hello. i just started a new game on Noble, and i'm would like some advice on my dotmap. i went through and marked the tiles with a good amount of production, food, etc, in the manner suggested by this thread. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254994

now i'm choosing where to place my cities, and would like some help.

here is the world as i know it right now:

http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/4469/civ4screenshot0002vq8.th.jpg (http://img371.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0002vq8.jpg)

http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/116/civ4screenshot0003lf5.th.jpg (http://img371.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0003lf5.jpg)

the mess in the bottom left is where i think i'll put a production city, but am not sure exactly where to put it.

thanks for your help!

i attached the save if it's easier to look at there.

Erase every X that is not on a resource.
Mark every floodplain with an X.

Production cities need food more than they need hills.

In 10 turns you will know where the horses are too, so may as well wait unitl then before you start dotmapping ( I see you're going after Stonehenge so you're obviously in no rush to expand :) ). I bet you get some horses in your capital's BFC by the way.

Maybe post a screenshot without your green lines and X's everywhere as its a bit hard to give feedback if they're the only screenies. Anyway, you have good land in each direction so I'd advise expanding towards your nearest neighbour, but again, post a blank screenshot if you want people to put forward their own dotmaps. :)

The most important tiles on your map are the pigs, cows, wheat, rice and corn.

Position your cities so that each one has one or more of these food resources and as many of the other resources as possible. Ideally, you are also coastal, on a hill, and/or next to a river.

Here's my crack at it. I am making some guesses about terrain; can't tell if some of the tiles are floodplains or desert.

here are some clean images, now with less black space and more horses.

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/4375/civ4screenshot0004tz0.th.jpg (http://img521.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0004tz0.jpg)

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/197/civ4screenshot0005kz4.th.jpg (http://img521.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0005kz4.jpg)

the americans are very close to me on my western border. india is due south of me, and mali is south east of me. i've only discovered a few squares of their territory.

thanks for the advice concerning food. i didn't realize how important that was. also, how big of a deal is it if cities overlap?

Food allows your city to grow, work food poor tiles, run specialists, and keep healthy. Food is not the sexiest thing, but it is the most important thing for most of your cities. You may have a trash city to pick up a few extra resources or occupy a strategic location, but in general if you want your city to be able to contribute to your empire, it needs food. The classic Civ newbie error is to settle near a bunch of production/commerce resources but neglect suffcient food to be able to actually work all of those resource tiles. Non-food resources, unsurprisingly, give no additional food -- you therefore have to provide extra food to be able to work them in most instances.

If you need to have your cities overlap to get special resources that you otherwise couldn't reach (and there's enough food for both cities), then overlap away. That said, overlapping as a matter of course tends to cause smaller cities except in extreme examples involving a ton of food resources. Smaller cities can be limiting in the mid- to late game.

Personally, I seldom position a city closer than 4 tiles away (or 3 on a straight diagonal) due to overlap. The main thing is to have good cities.

Lastly, you want to settle towards your neighbors when you can. If America is closest, settle there the soonest all other things being equal. Settling your second and third cities should be done to secure strategic resources (horses, copper, iron, gold, etc.).

here's a different game that i would like an opinion on. it's continents, Noble, normal speed. i put my ideas on city placement on there already, but i would like some help.

everything above the screenshot is tundra, then ice.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a194/thewalrus2/Civ4ScreenShot0007-1.jpg

thanks for the help, i really appreciate it. hopefully i'm not being too much of a pain. :)

SB, why did you sacrifice that wheat in the northeast? I suppose trying to avoid desert/peak tiles was part of it? Often I just grin and bear them -- in fact here I might just settle the incense, since I often don't find it worth paying 2 food to work. In that case I would found a fish-grabbing city further north (which just might grab a later-revealed second seafood to make the lighthouse pay off sooner, while letting you delay the lighthouse in Incenseville). Alternatively, you could keep Cowfish settle the desert (the oasis will help), perhaps 2 tiles from the coast... nothing special and not a priority settlement, but still a decent cottage town (using the grassland to its north and probably east).

tl;dr: dotmapping desert is tricky. So is dotmapping the edges of explored territory. :)