Vel's Strategy Thread

[Alexfrog]

I just got to 4 cities by 2400 BC. My strategy was worker (to chop) then settler, followed by much chopping until I had 4 cities (city#2 made one of the settlers).

I posted a thread about it.


I am amazed by the settler before growth strategy. It seems so much faster.

[Alexfrog]

And yes, I am on normal speed.

[Velociryx]

An excellent analysis! I too, will experiment with making Bronze Working more of a priority, and seeing what results I get with it!

I do not believe, however, that this hearkens the deathknell for the basic idea. On the contrary, I think it strengthens it.

Previously, all the buzz was about plodding along til city size three to even begin to think in terms of settlers OR workers (cos they stunt city growth).

Now....the basic idea has seen some refinement, sure (as we knew it would), but the essence remains. It's still all about getting that second city (and beyond) founded fast.



-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Thrak - for clarification: Using the method I outlined, both were size one....the founding city had been size one for 13?! turns, and the new one, for eleven.

If I'm reading your post correctly, then I must confess to being surprised that they were both still size one (after 13 turns on a pretty typical start, I would have expected the initial city to have sprouted to size two, and the new one, eleven turns in, to be very nearly so, at which point, the population numbers would be nearly identical, and the forests could be chopped for projects in the future....)

-=Vel=-

[Alexfrog]

I'm wondering if three or four cities is the correct point at which to stop. with three, less upkeep and you can drop a couple more workers instead of that last settler, to get your economy productive faster. (And chop more!)

[Jcg316]

Are you pumping out more workers with the settlers, or is that just with more settlers? Once you get some workers on cottages you should be able to get enough coin to pay for continuing that rate of expansion for awhile.

With enough coin, financial leader or even colussus, you should be able to build and support 10 cities.

If you use the cities not producing units for growth, for lots of cheap military you should be able to cripple your opponents enough to let you expand safely.

[Velociryx]

A couple of points to consider:

1) I do not know for certain, but I believe that the answer to Alex's question will wind up being "it depends," and primarily, it will depend on such things as your civ traits and the strength of the underlying terrain that you're settling. If it's marginal and short on fresh water, three is probably the answer.

If it's lush, and good for commerce (and/or, if you are "financial"), the first growth spurt to four would probably wind up being superior.

2) While I disagree with the notion that you shouldn't chop forests (obviously, given that my first post specifically mentioned chopping), I DO believe that there's a happy medium to be had.

Chopping forests is like a coke habit....you start, and you get attracted to the extra resources and the power they bring in, and so you're tempted to just clearcut the whole damned continent, but there's a reckoning.

Forest depletion will harm the long-term health and well-being of your citizens (much as it's doing now, here in the real world).

Since there's no replanting, we must rely on it to grow back on its own, and in order for that to happen, then some regions must be preserved (at least, this is my guess, based on my experiences so far....I've never seen forests just spontaneously appear, but if I leave a patch alone, I'll get growth).

So it's a tradeoff....quick gains now, but you deny yourself important advantages in the late game, when every point of health will matter.

Clearly then, a balance needs to be struck.

Personally, I'm finding that if I cut away from either bank of a river, I free up good terrain for farming/commerce, while preserving a goodish amount of forest to promote regrowth (MORE chopping!), and reap solid health benefits for the masses.

-=Vel=-

[upsidedown]

Still waiting on some save game comparsions between building settler/worker first or worker/settler first and with which leader and resource layout that works best.

My money is on worker/settler if you don't plan on pumping out even more settlers or want to speed up the process of settling with roads. On an average layout map you can get three or more tasks done before the settler comes out and that is a pretty significant edge.

[Velociryx]

I'm preparing to run a test similar to those already outlined.

I chose the following setup for this example:
Monarch Level
Standard Map Size
Continents
Temperate
(basically, everything default but difficulty level)

Chose the Arabians, cos one of my two stated goals (below) is to found a religion WHILE growing, and this civ gives me a great shot at it, in the early game.

My primary goal will be to found a religion and get to four cities with all possible speed.

Methodology:

Test #1) Settler Chaining
Test #2) Worker/Chop
Test #3) Grow to size three before producing settlers/workers

Here's a screenshot of my starting location:

[Jcg316]

Between Guilds and end-game techs there isn't health. Large cities will have disease. Forests are a tile that benefits you without having to be used and for this time period they will help, especially for specialist cities and great person production. If you have four forests in your area cut one down, go get 25 farther away. Three forests near each other will grow more back.

Between 30 and 25 is choping forests at city locations worth it? If a city isn't going to grow past nine or so the health won't be an issue. Anything larger than that most likely will.

Is going after 4th and 6th forests and choping those outside the city's workable tiles nearly as effective? Other than adding a few movement costs it should be.

You retain the ability to have 1 or 2 pop higher cities during the crucial mid-game with a still lightning quick start.

[Aeson]

Growing up, rather than out, has it's place. There are certainly times to chop a Settler or Worker, but don't forget about chopping a Library, Granary, Forge, Barracks, key Wonder, or even military units, which can all take precidence over the first Settler.

Then again, not chopping at all, or only to a given "no remainder" health level, have their place too. Health is the limiting factor on population for most of the game.

Like I said, I think any of the first builds are good choices when part of a strategy to make the most of them... other than the Obelisk.

[gentle]

Just a thought on tech choice if you want to found a religion.
pretty obvious to pick polytheism, i think.
it is a prereq for priesthood which one definetely wants to have in order to build the oracle (just the uber wonder of the era imho) and the temple to get some priest do their work. the oracle allows to dig REALLY deep into the tech tree. as the free tech granted i usually pick philosophy (founding a taoism and getting pacifism for 100% GL production) I found it easy to get at least 2 Great Leaders but think it is possible to get 3 til 1 AD. (2 prophet or prophet + artist granted by music are my current ones).

If this is on tech anyway i just want to highlight what velo said before "beeline to alphabet" or so were his words. I assume the reason is to be able to trade techs (at least thats why i do it^^)

[Velociryx]

Ran into some interesting complications, if you could call it that, in testing.

First, the notion of settler chaining is too rigid. On average, a settler takes 25 turns from a newly created city, so if I were to do it in just the manner I described, then obviously, it would take 100 turns to hit four cities, but there are quicker WAYS of going about it. For example, the second city gets founded on turn 28 (two turns of travel time, plus one move on the third turn). He builds a settler while the founding city is off doing its thing. Check.

But then, when my number 2 city finishes up and builds some token defenders, he's really got not a lot to do, AND he's bigger than a newly laid city, AND he's got terrain improvements. In short, the newly founded cities can get right to work on infrastructure, while city #2 becomes something of a settler pump (and, once both cities are up and running, with workers out, there's nothing stopping me from doing a bit of selective chopping to augment further settler builds.....of course, on THIS map what's stopping me is that I have almost no forest to chop!

Which brings me to point number two.

Having looked around on this map, I can tell you two things:

1) we're definitely alone on the continent
2) it's mostly jungle

This did NOT stop me from racing thru the tech tree, nor did it stop me from putting the basic settler chain plan into effect....still, as it's outlined, there's lots of room for improvement.

I'll work with it some more tomorrow...must sleep on what I have learned, and we MIGHT wanna use a different starting map, as there's not much to "chop" on this one, and it would not bode well for the pure chop strat....

-=Vel=-

[gentle]

did that too in my last games (starting city builds 1 settler and 2nd city builds some more settlers)
though i only built 2 ones and i didnt used chopping^^
but also looking forward to test all this though today i might have no time to do so...

[Velociryx]

Ran one more quick test before bed.

Goals were:

1) Found a religion and build a second city with all possible speed.

Test case one: Settler on turn one - result: 2nd city founded 2880bc - researched Meditation/Mining/Bronze

Test case two: Worker on turn one - same research order - Result - 2nd city in 2520BC (with lots of hammers left over)

The problem was that in researching the religion tech first, my worker got built and had precious little to do for a number of turns...so, I road-built my way to the city site, and prepped roads to resource tiles that I'd eventually be able to do something with, and made sure I was back to report for duty as soon as I got bronzeworking.

Nonetheless, the settler 1st turn got me my city quicker.

-=Vel=-