I have a problem with placement in Civ IV. I understand what makes an "ideal" city when it comes to specialization, but give me a blank map to explore, and I don't know what to do. I'm terrified of putting down a city that won't grow to it's full potential, or, even worse, will burden all of my other cities with high upkeep costs.

I have a save file here with my capitol city and my first settler, I think it would help me a lot if anyone would be willing to give me their opinion on where I should place my first and subsequent settlers so that I can better understand how to portion out the random maps I am given. Here's some screenshots and the save; the game is Monarch, I'm playing as Elizabeth on Standard Continents and I'm sharing a landmass with Babylon.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3106/2751374090_9650f34251_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3293/2751348684_628b53e928_o.jpg

I attached a save with the post; I realized also that a pure game save might be valuable so I'm also attaching the game circa 4000 BC. Thank you to anyone who might help, my game is suffering from paralysis right now because of this issue.

Settle babylon using axes. Then settle commerce cities everywhere like the one above...the elephants/corn/sheep would be you early production city and worth :). Just find a high food GP farm and make everything else commerce then.

They have bowmen. Horse archers or chariots are a much safer bet.

They have bowmen. Horse archers or chariots are a much safer bet.

You are correct. Would be the best strategy, but there is a big problem. He does not have horses. The only source is very close to Babylon. Even if he settles there will be very hard to conncet the resource in time. War elephants is the key here. I deffinetely want the island for myself and will research immediatelly Writing-Math-Construction-HR.

Btw, I will settle the second city, exactly where the blue circle is.

Bowmen are highly overrated. Babylon is on a hill, let's see what we'd be facing with an axe rush:
+50% archer on hill
+50% archer city bonus
+40% culture
+25% fortify
+50% bowmen vs melee
-20% CRI promotion on your axes

That's 8.85 vs 7.35 for a normal archer. Add .6 to each for any archers build after barracks with CGI. The difference isn't really very much; in either case you'd be likely to lose against each fresh defender but mop up against the injured ones, so 2 axes per defender will be fine.

In particular, chariots are no better even if horses were easily available. CRI axe vs. unpromoted bowman is 5 vs. 8.85; CI chariot against same is 4.4 vs 7.95, a slightly worse ratio. Yes they are slightly cheaper (but OTOH there cost rules out the 2-pop whip for 2 axe trick) and the math will favor them better against a flatlands city with no culture defence but the capital is generally the do-or-die battle in these situations.

A beeline to cats + elephants will work also, but the UU alone is no reason to call off an axe rush.

Btw, I will settle the second city, exactly where the blue circle is.

I'm far from an expert dotmapper, but I'd settle that city one west, on the desert tile. You eliminate a useless tile, turning it into a useful one, grab a Flood plains in the first ring for quicker growth, and don't lose any resources. I see no advantages to the given placement that moving one west doesn't also have.

Bowmen are still dangerous.

By that reasoning, there's no reason to get city raider promotions (city raider 2) on axes.

If you chariot rush a capital, you won't be building granaries that early, so you will not be 2 pop whipping. You'll chop rush to boost your production. The numbers mean if you have 5 axes, you'll have 7 chariots.

The advantage of axes in these situations is that you already have copper, and though you can settle the horses (horse, sheep, deer), it will take awhile to get a road up.

Thanks for the replies, I've been playing around with this game a little and everything has been helpful. I just tried to rush with axes and failed, I'm not a very good military player and I think I waited too long and overextended myself.

When I played, and when I plan to play again, my civilization consisted of my capitol, a city which encompassed the floodplains to the west of the second blue circle, and both blue circles. I am considering firewind's advice to move one of my cities into the desert square when I reload, but I'm not sure if I want to do that as it would mean I also have to move my city that is farthest west.

I can't keep playing, but later on I'm going to try again with a focus on horses/elephants and a slower military conquest of Babylon. This time I'll take some screen shots and post saves, if anyone is intered I would love more feedback/criticism. Thanks again everyone.

Bowmen are strong vs. axemen, but you have copper in your BFC so you can get an axe stack early. Just make 10 axemen ASAP and capture Babylon although Hammy will likely have 3 cities by then. I doubt he has more than 3 bowmen in his capital by then. I agree with Firewind on settling that 2nd city 1W on the desert tile.

Don't be scared. It's just a game.

You should try to deny Hammurabi good land. To that end the most important is to snag the sheep to his east as it's the only good close food source around for him and blocks of a significant portion of your continent with the help of one more city, try to get all flood plains but don't worry about the copper with your first expansion, the food is more important to steal.
I would not axe-rush in this scenario but rather quickly try to seal of a good portion of land and then expand at a more normal pace. Take advantage of the fact that you'll have access to ivory to get some trading/tech stealing done and get the marble to build TGLib before you take Hammurabi down with cats+elephants.

I'm far from an expert dotmapper, but I'd settle that city one west, on the desert tile. You eliminate a useless tile, turning it into a useful one, grab a Flood plains in the first ring for quicker growth, and don't lose any resources. I see no advantages to the given placement that moving one west doesn't also have.

Oh, I mean the blue circle northen of London, that claims the elephants.

Oh, I mean the blue circle northen of London, that claims the elephants.

Ah, I see. That's a considerably better spot, I'd agree with you on settling there. Getting the second city going quickly takes priority for me, though, so the desert tile would be better for the given settler, in my opinion - a one-turn wait as opposed to five or six turns.

go 2 squares down and 1 square left from where you are
thats where i would of put the next city

go 2 squares down and 1 square left from where you are
thats where i would of put the next city

Placing a city there loses him the sheep, quite a few grasslands, a few grassland/hills, and gains him one flood plain, and two near-useless Tundra tiles. What's your logic for placing there?

Hmmmm, I forgot about the UU for your neighbor. Maybe an axe choke would be better - the AI isn't very good at dealing with chokes. Then tech to catapults and the bowmen won't look so hot. It'd be a shame to not destroy or cripple hammy somehow, no sense in letting the AI get strong when there won't even be any others to steal the land.

I'm going to grill some chicken and then start my game- I'm pretty sure I want to go with choking off Hammurabi and then going for catapults/elephants. In the last game I played I was able to easily take the good land and begin producing quickly, but I let myself get bogged down in intertia after intial success attacking with a stack of axes. This game, if I get into the same position, I ought to be able to easily leverage my superior position into a later military victory over Babylon.

It seems I had a basic idea of where i should have been placing my cities, I just wasn't confident enough. My first place is going to be near the sheep (I had a good city there last game which missed the copper but did a good job of blocking Hammurabi), then I'll get the production city north of my start going and fill in the desert square before going the construction route. I'll try and keep everyone updated in case there's any interest.

I would settle 4W in the corner of the river. It picks up a couple tundra to the south. But if you farm the floodplains and the 3grassland on the river you can run 9 cottages plus 3 wineries for a nice commerce city pre civil service and pre biology. I would settle the next city 1SE of the marble to claim the sheep. I would further scout the eastern shoreline for seafood. Particularly on the little point near the northeastern sheep. if you have seafood you might want to settle a city on the coast to work the seafood, sheep and wine and settle another city inland to work the corn.

Placing a city there loses him the sheep, quite a few grasslands, a few grassland/hills, and gains him one flood plain, and two near-useless Tundra tiles. What's your logic for placing there?

It gains freshwater access for the health bonus. It also connects to the capital for instant trade. As noted in my above post it can work a lot of cottages and the wineries. Most importantly though, it frees up the sheep for the marble city. That marble city has no food resource if you take the sheep.
If you settle on the desert tile. you then lose 2 grassland tiles between the capital and 2nd city which neither can reach. Settling where he is now yields the best city long term but hurt the other cities around it.
Not to mention 2S1W enables a levee. That is 12 hammers before modifier buildings. That is a lot of hammers for a commerce city. So by not settling on the river, he will be losing 2:health: and 12raw:hammers:

I would also go 1SE of the marble, and then 4 S of that (wine in the immediate city radius, river access).

But strategically, I would grab that other copper and hold it, then war on Babylon.

I would settle two west of the western Wine. That blocks Hammy, claims Sheep and 3 flood-plains. Eventually you'll want a city SE of the Marble, living off the Sheep, and just E of the northern Wine, living off the Corn. It's hard to say how the rest gets mapped out without knowing if/where there's seafood. Lacking any seafood I'd say on top of the norther Ivory and a filler city just N of Wheat. But there's likely some seafood that will change that.

How can your capital have snow in it's BFC? :confused:

How can your capital have snow in it's BFC? :confused:
Iron, possibly.

It gains freshwater access for the health bonus. It also connects to the capital for instant trade. As noted in my above post it can work a lot of cottages and the wineries. Most importantly though, it frees up the sheep for the marble city. That marble city has no food resource if you take the sheep.
If you settle on the desert tile. you then lose 2 grassland tiles between the capital and 2nd city which neither can reach. Settling where he is now yields the best city long term but hurt the other cities around it.
Not to mention 2S1W enables a levee. That is 12 hammers before modifier buildings. That is a lot of hammers for a commerce city. So by not settling on the river, he will be losing 2:health: and 12raw:hammers:

While this is all definitely true, I think in the early game, you can't be placing cities based on waiting for levees. It's gonna be awhile. By the time you get levees, you'll have more cities that can worry about that. And don't be afraid to SHARE those food resources early game. Happy caps are low, and you can only whip so much. I often find that I'm not working my food tiles after very long anyway. Feel free to overlap 2 cities onto that sheep.

And as for being scared to place cities-you should only be scared if there's no food. If you got a food, you USUALLY will have a good city. The early production city is the hardest one to place, since you need hills and the food to support them. You can throw cottages down practically anywhere, so commerce cities just need that FOOD. Grasslands certainly don't hurt though...

While this is all definitely true, I think in the early game, you can't be placing cities based on waiting for levees. It's gonna be awhile.It's a good factor to consider, also considering that this could be one of the best-developed and largest cities when levees do come around.

How can your capital have snow in it's BFC? :confused:

I am guessing he moved the starting settler. it was probably on the hill north of the copper.