Until you start your first city, you can't get barbarians, a free city, or non settlers.
However, if you wait till around 2000 bc, people have reported finally getting a city.
I've never waited that long, so I will take their word on that.

Some say you can't get barbs if the hut is in a city radius.

If a hut is in a city radius, and a worker is moved to the square the hut is on... it will disappear. So be careful when starting cities with a hut nearby...

The game is designed to stop handing out sciences once invention is discovered. But some have reported examples of where it has happened.

Later in the game, you can get cities with more than one population, and improvements.
Later, you can also start getting $200. Early in the game $100 is the limit.

- toby

Cities out of huts early on is, I think, more common than people think. Started a MP game the other night, Deity level, the second hut I turned over, maybe half a dozen turns in, was a city. Became my second city. Couple of hundred years later, another one turned up.

Luck, yes. I don't think it's a bug. There's nothing that I know of to say you can't get cities out of huts before a certain time. I keep proving the contrary to myself.

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finbar
Mono Rules!
#33984591

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finbar
Mono Rules!
#33984591

If you have an empty production box it is cheaper to rush buy any city improvement by starting with a temple/barracks (both 160).
Once the temple is built you change to your real objective. Unlike units no more incremental buying is possible. If you want a stock exchange you don't save anything by buying city walls after the temple then purchasing the S/Exchange.

With units it is different. If you need to rush through a battleship you save by starting with a spy - then a rifleman - then a marine and so on.

I misunderstood this at first. (See Ming's Cheat Thread)

re: cheaper to start with a spy when rushing units from scratch...

The formula I have for rush building is:

X*X/20 + X*2, where X is shields needed to fill the box.

Using this formula, I calculate:

Rush-build Barracks: 80*2 = 160
Convert to 20 shields, rush-build diplomat: 185

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finbar
Mono Rules!
#33984591

I opened every goody hut I came across - periodically unloading a dip to look around further inland. The net result was a load of "Non" units, a bunch of bucks - 200 gold comes up pretty often as was noted earlier - and an 2 advanced civs. The one time I got barbs was no big deal - my dip just jumped back on the transport and bribed a couple over the next 2 turns.

And, maybe as and aside, rather than disbanding the advanced civ as I usually do, I kept it and used it as the basis for that long distance trading strategy that I rarely have time to setup. Leave one dip in the city and rush build units and improvements.

Coming back, I went up to the polar region with the same result - no advanced civ though and you've got to be careful about the distance to your newly founded cities.

The downside is that I got so many units that pretty soon I slipped out of Strong-Mighty and into Supreme; so peaceful coexistence was gone by the wayside for awhile. Next time I'll be more careful about that. And I'll take along a third diplomat.

Well, I did some counting...
I started ten different games with normal map settings and varied land mass. I counted the huts. There were always between 45 and 50 huts. So now I know that there are aproximatly 50 huts in a standard game
At least half is mine

I was researching banking - the Zulus had already obtained Invention (from a hut). A couple of turns after they obtained the research, I aquired Banking from a village.

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