Hi!

I have not yet had the opportunity to use the Settlers unit, but from what I can read they do the exact same as Colony Plan, and are both unlocked with the Three-Masted Ship tech.

If I remember correctly, new cities benefit from Colony Plan regardless of which unit created the outpost which is turned into a city.

So, what is the purpose of the Settlers unit? And for that matter, why are they so powerful!?

Same question may apply to later equivalents.

Screenshots for reference:

In short, settlers do not have to spend their influence or wait for the construction of outposts.

zhugejingqi wrote:

In short, settlers do not have to spend their influence or wait for the construction of outposts.

Oh, I see! Gotta try that out.

So that you don't have to spend 8K influence for your 10th city. Civics and Wonders become already too expensive in later eras. Settlers save you at least from city building cost. It's also a very convenient way of upgrading new cities you have just conquered up to the current tech level with all previous infrastructures already built. Settlers and Construction Team are great units. I wish there was an equivalent unit for Industrial Era as well and they could renovate/upgrade cities without needing to ransack them first.

el-Fakir wrote:

So that you don't have to spend 8K influence for your 10th city. Civics and Wonders become already too expensive in later eras. Settlers save you at least from city building cost. It's also a very convenient way of upgrading new cities you have just conquered up to the current tech level with all previous infrastructures already built. Settlers and Construction Team are great units. I wish there was an equivalent unit for Industrial Era as well and they could renovate/upgrade cities without needing to ransack them first.

Are you saying you can apply settlers to already built cities? Or do you have to ransack and rebuild with them? I've actually never used them before so I don't know how they work.

Dayvit78 wrote:

el-Fakir wrote:

So that you don't have to spend 8K influence for your 10th city. Civics and Wonders become already too expensive in later eras. Settlers save you at least from city building cost. It's also a very convenient way of upgrading new cities you have just conquered up to the current tech level with all previous infrastructures already built. Settlers and Construction Team are great units. I wish there was an equivalent unit for Industrial Era as well and they could renovate/upgrade cities without needing to ransack them first.

Are you saying you can apply settlers to already built cities? Or do you have to ransack and rebuild with them? I've actually never used them before so I don't know how they work.

No, unfortunately you have to ransack your city first and then settle a new city with Settler. I wish it was possible with Settler to build on top of existing cities, like as if you were renovating the city. In order to make it fair, it might cost some gold to upgrade cities in this way as well as consuming the Settler unit as usual.

The main problem the settler has,is it's in a era where you will already be over city cap. So u don't rly wan't new citys. 

So it's main usecase is to burn down and resettle old citys afther evacuating the population

komodowaran wrote:

The main problem the settler has,is it's in a era where you will already be over city cap. So u don't rly wan't new citys. 

So it's main usecase is to burn down and resettle old citys afther evacuating the population

Exactly, and I don't like exterminating my populace. So I tend to not use them. Though it could be a good idea to bring settlers along in a war to create cities on ransacked enemy cities.

Just as an idea, what do you think if the settler required X turns to build the city (depending on the tech tree and game setting, I guess) as you are building a city with all the districts. 
Agree that killing your entire population is not the most pleasant decision haha

Yeah turn time would make sense. 

To me a turn limit is not really relevant.

They key point is that we don't want more cities by that late in the game. If we do capture a heavily populated enemy city, it's a shame we have to kill everyone. This is more of a problem for me. I wish we could use that population somehow.

We could also rework the unit.

What if it could not settle on your starting continent but would not count to city cap ?

That would make colonising the newworld with citys actualy worth it

Dayvit78 wrote:

To me a turn limit is not really relevant.

They key point is that we don't want more cities by that late in the game. If we do capture a heavily populated enemy city, it's a shame we have to kill everyone. This is more of a problem for me. I wish we could use that population somehow.

But you don't have to kill anyone; you can just convert the whole population of that recently conquered city into units and then either use them as reserve army or transfer them to other cities to be disbanded as additional population. This is just a few extra steps to take.

Dayvit78 wrote:

To me a turn limit is not really relevant.

They key point is that we don't want more cities by that late in the game. If we do capture a heavily populated enemy city, it's a shame we have to kill everyone. This is more of a problem for me. I wish we could use that population somehow.

I took it as the turn limit would be for upgrading already made cities or cities that were taken over.

lbasil wrote:

komodowaran wrote:

We could also rework the unit.

What if it could not settle on your starting continent but would not count to city cap ?

That would make colonising the newworld with citys actualy worth it

To elaborate more on this, what if the settler that colonize on a new continent could create a proper colony? In other terms a free city already under your rule. That would not increase your city cap but still give access to juicy luxury or strategic resources (and boost the poor British).

I think this is already the intention, as it has a starting industry value. Maybe this just needs to be increased?