Thoughts re: Gaspar's post. He is completely correct on workers -- you need more workers, very very soon. With the settler mostly done, though, you might as well go ahead and complete it. But you then need at least a couple more workers...although you also need at least one warrior to escort the new settler.
On connecting the cities for the free trade route commerce, you just finished researching Wheel this turn so no commerce has been lost - yet. But you need a road quickly as you start losing 2 commerce (1 from each city) every turn. And right now your total commerce is about 12 per turn (from your 0% research cash rate and assuming 1 gpt cost for Salamis). So missing out on an ~17% commerce gain every turn is painful.
Gaspar is also correct about happiness -- luxuries are looking very scarce for you, unless you can conquer at least one neighbor. There is ivory and dye (by France); gems, dye, and wine (Kublai), and spices (should be yours, but Calendar is a ways off). Plus more wine and incense off to the farther east. But happiness is going to be pretty tight for the immediate future.
Where will you send the settler? You have several sites marked, some comments:
C-3 is not good. It has one plains cow for food, and that is shared with Salamis. And nothing else, really. Forests, I guess, but almost all of them are already within the capital's cultural boundary and can be chopped for full value into the capital. If you want the coast, move 2 tiles north and bring those pigs into range. You also get some forests not already in the capital's culture. Also, be aware that there could be seafood 2 tiles off shore of that forested hill -- planting a city and missing such would be a Bad Thing. Of course, probably there is nothing but ocean there, but if you don't check first....
C-4 is pretty good, with the grass cows, an oasis, and sharing the capital's rice for food. Plenty of hills for production, some forests, and you turn a meh desert hill into a standard city center and get the defense bonus. This would be a solid addition to your empire.
The plains hill marked C (discussed earlier) has already been discussed, although you now know there are no horses in its BFC. You probably want the pigs and cows for the capital, though, so this is still a pretty blah site.
The grassland south of the peak marked C is pretty blah as well. Shares wheat with Salamis, gets spices which will be very useful later but are only a middling tile for some time to come. And...that's about it. Also, this site would prevent a coastal city to the west where there are three tiles which might contain seafood.
Another option you might consider is the desert tile 2N1E of the spices: it converts a useless tile into a standard city center, has wheat and spices, 3 riverside grassland tiles for cottaging, plus some hills for production. Not as good as C-4 but not bad overall.
You could also consider going very aggressive, and trying to beat Kublai to that river area directly south of his capital. Lots of nice tiles there including the two flood plains, and you might be able to box Kublai in and force him to expand into Persia or France. Plus you could then settle even further east to grab more land there. The big risks are of course that Kublai beats you there, or decides to attack you to take it from you. More defense would certainly be needed. Plus it is a bit further away and will have higher maintenance costs than the closer sites.
This is definitely shaping up as a tougher than normal map. You have plenty of work ahead of you.
Edit: If I am babbling too much, just say so and I will shut up.
As a non-player I should probably stick to just answering specific questions, as this game is supposed to be about the players. Sorry.
On connecting the cities for the free trade route commerce, you just finished researching Wheel this turn so no commerce has been lost - yet. But you need a road quickly as you start losing 2 commerce (1 from each city) every turn. And right now your total commerce is about 12 per turn (from your 0% research cash rate and assuming 1 gpt cost for Salamis). So missing out on an ~17% commerce gain every turn is painful.
Gaspar is also correct about happiness -- luxuries are looking very scarce for you, unless you can conquer at least one neighbor. There is ivory and dye (by France); gems, dye, and wine (Kublai), and spices (should be yours, but Calendar is a ways off). Plus more wine and incense off to the farther east. But happiness is going to be pretty tight for the immediate future.
Where will you send the settler? You have several sites marked, some comments:
C-3 is not good. It has one plains cow for food, and that is shared with Salamis. And nothing else, really. Forests, I guess, but almost all of them are already within the capital's cultural boundary and can be chopped for full value into the capital. If you want the coast, move 2 tiles north and bring those pigs into range. You also get some forests not already in the capital's culture. Also, be aware that there could be seafood 2 tiles off shore of that forested hill -- planting a city and missing such would be a Bad Thing. Of course, probably there is nothing but ocean there, but if you don't check first....
C-4 is pretty good, with the grass cows, an oasis, and sharing the capital's rice for food. Plenty of hills for production, some forests, and you turn a meh desert hill into a standard city center and get the defense bonus. This would be a solid addition to your empire.
The plains hill marked C (discussed earlier) has already been discussed, although you now know there are no horses in its BFC. You probably want the pigs and cows for the capital, though, so this is still a pretty blah site.
The grassland south of the peak marked C is pretty blah as well. Shares wheat with Salamis, gets spices which will be very useful later but are only a middling tile for some time to come. And...that's about it. Also, this site would prevent a coastal city to the west where there are three tiles which might contain seafood.
Another option you might consider is the desert tile 2N1E of the spices: it converts a useless tile into a standard city center, has wheat and spices, 3 riverside grassland tiles for cottaging, plus some hills for production. Not as good as C-4 but not bad overall.
You could also consider going very aggressive, and trying to beat Kublai to that river area directly south of his capital. Lots of nice tiles there including the two flood plains, and you might be able to box Kublai in and force him to expand into Persia or France. Plus you could then settle even further east to grab more land there. The big risks are of course that Kublai beats you there, or decides to attack you to take it from you. More defense would certainly be needed. Plus it is a bit further away and will have higher maintenance costs than the closer sites.
This is definitely shaping up as a tougher than normal map. You have plenty of work ahead of you.
Edit: If I am babbling too much, just say so and I will shut up.
As a non-player I should probably stick to just answering specific questions, as this game is supposed to be about the players. Sorry.
), but when I started building the settler I had just started moving the capital's warrior north hoping to find copper. The plan was to find it and immediately settle it but that didn't work out. At least maybe we have a leg up in the land grab with all these civs so close to us by dumping an extra (creative) settler out into the void.
Not yet anyway; our military power doesn't really inspire confidence.
