All right everyone, it’s
t50 and I believe it’s time to take a somewhat better look at our civ, our neighbours and the world at large.
This is it, dear folks, our glorious civ!
On t50 we’ve got 4 cities and a total of 10 pop.
We also have 4 workers, 1 axe, 3 warriors and a scout.
Techwise we’ve ignored the religious branches and lack masonry,sailing and archery, but instead we’ve gotten writing and are about a third into mathematics.
All in all I’m happy with our opening and look forward to follow how things will develop.
Having done the overview I think it’s time to also look at the cities one by one, starting with the capital:
Oravainen or Oravais is our Capital and founded on t0.
As far as capitals go it is situated lovely on a hill at a river mouth. It’s got a full set of 5 hills, but so far only 1 of them is mined. I guess from the onset one could’ve gone several ways with this location. Having realised that in reality I very rarely move my capital later on (though fantasizing about it a lot), and taking future bureaucracy into account I’m planning on making this a commerce center and eventually fill it with both Oxford and an academy. Oravainen is our first, and so far only city to have gotten any infrastructure, in that it does have a granary and short term plans include growing it to size 6 where it once again will have to help out in the production of settlers and workers. If I am to say anything negative about Oravainen, it is that it only have two food sources, one of which is a cow, so growth is going to come comparatively slow here.
Lapua or Lappo is our majestic second city and had its first houses erected on t29.
The city may pick up a cottage from the capital from time to time, but the real power of this beast can be seen in the three tiles it’s currently working: pigs, wet wheat and a copper hill makes it a strong producer of early workers and settlers and once it has grown into a few more mines, production will go up even further. Current plans dictate that this will be the location of our Heroic Epic (and later on West Point). The downside of such a choice would be not getting access to highly promoted ships from the get go, but I guess we’ll have try and make up for that simply by building more ships in other locations for that other kind of quality…
While Oravainen in theory could build us some nice, larger wonder (eg. mids/mom) I don’t see that as particularly likely in this set up*. An idea I’ve been toying more with though, is going aesthetics after currency and giving SoZ a shot in this city if it’s still available.
Revolahti or Revolaks is the gem of a settlement that was sneaked out at t42.
Filler is a horrid word for a beautiful city like this, but there you go. Revolahti will probably become a fairly nice commerce city one day, but the real reason it was founded was for the early boost to science production. Now, at size 2, it’s already producing 1/3 of my beaker output. Add a library and a a riverside horse pasture and it’s certain to do the same five turns from now…
Considering its lack of good food tiles, this was a site where I wouldn’t have minded a granary from the start. Simming and thinking about it though I figured that I won’t really delay much growth by going library first if I can time some math-enhanced chops into said granary. Current plan is therefore to finish the library one turn after growing, build a (somewhat slow, but much needed) worker at size 3 and then use that to chop out the food storage facility.
Our newest city Pyhäjoki was founded on t49.
The purpose of it is twofold. First off it shares three grassland tiles with the capital. Eventually these will all be cottaged and Pyhäjoki will play a large part in growing them to towns. Secondly I also see this city generating our first or second great person (Jutas producing the other). Though a bit light on food sources this could even become our NE city. Playing the dutch, there is a certain lure however of straying off old habits and use the coastal cities for production…
If we then start with cities that haven’t been built yet we can move to city 5 ”Jutas"
This is the city we’ve been debating lately. Here in the location I prefer.
As I see it, the primary purpose of this city is to serve as a bulwark against the zulu hordes. Being just about our only city with 3 food sources it’s also a prime candidate for the National Epic. One advantage of that path is that it means we don’t need to put any pillage-friendly cottages next to DZ, but instead can add some easier-to-rebuild farms (and workshops). One thing that might be possible is to enlarge the GPP-pool by adding the Great Wall here if nobody has built it come t80-90.
City 6 I believe will move north to start establishing a border with REM.
To be able to get these jungled gems into the BFC of a city we basically have 3 options. On the desert hill 1E of the oasis, on marble or here. As I don’t believe that desert hill will manage to hold on to gold long term that city isn’t that interesting anymore. Marble would work, but initially I actually rank it as slightly weaker than this option. I also rank this as more defensible (especially if putting a front city next to gold). One additional point towards settling this early is that it stops REM from settling a superstrong front city against us 1NE of marble.
City 7 could be pink dotting dear muffin.
The reason why I’m considering a city here is very simple to spell: g-o-l-d.
Currently our happiness situation is great. However, Silk is the only unique happiness resource we have left to improve in our empire. After that we need to trade for (currently jungled) gems or the spare silk. This
might work out, but I still see our own gold resource as being worth an awful lot. Chances are high REM will beat us here, but I guess we’ll deal with that if and when the time comes.
As an alternative to rustling our feathers against the muffin man we could expand peacefully eastwards.
This is simply a crazily resource-lad peace of real estate! Two alternatives: I’m leaning towards the ”alt c” marked here, but 1E is also a definite possibility. One thing I don’t want though is to have this important flat land township being a frontline city towards Serdoa. For that reason it’d be good if we could manage a city for instance here:
while 1SE would be even better as that leaves room for a Moai-worthy location 1N of the pigs.
Speaking of Moai, another alternative for that would be here, close to the capital:
Nothing wrong with the location, but not a particularly fast starter and not claiming land, so it keeps on being pushed down the settling order. Will share two cottages with the Cap though so try not to push it back too far… Ideally I’d say that Moai should be on our west coast as it’s here that we have our capital and need a real naval presence.
This is another sweet location I won’t settle in too much of a hurry. The reason of course that it’s slightly vulnerable towards the Zulu. I’m guessing that he’ll see that it’s even more vulnerable (and fairly useless) for him against me and let us settle at our own leisure…
Finally we’ve got a "filler" in the south east.
This city might be better off 1N sharing the pigs. However, if that is DZs only source of horses, a plant such as this might be quite interesting…
If we specifically want to chop out a wonder this might also be our best bet.
Although… if we really want to chop out a wonder (or an army for that matter). Look at the spot 3E I’ve marked with ”iron?". No less than 12! forests in the bfc.
Whew! These things take more effort than I anticipated. Will definitely write some more thoughts, but might take a while...
*I started writing this before the discussion earlier today...
I mean, I'm not finishing the axe or growing a size so clearly it'll have an impact. 
)
