Here's a teaser:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Rik Meleet/2005726191551_--MIA.JPG

Is this a screenshot of our opening turn?

Yes it is.

Is this a screenshot of our opening turn?

no; it's a screenshot of your mom :p

Talk about a Teaser! i have no idea where to settle. 'm thinking where we are, but if we move to the Ivory we get a whale... (but loose floodplains) I say we settle where we are.

I was thinking the whale would be better - thinking ahead a little, it will generate much more trade than we'd lose from the floodplain. Yes, I think it's worth taking the turn to move to ivory.

I was thinking the whale would be better - thinking ahead a little, it will generate much more trade than we'd lose from the floodplain. Yes, I think it's worth taking the turn to move to ivory.

no, the whale is one square, but we can get more food from the floodplains, and we get alter them much easier than we can the whale

EDIT: I'm getting nervous...did we get such a great start position to make up for 100 tiles of desert in every other direction? or 1 horse and a urnanium as our only resources? I'm getting nervous... :cry:

I can just see them now...
GA:You know who i hate?
RM: who?
GA:team 3
RM: yeah!
GA & RM: hey R_M, amke the map so MIA thinks they're getting a good map, but let's really give them a 20 tile island half full of desert!
R_M:Yeah! okay, here you go

You're a bad, bad man :cry: :cry: :cry:

:joke:

i'm sticking with the trade benefit. However, it comes at the high cost of 'wasting' the first turn.

Keep the starting spot, we don't need to waste our first turn on this good of a start
However, I am not sure what to work first...
But we should take advantage and pump settlers...

I thought it was a dynamite starting spot as well, but I figured that the odds of us being the only team to get a good spot aren't that great. Settler factory is good, as long as we explore the coast soon.

I think we should build our first city in the current spot.

We ought to build a road to the ivory ASAP.

Build first city on spot, cause we dont want too much water in our start city. If we move on the ivory then we have 8 (i think) coastal tiles in our capital.

Woah! Are we on a Gold Hill or am I seeing things? If we are it hurts to waste it with Capital commerce. Maybe eat the Whale? The other hill isn't coastal so that won't work...

We should settle right there. We are close by a cattle resource bonus tile and a lux :D.

Pity about the gold hill ... but 1 turn is big in this game ... :cringe: settle where we stand ...
:mischief: anyway it's pretty cool to be living on top of a reef of gold :lol:

Settle where we are.

Put a mine on the cow first. That way we save worker moves (i.e. the next square to work is right next door) and we have a good square to get stuff from.

We can link up the ivory after the other 2 squares are built up without any problem. After all, at that point of the game we wont have many citizens so we wont need it striaght away.

Its much more important to get the food and sheilds rolling in then to get luxuries, IMHO.

I am drooling at the start that we have got. That is such a great start. But if we were to move to the forest, so that could get the whale. There is another option of moving onto the ivory. This will also get us that whale. It would be such a waste if we were to settle on the gold. We will be losing a great commerse bonus. It is a crying shame that SoZ does not require Ivory.

There are only three real options that we can take.
1)We settle right where we are.
2)we settle one tile to the east.
3)we settle one tile to the south east.

As much as I would like to move, the risk of doing that is not worth the potential gains from the move. I believe that we should settle where we are.

(..)It would be such a waste if we were to settle on the gold. We will be losing a great commerse bonus. (..)There seems to be a misperception that commerce is lost by settling on a gold hill. You can always recreate your starting position in an editor and test this and all other settling locations to find the best location for your city for your play-style. You have sufficient time for this.

Our starting position is very good. The main problem is, that there is more than one good starting position for our capital. We will also lose the ability to mine the hill, whereas if we were to build our city on the forest, we will not be losing to much. It is a shame that the gold was not on the other hill. ;) It is a very good commerce start. The fact that we start off with a lux makes it even better.

BTW Rik, I am not bagging the map. It is just part of the discussion to as much as possible from such a good position.

All I am saying is give peace a chance is to recreate the starting location in the editor and test-play. That way you can find the best location for the team's style of play.

I like Rik's suggestion. However, I'm not able to be the one to try this (version dysfunction). Anyone want to have a go at it?

I have created a simulation of the start (attached), trying to get things on it as accurately as possible. In the simulation Monarchy and Republic are avalible without Techs for easier testing. (The lone AI is on a forest island to the south, if you're curious :P)

The Gold Hill is 2/1/5 as our capital under Despotism. (1/3/5 non capital, improved) (EDIT: Err, obviously 1/2/5)
As our capital under Monarchy it is 2/1/6. (1/3/6)
Under Republic it is 2/1/7. (1/3/7)

The minimum trade of the capital I believe is 3 in despotism and 4 in anything else. Having the capital on that square gives no bonus trade, whereas on other squares it might give a trade bonus.

On the Ivory, investigation yields the same null trade bonus for all governments.

On the forest (Normally a Plains, I think, producing 2/1/2 from irr+road+river), the capital is 2/1/3, 2/1/4, 2/1/5.

So settling on the forest gives one, (then two) bonus trade, and neither of the other good squares gives any. With such a small difference the hill is probably best IMO. (Though I hate to waste Whales :/)

EDIT Again: Somehow the wrong save, from my first version with a wrong whale placement, got on here instead of the correct one with it moved a bit. Sorry for the mistake.

EDIT: Did a bit of touch up on the edges based on educated guesses and absences of water.

Actually there are only two real option after having a look at the save. That would be where we are or on the Ivory.

I'm fine staying where we are, but if I were playing at home, my instincts would lead me to not waste the whale. I just imagine that everyone else will have as good a start, and I doubt they would waste a turn..... I'm so torn!

Thanks for the analysis, Fallensmith!

I'm fine staying where we are, but if I were playing at home, my instincts would lead me to not waste the whale. I just imagine that everyone else will have as good a start, and I doubt they would waste a turn..... I'm so torn!

Thanks for the analysis, Fallensmith!
I think that the consensus is that we should stay on the original site.

Sorry, Classical Hero, made a mistake on the whale in that last save.

You did too, but I still think that we will stick with the original site. It is a shame that we cnnot get every resource to be perfectly placed, but it is still an excellent start.

Sorry didn't realise there was a second page. Replied to something already figured out.

Just so you know: Wines do not give a food bonus. They give +2 gold instead.

Here are some pics of some possible starts.

I think that staying where we are is best (though we miss out on a whale, and wont have a costal city).

Where we are we have access to some bonus grassland when we expand as well.

@Regent Man - Is that a clue :mischief:

Mele: the gold hill-site is coastal...

Ahh, so it is (am I blind?). Yet another reason to just stay.

settle right there!! this is the best starting place i ever saw wasting a turn moving would be pointless

Great analysis of options and testing ... we better settle on the gold :( ... defence bonus of the hill is also good

If we were to move, it would only be on the coast, but we are not going to move.

I strongly agree with the current consensus of settling in place – my primary reason is that we want to be able to work a food bonus immediately instead of having to wait until the capital expands.

I would be thinking about what we plan to do with our capital – i.e. what improvements do we make and in what order. We have the magic +5 fpt without any improvements already once we get to size 2. An old-fashioned 4-turn settler factory would be easy to set up (once we get pottery). Alternatively, we could irrigate both the cow and the wheat for +7 fpt meaning we grow every 3 turns even without a granary for an easy 6-turn settler + warrior factory.

I’m leaning toward the 6-turn +7fpt settler + warrior factory. Based on our research thread, we will not have pottery anytime soon, and in multiplayer I think expanding too fast without building an adequate military is probably suicide.

Let me see if I understand the idea behind the settler/warrior factory:

After a settler is built, the population goes down by two, and rather than build another settler before the city builds back up to previous level you build a warrior, then go back to settler. It's a stable pattern of growth/decrease that allows production of settlers and warriors indefinitely?

Exactly right.

we could get pottery after iron working and the wheel

Let me see if I understand the idea behind the settler/warrior factory:

After a settler is built, the population goes down by two, and rather than build another settler before the city builds back up to previous level you build a warrior, then go back to settler. It's a stable pattern of growth/decrease that allows production of settlers and warriors indefinitely?

Lets add the currugh (sp?) early in the production line as well ... we need to expore the coastline

Athens will be a great settler factory with or without a granary. It will get even better once we are out of despotism, but that is for domestic to decide.

i doubt we will get out of despot while i am in office as domestic minister

i doubt we will get out of despot while i am in office as domestic minister
Well, you can start discusssion about this so we are prepared to go for a goal of which Government to go for.