Need Advice: Settlers First?

[Ace]

I play on Epic Huge maps.

I try to put out settlers as best I can. Which means getting them from the capitol. But with going to war early and barbs I find myself building military.

Sometimes I struggle just to get that first settler out.

When I finally do get 2 or 3 settlers I tend to stop and start building districts. But then I think I ought to be building more settlers.

Should I be building more settlers and try to catch up with districts later?

[Johnny Wishbone]

Try and get three cities out asap then go from there. Take advantage of the early empire policy card of 50%. Unfortunately with barbarians you can't really ignore military so my first builds are usually 3 quick slingers.

[BladeSe7en [ICON_RESOURCE_FURS]]

Build a scout and one or two warriors to handle barbs. Then from your cap pump out builder, settler, builder, settler.... Send a builder with the settler to immediately get improvements in your city. From there you can set up districts and military as your capital worries about expansion.

[hopsblues]

So from what i hear, i haven't played huge yet, but the other ai will be close by. With lots of other land away from where you are, available. If your aggressive-don't build the settlers. Take the cites from your opponents. As they stated above, build a couple cities, then consider taking cities?

[Tatanka]

i dont bother with with settlers
just build army and workers and take neighbours, only later i build one or two settlers to close gaps in territory of my empire
always end up the biggest in the world with 5-6 units with 5-6 promotions

building army and taking city states and civs is much faster then building settlers, not to mention youll end up with a veteran trained army, roflstomping rest of map is piece of cake from there
AI totally has no defence against a handfull of two-shot cannons

[HepRocHeresy]

Capturing instead of building is a strategy worth considering. Most captured cities will already have improvements and/or workers available, saving you the time and expense of creating your own and allowing you to focus on building an army.

In my current game, I have 12 cities -- only two of those cities were settled by my own settlers. Most of the cities were captured. Some were settled with captured settlers. My biggest, most productive city was one that I captured. I own my starting continent.

True, everyone hates me, but they leave me alone to work on a science victory because of my bad-ass army.

Try it out.

[Leon Declis]

My usual build pattern is as such:

Scout.

Warrior.

Warrior.

Settler.

Worker.

This will get you two cities, and as long as you're not stupid with your Warriors, 3 Warriors should be enough to protect you and explore.