Dot mapping

[NobleHelium]

Well if we're done with slavery then we'll be using workshops. Same calculus in terms of whether we should use lumbermills or not.

[sooooo]

OK, what to do with plains forests can be debated later

The red dot is also a late city so can its debate can wait. I don't really see any gain in sharing Starfall's corn when Starfall is our globe city and will be constantly using it. Red dot is on a plains hill for an extra hammer and that frees the grass hill to be worked.

[kjn]

How about going for the sugar city 5W of Ditchdigger? Will provoke CivPlayers, but it's less aggressive than many other plants done by other teams (Germans, CFC, Apolyton, CivFr...). Sure, it'll need a ton of worker turns, but it does claim several sugars and tons of workshoppable grassland.

If we want to make it less provoking, we can put it 4W instead of 5W of Ditchdigger, though that nets us one less sugar (2 instead of 3).

[Azoth]

Speaking of filler spots, there's still the one across the lake from Gourmet Menu, SW of the Clams. Claims some riverside Grassland and can share the Clams. We were thinking of settling it in response to the Aztec city in the area, but never did.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Speaking of filler spots, there's still the one across the lake from Gourmet Menu, SW of the Clams. Claims some riverside Grassland and can share the Clams. We were thinking of settling it in response to the Aztec city in the area, but never did.

I think we've made an uneasy truce in that area that is favorable to us since we never had to settle that low value location. I'd prefer we keep it that way and not settle on the lake. Taking the sugar would be provocative enough, with a much greater upside. Sugar location is quite a leap though, and I do not support that settling until we are able to settle in force.

[NobleHelium]

I do not support settling either of those locations close to CivPlayers. We'll have room to expand in the northwest when we attack the Germans, I doubt it will be fully claimed.

[fluffyflyingpig]

Pink and blue make the most sense, pending chariot scouting

[Qgqqqqq]

Agree with what NH has written mostly.

[Sullla]

First of all, thanks to sooooo for posting the pictures and opening up the discussion. Let me just point out that the settler in Adventure One won't be finishing for quite some time; it actually gets whipped on Turn 132 if I remember correctly. We basically have one settler for the moment, going to the furs/crabs spot in the deep south (blue).

I'll be honest: I hate the suggested pink spot. It claims no land and it brings nothing. I would not plant a city there. How is that city going to grow? The only food available comes from stealing a cows resource from the other cities in the area. It can only grow by crippling other cities already present. Similarly, the pink spot has only two non-river plains tiles and a bunch of coastal tiles to its own. Everything else comes from stealing tiles away from Simple Life or The Covenant, and those cities are already tightly squeezed together. Why would we pack yet another city in there? Those two cities are ALREADY working every improved tile in the region, and workers are scrambling to keep cutting down more jungle to get them more tiles to work. It's not like we have a bunch of unworked tiles sitting around unused; quite the opposite. The pink city would be a very weak choice, and I would not send a settler there when we have lots of unclaimed land available elsewhere.

I prefer the yellow and green spots in the deep south. Even if their overall land is weakish, they claim more territory and have their own food resources to work. With Great Lighthouse, and food resource + coastal is more than enough to plant a city. Adding a sugar city is also a viable choice, although I'm leery about pushing up on CivPlayers' borders before we deal with the Germans. There is such a thing as stretching too far.

Even if we just plant the cities in the deep south, that still gets us to 20+ cities with the expectation of capturing many more from the Germans after Turn 150. While we want to focus on expansion, we don't want to push too far either. There's no need to cram cities into every last nook and cranny; the map is Huge after all. We'll have our hands full simply digesting all of the German land. Final bonus for settling southern cities: they are extremely safe and deep in our back lines. We won't have to worry about garrisoning them with anything substantial until the age of Astronomy.

[sooooo]

I'll be honest: I hate the suggested pink spot. It claims no land and it brings nothing. I would not plant a city there.

On reflection I think you're correct here. The yellow dot seems the next best choice.