I'm assuming everyone who has at least once played a tectonics map has a rough idea of what I'm talking about here. Tectonics map style generated maps tend to have large expanses of plains in them. Settling these expanses yourself in the early game tends to be an obviously bad idea considering the spots they hold don't have anywhere near a prospect of generating enough commerce to pay for the maintenance increase for settling them. Settling them in the post-CoL/Currency game is conceivable, but there would have to be a good reason to. What I want to know is this: how bad is it to leave these spots to the AI? Do the AI pay as much maintenance for the spots as we do? Does it slow them down to have cities like these?

If there's enough food to support a half-decent city, if there are some vital resources to be grabbed, or if it offers a significant defensive or offensive advantage, then it's worth settling those areas. Otherwise, let the AI have them (for the time being).

I hate the plains expanses. Miles and miles with almost nothing...maybe a cow resource or possibly a wheat resource.

Personally, I think tectonics maps are better suited to lower levels. Playing on noble, for instance, allows you to settle quite a few poor-mediocre cities which essentially just grab a resource or two. As long as your core cities are well established and you have a stable economy, you can afford to settle a few juck cities on these plains. On emperor+ plonking down cities which will have no mines and grow tediously slowly are a liability and very, very risky. Better left to the AI I say. We all know how the AI just loves to settle a vacant ice tile on the other side of the world, so I dare say 50 square tiles of flat plains look like goldfields to it!

There are a great many plains on a Great Plains map too... (kind of obvious when you think about it though)...

That's a great map type to learn different play styles - if you start in the green east, that's almost like one level easier (considering how you've left the plains tiles to the AIs). If you start in the yellow middle, you're up one (half) level, and if you start in the hill deserts to the west, that's at least one more half level...

Personally, I think tectonics maps are better suited to lower levels.How can any particular map type be "better suited" for a lower or higher level? Sure, settling those plains is a lot harder when you have to pay the maintenance of emperor, but then again those levels are there to make the game harder, aren't they?

You can argue that map types like tectonics make upper levels even harder to play, but that's different from being "suited".

I hate the plains expanses. Miles and miles with almost nothing...maybe a cow resource or possibly a wheat resource.


Hmmm, Steppes. No hills means easier to conquer cities and 2 moves for units with 2 movement points. Horse country. Later, tank country.

To the greatest extent possible, let the AI have them and then take them away.

I've got one right now. On the bright side, there are a few rivers and a few different health resources. On the not so bright side, how the hell did I get on a subcontinent with enough room for 20 cities, and at least 40 plains and not get a single horse resource? There is a horse for the taking, but it's on a grassland tile up a little land island of jungle(!). Who ever heard of jungle horses?

With the plains/river cities, I work the resources (wheat, cows, a corn, sheep, metals) and early on, they are pretty good cities for the BC period. It is when I am ready to get them up to size 8-12 when they crap out for centuries.

What ends up happening for me is that I place the cities pretty far apart just to make sure that each city has the maximum number of resources in it, and that seems to waste quite a few tiles that could be useful later in the game.

Plains are for production. With the long term in mind, it seems to me that they are worth grabbing early because even with nothing but farms on them they still produce 2/3 the hammers that a normal grassland+hill city would. And by the time biology comes around they are exactly as productive as a normal grassland production city.

This is mostly conjecture since my comp is still out of commission as far as gaming goes, but i look forward to trying it when my new graphic card comes within a few days.

The trouble is, early on you don't want to be paying 100% of maintenance on cities with 2/3 the production of alternatives, unless of course there ARE no alternatives, in which case I'd settle a plains location provided it has a food resource to get it going with the plains farms decently (these are ok secondary production sites post CS and especially post biology but honestly settle all other viable land first).

If the AI beat you to the plains, be happy that you beat it to gems, grasslands + hills, seafood, etc...hopefully.

Obviously they are not priority locations, but if thats whats left then its still worth it. It deprives someone else of land, you dont have to suffer diplomatic issues from taking it by force, and its extra military production so you can take something else that much faster.

Of course, if you dont want to expand further in the future then its a different matter, but the people on this board being what they are...

I'm assuming everyone who has at least once played a tectonics map has a rough idea of what I'm talking about here. Tectonics map style generated maps tend to have large expanses of plains in them. Settling these expanses yourself in the early game tends to be an obviously bad idea considering the spots they hold don't have anywhere near a prospect of generating enough commerce to pay for the maintenance increase for settling them. Settling them in the post-CoL/Currency game is conceivable, but there would have to be a good reason to. What I want to know is this: how bad is it to leave these spots to the AI? Do the AI pay as much maintenance for the spots as we do? Does it slow them down to have cities like these?

I generally leave them to the AI. Only once did I settle a city in plains in my only tectonic game that I am playing (as Boudica in my sig) and that was to get a horse resource. If the AI gets them, they don't tech well (this is why Sitting Bull teched even worse...).

The AI pays next to nothing in maintenance, that's why it can justify building an arctic fishing village on the opposite side of the world.