Early game settler strategy

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by uberfish
No reason to have health resource shortages on pangaea. Go invade someone and take theirs, that's the whole point of pangaea :P

Probably not a good idea if you don't have iron or copper and your neighbour is Julius with lots of Praets.

[Brizey]

I always send my settler unprotected. Just make sure all the squares it will be travelling on have a one square buffer with no fog of war. The barbarian units are all one move units so they cannot sneak up on the two-move settler unit.

[walkern]

Barb panthers (are they panthers? pumas?) have two moves I believe.

[Quillan]

They do, but they are technically animals. I don't recall them being called "barbarian panthers" until one of the patches. Wolves are also 2 moves, while lions and bears are only 1.

[BigStone]

What is the best moment to -build- your FIRST Settler... ?

Thx

[walkern]

I prefer to do it after building at least one worker, a warrior or two (maybe three to safeguard the settler on its way to the city site; but I've been playing on Noble and noticed that you don't get attacked all that often. Risky though...), and bronzeworking so you can chop rush it.

Also make sure you've found a good site, whether it's loaded with good tiles or has copper or another good resource.

[Saurus]

Originally posted by BigStone
What is the best moment to -build- your FIRST Settler... ?

Thx

Most of the time I build a worker first, then I build a warrior and try to aiming so that my city will grow to size 2 by the time the warrior is built, then I start building my settler while moving my warrior to the desired location for the new city.

(I don't really have any units guarding my capital until after my first settler is built and by that time I hopefully have something better to build than warriors)

[walkern]

After reading these threads, I've started by building a warrior, especially if your civ doesn't start with Mining. That way you don't have a worker you can't chop with and your city can grow (usually a full pop point) before you start making that worker, and you can pop him out almost at the same time you get BW so you can chop out a settler.

[Grandpa Troll]

I been burned a few times with sending settler out unprotected but not enough to get me to change my mind

later game is different usually I just take over a city from another civ

[trev]

I do not use much choprushing for settlers, instead I build a worker first, then have it improve all the resource squares, food or other and have the city work the food resources so that it quickly grows to size 4, at which point it will buidl settlers and workers rapidly without any rushing, warriors built during this city growth phase will fortify all good close city sites to protect the settler moving to them.

[cal_01]

Originally posted by Jorun-kun
The single most important ressource in the very early game imho is Bronze.

I wholeheartedly agree; finding Copper early on for your second city is fundamental.

If you don't find Bronze:

1) Vulnerable to enemy attack by barb/enemy Axemen.
2) Only viable tech(s) to compensate is Archery. However, against UUs and hordes, the only effective way is to go for Masonary and Walls too, which kills the CS slingshot. Barracks optional.
3) Build lots of warriors to scout and prevent Axemen from popping and discourage enemy civs from attacking.

Early game is defined by who finds Copper (and Iron) first!

[couerdelion]

With mining, my standard strategy is to start building something while researching Bronze and growing. Then I switch to worker so that completion of BW coincides with the earliest pop-rush time so the worker appears immediately.

Worker can then at least chop a settler after the pop-rush overflow has allowed two quick warriors to be built. First objective of the settler is to get me some copper.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by cal_01
If you don't find Bronze:

[snipped]
2) Only viable tech(s) to compensate is Archery. However, against UUs and hordes, the only effective way is to go for Masonary and Walls too, which kills the CS slingshot. Barracks optional.

Not necessarily. Archers can counter barbarian hordes quite effectively, esp. if you buid barracks first.

As for UUs, it depends on what UUs. You need more than just bronze or iron to counter Praetorians.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Brizey
The barbarian units are all one move units so they cannot sneak up on the two-move settler unit.

I assume Barbarian Horse Archers can but I didn't allow the one I saw live long enough for me to find out.