have choosed the chopping strategy my techs should've been:
Mystemism->monotheism->bronze working.
In this case when bronze working is ready i already have a worker for 5 turns or so, and i have no agriculture techs. 5 WASTED working turns
Can somebody explain the advantage of the chopping strategy??

The key to this is that Bronze Working has to come BEFORE your religious techs. It is the fundamental key to this entire strategy, you can't put it off.

 

[kalder]

Interesting strategy...some issues:
- will it work fine at medium-high difficulty level, when cities maintenance increases? At what difficulties level did you tested it?
- The straight Bronze Working tech path is alternative to the "Be-the First-Religion-Founder" path. Must be aware of this and maybe choose depending on your civ's traits: if you're Organized and Expansive you'd better go for "worker first then settler"; if you're Spiritual, Philosophical, Creative maybe should prefer phocusing on the development of few cities...

 

[karmina]

When you don't have any value-4 tile or hill plains around your starting location, but at least one 3-food tile, it's better to wait until your capital has grown to size 2 (takes 8 turns). This way you save 5 turns for your capital (15-12 for worker, 10-8 for settler), but only lose 3 turns (8-5) at your second city.

 

[Wlauzon]

Just as a side note - the AI nearly always builds 2 warriors first, then a worker, then a scout, then a settler, then archer. That seems to work OK, except for the fact that you end up with 3 warriors that are rather useless unless you are on a large map and using them to explore.

But regardless, even the AI seems to be of the opinion that your city should be size 3 or 4 before you start turning out settlers. In one recent game on a Huge map as kind of an experiment I made 6 scouts to explore in the hope of maybe getting some free early tech, but that seemed to flop since most of the goody hut tech goes away pretty early.

To a large extent in my past few games, I have pretty much ignored religion and made a beeline to bronze working ->> Iron working while churning out settlers as fast as possible to grab land.

The lack of having a religion seems to make little difference in the late game.

 

[incubuspawn]

Just as a side note - the AI nearly always builds 2 warriors first, then a worker, then a scout, then a settler, then archer. That seems to work OK, except for the fact that you end up with 3 warriors that are rather useless unless you are on a large map and using them to explore.

But regardless, even the AI seems to be of the opinion that your city should be size 3 or 4 before you start turning out settlers. In one recent game on a Huge map as kind of an experiment I made 6 scouts to explore in the hope of maybe getting some free early tech, but that seemed to flop since most of the goody hut tech goes away pretty early.

To a large extent in my past few games, I have pretty much ignored religion and made a beeline to bronze working ->> Iron working while churning out settlers as fast as possible to grab land.

The lack of having a religion seems to make little difference in the late game.

Hmm I don't know, I recently played a game that the only thing that kept me in the game was discovering a religion. I would have otherwise been wiped off the map even on a noble game, due to my starting location.

 

[Mujadaddy]

I've never NOT tried to get a religion, either, Incubuspawn... Although, my next game I'm going for the "Steal the Worker" strategy

 

[Alexfrog]

Just as a side note - the AI nearly always builds 2 warriors first, then a worker, then a scout, then a settler, then archer. That seems to work OK, except for the fact that you end up with 3 warriors that are rather useless unless you are on a large map and using them to explore.

But regardless, even the AI seems to be of the opinion that your city should be size 3 or 4 before you start turning out settlers.

In that case, this is a good way to get ahead of the AI, since they arent doing it...

 

[Alexfrog]

I have personally found that founding religions is not all that important. You will get some from the AI religions spreading to you, to be able to build temples and stuff.

As to the great prophet buildings in holy cities, well, that great prophet couldve given you production and gold if he added to the city, not just gold. Yeah, its not quite as good, but its still fine. having religions still means you need ot somehow generate the great prophets to make those buildings anyway.

I know that many people WANT the various opening strategyies of Civ 4 to be balanced, and want to believethat religions are as good as fast expansion, and that chopping has drawbacks that make up for its speed, but really, in my experience, the other strategies just are not as good.

As to wether it works on higher difficulty levels, I am finding this to be the only strategy I am managing to compete well with on higher difficulty levels. It is safe. You have your starting warrior to escort your settler anyways, and animlas dont enter your cultural borders, so if you are building close to the edge of your borders, you will be fine.



Wounded Knight, thanks for your reply. I havent tried it with the quantity of cities that you have, however, at least not that early. I just havent had enough time to play through the game enough.

 

[Alexfrog]

I've never NOT tried to get a religion, either, Incubuspawn... Although, my next game I'm going for the "Steal the Worker" strategy

I was having trouble on monarch in games where I started goign for religions. Once I finally started ignoring them to just chop and expand, I started winning.

 

[Mujadaddy]

Sorry, still trying to win consistently on Noble here