Dot mapping

[kjn]

There is also the option to have the irrigation chain go through the "Other Western City" or White Dot in Sullla's picture. Would need one less tile to farm overall and frees the flood plains at Brick by Brick for a cottage.
On the other hand Brick by Brick probably won't need a cottage and might never see any gold or beaker modifiers. Make it a pure hammer city like in Boldly's screenshot.

Also, having two decent shared food tiles for the two cities (farmed FP and wheat) makes it much easier to handle the cities and make them both grow. It's also preferable from a development standpoint to have one 4F1C and one 2F cottage, than one 3F cottage and one 3F1C tile. The former provides more food at once.

Anyway, I'm voting for settling BbB per our original plan, on the stone.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

I think the original settle on stone option is preferable.

[T-hawk]

Me too. Don't overcomplicate things. Settling on the stone also saves 10 worker turns for a quarry+road on an otherwise useless desert tile.

[NobleHelium]

Yes, on the stone.

[Qgqqqqq]

I think the stone plan is best.

[antisocialmunky]

Lets get stoned.

[Sullla]

We're locked into the stone city at this point, ending further debate on that subject.

While we're waiting for the next turn to start, let's revisit the subject of the CivFanatics border and try to get a final decision in that region. Our current micro plan has us settling our border city in the region on T97, give or take a turn. We have been trying to decide between a safer red spot and a more aggressive pink location as in this screenshot:




There is absolutely no question that pink provides a better overall setup for our team. Falling back to the red dot creates a very awkward placement of future cities in our southern region. The ideal setup using the pink spot looks like this:




Three cities, three food resources, no wasted tiles. I don't have a handy image for the red spot, but it's a lot less neat than that. The logic behind taking the red spot is simple: we give the stone area over to CFC in order to help our diplomatic relations. The debate is obviously between these two pulls, tile micro/dotmapping versus diplo benefits.

What I want to add to this discussion is a consideration of strategic elements. We haven't talked too much about this, but let's assume that things broke down with CFC and we found ourselves in a war with them. What would the border region look like with each proposed city location? Here's my best stab at the red spot:



I don't know exactly where CFC would plant their city, I've just guessed at something grabbing rice, stone, and the wines. They could be even more aggressive than this if they wanted to settle right up on our borders. Anyway, from a defensive perspective this is a very bad situation to be in. CFC's city would form a huge salient into our territory. With cultural control over the desert region, CFC could theoretically send double-movers to strike at no less than five different cities, from Eastern Dealers to Mansa's Muse to the red dot location. We would need to have units in position to defend all of these areas, while CFC would only have to defend at their one stone city (which could be planted as shown on a hill, with flatland territory completely surrounding it to provide no cover whatsoever for invading units). This is a very bad situation, and I would not want to try and defend this region unless absolutely necessary.

Now here's what things look like if we take the pink spot:



This is vastly better from a tactical perspective. Under this scenario, we now have control over most of the desert region. FF, MM, and FP are all safely in the back lines and cannot be attacked. We would have to defend two locations, Eastern Dealers and the pink spot, but they would both be tricky for CFC to attack. Eastern Dealers is protected by that lake, and it cannot be one-moved unless we lose the cultural battle in that area (unlikely). The pink spot is more vulnerable, but has a flatland killing ground completely surrounding it in all directions. I would not want to move a stack across that desert, where it could be easily collateralled and flanked to pieces. It's also possible for a stack of one-movers to be positioned between the two peaks (on the black X tile) and reinforce either city in a single move. Note that this is not possible with the other placement; red dot and Eastern Dealers are much too far apart for this to work.

The point is that we could use one stack to defend this entire front with the pink placement. Pink is far superior from a tactical point of view if we ever have to fight over this ground. To me, this is a very strong argument in favor of taking the pink location. It's not only much better for our dotmap, it also makes our territory far safer down the road if we have to fight CFC. I don't really care if we made some vague promises to them 50 turns ago. They didn't take advantage of the situation, so that territory is now forfeit to us. Possession is 90% of the law in this game.

Anyway, that's my take on the situation. My understanding is that we promised CFC we wouldn't settle "beyond the oasis", and pink narrowly adheres to that, so I don't see much of a problem. We tell them that this is our final city settled towards them (true), we have no hostile intentions (true), offer a long NAP, and by the time they finally get a unit over to the west and see where we're planted, it's too late for them to do anything about it.

Think of it another way: even if we were to back off and settle the red spot, do you REALLY trust 2metra and Sommerswerd to be best friends forever because we gave them such a sweetheart deal? Because I sure don't. I'd rather be in a much better position to defend a future backstab, and if that means accepting a -2 "our close borders spark tension!" penalty, then so be it.

[waterbat]

Thanks Sulla- i think i put this same analysis together in this drawing from the diplo thread:



in all seriousness though, agree with your take on it from a tactical pov - and diplomatically they dont have many legs to stand on. THe only question in my mind was if we offer to let them settle S-S-SW of Eastern Dealers (NW-NW-N of pink) if they insist on claiming the stone.

[dazedroyalty]

What sort of unit availability do we have right now to defend it? Worst case scenario and it really pisses CFC enough and they want to break a nap, could we hold the spot?

[Fintourist]

I'm convinced. Let's go with the pink dot. Of course we try to formulate our intentions as politically as possible with promises not settle past the oasis etc. I think we have a good chance to get away with this without a major diplo-hit.