Worker vs Settler - best early game investment?

[Rittmeyer]

It takes a lot to show what optimal, but my feeling is that buying the settler is the best option. People seen to be missing the fact that you will sell happiness resources to the AI for 100-200 gold early on, since you dont need them. you sell your first resource. and possibly the second, if you settle ON it. so the settler immeaditly pays for half the gold it costed (by selling the resource).

grabbing the early resources earley is key. with 1-2 settlers you could guarantee 2-4 extra resources, that you can sell early and keep later, when they are needed.

golden age is an argument for having early spare happiness, but in my opinion it`s a weak one. the fact that you will expand into more resources means that you will accumulate much more happiness later on, when golden ages are more important.

for now, I`d advise something like: scout, workers, settler - buy another settler. trying to grab as many happy resources withe the first two settlers as possible, setting ON at least one of them and selling as much as possible to the AI in the beggining.

after that, you`ll have three cities and THEN you should look to ally yourself to a maritime CS. the bonus scales, so it will be so much stronger then having it earlier but applied only to the capital.

remember: you are selling resources to buy a settler that will grab more resources for you to sell (one of them immeatly, but settling ON it). so it pays for itself in a short time.

 

[Rittmeyer]

double post, sorry.

 

[Show]

Depends on opening as people mentioned,

I usually go scout-worker-settler-settler, other strategies sometimes work for a game but generally I found this to be the best for an early horseman rush, you need to start grabbing resources fast(especially horses) so you are ready to conquer as fast as possible after the 3rd city is ready to produce and building the worker late makes it very difficult to hook up all the horses and luxuries from the 2 extra cities without any delay.

This is for deity btw, I guess you can sacrifice some speed for simcity stuff on lower difficulties but there are so many benefits to war in civ 5.

 

[delra]

Steal workers from city states, buy settlers. City can go a long time without much improvement, mine typically don't get anything until I have Oracle.

When I outpace AI to good wonders, I get back to silly stuff like upgrading tiles and lower rows of the tech tree.

 

[alpaca]

A little OT, but I don't think the Great Library is ever worth it early in the game, and if you wait until later in the game, the AI will beat you to it at higher difficulties. Someone posted in another thread that even when beelining straight for Writing and starting the GL right away, the AI gets it first.

I usually play on Emperor and I have pulled it off on Immortal (I admit it's risky there, though). Maybe they weren't focusing on production as much as they should? I only even try it if I have some good production nearby I can work without getting mining. Heck, I've even pulled off the Civil Service slingshot on Emperor.

 

[delra]

Actually that sling is not that hard if you've got a forest to cut down for GL...

 

[Grunthex]

So far, always a worker before a settler. If I'm having a good run of barb-smashing and CS tributes, that first settler is getting bought, and I'm not building one until the capital is size 4 minimum, 5 preferably.

 

[SomethingWitty]

I've been usually going: scout > scout > settler > monument

Then I purchase a worker as soon as I can afford one, usually while the monument's building.

A warrior and two scouts can usually rustle up the gold from barbs.

 

[lilnev]

You can sell a luxury to the AI for 300 gold every 30 turns. That'll rush-buy about 65 hammers, if you so choose. So look at improving a luxury as adding 2.2 hammers/turn, and it's easily you're highest priority tile. I usually go scout-worker-warrior-settler or just scout-worker-settler, depending on circumstances.

 

[Zechnophobe]

I think the real question is if you should build a scout first, or a worker first. Settlers build faster as a city expands, and hurts less. Maybe if I really needed to get an early luxury that someone else would likely take.

Worker first is an investment in your capital. I like it since you can get up important things like mines.

Scout first though has a lot of other advantages: Bonus gold from city states, ruins that either give tech, culture, population or money. It is more elusive but nonetheless important.

I don't think I've ever been tempted to build a warrior first.

 

[Godclone]

Neither . Build a warrior while researching archery, then archers/warriors while beelining ironworks to upgrade those warriors .
Declare warr right off the bat and don't stop until you won the game . Building them is for ps , you take workers and cities . Raze all, puppet capitals .

Deity .

Why spend time building something when you can get them for "free" while conquering the world .

 

[alpaca]

Neither . Build a warrior while researching archery, then archers/warriors while beelining ironworks to upgrade those warriors .
Declare warr right off the bat and don't stop until you won the game . Building them is for ps , you take workers and cities . Raze all, puppet capitals .

Deity .

Why spend time building something when you can get them for "free" while conquering the world .

Because taking the world in that way is lame and boring after you did it once or twice

 

[EscapedGoat]

So I sat down and did the math settler vs worker first under a few assumptions:

Assumption 1: you will build a scout first while waiting for size 2 in both scenarios
Assumption 2: You are able to work 2 food 1 prod squares from day 1

--> this assumes a pretty good start by the way. It's actually in favor of the worker first scenario. If you could only work a 2 food or 1 food 1 hammer square it would be meaningless to grow because you get no gain from growth. So i stacked the assumption in favor of worker first.

Scenario 1: (worker)
-Turn 8: Growth to size 2
-Turn 9: Scout finished
-Turn 20: Growth to size 3
-Turn 25: Worker produced

Result:
--> 3 pop in one city, halfway about to pop 4.
--> Yield beyond sustenance at turn 25: 2 food, 5 hammer.
--> Improving a resource takes 6-7 turns so luxury hooked up at turn 32-ish

Scenario 2: (Settler)
-Turn 8: growth to size 2
-Turn 9: Scout finished
-Turn 24: Settler produced (excess food converts to hammers so faster than worker)
-Turn 27: City nr. 2 settled (allow 3 turns to move to spot. On a luxury if you want of course for instant hookup)

Result:
--> 3 pop in 2 cities - small progress to pop 4 total
--> Yield above sustenance at turn 27: 4 food, 7 hammer. (2 city squares remember)
--> Luxury immediately hooked up at turn 27 (provided you settled on lux + have the tech)

Conclusion: Settler first will yield a much higher resource production at turn 27 and a higher potential for empirewide growth. it will in fact take the worker about 7*4= 28 turns just to get your capital city to break even in terms of food + hammer production with 2 cities.

 

[Merkill]

I usualy build a warriors to scout the map and then build the settler with the civic for 50% settler production boost.
I then buy my worker.

Why buy settlers if you can build them 50% off ?
Only played 32h so far thou so i might change this.
The warriors in the start for all the ruins is simply to good to pass up and barb camp gold is yummy too, also meeting the citystates fast will give some nice quests for barb camps for easy alies.

 

[Kevin Bacon]

Neither, go for warrior; With an extra warrior you can: A. Explore more earlier on and get all the goodie ruins. or B. Invade a near by Civ or City-State.

 

[tharg]

Workers.
I usally go Worker, Monumnet, Stonehenge. If a peganta map I sometime build scouts.
Settlers later when I have found some suitable sites. I also tend to buy settlers so as not to stop city growth. So I ofthen buy my first setller when I get 1010 gold.

 

[Biz_]

if your land is food oriented, then worker because you will need to collect some happiness

otherwise if you're making settlers from size 2 or something then that is fine

 

[ZombieBiskit]

I actually went and playtested this. Played both strategies on the same map, same civic selection, same tech path, same everything I could control minus the build order. I like most scientists, will save my findings until the end. =P Here is the data though.

I played both games to turn 75. By this point it seemed as if both strategies had reached the end of their relevance. I also didn't spend any gold, although this didn't actually play into it, as you will see. The two strategies I tried were the two that were laid out most cleanly here, those being...

A) Scout -> Settler->Worker
B) Worker -> Monument->Warrior->Settler

The games were played on Prince, Standard.

A) Scout->Settler->Worker->Monument->Archer
Monument->Worker

A had both the worker and settler out on turn 38. unhappiness quickly became an issue and when I first too data on turn 50 I had 1 unhappiness and my populations were stagnant at 4 and 3. I had...
8gpt/ 10 beakers/ 11 production/ 0 food and 150 G. Age points.
By turn 75 I had managed to solve the happiness problem ending my game at 7 happiness and pops of 5 and 4 with...
9gpt/ 12 beakers/ 11 production/ 2 food and 307 G. Age points.

B) Worker->Monument->Warrior->Settler->Archer
Monument

B did not get the settler out until turn 52, which despite playing Songhai was 2 turns before I could have bought it. I think it is only fair to say that I was having severe barb problems which affected this strategy more than it did the other. By turn 50 with only a single city with 8 happiness and 4 pop I had...
7gpt/ 7 beakers/ 5 production/ 0 food/ 238 G. Age points.
By turn 75 with the inclusion of the second city I had a happiness of 7 with pops at 5 and 3 and...
7gpt/ 11 beakers/ 12 production/ 4 food and 449 G. Age points.
Also, off topic, Worker->Monument->Settler is possible and also superior.

Despite the fact that A did end in a better position than B overall and with an extra worker, it would only take B an extra 27 turns to catch up in production, not including the Golden Age that will trigger in there somewhere. The worker could have easily been bought as well as both ended at turn 75 with gold in the mid 600s.

It surprises me a bit, but I have to say that unless you are going to end the game in the BCs, B will end you up in a much better place.

That is not to say that B is not without fault... No scout means you are just plain not going to get any ruins, I actually tend to run Scout->Worker->Monument<->Settler(Depends on things.) Which I didn't test, but I likely will and sounds superior to me.

 

[highfive]

I usualy build a warriors to scout the map and then build the settler with the civic for 50% settler production boost.
I then buy my worker.

Why buy settlers if you can build them 50% off ?
Only played 32h so far thou so i might change this.
The warriors in the start for all the ruins is simply to good to pass up and barb camp gold is yummy too, also meeting the citystates fast will give some nice quests for barb camps for easy alies.

This is what I've been doing too. Liberty seems like a very good early game policy if you plan on expanding.

I usually go scout -> worker -> settler and adjust if I need warriors or archers because of barabrians/civs close by. If you steal a worker, it still takes a few turns to get them where they're needed and 1 or 2 workers during the early game isn't critical since it goes so slowly anyway. Otherwise, I expand towards iron (so I can plow marshes/jungles too). If I can't find iron, I just start teching along the horse route since it provides food and tech improvements too.

 

[dannythefool]

Worker 310 gold / 70 Hammers = 4.43 gold/hammer
Settler 440 gold / 89 Hammers = 4.94 gold/hammer

Assuming that building a settler stops growth for 15 turns, you get that next citizen that could work a +2 gold +other_stuff trading post 15 turns later, and he would also contribute +1 science per turn just by being there. So you need to substract about 30 gold and 15 science right away. Without any buildings. Those same 15 turns are worth even more later in the game. Assuming your capital has a market, a bank, stock exchange, a library, a public school, a research lab and a university, getting the extra citizen 15 turns early translates to 3.33 gpt + 3.5 bpt = 49.95 gold + 52.5 science. Then add the commerce, free thought OR secularism (the extra citizen can only do one thing at a time) and sovereignty SPs and the total is 57.45 gold + 84.75 science.

On the other hand, for the worker you could argue that it's 15 turns less of working that improved tile. This isn't a complete loss over 15 turns, they will still work *something*. Science from tiles also isn't an issue because by the time you get that from improvements that can be built with a worker, you should be all set with your improvements anyway.

Of course it's different when you get the 50% off settler building sp, and it depends on how your city can develop in the location it's in, but I think this is a start.