Handling settlers in early city building

[tobyr]

Please discuss how to handle settlers in early city building: There are several related questions that I have not seen discussed or covered in FAQs:

(1) How do you decide when a city has grown enough so that it can build its first settler? Obviously one can do this too soon. Is there an optimum number of citizens? Are there other factors?

(2) How much improvement should this new settler do before heading off to found another city?

(3) Should the new city be founded just far enough from the first to avoid overlap, or is it worth moving two or three more squares to get to a great location for the next city?

(4) BEFORE founding this new city, how much should the settler improve the nearby land?
- toby robison


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toby robison
criticalpaths@mindspring.com

[DaveV]

You'll get a lot of different responses on this one. Here's my view:

1) Optimum number of citizens is >1. After I grow to size 2, I'll put my workers on high-shield, low-food squares so I can crank out a settler more quickly.

2) Roads to connect cities. Sometimes I'll go one square out of my way to put a road on a grassland that I'm sure I'll use.

3) Ideally, each city should have one empty space between it and its neighbors. Sometimes I'll leave a gap to fill in later if there's an irresistible city location.

4) See #2. Usually, the settler build 1-2 roads, then a city.

[Flavor Dave]

(1) How do you decide when a city has grown enough so that it can build its first settler?
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I'm going to take "early cities" to mean the first 5 or 6, the ones I build before any city has any improvements, except maybe a temple here and there. I build them as soon as the city gets to size 2.

(2) How much improvement should this new settler do before heading off to found another city?
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I will build a road on a shield/grassland or wheat plain, for the extra arrow. Sometimes, (late-early cities), I'll mine a coal square. Also, I'll "irrigate" a jungle or swamp for my city, if it's in a "sweet spot," encompassing 4 special resources in the city radius.

(3) Should the new city be founded just far enough from the first to avoid overlap, or is it worth moving two or three more squares to get to a great location for the next city?
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As a guy who tends toward the perfectionist side, I go for the "great location."

(4) BEFORE founding this new city, how much should the settler improve the nearby land?
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See #2

[Miner]

I tend toward perfectionist play, you will get a different answer from a ICS player.
(ICS = Infinite City Sleaze, a frowned upon tactic which will guarantee an early win)

1) At the start of play, as both of the Daves have said, providing City Size > 1, build a settler. This is because I expand like mad at the start.

2) Build a road on a plain+wheat/grassland square for the extra trade on the way to it's city site. This also includes building a road near the new city site.
Also, as stated already, for 'late' early cites, when you know you'll be switching to
Monarchy soon/have switched, mine a hill/coal/iron/gold.

3) I don not overlap city squares as I play perfectionist, I want my city squares to border onto each other. This is where you will get a different answer from an ICS player.

4) See 2

As an addition, when the City is producing enough food to support a settler AND grow
(usually after Monarchy but sometimes before if the city squares are food rich, consequently the size of the city will vary) then I build 1 settler per city to do nothing BUT improvements in the city radius. This is imperative for the Super Science City, where you'll want all the squares roaded for the trade (& irrigated).After refrigeration I build an additional settler/engineer to develop the squares/build RR/clean pollution.

As a mad expansionist, I have a building cue:
Defensive unit
Settler (to go quickly and found a city)
Wonder
Settler (to improve terrain)

1)after building 1 defense, and a wonder (only early in the game, for my first cities) i build a settler. then one or two imps., then a second settler and then settlers/ips/wonders alternately
2)the first settler, directly to found a new city. the second one does about 1/4 of the terrain imp and a new city. (later in the game, this settler does about ALL the terrain imp. due to lack of expansion space.

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Alien Infiltrate

[geofelt]

1) plan to complete the settler for just after the city grows to size 2. Look at the food production vs the food box, and look at the net shield rate. don't complete early, or you will waste it all or disband the city.
2) get the first 4/5 cities started with no improvements. A few roads in used squares might be ok.
3) The perfectionist spaces cities so that there are few gaps between cities, and there is minimal overlap. This is about 3 or 4 squares. This is good for a super science city. The ICS advocate builds cities with the minimum space between(one square) and lots of overlap. I am now playing in between with 2 or 3 spaces excepting the science city. This lets cities grow to 12 which seems to be enough. My usual reason for jumping ahead is to plant a city to block the ai early. I might be tempted by a good location, but it is easier to expand and support by building adjacent cities.
4) I like to mine a wine or coal hill in my palace city early to help build an early wonder. Other than that, I build roads only with the second generation settler. I like to get the first 4/5 cities down quickly. I don't build more until monarchy is in sight because of unhappiness.

[Matthew]

I think people are forgetting the all important MP double production differences.

In double production, if neither of my first two cities have any trade specials sometimes I'll let the city grow to size 3 or 4 so I can have 1 or 2 people working the sea for trade while I build the settler. Or if I have 4 good specials for the city I may let the city grow enough to make full use of them before I build the settler.