Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2006
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Settling the Cities in the North
Okay, it will be nice to settle those two islands to the north of Alex's empire eventually, but they are REALLY, REALLY, REALLY far from our capital, so I'm not very enthusiastic about settling there now. Maybe once we have built a Forbidden Palace more in the north (which can't be built until we have Code of Laws and have built some Courthouses) could we consider settling that far away.
I would still like to see us sending a Settler + Axeman pair OR a Settler + Chariot pair on a Galley toward the south-east, to see if we can luck out with another City location beyond the Cultural Bridge that Marble City created for us.
Settling the Cities in the North
Spoiler :
Okay, now we have a bit of a dilemma... how should we settle the Gold Resources in the north?
Option A:
One possibility is to settle where your red dot is marked. Doing so gives us 3 Grasslands (4 if we steal one from the City to the south) plus the Oasis. The nice part about the Oasis is that we can farm 2 of the Grasslands pre-Civil Service.
So, 4 Grassland squares and 1 Oasis at 3 Food each = 5 squares that give us +1 Food.
Counting the City Centre, that gives us 2 + 1*5 = 7 Food surplus without working the Gold Resources. Working 2 Desert Hills Gold Mines brings us down to 3 surplus Food, which is an acceptable value.
We would then settle ON TOP of the Plains Sheep square, which wastes the Sheep completely but does give us a Fish + Gold City. Fish with a Work Boat and a Lighthouse = 6 Food, aka +4 Food on top of the City Centre's 2 Food, and -2 for the Gold Mine puts us at 2 + 4 - 2 = 4 Food surplus, which we'd maintain while working Coast squares.
So overall, this option is decent.
Option B:
Another option is to settle 1N of the red dot, but then we'd lose 1 Grassland square, would have to wait for Civil Service for TWO instead of just one of our Grassland squares to be Farmed, and would have:
3 Grassland Farms + Oasis = 4 extra Food + the City's Centre = 6 extra Food, which would be eaten-up by 3 Gold Resources, leaving the City stagnant. It would take a long time to grow large enough to be working all of those Gold Mines, though.
In so doing, we could at least settle 1NE of the PSheep, so that a different City could work the Fish + Sheep Resources. That Fish City would get +4 from the Fish, +2 from the Sheep, plus the City Centre's 2 Food gives us 2 + 4 + 2 = 8 surplus Food.
Option C:
Yet another possibility is to settle 1NW of the Oasis. Here what we would be doing is partnering-up the Sheep with the Gold Resources. Would it help to do so, though?
Plains Sheep = 4 Food, or +2 Food.
We'd then only have 2 Grassland squares and the Oasis, giving us 3 * +1 Food
City Centre = 2 + 2 from the Sheep + 3 * 1 = 2 + 2 + 3 = 7 - 6 for the 3 Gold Mines leaves us at only 1 Food surplus, which is better than 0 but isn't amazing, either.
Here, we would have no choice but to settle Fish City at the northern tip of the peninsula, giving it +4 Food from the Fish and 2 Food from the City's Centre, for a surplus of 6 Food.
Summary:
Option A: Gold City = 3 surplus Food, Fish City = 4 surplus Food
Option B: Gold City = 0 surplus Food, Fish City = 8 surplus Food
Option C: Gold City = 1 surplus Food, Fish City = 6 surplus Food
Out of those options, Option B deviously appears to give us the most surplus Food. However, working Gold Mines is a Good Thing To Do and Option B takes nearly forever for us to be working more than 1 Gold Mine, let alone 2 or 3 of them, so I really don't like that option, as we technically won't be working 2 of the Gold Mines for a long time and it will be a REALLLLLLY long time before we will work the 3rd Gold Mine.
Option C isn't much better on that front, but is slightly improved, because our Food is concentrated a little bit better (+2 Food from the Sheep means only 1 citizen to get +2 Food while +1 Food from Grassland Farms means needing 2 citizens to get +2 Food in Option B), but only a little bit better.
Since we don't need a City with a large Food surplus (we already have a Great Person Farm planned), I don't see a priority to concentrate a lot of Food in a single City (we might want to do so if we didn't have a Great Person Farm planned yet, though).
Therefore, I would suggest Option A, which means:
i. Settling on the red dot as marked
AND
ii. Settling on top of the Plains Sheep square, to get both the Fish and the northern Gold within our fat cross
Option A:
One possibility is to settle where your red dot is marked. Doing so gives us 3 Grasslands (4 if we steal one from the City to the south) plus the Oasis. The nice part about the Oasis is that we can farm 2 of the Grasslands pre-Civil Service.
So, 4 Grassland squares and 1 Oasis at 3 Food each = 5 squares that give us +1 Food.
Counting the City Centre, that gives us 2 + 1*5 = 7 Food surplus without working the Gold Resources. Working 2 Desert Hills Gold Mines brings us down to 3 surplus Food, which is an acceptable value.
We would then settle ON TOP of the Plains Sheep square, which wastes the Sheep completely but does give us a Fish + Gold City. Fish with a Work Boat and a Lighthouse = 6 Food, aka +4 Food on top of the City Centre's 2 Food, and -2 for the Gold Mine puts us at 2 + 4 - 2 = 4 Food surplus, which we'd maintain while working Coast squares.
So overall, this option is decent.
Option B:
Another option is to settle 1N of the red dot, but then we'd lose 1 Grassland square, would have to wait for Civil Service for TWO instead of just one of our Grassland squares to be Farmed, and would have:
3 Grassland Farms + Oasis = 4 extra Food + the City's Centre = 6 extra Food, which would be eaten-up by 3 Gold Resources, leaving the City stagnant. It would take a long time to grow large enough to be working all of those Gold Mines, though.
In so doing, we could at least settle 1NE of the PSheep, so that a different City could work the Fish + Sheep Resources. That Fish City would get +4 from the Fish, +2 from the Sheep, plus the City Centre's 2 Food gives us 2 + 4 + 2 = 8 surplus Food.
Option C:
Yet another possibility is to settle 1NW of the Oasis. Here what we would be doing is partnering-up the Sheep with the Gold Resources. Would it help to do so, though?
Plains Sheep = 4 Food, or +2 Food.
We'd then only have 2 Grassland squares and the Oasis, giving us 3 * +1 Food
City Centre = 2 + 2 from the Sheep + 3 * 1 = 2 + 2 + 3 = 7 - 6 for the 3 Gold Mines leaves us at only 1 Food surplus, which is better than 0 but isn't amazing, either.
Here, we would have no choice but to settle Fish City at the northern tip of the peninsula, giving it +4 Food from the Fish and 2 Food from the City's Centre, for a surplus of 6 Food.
Summary:
Option A: Gold City = 3 surplus Food, Fish City = 4 surplus Food
Option B: Gold City = 0 surplus Food, Fish City = 8 surplus Food
Option C: Gold City = 1 surplus Food, Fish City = 6 surplus Food
Out of those options, Option B deviously appears to give us the most surplus Food. However, working Gold Mines is a Good Thing To Do and Option B takes nearly forever for us to be working more than 1 Gold Mine, let alone 2 or 3 of them, so I really don't like that option, as we technically won't be working 2 of the Gold Mines for a long time and it will be a REALLLLLLY long time before we will work the 3rd Gold Mine.
Option C isn't much better on that front, but is slightly improved, because our Food is concentrated a little bit better (+2 Food from the Sheep means only 1 citizen to get +2 Food while +1 Food from Grassland Farms means needing 2 citizens to get +2 Food in Option B), but only a little bit better.
Since we don't need a City with a large Food surplus (we already have a Great Person Farm planned), I don't see a priority to concentrate a lot of Food in a single City (we might want to do so if we didn't have a Great Person Farm planned yet, though).
Therefore, I would suggest Option A, which means:
i. Settling on the red dot as marked
AND
ii. Settling on top of the Plains Sheep square, to get both the Fish and the northern Gold within our fat cross
Okay, it will be nice to settle those two islands to the north of Alex's empire eventually, but they are REALLY, REALLY, REALLY far from our capital, so I'm not very enthusiastic about settling there now. Maybe once we have built a Forbidden Palace more in the north (which can't be built until we have Code of Laws and have built some Courthouses) could we consider settling that far away.
I would still like to see us sending a Settler + Axeman pair OR a Settler + Chariot pair on a Galley toward the south-east, to see if we can luck out with another City location beyond the Cultural Bridge that Marble City created for us.