Civilization 5 Tutorial - Settlers, City Placement & Tile Improvements | How to Settle Cities Faster

That info about cities cannot stave whilst building a settler was new to me, great video!

Anyone finding this video in 2025, do NOT wait till pop 4 for your first settler. Pop 3. Pop 4 is too slow

Disappointment of CIV 7 brought me here.. :D

Why would he have the resource view off on a starting map when he's talking about where to settle?

I never build a monument in the first four cities because a social policy gives me a free culture building in my first four cities if I'm just a little patient. Focus on a scout instead

this is pretty poor game play. With liberty, your first settler should come from the social policy, otherwise you waste turns making one when you haven't gotten the 50% off bonus yet. Worker policy is one you take after the settler policy. Also, he's not playing with tile yields on, not scouting correctly, poor placement of units relative to barbarians. etc etc, this guy sucks

It's funny, how I'm so late to the Game but watching this video definitely has helped. I'm playing on diety marathon with smoother mods because I couldn't stand those start bonuses. Do you have any tips doing that type of run without mods?

You do not get the happiness from a luxury recourse if you settle directly on it with your city , unless you have that tech already available .
Free worker policy does give you a free worker and makes your workers better but it doesn’t let you build them faster . Great video overall just a few small mistakes I noticed

I found the limited amount of happiness each type of luxury could give your empire in Civ 5 to be quite unrealistic. It seems to be a game mechanic meant to artificially slow the growth of any particular civilization’s number of cities. Why would the citizens of one city in your empire get no happiness from a particular luxury that the citizens of another city enjoy???? 🤨

I like how you pronounce “steps” like “stips”! 🤗

Your information about settling on luxuries is not accurate. You only get the gold per turn immediately, the happiness and having the luxury connected only happens after you research the corresponding technology. You can settle on strategic resources to immediately connect them to your trade network and get extra production as if the tile were improved, again only after researching the corresponding technology.

11 min video because you explain EVERYTHING twice

would you then suggest to declare war on city states by stealing their unprotected workers then making peace immediately in the early game?

I'm actually a pretty big fan of building settlers as soon as I hit pop 2 in the captial. If the AI steals a spot I like I'll have to go to war to take what's rightfully mine. If you grab a spot that hems the AI in, you can strangle your neighbor before they even know what hit them. As long as I don't go below -10 happiness I'll be fine. Unhappiness might seem like a problem, but it's a minor inconvenience compared to not having good spots to settle and needing to go to war against someone with more cities than you.

Nothing new.

Another important point, don't steal more than 1 worker from city-states.
If you do, all of them will "grow wary" and hate you for the rest of the game.
Hating means your score with them goes down twice as fast and resting point is at -20.

as a CIV V veteran please do not listen to this man. horrible advice. I recommend FilthyRobot

I don't care what the game says. Pro players will tell you that tradition is the better choice for settling fast if fast doesn't mean you want to give up on having an productive game because of it. On average tradition starts building settlers from reaching 3 population, whilst with liberty the optimal play is to build other things then settlers untill you reach the first free settler policy, since building all next settlers is double as fast and you make optimal use from the bonus from then on. Building settlers before having that policy is basically throwing away a large portion of your upcoming bonus and you will fall behind the tradition players even more. So very sad to see misinformation here for the average and better players out there who seek to improve their game.

Awesome video 👏🏼

Loved the video. A caution for newer players (from someone who used to love going Liberty) while Liberty with its free settler and “free” great person can be very tempting it is definitely an early game strategy. Tradition should produce stronger cities for the late game. At higher difficulty, speaking only for myself, it is harder to make Liberty work.

I'd like to argue about 2 points:

1) Tradition vs Liberty: That's an ancient discussion, but I think it's usually better to go Tradition over Liberty. It's hard to contest all the bonuses from Tradition, which includes free buildings (which means free production and earlier bonuses), more happiness from Monarchy, bigger capital growth and production towards early wonders - which includes the essential National College.

Moreover, as Tradition you can still have more than 4 cities later in the game (ie after National College), if you jumpstart the later ones with trade routes. Most of my Tradition games have 5 or 6 cities, with the later ones usually as good as the older ones by the end game, because of trade routes.

I feel that the bare minimum for Liberty is 5 cities before National College (preferrably more), and that means 5 or more luxuries near your starting area, which is somewhat rare. And because of lower happiness and gold (because you pay more building maintenance and can't have much more population to work gold tiles), Liberty is generally a more delicate playstyle with growth management. It's quite fun if you pull it off, though.

2) Settler building at 4 population. I feel that building Settlers only at 4 population is a tad too late. It takes quite a number of turns to grow from 3 pop to 4 pop if you don't have 3-food tiles, and especially in higher difficulties the AI will begin to claim lands too close to you.

Of course, there are exceptions; it might be OK to wait for 4 population if:
- you have two or more 3-food tiles without the Granary boost, like flood plains wheat or grassland cattle. If you wait to build Granary before Settlers, it's the same as waiting for 4 population (or even longer, depending on your build order)
- you find a population ruin and get close to growing to 4 population
- you take Liberty and wait for the Collective Rule policy

Although I raised these points, I think this video is really good! It showcases why to scout early, what to look for in early cities, and especially that early settling = easier wins

where is the france tutorial you promised is staying?

I've noticed that City States and civs are so dumb that they lose their workers to barbarians a lot. I often steal the workers from barbarians and then keep them instead of liberating them to the previous owner.

"Link's in the doodlydoo."




Love it.

Did anyone else hear “killed everyone” at the beginning instead of “hello everyone”?

If you declare war on more than one city state, future ones you meet will no longer give you gold. IIt's OK to stay at war with the first one and keep stealing their workers. Steal as many as you like from AI civs.

3 food tiles give 1 more production over a 1 production tile in settler building

Had no idea about the settler starving trick

I ALWAYS unlock tradition first for the +3 culture which makes getting to collective rule much faster. It's one extra policy, but its still faster.

Other than that I do everything else 100% exactly the same was as shown! Lovely!

I love it~ ! awesome videos~ !

Liked, subbed and going to binge. Civ 5 is my favorite new game and it’s a shame the guides are all so old. Great quality stuff!!

FUCKIN GREAT SHIT