Dot mapping

[Fintourist]

Settling towards WPC sounds much more attractive to me. A scenario where Civplayers settles next to the lake and builds a navy there seems like a bad plan for them and unrealistic (A city there would not exactly be a production miracle).

If we settle towards Civplayers there we only increase tension in the area, which might lead into an unnecessary military build-up. Let's settle that site later, when we really run out of useful spots and can use that plan as an aggressive move towards Civplayers. I don't really believe that its defensive value is posive all things considered.

[novice]

That sounds much better to me. Where would that city go, exactly?

My suggestion is the blue dot in this picture. Moving it east to pick up the dyes has also been suggested.

[Sian]

If we're going to settle in that direction next turn, i'd suggest taking the Axe in Forbidden fruit for a little walk in that general direction (or would Dantski in ED be better??)... it might very well be that there could be a reasonable city picking up the coastal Rice (that we can see from ED) ... say, prehaps 1NE of the Gems there, if it got seafood, that also handles grabbing 1/more Dye ... in which case settling on the blue dot is better

given the cluster of Spices around Forbidden fruit and the cluster of Wine between us and CFC, its likely that theres a cluster of Dye, bigger than what we can see at current time as well

[Shoot the Moon]

I don't think we should rush for it, but I do think we'll want a city S-SW of the clams (I agree with novice that that is the best spot). Once that city can pop its second ring borders, we go from having a two-city front to a one city front (yes, there is a 3-city fork available there, but they'd have to move through a fair amount of our culture once the new city has second ring borders to do it). It's also worth noting that if they get a city on the lake, a simply two-move galley can fork 3 of our cities.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

We're going to remove three different cottages from Tree Huggers (one of them riverside) for the purpose of getting one more non-riverside cottage at the capital? Is getting cottage #13 at the capital instead of having 12 cottages worth farming a swath across the top side of the map? I really do not think that's a worthwhile trade either.

I think it's at least worth an investigation, it comes out closer than you might think. Note: I reworked the analysis removing Astronomy/Observatories from the mix because it will be a very long time until we get there.

Adventure One - (Bureaucracy, Oxford, Academy, Library, University) = 200%:
Max research output: 462 (Bureaucracy, Oxford, Academy, Library, University)
Minus 1 town: 435
Net difference: - 27b/t = 6c [Town (4c) + 1c (PP) + 1c (FIN)] + 50c% [Bureaucracy] + 200% = 27b
with Free Speech: 39b/t = 8c [Town (6c) + 1c (PP) + 1c (FIN)] + 50c% [Bureaucracy] + 200% = 36b

To do this, we give up 3-4 grassland cottages at Tree Huggers (I'm not assuming all 4, given we have to irrigate somewhere to chain irrigation to the rice that is currently unsettled). Let's give TH towns as well, ignoring that it will be ages until we are likely to need all 3 of these tiles as cottages (there are 9 other grassland tiles that can be worked as cottages at TH). For equal comparison, assuming again that we have printing press and education:

Tree Huggers - (Library, University) = 50%:
Town = 6c + 50% = 9b * 3 = 27b/t
With Free Speech: Town = 8c + 50% = 12b * 3(tiles) = 36b/t

The three tiles combined are dead even with the one tile at AO, both before and after the swap to Free Speech. This assumes that we get both research buildings completed and grow onto all 12 grassland tiles in TH. Certainly we could build both research buildings, but I doubt we are able to grow onto all needed cottage tiles in this time span (size 18!). The question is how soon we would need all 14 grassland cottages. TH will grow like a weed even without the farms, but faster with, so long as we can keep up with improved tiles. TH is +6 on food now. With the farms it would be +10 and able to contribute to expansion better with faster whip recovery. Or, triple whip commerce buildings and recover. This is by no means a slam dunk decision. Prior to Astronomy, 3 for 1 is an even trade, after that time the advantage goes to TH with the additional 25% Observatory modifier. But, the issue is whether we are able to grow TH to it's cottage capacity, size 18, and I think we are unable to do that, or come close really, in any amount of time where we wouldn't have just been better off to have the extra town in AO where the significant modifiers (Bureaucracy, Academy, Oxford) are up much sooner.

Finally, there's the issue of needing 70t (prior to Emancipation) of investment to get to a town. I think we reach this much sooner in AO than on all three tiles in TH. I think we actually reach this point faster in TH by farming the 4 tiles for extra growth then paving the farms with cottages once TH is size 18. This, of course, assumes we have all resources, both health and happy, to reach this size, which we cannot assume.

cottage --> hamlet: 10t
hamlet --> village: 20t
village --> town: 40t
total: 70t

[novice]

BGN, it's more a matter of spending worker turns where we get the most immediate use of them. We can set up HF and irrigate the rice faster if we use a shorter irrigation chain, where we're planning to work the farms immediately. My feeling is we'll need the farms at HF before we need farms at TH, I could be wrong though.

[Sullla]

SW of the clams or S-SW, we want to get a city down in this region as quickly as possible to start building up Stonehenge culture. Delay is not to our advantage. We also have a settler planned to come out of Gourmet Menu in 3t, right next door and in good position from a logistics standpoint. I still say that getting something in this area is better than nothing. We give up too much control to CivPlayers if we don't put some kind of city west of Seven Tribes.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

BGN, it's more a matter of spending worker turns where we get the most immediate use of them. We can set up HF and irrigate the rice faster if we use a shorter irrigation chain, where we're planning to work the farms immediately. My feeling is we'll need the farms at HF before we need farms at TH, I could be wrong though.

In that aspect, you are certainly right. Farms now or in the immediate future at TH would speed growth and require us to have more workers on hand to develop the other tiles as cottages as we rapidly grow onto them, which would require a city dedicated to pumping out garrison units after HR to keep up, and would also require another city to pump workers to support tile development.

I have a tendency to want to streamline efficiencies to the extreme end. Doing this helps me miss the snowball so looking far down the road isn't always a good thing. I definitely didn't play through to see how long it would take to get both cities grown up to size and what the fastest way to do that would be. Worldbuilder is dangerous, just throw out the end product and pack in the multipliers without regard for the fastest way to get there.

[waterbat]

Still, its great work, BGN. I had no idea that 1 cottage would be that close to the 3 others.

[novice]

Well we can always reroute the irrigation chain in the late game. Just leave an uncottaged path at TH.

SW of the clams or S-SW, we want to get a city down in this region as quickly as possible to start building up Stonehenge culture. Delay is not to our advantage. We also have a settler planned to come out of Gourmet Menu in 3t, right next door and in good position from a logistics standpoint. I still say that getting something in this area is better than nothing. We give up too much control to CivPlayers if we don't put some kind of city west of Seven Tribes.

Maybe we can delay the city somewhat and run some artists in it during our GA instead? We can do that either way, of course.