Using certain cities primarily as settler/worker pumps.

[Artifex]

Give me some good strategies on this. If you do this what are some good tile combos and timing considerations. My math sucks and I am kind of dense trying to get these things perfectly times. Maybe I'm lazy, but on emperor it would behoove me to get this down right.

Lets say when you start a game you have 2 or 3 cities for example.

There are a couple of cows, a wheat source and a few forests a plain. A good mix of tiles. all cities have access to most of these.

OK how would you set up the settler pump. Tell me the timings, when you woudl build a granery, if you even would bother.

If you use a city as a settler pump that would mean you would only need 2 tiles max for it right? So I guess you could ICS with other cities?

This is the part of civ that really gives me a headache because I hate math and calculations.

[Manya]

i guess the best city is the one with wheat and cows, the forest isn't needed for it, so with high pop growth and low production it will turn out a settler every 15 turns just around the size 3 growth.

If you don't have the wheat nor cow, but some forests and some grasslands then you might want a Granary for the city growth.

But if you find a Flood Plain with wheat settle it ASAP, and you'll get good income for it

Btw i hate math too, but i'm sort of good at it, the ironies (sp?)

[Konquest02]

When I play exp. civs, I usually build a granary really early (sometimes even before my first settler!). This allows two things:

1- You can pump settlers faster afterwards because of the higher growth rate of your cities

2- This maximises your chances of getting a settler from a hut. You can get them if you have less cities than the average of all civs AND if you don't have a settler active/in production. Building a granary soon delays your second city but makes you fall under the world average.

If I have two cows, I usually mine one and irrigate the other (when possible). Micromanagement note: start by irrigating, it takes less worker turns and you can access the extra food earlier . If else, it's all situation dependant (i.e. I can't pout you this clearly... )

--Kon--

[Charis]

More specifics

Here are some more details on how to set up your settler farm.

Most definitely get a granary. Aim for +5 extra food per turn, so to grow two pop points will take just 4 turns. To get enough shields for a settler every four turns that's two rounds with 7, two rounds with 8 shields.

Let's take the wheat and one cow for our settler farm and irrigate both (assuming despotism, since early in game). I'll assume grass wheat and plains cow.

Center: 2f, 1s
Cow (irr): 3f, 2s
Wheat (irr): 4f, 0s
Bonus grass (mined): 2f, 2s
Bonus grass (mined): 2f, 2s
Plain grass (mined): 2f, 1s

So you start at size 4, with +5 excess food and 7 spt.
When you hit size 5, still +5 food and now 8spt.
Note you can't use the forest as you fall short of +5 food, unless those were flood plain wheats.

So you cycle from size 4-5 and 6 instantly drops to 4,
cranking a settler every four turns. (Note if you didn't have a granary, it would take 8 turns to grow two in population, for settlers at half the rate)

If you don't have those BG tiles, then you can't hit 4 turns per settler. A settler every six turns is easy to achieve with the granary, using the cow, wheat and forest, cycling from size 3->4->5->3.

If you want workers instead, +5 food means every two turns. So you just need 5 shields per turn. Size 3-4->3 is where you want to be.

I hope that helps,
Charis

[Manya]

[DaveMcW]

You can also make do with one less shielded grassland if you cycle from size 5 to 6. This costs a bit more in enterainment but it's worth it to keep the 4-turn-settler rate.

You can get a settler in 5 turns without any shielded grassland if you use forest at size 6.

[pedrojedi]

I got very dizzy seeing so much calculations... If you want a settler pump, my general rule is having a granary, and the city will usually be between size 4-5 when it delivers it. So a temple sometimes can come handy, specially when it comes to cities size 4+ (regent). Or a police force of 2-3 units. You should have a average 1:1 ratio of tiles mined/irrigated, at least on a average level.

A worker pump normally will be stuck in size 4-5 when it gets fully active. They should have at least 1 or 2 tiles irrigated, to keep the incoming food, and a granary can be dispensable, specially if you have a irrigated wheat.

This is, of course, just very rough math for this, but that's enough for me.

[Artifex]

Is it bad to use every city as a settler farm and every time it reaches 3 have a settler made? Or do you need to designate just a few for this? At what time do you stop using all your cities as settler farms? When your empire reaches a certain # of cities is it good to switch over and just designate 1 or 2 cities as settler factories? Or is this not good?

[Arrian]

+5 food/turn + granary is the ultimate worker or settler pump. But, if you specialize a city in that manner, you probably need another city specialized to provide military escorts for the settlers, since the settler pump will not be able to fit in military units.

OTOH, if you are blessed with several cities with lots of food, it might be better to consider getting them each to +5 food, but NOT building the granaries (60 shields investments for each) and alternating between settlers and spearmen.

It kinda depends. How close is the enemy...err... AI? What are barbs set on? What civ are you playing (I find that the 60-shield investment in an early granary is more appealing if I'm industrious and have some forest tiles to chop to assist the build)?

-Arrian

[Aeson]

Is it bad to use every city as a settler farm and every time it reaches 3 have a settler made? Or do you need to designate just a few for this?

They both have their place, and it's usually best to do both. A couple cities (high food/low corruption) with a Granary, and the rest just regularly build Settlers when they hit size 3.

[Ribannah]

Re: More specifics

Originally posted by Charis
Here are some more details on how to set up your settler farm.

Most definitely get a granary. Aim for +5 extra food per turn, so to grow two pop points will take just 4 turns. To get enough shields for a settler every four turns that's two rounds with 7, two rounds with 8 shields.

If a nearby forest is free (half of the time) and you're on a river all you need is to produce 6 shields when small (size 4 or 5) and 7 when large (size 5 or 6), because the turn you fill the food box you already get the shields from the nearest tile that has the most. So that makes 6+8, then 7+9, for a total of 30.

[vmxa1]

Re: Re: More specifics

Ribannah are you a Might and Magic forum member? (sorry for OT).

[Ribannah]

So I am. Nice to see you here, vmxa!

[Artifex]

Are there some good examples of someone doing a first 300-400 turns walkthru or even most of the ancient/medieval ages..on how to properly rex and expand? On emperor or above, ofcourse.

My question is still not answered basically, do you create a settler in every one of your cities when it reaches size 3 until there is no more room for expansion? Or at some point do you put most cities over to units/infrastructure and then designate 1 or 2 cities as settler factories?

[Sava]

I usually spread out my settler/worker production. Very rarely will I make a city devoted to pumping out these units. If I do, its usually a city I created just for the purpose of filling space between two other more important cities that don't line up nicely. The downside of having one city devoted to this is that you can only produce settlers/worker at the pace of the single city's production. I follow more of an exponential style growth of my empire.

First city builds spearman, then settler, spearman, then settler. And the cycle spirals until all the land I can possibly fill up has been filled up.