I believe many of my troubles come with poor placement of my 2nd city, so I thought I'd get some input from the fourms about it with my current game: Roosevelt/Continents/Noble/Epic. I've got Toko to the far south, and Mansa somewhere probably in the north.

My first hunch is to settle where my warrior is getting a good coastal city with lots of food. This could be a GP farm, I guess. I know Toko is down there, so following the "expand toward your rivals" rule, S is the way to go. However, just N of Washington is some interesting landscape: floodplains. I have attached 3 pictures showing the situation. I've also added a save in case it would be helpful.

One thing that always concerns me is having a good production center. I'm not really sure the best location for one. The site N of Washington looks like it has potential in this area with the hills and floodplains.

Thanks for the help!

North:
http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/1787/north4va.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

South:
http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/8438/south3yq.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Washington:
http://img374.imageshack.us/img374/636/washington4hd.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

2020 BC is fairly late for a second city.

Try not to build it too far away from the capital, unless there is a major resource to be captured.

Without the resource tags on it's almost impossible to give a location.

Finally, what's off the coast to the east of Washington (2 tiles up and 1 tile west of your southern site could be a good site, it's hard to know without resource tags and the tiles uncovered to the east.

What is to the west of Washington? Why haven't you sent out scouts or warriors to explore around Washington more?

double post....

http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/4950/northtags7wf.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/8656/washingtontags2gl.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/7819/southtags4ix.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

That helps, thanks.

Move the warrior north three to four tiles along the coast and reveal what is there. I wish we had information to the west of Washington, but as it stands, the best site looks to be three east and four south of Washington.

See below:

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/896/thewest9zv.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


There is nothing of interest East of Washington:

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/2262/east7vw.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


BTW- all those mountains to the West are why I didn't explore that way to begin with. They were prompting me to go N/S.

Also, in 2020 BC, no other civs had gotten their 2nd city founded. But now (1600 BC) they each have their 2nd cities. I'm not against going into worldbuilder to educate myself on how the game is played.

I'd probably say go north of washington if you're looking at a production city; get river trade route,floodplains for food and hills for hammers. Southern cities in jungle will be good long term but will likely require jungle clearing, not ideal for initial expansion.

If you can develop the sheep, I like the forest tile on the coast east of the sheep (NE of Washington). It would be a mixed production/commerce site, being on the coast with a number of hills to develop for hammers.

No horses anywhere? Bad luck.

Haven't researched AH yet.

If you'd like someone to do a dotmap, turn on both resources and gridlines, turn off the interface, and zoom out to reveal as much of the map as possible without making relevant details disappear (like whether a tile is a hill or not). Then get a screenie and post it.

Kind of like this:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i193/sisiutil/ALC-Vicky2920BC_08.jpg

One of the best spots I see is 1N of the corn south of your capital. Fresh water present, corn and fish, lots of grass plains which would make it an excellent commerce city with +8 food to put into other things and no overlap with your capital.

Your production city could go 2S of the deer (north of washington) but you will be loosing some tiles, but you would have sheep, deer and fish for another +8 food.

Also your proposal for city 2 is not that bad. Oasis, some flood plains and plains hills. But show the map like sisiutil proposed and you will see how dotmapping will help you.

Pretty pictures:

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/2016/north6mx.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/9299/south4iu.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

The west:

http://img455.imageshack.us/img455/8249/west7qh.jpg (http://imageshack.us)



And the far south:

http://img455.imageshack.us/img455/8316/farsouth5xw.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Make the world shot a little bigger like sisiutils and then start dotmapping. It really really helps.

If I focused on dotmapping my game would get much better. I try to get the best placement of my cities though but its tough without seeing the whole picture.

But since you are almost done with IW I'd see where the Iron is and make my choice off of that. Plus did you build henge?

Make the world shot a little bigger like sisiutils and then start dotmapping. It really really helps.

I think it's my resolution. I have to run at 800x600 on this machine. Sisuitl probably has 1024 or 1280. Or am I missing something?

My second city would probably go 1 tile south of the sheep or 1 tile NE of the dye.

I'm going to agree with dotmapping helping a bunch. I'm asking a very similar question in my current thread and have a bunch of dotmaps up now and am getting some great advice with it.

You can try enabling the 'flying camera' mode in the CIV ini (look for AllowFlying = 0 and change it to AllowFlying = 1), restart and then in-game you hit Ctrl-Alt-F and you have a camera that's able to zoom out further.

I think poor city placement is only part of the problem. You need to get that first settler out much sooner than that. What usually works for me is this; starting at 4000 BC: Find the best city placement within 1-2 turns and start building a worker. Have the free warrior/scout explore around and make contact with other leaders. Building the 1st worker will usually take between 20-23 turns on most starts. Start researching towards bronze working. After the worker is built, start building a warrior (this is the settler's escort) and let the city grow to size 2. After the warrior is built and the city is size 2, start building a settler. Use the worker to chop-rush the settler if you have enough forest around. Now is the time when you need to start thinking about where the second city will go. Use the warrior you just built to clear the fog around whatever sites you are considering and to deal with any barbarians.

For placing 2nd city, first consider strategic resources like stone, ivory, copper, etc. Next, consider luxury resources that will help happiness like metals, dyes, gems, etc. After that consider how much food/production it will generate. An early coastal city can be helpful but so can and high production city with stone or ivory.

I think it's my resolution. I have to run at 800x600 on this machine. Sisuitl probably has 1024 or 1280. Or am I missing something?
Yeah, I run at 1280x1024 resolution. But until you "center the map" with Stonehenge or Calendar, you may not be able to fit the whole map into your screen regardless of resolution. That's okay, you're not going to settle the whole map right away. Zoom out as much as you can and capture the most relevant area with the most important resources near your capital.

The site NW of your capital looks appealing, with its 3 floodplains, but would have a food deficit of -12 by my reckoning, so its growth potential is very limited by the 3 desert tiles, 1 peak, and the hills and plains. You will be able to clear jungle shortly, so the terrain to the south is much more appealing.

In fact, with all those deserts to your north and peaks to your west, you're pretty much being forced to expand south and into a confrontation with Tokugawa. Given the sitch and his personality, war with him is inevitable. Expand towards him. You lucked out with the copper in the capital's fat cross, so build maybe three more cities, then Axe-rush him.

In fact, with all those deserts to your north and peaks to your west, you're pretty much being forced to expand south and into a confrontation with Tokugawa. Given the sitch and his personality, war with him is inevitable. Expand towards him. You lucked out with the copper in the capital's fat cross, so build maybe three more cities, then Axe-rush him.

that's exactly what i did. I kept Kyote and razed the rest. I'm proud I did ahead of time what you said would be good. :)

i went ahead and did some dotmapping for you in paint. up north there are several ways i think you can put 3 cities

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y107/mrfelony/north6mxdotmapped.jpg

there are several advantags and disadvantages for each placement. but one thing i was trying to consider was to place each city best in relation to other cities which is important as well.

light yellow gets sheep but loses 6 tiles to overlap/desert. dark green also loses a possible 6 tiles to overlap/dessert. light green would be good and only loses 4 tiles to dessert and mountains. the red expansion wouldn't waste the tiles inbetween darkblue and your capital, but it also doesnt nab the fish and deer like darkblue does. i woudl send someone up north to explore around the mountains.

expanding northward will help bust the fog up there though you'll be losing land to moutains/deserts/overlap

that's exactly what i did. I kept Kyote and razed the rest. I'm proud I did ahead of time what you said would be good. :)
"Great minds think alike", my mom used to say, "and fools seldom differ." ;)

In MrFelony's dotmap, I'd go for Red and Dark-green for your city-sites in taht area. The western light-green area is funamentally flawed by the dismal food supply for its job of controlling the incense.

However, I think that southern expansion might be more in your favor at this point.

the light green would have to depend on the oasis and farming the two grasslands next to the river. however, i only placed the darkgreen cross there in relation to the light green plot. the spot you chose to the left of it would probably be better. if you've done some more exploring of the western shorline farther north and the middle area it'd bet very usefull for chosing city spots. I liek the spot you picked out by the 2 fish resources mainly cause they'll be very usefull when whipping up some axemen.