My apologies to whichever officer owns this turf -- probably Chieftess...

In the last turn chat we were unsure where the settler produced during the chat should go. I think it's time to update the map found in the "filling the continent" thread with the land to the E of Noshuret, and create a definitive priority order of settlement, at least a turnchat in advance for the settlers to be produced that day. This list should be driven by a combination of production needs and strategic goals.

How about starting with a strategy question. Settling the coastal cities first would help us see if any overseas rivals arrive, and it will hold down the seafaring barb risk if the barbs aren't really sedentary. Another strategy is building toward the opponents first and then filling in the area we control. A third strategy is taking the best available land. And we can't forget grabbing resources to maybe deny opponents.

The selection of settlement strategy affects the build queues as well, unless we don't care about settlers walking all the way across our territory before reaching their destinations.

Let's start by discussing these options.

[list=a]
Grab resources
Build Toward Opponents
Build on coast
Build on best land available
Other
[/list=a]

Following that discussion we can determine which order to choose locations to best implement the chosen strategy.

I would suggest a combination of a & b, the most pressing issue is building toward tose resources that may otherwise be claimed by our opponents. Next is setting up a decent buffer between our enemies and our core cities and then we can start getting that good land and coastal cities.

The general concensus (sp) lately has been to expand east, to get the dyes and block Egypt.

We need to go east as fast as possible. I say no more settling westwards untill we filled up all the tiles we can eastwards. Westwards is secure. Nobodys going there unless we let them..

OK, expanding to the East is my preference too, just wanted to introduce the options and see if there is any dissent. ;)

Also this thread was meant to point out that if the general axis of settlement is to the East, we'll settle faster if the build queues are set up to produce settlers in the Eastern cities (Penguinadua for example). I'd like to prompt an interlock between the expansion strategy, the build queues, and the tile improvements.

@Chieftess: Do you have a map of tentative city locations to the East of Noshuret? The settler for the dye city is already on the way, Is it worthwhile to decide where the next one will go?

@all Thanks for your responses. :)

I agree we should expand east, but a new city near our capital with a good food supply would be quite useful as a second settler factory.

eyrie: I agree that we need a second settler factory to expand faster, but arent there any good settler factory sites on the eastern side? That would be the best..

The idea of a settler factory, is to use your capital, and/or a city close to it at the START OF THE GAME, not 100 turns into it!

Regardless of the terminology, one or more cities that are producing settlers are needed right now.

i would even say: as we need to rapidly expand towards our enemies AND have to secure a big chunk of land before people can travel by ship around our lands to go there, we need more than one city to produce settlers.