Follow that river...

[Carolus Rex]

...or not?

What do you do when you have a horse/chariot near a river (system)? Do you explore maximally (following the rivers as far as they go, uncovering land fast), or do you deviate into rough terrain to pop huts (which might slow down exploration)?

Carolus

[atawa]

Depends on game and mapsettings.
As you know the specials and huts anyway I usualy only stray from the river if I can get the hut in 1 turn, if not I'll move my horse further and get the hut with the next unit.

[-Jrabbit]

In the early game, I almost always expose the land fast (assuming I have founded a 1st city).
Convenient hut-popping (like atawa's 1-turn rule) is done as long as there's no threat of going off the path to Monarchy.
I don't use hutfinder.

[SlowThinker]

It depends on many issues:

if and how much I want to pop that hut,
how much and how fast I need to explore the territory in the direction of that river,
on my plans, especially on planned routes of my present and future explorers,
etc. etc.

[Rasputin]

i always take the river and use settlers to build citys on those rivers which then makes more units to explore those huts

[Ming]

It depends a lot on which way the river is going

If it starts heading back in the opposite direction, I will leave the river and continue going outward, aimed at where huts should be. Later followers can uncover the back end.

I will leave the river for a hut depending on how desperate I am for the hut. I'll go many spaces off if I want the hut I'f I'm on code and only a few turns away and still on the path to monarchy, I stay on the river and move as far and as fast as I can... and let another unit pick it up later.

If I think I'm falling behind, I'll head for any hut, and pray

[rah]

Pretty much what ming said. It depends on the game circumstances.

[Rasputin]

Originally posted by Ming
It depends a lot on which way the river is going

If it starts heading back in the opposite direction, I will leave the river and continue going outward, aimed at where huts should be. Later followers can uncover the back end.

this is prob the relevant part, i agree if it bends around too much prob bettter heading elsewhere