The "Let's Dot-Map This" Thread

Backwards Logic

Backwards Logic

Emperor Palpatine
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There's been some brief discussions about where we should settle to maximize the land at our disposal and I was surprised to see no one had gotten around to making up one of these. So I figured, why not? Here we'll post (hopefully) our ideas on where to settle and discuss the pros and cons of each and (hopefully) come to a general consensus.

I'll get this party started:


Pros:
  • All land tiles utilized
  • All cities had at least one food (rice) source or can share
  • All cities coastal
Cons:
  • second city (red) 4 turns away from settling as opposed to three from central plains hill location and not settled on plains hill
  • Green is food poor, though with Civil Service could have three irrigated farms
  • Both Red and Yellow relatively hammer poor

Alright, what other ideas are out there. And feel free to rip my scheme apart. I don't mind :mischief:
 
Overall, I like it. However, I'd make the following changes.

Green 1 SW, Red 1 S.

We'd leave 1 tile unused (green hill north of Delhi).

But, we'd have a lot more food sharing, which gives us a lot of flexibility. 2nd city could be the green one which could work a lot of hills for early hammers.
 
This is my idea:



I thought we pretty much agreed because of the gambit that second city will go to that plains hill, 3 tiles W from capital. I agree with the third spot where BL suggested, and for the 4th option his idea also seems fine, but I'm thinking to have 5 cities on starting island so I put in two more dots in case we are going that way. It will give us more potential for whipping and more to work with in a opening stage of the game. Since all cities will have access to farmed rice it can give us option to whip settlers in the beginning and then ferry them over to the main land.
 
Backwards logics dotmap looks right for three cities, we could cram in 4 hammer poor cities if we want by moving red dot 1N, yellow dot 1E and having an extra city where the warrior is in the original screenshot. North city looks like hammers (could build a couple of triremes if you get my drift ;)) the rest are probably more suited to commerce/running specs.
 
I think any more than 3 cities is a negative system. We want minimal cities with lots of food, not the other way around.
 
More than 3 cities per landmass will cause maintenanace problems later on. As Obs says 3 cities is right for the land we have.
 
I threw together a crammed dotmap here that would have five cities (including capital). However it's largely obsolete now because of the rest of the exploration. I do agree though that rather than cramming in five cities four would be probably a more efficient use of land.

Overall I agree with BL's proposed dotmap.
 
KingMorgan said:
More than 3 cities per landmass will cause maintenanace problems later on. As Obs says 3 cities is right for the land we have.
Click to expand...

What do you mean with maintenance problems? Do you mean we maybe want to move the capital on some other landmass? And not replace it with the FP?
 
The PH has been successfully tested for the gambit. Given how tight worker actions are in Sandkasten, I find it hard to imagine a city any further away competing.

I think that after maybe a third city in the south, we'll wanna go off-island... Another infill city here might happen eventually, but that wouldn't be a huge rush.
 
Not sure that the FP is worthwhile for 3 cities, yes iirc, then having 4+ cities on a single landmass causes large colony type expenses if there is no capital. Not a major issue, but something to bear in mind.

Really, 3 cities are more than enough for the start island.
 


First, fear my MS Paint skillz!

I know this setup is not optimal, but it does give us flexibility, which I think is tremendously valuable. All cities have multiple food sources in their BFC, and one even has 3 food if we want to set up an early GP farm.

Maybe with the extreme micromanagement that this type of game will allow, we can shuffle food tiles around so that a city can get an extra food tile just before starvation.

Also, if we need to whip a city, we can give it an extra food tile to help grow back faster.

Specialization as follows:

City #1: Hammers (work mined hills)
City #2: Commerce/GP Farm
City #3: Commerce
 
I think it's essential that at least one city not be coastal. Every one of our first 3(4) cities being reachable by amphibious assault is no good. I'm all for the 3 cities on the starter island plan. 4 is getting to be a lot and 5 is just insane. We should be able to reach other locations by the time we are ready to build a fourth city and better to take land away from other teams than to cramp all of our cities together and give them free reign over the main island (assuming that is what our map looks like). However as to the location of these two other cities. It's hard to say. All the best spots seem to be along the coast.
 
Uncle_Cheesedog said:
I think it's essential that at least one city not be coastal.
Click to expand...

Sorry but I've gotta respectfully disagree with this one. Yes amphibious assault is a worry but it will always be whether we have all or just mostly coastal cities. The fact is that as you have mentioned, the best city spots are all coastal and we actually need as many city spots as possible in order to better CONTROL the seas. Harbors etc will probably be useful as well on this map...

As for dotmaps, i'm actually liking The Mike's one at the moment. We will probably be doing plenty of micro so I like the flexibility of all cities having more than 1 food resource which we can switch between. Also note that his red "1" city takes just as long to reach by settler as the central plains hill. Also theres room for an optional 5th city if we so desire...
 
Snaaty had argued a while back to keep the Mids in the center city instead of stacking for GPs, because coastal cities are too much a risk due to razing.
 
If any of the 3 cities are potentiality vulnerable to coastal razing, pre optics, by enemies then it's too late, we've lost already. I do not think it's a huge risk so long as we keep our borders secure and do not allow unfriendly groups of galleys.

Post optics, I think we can defend ourselves well enough.
 
Ragnar has free amphib promos, and will have an extra movement of +2 to all his ships.

They will also stockpile up on Maces so they can upgrade to amphib grenadiers, etc.

They will have even CRII Grens with Strength 1 and Amphib. And they'd be an idiot not to take advantage of that either.

No one is safe from Ragnar... no one.
 
obsolete said:
Ragnar has free amphib promos, and will have an extra movement of +2 to all his ships.

They will also stockpile up on Maces so they can upgrade to amphib grenadiers, etc.

They will have even CRII Grens with Strength 1 and Amphib. And they'd be an idiot not to take advantage of that either.

No one is safe from Ragnar... no one.
Click to expand...

Ragnar will not necessarily get the circumnavigation bonus. Considering that we can't sail west, I would be willing to wager that circumnavigation is not possible until after Optics. Therefore, the circumnavigation bonus will go to the civ that is the tech leader, not the one with the fastest ships.

Furthermore, I bet the feeling all around is that Ragnar is a threat, so he will have a big target on his back, which means he will want an ally. Hired muscle, anyone? :) Let the 2 (possibly) mightiest navies unite!!
 
We've all had huge fun with Amphi-CR3 Rifles popping into enemy capitals for a nice cup of tea, however if we play this game right then it will not be an issue.

We must ensure Team Ragnar is our best friend and tech partner at optics or dead. I think this is the only solution to this issue.
 
I'm not sure about keeping Raggy as our ally. He'll backstab us at the perfect opportunity anyway, and he'd be right to take advantage of any opportunity. I wouldn't trust him on an allied deal any more than I would trust the Russians in WW2. You're making a pact with the devil here.

It would be best (our diplomat has to do this), to convince the others that if we don't band together, Raggy will get too much naval-power. If we can find a bunch of other Civs and agree to all DoW on any of Ragnards boats that come spying about, then we can indefinitely blockade him from getting that circum-nav bonus, and other powers.

We need to convince (and perhaps exaggerate a bit), on how over powered Ragnar is, and how he's going to be the death of us if we don't make a stand.

We also should let them know, if they find themselves in a full fledged war because of this, we will send triremes to their aid (if possible), and other techs, upgrade gold, even precious metals, etc. Free of charge, or at least for a good discount.
 
obsolete said:
I'm not sure about keeping Raggy as our ally. He'll backstab us at the perfect opportunity anyway, and he'd be right to take advantage of any opportunity. I wouldn't trust him on an allied deal any more than I would trust the Russians in WW2. You're making a pact with the devil here.

It would be best (our diplomat has to do this), to convince the others that if we don't band together, Raggy will get too much naval-power. If we can find a bunch of other Civs and agree to all DoW on any of Ragnards boats that come spying about, then we can indefinitely blockade him from getting that circum-nav bonus, and other powers.

We need to convince (and perhaps exaggerate a bit), on how over powered Ragnar is, and how he's going to be the death of us if we don't make a stand.

We also should let them know, if they find themselves in a full fledged war because of this, we will send triremes to their aid (if possible), and other techs, upgrade gold, even precious metals, etc. Free of charge, or at least for a good discount.
Click to expand...

That's definitely an option, too. We'll have to wait and see how it plays out. Ragnar may be desperate for a friend too, and if he's busy warring with someone else, they would be foolish to turn on their only ally.

It's all speculative at this point, we will have to see what happens.
 
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