Starting Position for OCC Science. Change or nay?

Hey, going for an OCC science victory (on emperor, need practice)..

http://imgur.com/5gwpO


not sure if I should reload + move south or what. Not too many food tiles but I wanted that mountain for observatory.

Thanks


at turn 160, 210 bpt, and 2 turns away from pisa / porcelain tower. Not too many RA's going because it took me 140 turns to find 4 civs. I had 2 neighbors but the rest were empty. I also don't have any cultural city states :<

I would've settled on the river/hill/copper. or the FP left of it. Not sure if your settler started on your city tile

If you settled on that flood plains river tile just west of the copper you'd have 2 deer, 1 cow, 1 sheep, 2 copper, 1 fur and 3 desert tiles not counting the floodplain. That would have let you built Petra which would boost that desert hill, plain desert and the oasis tiles. Plus you'd have plenty of grassland tiles to build academies on.

Sure the observatory is nice, but with more food and having tiles for the academies that feed themselves, you can end up with much higher bpt. Where you settled, it'll be difficult to grow enough to make that observatory worth it, especially with the large number of mountain tiles in the city's radius. There are at least 5 tiles you won't be able to work.

In an OCC game you really need to grow as large of a population as you can, as fast as you can so you can run all the science specialist and work as many academies as possible.

Looks like a pretty decent start to me. You have 3 deer, a wheat, a flood plain, and a river plains for food. You might want to buy one or both of those deer to get rolling in the early game, but once you get a granary in a few turns you should be fine on food.

You've also got 3-5 luxury resources (depending on how fast your borders grow before somebody else settles close) which is pretty decent as well to keep the cash rolling in.

Obviously it would be great to be on a river as well, but that observatory should be 80+ bpt late game, so not worth losing out on for the river bonuses.

Finally, academies on plains are only one less fpt vs grassland but you get an extra hammer instead. You've got plenty of food tiles, though, so you should be able to support them without stunting your growth too much and they will give you a little extra production without giving up science.

Monthar said:

If you settled on that flood plains river tile just west of the copper you'd have 2 deer, 1 cow, 1 sheep, 2 copper, 1 fur and 3 desert tiles not counting the floodplain. That would have let you built Petra which would boost that desert hill, plain desert and the oasis tiles. Plus you'd have plenty of grassland tiles to build academies on.

Sure the observatory is nice, but with more food and having tiles for the academies that feed themselves, you can end up with much higher bpt. Where you settled, it'll be difficult to grow enough to make that observatory worth it, especially with the large number of mountain tiles in the city's radius. There are at least 5 tiles you won't be able to work.

In an OCC game you really need to grow as large of a population as you can, as fast as you can so you can run all the science specialist and work as many academies as possible.

Click to expand...

I'm 23 pop at turn 160, but I snagged hanging gardens (also gave me a free garden, which I need for GS's )

I might reload and see how it goes settling south a bit