Optimal build order?

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Quillan
Cour, at the very beginning happiness doesn't matter much, since you aren't near the happiness cap. What does matter in the early going is that each gold mine adds something like 7 commerce. When the palace generates 8, the first gold mine will basically double your research rate. That will give you a HUGE advantage in the early going.

All I am arguing is that the extra commerce is at a cost to any settler build time since that square must be occupied to gain the commerce advantage.

Take a city that can improve gold, cattle and corn. If my numbers are right, these will produce 0,+4,+3 to worker or settler production. Time to produce a settler with one citizen in the city will then be 34 (if gold tile is worked), 15 (if cattle tile is worked) and 17 (if corn tile is worked)

The increased early game tech gain is therefore at a cost of developing other cities.

[Yosh]

There are many merits to the strategy of building worker first, but there are also many disadvantages.

As Urban Ranger said, part of what makes this game so unique and addicting is that there is no set strategy you can follow!

Everything is situational!

I normally play Monarch on Normal or Epic speeds, but that doesn't mean that I prioritise expansion so early; having tried both the worker first and warrior first styles, I would have to say that most of the time, I find myself going warrior first - even if I'm not going for a religion, you will have time to build a warrior, put some hammers into a barracks perhaps, grow to size 2-3 (again, depends on situation such as food resources), THEN build the worker.

Training a worker first can be disadvantageous, unless, for example you start with mining and your city has 2 gold mines and a floodplain in its' radius

The reason I think it is disadvantageous in the long run is the fact that doing so makes is probable that you will have an idle worker; even if the worker is building roads, that is still usually a waste of worker turns that early in the game (the first 30 turns or so) . It's more a question of opportunity cost. By building a worker first, yes, you can hook up that early resource in your city radius, but what then? If your worker is building roads or worse, snoozing for lack of better things to do, then likely, you would have been better off building a warrior first! By going that route, you will have likely researched more than one worker tech, thus making more efficient use of your turns.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Yosh

The reason I think it is disadvantageous in the long run is the fact that doing so makes is probable that you will have an idle worker; even if the worker is building roads, that is still usually a waste of worker turns that early in the game (the first 30 turns or so) . It's more a question of opportunity cost. By building a worker first, yes, you can hook up that early resource in your city radius, but what then? If your worker is building roads or worse, snoozing for lack of better things to do, then likely, you would have been better off building a warrior first! By going that route, you will have likely researched more than one worker tech, thus making more efficient use of your turns.

I'd probably rather have an idle worker and a city pumped full of food and hammers than a size 4 city working feeble tiles. There are circumstances (like beelines) where some worker techs are sacrificed for the greater goal.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Crossfire
It's pretty rare that I don't start with a worker and then chop a settler. As you play on more difficult levels it becomes imperative to spam new cities or the AI will take all the land. Even on a large Pangea map I often have a hard time founding more than 4 or 5 cities before I am getting surrounded. Granted I can usually grab a couple more city sites on my margins but the good sites will all be long gone if I take the time to really scout with a strategy like Strategist83 has proposed.

I haven't gone heavy scouting on Monarch either, though some people have reported success by building upwards first then building units for horizontal expansion.

[Crossfire]

Cort, I would agree that if you play a very aggressive early game then going vertical before conquering in order to expand horizontally is a valid build sequence. Since I rarely get aggressive until I have my first 5 or 6 cities built, I need to be able to settle in a sensible pattern. Also, I rarely find the AIs to have built in the ideal spots so if I can put those cities down they usually have a better mix of available resources. On harder difficulties, one does have to start conquering in order to have enough cities to have a viable research rate, because the AIs will hem you in before you would like. But the AIs seem to always be quite aggressive from Prince up so I am at war quite often anyway.

[Yosh]

Originally posted by Cort Haus


I'd probably rather have an idle worker and a city pumped full of food and hammers than a size 4 city working feeble tiles. There are circumstances (like beelines) where some worker techs are sacrificed for the greater goal.

Cort - that's true for the most part, however consider also that building a worker at size =1 usually results in a 13-18 turn build time (normal speed), while building a worker at size = 3 normally results in a 10-13 turn build time. To me, that means that I will have a bigger scout/defensive force (by having an additional warrior earlier), which, if used properly, can delay barbarian appearance, grab goody huts, etc... I suppose my point is that waiting for the worker gives you more strategic flexibility in the mid-term rather than the short term that pumping it out earlier does.

In many situations, I feel that the turns gained (as a function of the opportunity cost) from delaying a worker build can be greater than going for it off the bat.

Again though, I would definitely say there are situations that would provide greater advantage in immediately building a worker!

[Willem]

Originally posted by DaveMcW
Build a worker first. Everything else will be twice as fast when he starts chopping.

And improving your wheat/corn/rice/game is even better than chopping.

I question that. What if you don't have Bronze Working or Agriculture or Hunting? Your Worker would be standing around with nothing to do. I find it's better to build a Settler/Escort first, during which time I can research a few techs my Worker is going to need to do his job.

[Crossfire]

Even if you start without Mining, you can have Bronzeworking within about 6 turns of creating your worker. In that your settler isn't due for another 20 turns, this gives you plenty of time to build something else with your worker before he needs to chop the settlers. I often only chop twice per settler and this is easily managed if you research both first.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Crossfire
Even if you start without Mining, you can have Bronzeworking within about 6 turns of creating your worker. In that your settler isn't due for another 20 turns, this gives you plenty of time to build something else with your worker before he needs to chop the settlers. I often only chop twice per settler and this is easily managed if you research both first.

Well that's not how it works on Marathon, which is what I play. It takes far longer to research Bronzeworking than it does to produce a Worker.