Here is a screen shot of a game I started and am having trouble deciding where to put the settler. There are some great resources, but there are so many deserts and mountains I can't decide. I thought about going 1S of the blue circle, or 2S of both marble and the cows. Any suggestions?

Here is a screen shot of a game I started and am having trouble deciding where to put the settler. There are some great resources, but there are so many deserts and mountains I can't decide. I thought about going 1S of the blue circle, or 2S of both marble and the cows. Any suggestions?

What a nice little map!

My suggestion would be to settle on the copper.Now if you know me, settling on a resource (especially a "heavy metal") is tantamount to blasphemy. But in this case there's no where else to sensibly put the city. On the copper, you immediately get axes or spears, and you get cows, 4 flood plains, and 4 usefull hills in the same city fatcross. Its close enough to your cap, but only encroaches on 2 tiles.

To me its a very nice 2nd city. You can cottage the flood plains or farm them depending upon your strategy. The only really downside is that you are basically saying "Screw you little fishes" to the sw fish resource, as they can never then be worked. Still all in all, a good site.

Settling "way out east" (isnt that back to front) would be hmmm, bad m'kay? Too far by a long way, your cities will be fragmented, and you'll have to pay a heavy instant "dist to cap" penalty..of course the wine is a great site in a while, but not today, not today my friend....


(Prize of kudos to anyone who gets all the slightly drunken film references above :mischief:)


P.S. About 10 mins after posting this I noticed Mehmet fledling empire of the sun to your far east (pointed out to me by my Good Friend Rusty Edge, we were discussing your map)...since thats Holy already, then even more reason to pitch camp on the coppery stuff and ...heck..."I'm actually thinking about saying it, Oh my God I'm going to say it", an "Attack of the Mad Axeman" on Mehmet. Keep any city he's built that will fit in logically with yours, take the Holy city, You're all set.And "Bob's you're pretend Uncle"...the copper will give you the speed edge you need...

3 more film references, and one "Metal God" thrown in for good measure. No prizes, just the honor of being even sadder than me :mischief: :D

settling on the copper will take two mountains and two deserts inside the city radius. not to mention killing the copper ...

I would settle between those rivers south of copper. You can have cows, copper and fish inside the city radius, you have access to coast, can build lighthouse, on a riverbank, can build levee for +1 hammer on all those river squares and two hills (and copper). downside is you get 4 squares intersection with your capital. well, you can move one square east, but you'll lose your fish and gain only two mountains and a desert(and a grassland and a plain). your call.

Here you go, try this


can't attach the image for some reason... plant these cities

(directions from capital)
#2 4n 1e (on circle)
#3 3 se (e of fish)
#4 1n 6e (2 e of copper on hill)

#5 5e of city 3
#6 5e of city 4
#7 4n 3e of city 4 (2e of wine on floodplain)

consider planting cities 5, 6, 7 first, to block off Mehmed

I would settle 2 e of the copper on the plains hill-and immediately start a monument. There would be copper, marble cows and wheat in your city BFC as well as starting off with an extra hammer on your city square. Plus you would have fresh water for the city for the +2 :health:.

I usually try to settle my second city close to either horses or copper so I can build better units than warriors and archers before barbs start showing up.

edit: I would not build a workboat in London next. You have plenty of food there but I don't see any other units in the screenshot other than the settler and a worker. You should have a unit out fogbusting wherever you plan to build your next city-unless you want to risk your settler being eaten by an animal along the way. Also, barbarian units will start showing up fairly soon (you are almost to 2500 BC and barbs will start spawning around then) and you don't have any military units.

I like the idea of settling on the copper, although I avoid doing that usually as well...just irks me for some reason. However, I could farm the floodplains so I could work the hills and crank out units so the deserts and mountains wont matter as much. But if I do that, then if I put my next settlers 1S of the south blue circle and in the north blue circle there is a ton of overlap. I like a little sometimes, but it seems excessive. In which case I should go 2E of copper, but I'm going to try and get IW before I go that far east which will help me decide. Right now I'm researching sailing and then going to do writing, and I think I am going to try and go for the GLH since I will have three coastal cities minimum.

nbc you're right, my warrior got trampled by lions and bears in the same turn so I definitely need at least one more immediately.

It depends. If you want to rush Mehmed, then settle on the copper. There's still room to settle a 3rd city one south of the southern blue dot, which will also capture a second sea food resource (for which the bubble is off the map, but I see 2 food icons on the tile along the coast.)

If you're going to go slower, then settle on the blue dot to the south. This means that you'll be much much further away from your first axeman though, as you need a border pop, a mine and two roads.

The second choice will be a much better city in 1500AD. But having a couple of desert tiles and a couple of mountains in the fat cross are irrelevant for your second city IMO, because you're so far away from maxing out the population there.

I'd settle on the copper, farm three of the flood plains, pasture the cows, and work four mines. Build a monument, a granary, barracks and then units for pretty much the rest of your game. The city won't grow past size eight or so, which means you don't need to waste hammers on temples, a courthouse, library, market, aqueduct etc. You could let one of the floodplains go to a more commerce oriented city and cottage it.

2E of the copper will give you one heck of any early to mid game production city.

1S (or even 2S) of the cow is a great commerce city.

It all depends on how you want to start, and more impotantly your goals.

Capital looks like your GP farm. Your second city should include copper in the BFC, and be a production site, so nbcman's suggestion is spot on. Third city goes 1S of the blue circle, it's flexible enough to be a nice commerce city (with moai) in a CE or just farm it for SE.

How blasphemous is it to settle 1 tile away from a river? From an ocean? I've always wondered this!