[SPOILERS] TT and Victoria hope to have Sumeria to expand into...

[Twinkletoes89]

Okay everyone I think I have my best dotmap yet but I would really like some thoughts if I can get them. I've made mistakes with city placement in the past and I would love to know if I am finally learning my lessons.



I have done my best to ensure that all cities have at least one food in the first ring as I know that many players have been criticised in the past for not doing so.

As you can see, the chop finished the Work Boat and the Settler has 2 turns left to go - I am wondering if the improved clam will speed it up to 1 turn.

I am still thinking white dot is the best one to go for first, as it could borrow the wheat and grow quick enough to whip quite a lot of stuff when I revolt. Plus it is only 3 tiles from the capital so minimal transit times for settler & worker.

I like blue dot too, for the 3/1 Banana and 2/2 lumbermill in the first ring to be useful, but as it would need a border pop for the fish, its better as maybe city 4 after Red Dot that is on a hill plus has 2 seafood tiles in first ring. I had to put the dot there as its the only feasible way to workboat both tiles early and also gives me the possibility to build a lighthouse and make all the water tiles (including the 2/1 tile) even better.

Yellow dot would have to be city 5 at latest because it gives me two early happy resources which would be very useful for whipping and general pop growth.

Purple is a generally solid city that would give me a decent front but settling it is of the least priority over the other cities.

In terms of tech, once I finish Pottery I am going to need to go for Mysticism then Hunting for border pops and then to hook up the deers and furs.

My scout is now heading for a look around my immediate north to see if there are any good cities that need to be pushed into this queue, but given the imminent settling of city 2 it may well only reveal cities in time for number 4.

[Twinkletoes89]

Okay, so after that dotmap, I decided to try and create a sandbox and run a 50 turn sim to see where my civ might be at if I followed this settling plan.

Here is how it looked at the end:



Got the capital at size 7 working all improved tiles including gems and 3 riverside cottages, with a granary and library inside.

If the scout reveals some awesome sites to the north or west, then I imagine the capital's development to this point would be delayed through building more settlers especially the building of the library.

6 workers is a bit on the low side, but all cities have the best food resource hooked up (bar the Banana at 4 due to lack of Calendar)

On the tech front, I went from Pottery -> Mysticism -> Hunting -> Meditation -> Priesthood -> Archery -> AH -> Writing -> Mathematics -> Sailing

I have included city screenshots of all the cities in the spoiler tags

I imagine many people could do it better than that, so maybe some guys could do it in the lurker thread to show what they would do with this current knowledge?

If anyone can give me some advice, I would appreciate it. Really want to be sure I haven't made some major cock ups or missed something important.

[Jowy]

Dot map looks fine to me Maybe do some scouting to your east and west before locking it down.

[Twinkletoes89]

Been an interesting turn.

Here's the latest view of my lands - settler for city 3 has just completed and is heading for the clam/fish spot as planned - all being well Buddhism will found in it as I plan to revolt to slavery next turn when the settler is in transit which should delay researching Meditation until just after the city is founded



But what was most curious was the discovery in the north by my scout...



That seems like one heck of a reach for a second city... I imagine it has some nice resources but it will take some serious wastage of worker turns and transit times to make it effective. If I wasn't focused on a quick landgrab strategy, that looks a prime target for an early strike.

[Twinkletoes89]

On my laptop due to having to go home for a family emergency so its just a very short report.

First person to 3 cities, no luck on religion so switched to complete Hunting instead.

There is some great land to the north but its going to be heavily disputed land so I must be careful, especially as demographics suggests that someone has at least one axe out there and I don't want it heading at me.

Going to have to build at least one of my own to protect my holdings but that means some infra/settler builds must be delayed.

[Twinkletoes89]

Sorry my updating has stalled - diplo and essays have been dominating my time.

Just a quick note before work -> in 2 turns time I will be up to 7 cities and so my expansion start has been pretty good so far - keeping around the top GNP too by the looks of things. Once the cities are settled I will do a full update

[Twinkletoes89]

As promised, a report as soon as the cities were settled.

Here's the south of my empire:



Sunspear & Riverrun were just settled this turn and I see them as great cities that will contribute a lot as time goes by. The furs & silver at Sunspear will be great for allowing me to start growing my cities and as my worker labour increases, the cities themselves will hopefully become food and hammers/commerce monsters.

Just getting to work on cottages for the capital now I have Winterfell & Casterly Rock as cities capable of producing settlers and workers for a while.

In the North, things are more interesting...



Castle Black was settled last turn - it was originally planned to be 1E but eastway got a city in the turn before me so I had to move it. It may be a culture crush (am working the oasis from Highgarden to try and get to whipping a monument first). Given the warfare up north between CH & B4ndit, I have a Vulture already up there on the copper for defense with a spear also on its way. I want to hold this city if at all possible as having gold, floodplains & copper, it could well be a great city. Plus it gives extra defensive distance for the capital and Highgarden. Another city on the hill between the wheat & clams is a possibility in the nearish future, but as I am first to both 6 and 7 cities (and only one other player even has 5 - and Bandit still has two...) I need to start building up some infrastructure and military just to avoid people getting aggressive over my city count.

Here's my unit count so far:



Only 5 workers but 2 more incoming soon and there has been a need to go for workboats in many cities which has reduced the amount of workers built - combined with a focus on quick settlers.

Objectives for next 10 turns

1. Hold Castle Black & hopefully be first to pop borders
2. Get infrastructure going in capital (Gran & Library ideally)
3. At least double my military
4. Hook up Furs & Silver
5. Have 10 workers

[NobleHelium]

Not bad, TT. I probably would have settled Winterfell 1E and Sunspear 1N.

[Twinkletoes89]

Thanks NH,

I actually considered putting Sunspear 1S to workboat both crab tiles and once it was clear that there was no seafood in the river, I didn't fancy making it coastal when it could pick up more useful land tiles instead.

With Winterfell, I debated between its current spot & 1E, but I decided that I wanted the deer tile earlier and that had I put the city 1E, I would have had to settle a more iffy city to use it and that city would likely not be settled for some time.

They may turn out to be the wrong decisions, but that was why I made the settling decisions that I did.

[NobleHelium]

Well the reason why you might plant both cities as coastal is to get a lighthouse to buff the lake seafood. Water tiles are usually worse than land tiles, yes, but that generally only matters when you run out of land tiles to work.