First here are the Demographics
This doesn't tell us if his scout is sitting in his city or not, but this DOES tell us that he started Worker first (like I did), and that he only has his scout (he has not yet completed the building of a warrior, assuming he switched to building a warrior ...)
If his scout is sitting in the city ... I think I'll attack :3 ... however if he has a warrior, I may not attack, depending on the combat odds. I fought a lion on the way here additionally ... making my scout 2.3 attack, combat 3 and Shock 1. (I gained an extra promo and lost a bit of health).
I figure if I waited the 3 turns to heal on the forested hill, I would give him more chance to build warrior, and more chance for an animal to eat my scout uselessly. Even if he ends up having a warrior (or 2 units) in his capital come t12, I think I'll stick around for a choke. As this is mirror, I can more or less predict what the upcoming terrain will be, which helps in my calculations.
here is what it would look like with more of the fog busted (rough approximation) .... as you can tell, we settled our initial city in VERY different positions
Following are pics of 'his capital' vs 'my capital'
His Capital
My Capital
As you can see, I picked a 'pretty' capital with overall good terrain, and decent commerce options. While he picked a 'practical' city option with +1 hammer in the capital, at least 4 decent tiles ... Oasis, Wheat, Grass Pigs, and a plains forested hill.
Of these 3 tiles of his, for population growth, the grass pigs, the most plentiful of these, is the one I am in the best position to block off with a choke, decreasing his potential growth by perhaps as much as 33%. Also note that many of his city-tiles are desert tiles. In my opinion he would have been better off building on a hill along the river, and certainly a hill not bordered by another hill. Even so, if he had a spare unit for hill-block, it would be a very defensible city ... especially if I had approached it from the south (the desert). However, I am not convinced that Qgqqq was happy with his eventual City plant.
Tbh, if I was hippus I would have probably settled 1N of pigs ... that's also, iirc, closer to where our settlers spawned (unless our settlers spawned on different tiles). I believe my settler spawned on the grass tile 2N 1E of the Pigs. I moved 3 tiles to my current capital's position, and thanks to forest double move, I was able to settle same turn, having only used 2.5 movement instead of the non-elven 4 movement to get to the forested hill 3 tiles away.
I won't argue, however, with the awesomeness that is planting on a plains hill right next to an Oasis. Thats a 3 food, 2 commerce tile, and +1 hammer in your city square. Its pretty much the best city you can have ... while your 1 pop growing into 2 pop ... but I fail to see how the advantage carries over into later in the game. And yet, my development might be a bit slow until mining is complete.
Does anyone believe that his Oasis/ Plains Hill snowball would outperform a so called 'prettier' capital in the long-run?
