Settlers

[Father Nick]

Have just got my highest score at Deity (having wiped out 6 other civs bar one city in the 1700s)- 1200+% with 180+ cities, ending with Future Tech 68. Large Land Mass, continents. Some cities are still improving and the trouble is I have so few settlers left to work the land having had to disband lots because of food decrease in maxed out cities.

I note from some downloaded games that some geniuses(?) finish the game well before time with every city in Capitalisation, every city with railroads and farmland in every square and one or two games even managing multi increase in Future Technology every turn.

So, how do you do that? And what's the best way to use settlers throughout? I work on one per city but that clearly isn't enough. Do I need 2,3,4 or even more from cities and none from others, or what?

Is there a thread to help with this already, to save me wading through 18 pages?

Help would be appreciated!
[This message has been edited by Father Nick (edited August 31, 2000).]

[SCG]

first, I'll assume later in the game you mean engineers instead of settlers? Obviously engineers are far more effective than settlers. Secondly, when going for really high scores, you want 2, 3 or even more engineers per city. With supermarkets (and farmland), factories/Hoover's/etc (with railroad) you're not losing a whole lot supporting more than 1 per city and you gain a whole lot more in increased potential - railroad/mines/farmland is far more productive than just having a few roads and some irrigation.

Generally, you can never have enough settlers/engineers as long as there is land to be improved and cities to be founded. Cities can always be grown up using WLTxD or even food caravans later once the work is finished and the engineers are disbanded. As long as most tiles in the city radius are being worked, don't worry about food surplus/deficit or how much is in support. When I was playing in full-blown expansion mode, every once in a while i would change nearly every city i had to building engineers, then let them go back to what they were doing. Also, I would set up 'breeding factories' It would be a city with 40-50 production, at least 1 food surplus and celebrating in a democracy. Every turn it would crank out an engineer and I would either rehome it elsewhere, or build a city with it so that production and the city size stayed constant. With a handful of cities like that, expanding across the globe
will be a breeze. Once the AIs are out of the picture, you can really start concentrating on fullscale terraforming, infrastructure improvements, and city building. Getting them to max size and all happy is the last thing you do.

So i guess what I'm trying to say, if you can think of something for an engineer to do and you don't have one free to do it, you don't have enough engineers yet

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April Cantor: Sire, in order to expand further we must first gain favor of the King

SCG: darn, I've never really got the hang of that tribute thing, guess it will be a long time until i make prince

*goes off and starts gifting gold and techs*

[Chainsaw]

In my last expansionist game I had the world conquered by 1900. By that time, about 20 % of the landmass had farmland, 75 % (including the 20%) had roads and was almost completely irrigated or mined, the remaining 25 % hadn´t had seen an engineer in their wholr time of existence. It took me about 600 engineers and about 100 years to turn 90 % of the planet´s landmass to grassland with farms.

So the conclusion will be what SCG said:
When the military advisor stops counting your engineers beginning with one again for the third time, then ... build some more engineers

[SilverDragon]

There are two units that can be useful anytime, anywhere. They are frieghts and engineers. So build engineers and freights!!! And when you've built enough...

build some more!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Scouse Gits]

It's generally regarded as a cheat in OCC, but I know of no such ruling elsewhere - when you are expanding into virgin territory at late stages of the game - don't bother with roads, railways, irrigation and farms - build airbases - two engineers, one turn - fully improved terrain - of course if you need to terraform so be it, but the timeconsuming improvement - no way...


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Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor

[tobyr]

The importance of Engineers (better than settlers) makes the ToT fantasy game quite interesting. Every tribe can make settlers. There are (Strictly speaking) no engineers. Any tribe that bribes a dwarf gets the ability to build dwarfs, which have the building capabilities of engineers, and are also very strong on offense and defense. Wow! you may say, but having dwarfs out working makes your cits unhappy, so very often you have do all your work with settlers.

I often use dwarfs fairly early in the game but then have to disband some of them when changing to democracy. In the fantasy game, you can have your engineers, but you have to work harder to deserve them.

- toby


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toby robison
criticalpaths@mindspring.com

[Scouse Gits]

I'm sure that someone will correct me - but (as far as I know) the only constraints are you can't build airbases on fortresses or on mines - much the same as cities - I have not tried the trick of building an airbase on a square that is being mined (or fortressed) the former works well for a city and I shall try the latter asap - sounds tasty if it works.
Good civin'

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Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor
"The Great Library must be built!"

[kcbob]

quote: Originally posted by Scouse Gits on 09-01-2000 05:26 AM It's generally regarded as a cheat in OCC, but I know of no such ruling elsewhere - when you are expanding into virgin territory at late stages of the game - don't bother with roads, railways, irrigation and farms - build airbases - two engineers, one turn - fully improved terrain - of course if you need to terraform so be it, but the timeconsuming improvement - no way...

I know, in some ways I'm still a newbie, virgin, novice, whatever, but please bear with me.

I've tried to build airbases inside city squares. No dice. Is that a rule? No airbases within city limits? I must have missed that when I pored over the manual. Yeah, right.

But the thought just occurred to me. Late in a non-OCC game, couldn't I build an airbase first, then locate the city to include the airbase? If so, how hot would that be?


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Frodo lives!

Better dead than "Red"... or green... or blue... or yellow... or orange... or purple... or white.