I want to prevent the issue that noone discussed the placement of city 2 in time so I thought we could use a pro-active approach.

Looking at the screenshot of the game in 3800BC I realised we can place our second city near a river too. At the same time we can unlock stone and gold. I marked the position of our second city in red and the two resouces that can be unlocked in yellow. The downside might be the flooded plains but the upside is that we have wheat "in the pocket" by the time our second city will be found.

I'd rather settle 1E of red dot - reasoning: the stone is nice but we'll have it in the capital city radius by turn 50 and that's early enough for any wonder we might want to get. settling 1E allows the city to work both gold hills and thus would make a very nice commerce city...
Also other possible city sites (depending on scouting): a city that hooks up the gold 5N of the capital (from what we can see currently 4N of the capital looks nice - but not like the two gold city ;) ) another city at some point 3S of the capital just to hook up and work the silk and silver (that city won't grow far but pay for itself...)

For a city 1E of my suggested spot I would like to know what there is further east though. Mining 2 gold hills is indeed worth considering but hooking up the stone will take longer. I'm not sure what to prefer :).

for the stone and your proposed spot we need

a) masonry
b) culture within red dot city
c) this has to be faster then turn 50 ;)

we do not know mysticism (for obelisk) and with the currently debated tech path (to bronze working) I doubt that we will found a religion or get to writing AND build a library by turn 50 AND have the first border expansion by turn 50 - so hooking up the stone will not be faster with red dot...
I agree on the scouting part though.

I'd rather settle 1E of red dot - reasoning: the stone is nice but we'll have it in the capital city radius by turn 50 and that's early enough for any wonder we might want to get. settling 1E allows the city to work both gold hills and thus would make a very nice commerce city...


Don't forget the 2 Floodplains within radius if we move 1E

Don't forget the 2 Floodplains within radius if we move 1E
As in good or bad? The opinions on flood plains seem to be mixed.

I think more information about terrain is needed; after fog removed a better
decision can be taken.
"Red" place can be good, or SE for the same resources, or...
We still have time, let the scouts do their job.
And decision about Karakorum role can also be important to this decision.
Best regards,

As in good or bad? The opinions on flood plains seem to be mixed.

I see it as a good thing personally....


Fed, while it's true we've still got time to make a decision, it's good to start talking about things so we at least have a starting point. Next save we'll have more information that may reinforce our discussion here of city locations. Or may cause us to completely change our minds, as something better arises.

But I imagine after the next save a decision will have to be made, and we need to prep for that, so we don't spend too much time playing around with these proposals within such a short time frame that no decision is made before the save for the next settler or a poor decision is made.

If red dot is moved 1E and is specialized as a science/commerce city, the two flood plains are definitely a good thing. Cottaged floodplains are my favorite.

The first yellow dot is a bad spot. One tile right next to the river/coast would be better, otherwise you're landlocking us! :p

The yellow dots are unlockable resources, Chieftess. They're not possible city spots. Only the red spot was in my proposal.

Ah. I was taking a quick glance just after waking up. :) I'm about to go to work right now, though.

I would tend to agree with moving the red dot 1E and specializing. I really doubt that by settling at the current red dot we'll get that stone by turn 50, and if we do, it'll only be a few turns earlier. I really like the gold hill/floodplain combination though.

I agree with the idea of moving the dot 1E as well while the flood plains will add disease to the settlement their high food production should counteract that. Also I love the idea of specializing it to be a commerce city, two sources of gold and a river should make it turn out quite well.

What about 4N of the capital?

What about 4N of the capital?

I hope you don't mind dutchfire, but I'm stealing your screenshot to clarify your statement.

Edit: Please note the screenshot below is dutchfire's suggestion in another thread. I'm merely bringing it over to this discussion as well. I apologize for any confusion.

http://img54.imageshack.us/img54/2670/civ4screenshot0118hu5.jpg

I like your city locations Methos. One question: why place city 2 where it is on the map? I believe it would better suit our empire if we place it 1SW on the goodie hut tile, while placing a 3rd or 4th city on the tile 1NE from the rice resource. This will allow us to have a decent number of close cities covering most, if not all, the resources given time.

I like your city locations Methos.

My apologies, as I didn't clarify the above. That screenshot with city locations was made by dutchfire in another thread. I merely brought it over here so that it didn't get missed. I'll edit the above to clarify that it is dutchfire's suggestion and not mine.

I like the idea of starting the second city up north first. It sets up a barrier, and I'll hope that we don't have much to our east.

-- Ravensfire

If we are going to found the city to the north I'd suggest moving it two squares to the south, this way we can use the flood plains.

I've heard a few people on the forums saying flood plains are bad, and sometimes they can be early game, however I do not think that 2 squares of flood plain will overwelm our city's health. Late game the extra food provided by these squares could be very useful.

This also leaves less room between our first and second city, meaning we'll be able to jam an extra city up by the lake to acess the food resources there, and our cities will be able to access more of our nation's land.

I'd like to see us settle the site labelled City3 first. The commerce advantage of two mined gold is just too good to pass up, plus it will have good production too.

I'd like to see us settle the site labelled City3 first. The commerce advantage of two mined gold is just too good to pass up, plus it will have good production too.
Plus our people will be happy, all the gold and silver!

The city 2 in the screenshot grabs cows, rice and gold, the city 3 in the screenshot grabs two gold and cows. City 3 first is better as it doesn't need a borderpop to work good tiles. And we might not have mysticism for some turns.

The advantage of two gold mines, gives you such a huge boost in the early game, it's ridiculous to want to grab anything else first. I have to check the save in a minute, and I'll give a visual of where I'd like to see us settle.

Actually I'll send the scout a bit east for a turn, to uncover if it's just desert or not, then I'll post a visual.

Edit: that will most likely be done by the second scout, if it is built.

We really need to discover BW and AH to reveal copper and horses before we can decide where our next city should go. With that being said, I have a slight preference for site #3; but I strongly suspect that will change after the scout pushes back more fog in the next turnchat!

We really need to discover BW and AH to reveal copper and horses before we can decide where our next city should go. With that being said, I have a slight preference for site #3; but I strongly suspect that will change after the scout pushes back more fog in the next turnchat!

Of course, we would make a decision after more fog has been revealed. However, there is no harm in planning ahead of time. We could always change our dotmap.