That`s a bit funny. I`ve played far too many hours of Bts and never realized that the phalanx is now an axeman replacement. Greece is obviously not one of my favorite civs! That makes things a little bit easier for us. I don`t think building lots of chariots is a winning strategy in MP, as spears (and phalanxes) are just too strong against them. Horse archers have more punch.
So for instance, just looking at the power numbers for this turn and last, combined with civstats tracking, it looks like:
1) I was mistaken about Dark Savant above: He has the same population as us - maybe 4 in his capital, 1 in his second city, and 1 in his third city. He also probably has a Barracks in his second city (cheap for him as Shaka) and four warriors. His is the top Power in the game.
2) Somebody (not Dark Savant) lost a Warrior in combat!
And chariots can be very useful as sentries, medics, and occasionally for an early rush against an unprepared civ. But I definitely agreed about the power of horse archers ... especially when they're Keshiks!
Some things to which I neglected to respond earlier:
- I'm glad you enjoy my stories! I'm not a coffee drinker myself but I'm glad the game gives you a chance to enjoy a nice cup of coffee and a good story as well as the chance to play some civ!
- Good question about our next cities! I decided to create yet another kind of dotmap - which this time is also a heatmap ... kind of.
Note this image is still based on the T17 stitch job I did, and so is out of date: It has three extra forests, way too few tile improvements, and is missing several copper, to say nothing of one of our cities! Still:
(The dark green C on the plains hill north of the sheep may be difficult to see.)
One of (several) things I missed with copper was the possibility that more than one source might be nearby. So in case that's true with horses too, the idea of the map above is this: Possible horse spots that we care about have dots of different colors on them. (I'm assuming that Mardoc didn't give us forest or jungle horses, but I guess at this point I shouldn't assume anything....) At least one source should be within five tiles of our capital, but if there are horses in Muqa's BFC, we probably won't be too worried about where they are nearby. So given what you've said so far, the "C" tiles are my best guess at the places where we would found our next city if horses were on a dot of the corresponding color, but not on a dot of a color higher up on the chart to the left (i.e. ~closer to red on the spectrum). Note there is only one black dot, and if that's our only horse source then Mardoc hates us and we'll just have to deal with it.
Note some of the cities can't be where the in-game signs are if they're to have food in their first rings; that's one reason for some of the changes, together with forward-vs-back-lines considerations, the desire to plant near the pigs and corn ASAP, possible reconsiderations of city locations based on the discovery of copper, and the knowledge that Borte's and Muqa's borders will pop by turns 50 and 52 respectively.
Different dots (even with the same city) will require different worker responses, but before I start working out what those should be, I wanted to be sure I understood what the plan was for the next city. So how did I do?
Let me know what, if anything, I got wrong in terms of our desired response to different horse locations on the map!
Of course, that's just Toregene though. It would be a good idea to get a city going in the south pretty soon, especially as the site you suggested east of the river establishes our control over the region with our ivory (in a much less-accessible and more-contested spot than dtay's, naturally). We can use all the happiness we can get on this map, and - though this feels like it's wayyyyy in the future for now - note the Ger XP bonus does apply to Wellies!
I quite agree with that dot map. The worst locations horses could be in would be purple and black I think. Luckily, the chances of that happening is rather low. If dtay could finish his turn I would get to play turn 43. If the horses were to turn up in Borte`s third ring I`d be tempted to plant our city to our NW regardless, as only 7 turns remain before we get horses in our cultural borders.
The blue C would be a decent alternative if the horses turn up in that area. It could steal the sheep from Muqa to get a flying start. The orange C is very good as well. Building on a plains hill (with a corn first ring) is a good alternative. It`s hard to give up that pigs until we can get a border pop, but you can`t have it all I guess.
We might have to move the city sites around a bit in order to
a) Get a defensible border with GJ.
b) Get horses online.
c) Pick up the strong food sources (preferably in the first ring, of course).
I agree with most of those points - but let me try to make an argument for planting near horses even if they're in the capital's third ring, site by site:
- Red dots don't need an explanation; the desired city will be able to work the ones in Borte's third ring anyway!
- Yellow dots ... are where I'm secretly hoping horses appear (barring the BFCs of Borte or Muqa of course). A city south of the furs will be an amazing long-term city, and can share a cottage, the rice, and two hills with Borte, which wants to give up some food when it's building Workers and Settlers anyway. Yellow is also a stepping stone toward our front city with GJ, which I think needs to be planted soon. There's another critical point though: If horses are on a yellow dot within Borte's third ring, then this city would quickly grow to work two very good tiles (the horse and the the furs) that no other city can, and that we'd want to improve ASAP whether any city could work them or not!
- The sky-blue C east of Borte likewise works the furs that we want to improve anyway, shares the rice and three cottages including the floodplain, and if the horses are on that tile (the only sky-blue dot in Borte's third ring) then it's a 2-hammer plant that claims horses on the turn it's founded (it'll be easy to have a road in place) while saving six worker turns for a road and pasture. (Horses provide a good yield, but not as good as copper, and I'm happy with planting on them in the case of a plains tile in a good spot like this.) It's definitely more of a helper city than a super-city in its own right, but it also gets a grassland hill to mine, and a border pop and lighthouse will give it a 5/0/2 clam and a 3/0/2 lake. Plus those grasslands will be nice eventually, e.g. with RtR Workshops. Finally, it's a second port on the eastern sea.
- The dark green C on the plains hill to the southwest has first ring sheep, a plains hill plant, fish and three lighthouse lakes in the second ring and a forest to chop in the first, and of course we're assuming a horse within range if we're considering it for Toregene. It's also a hilltop plant that controls an important part of our land near GermanJoey and would be our first port on the western sea. The only thing not to like about it is that it invalidates the planned fish/sheep city. (That, and it has no tile to match the corn + pigs in our northwest and doesn't work the furs we'll likely improve soon anyway.) That makes it a bit more of a difficult call if our best-located horse is southwest of the cows, but I still prefer it over...
- The turquoise C that's 2S of the cows is ... not my favorite. It would be fine as a filler someday if the dotmap doesn't change, but now? It is a stepping stone toward GJ, which is good, but ... the only new resource tile it claims is the horse itself, while the cow is not a tile that Borte likes to share. (It can, but it would much rather share the rice or clams.) This city also won't have a tile worth more than 3 food per turn until Biology! If the horses turn up SW of the cows, I'd plant the dark green C instead. If the horses turn up on this tile ... I think I'd actually rather move the yellow C one tile west for them, even though it would mean the (jungled) gems and eastern (also jungled) silks would have to go to a different city.
- There are nice things to say about the light-purple C that's 2W of the clams, and it's a much better city than turquoise to the south, though strategically a cipher. But I really, really hope we find horses in a better spot than this. (Also note this site would mean we'll likely never work the lovely 1/5 copper mine to the west - 1/3 even before being improved and adding hammers from a chop: We'd have to plant ON the copper unless there's a good island site we could claim with the copper in its BFC.
Long story short: If it were me, my preference for Toregene's location (picking the best one that has horses) wouldn't actually follow the heat map; instead, it would probably go something like Yellow > Light Green > [One tile W of Yellow] > Dark Green > Red > Orange > Sky Blue > Dark Blue > Light Purple > Ugh, Mardoc, Why????
Those red dots would still be red though, and you might be right that it's better to put that city at the top of the list. It's hard to beat a city with corn and pigs in the first ring....
Hmmm, maybe I`ve underestimated that yellow C. We should get the furs online as soon as we`re able. A new luxury is most helpful for combating unhappiness, and the tile yield would be a welcome boost to our tech rate. A city that shares the rice with Borte is valuable as well. It needs IW in order to be fully productive, but is good from the turn it`s founded. I could be talked into the yellow C instead of red or orange (though it`s close imo). Building SE would also make that border city with GJ a bit easier to facilitate. It really is a long way down from Borte to that spot E of the river down south.
That green C could be good as well. We probably should be able to get a city further SE of that city (though GJ might spoil that). It`s certainly a more defensible city than the one suggested in my dot map. Before signing up for this game I told myself to build the most vulnerable cities on hills. Well, there are obviously a lot of considerations to me made. Every city can`t have an ideal placement.
Planting on the horses could be an idea, saving lots of precious worker turns for more pressing matters. I hadn`t thought of that! Should the sky blue C be moved 1E in order to get seafood first ring? Building a barracks in that city for a border pop is going to take a while.
As for light purple, black and turquoise - I don`t like those spots either. If horses is in an awkward position I think we should delay building a city close to them. I`d rather get a good third city than a city that has very little potential (and horses in its first ring).
My theory with the sky-blue city on the plains tile was that it can work the furs and (in addition to the rice) share two of Borte's river grasslands and its floodplain (for cottage growth). Getting clams in the first ring instead of the second is definitely an advantage for moving it east, but even once they're netted, they're only a 4/0/2 tile until the city builds a lighthouse. I don't think that's worth giving up the shared cottages and the fur if this turns out to be our next city.
Note also I wouldn't consider planting a city on horses unless they're on plains or a hill, because you don't get an extra hammer for planting on a grassland horse (which is also a generally better tile naturally at 2/3/1 than a plains horse at 1/4/1).
Our forth warrior finished just in time before copper was connected. It feels good to be able to build stronger units! As I moused over Muqas new build, I realized that dry-whipping an axe actually costs 3 population. That`s expensive. Note that we are that close to 1-turning Animal Husbandry. Thinking about it, If horses turn up to our east, you`re probably right that moving the city a tile closer to Borte is a better city. That furs tile is food neutral after all. I`m used to seeing furs combined with a lot of plains, tundra or even ice tiles. And, of course, tile sharing is important.
Our scouting warrior didn`t reveal any new tiles, but next turn it will.
Someone have a crop yield of 36, which is quite impressive at this stage. When we finish that sheep pasture next turn, we`ll close a part of that gap at least.
Finally our warrior revealed some new tiles. Nothing earth shattering, but GJ has some crabs in Sparta`s second ring. Next turn the plan is to continue toward Sparta to get a better view of that area. Hopefully he`ll not take a 50 -50 shot at killing our warrior. Also the sheep pasture SW of Muqa is finished. Our crop yield looks more than respectable right now.
The warrior took its place SW of Borte in order to be ready for fog busting duties in the coming turns. I`m really looking forward to find out where our horses are.
![[Image: Horse%2Bdot%2Bcities.JPG]](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SHUU4GJFhd4/WTpWIpJ1QNI/AAAAAAAADVE/kDYeHuERwuMOikgmYd0hXrlN0ZwX5L_zQCLcB/s1600/Horse%2Bdot%2Bcities.JPG)