When not to settle in place – a uniquely doomed Civ

Here is a brief summary of one of the shortest games I have ever played. It was interesting enough that I reloaded to the start to take some screenshots and post them.

Was I correct in abandoning it? There may have been a way out of this incredible dilemma that I didn’t see… any ideas welcome!

(I think it was a small “medium-and-small” map, 5 civs, for what it’s worth).

Here is the key shot – the starting position. It looked pretty good – great food-rich area and a bit of fresh water. The eternal question – settle in place, or not?



Usually I do without much thought. But here, settling one square from the coast is generally regarded as a no-no… what to do, what to do… The south coast tiles were possible alternatives, but they lose the fresh water bonus, and the coastal grassland might hide a resource that I want to work...

Anyway obviously I moved the scout first, onto the other hill. Now the answer seemed clear – settle in place:



So – I get all the food resources, the fresh water, the useful stone resource, and three very tasty looking empty grassland squares in the fat cross which could hide strategic resources. Nice.

The downside was that my first city was not on the coast, meaning I would need to found a second city before I could build my work boats out there. I figured this was ok – I had the corn anyway, and the Zulus start with agriculture but not fishing, so the work boat was not going to be the first build anyway.

I started on a worker, thinking to farm the corn while I researched towards bronze working. Then I would chop out the settler and found the second city, while grabbing fishing and then getting the boats in the water. Maybe just going for the settler first would be more efficient, I don’t know.

Well, none of it mattered after about two more moves with the scout. Here’s what he found:



Notice anything?

As far as I can tell, there is no second city site! My chunk of peninsula is too small to get more than two squares away, I am blocked by the mountain, and I can never build a boat to get off the peninsula, because Ulundi is not coastal.

Here is the final view, after I got a border pop to see a bit further, and researched a few techs to reveal copper and horses (yep, I got horses in the fat cross).


Definitely stranded!

I spent a while trying to think of a way around the problem.

– Building a fort (after construction) could “connect” Ulundi to the sea but does not let me build boats.
– Civ IV diplomacy does not let me buy a boat from another Civ, or any units at all for that matter (I think I’ll start a thread soon on why and how this could be changed!!)
– Perhaps I could terrify a rival Civ into giving me one of their cities, although it seems unlikely as long as I am stuck with my one pathetic city, with no way of getting troops off the island… (“Fear my warrior!”)
– Maybe I can buy a city from another Civ… is that even possible, has anyone ever succeeded in buying a foreign city from a Civ? In any case, the siting of my one city seems unlikely to give me the truly awesome tech-and-gold lead that I would need to pull this off.

So I think I only had one chance, which is to hope some other Civ settles a city within view (hopefully on that desert tile across the bay to the north). Then I spam culture in Ulundi (maybe Stonehenge and the ‘Mids, with the stone) and try to FLIP myself a second city.

It would be an awesome triumph if I can even get out of this, but it’s so uncertain (no idea if anyone else is on this island, or where they will put a city) that I wasn’t willing to play it out and see.

So I quit instead. Did I miss anything?

Airefuego said:

Did I miss anything?

Click to expand...

Airlift units to an allied base.

Now you know why settling 1 tile away from coast is a no-no.

You could wait until make a paradrop atack to other civs.... besides that , I don't see how you could manage this.

P.S Building the AP ( or UN ) and request a city to you could work too, but is a very long shot. Basically, you're doomed to play a OCC for a long time

SInce you settled off the coast your pretty much sunk. If you really want to play it out, spam stone wonders. Hope somone finds you. Be nice and diplomatic. Beeline mass media (yeah right) and hope you can get the UN built in time.

Personally I would just regen the map.

Can't you build a city in the upper left near the pig island? It would overlap somethign terrible of course.

BrianJ said:

Can't you build a city in the upper left near the pig island? It would overlap somethign terrible of course.

Click to expand...

No tile in his penisula is 3 tiles away from Capitol.... so no new city

Nope, you have to be 3 tiles away (2 if on separate landmasses). Regen time I think...

I have never seen the AI trading a city.
I guess your only (very small) chance of getting of the peninsula is culture flip
a city rival city.
I never seen such a starting place before and it made me laugh
I feel sorry for you.

BrianJ said:

Can't you build a city in the upper left near the pig island? It would overlap somethign terrible of course.

Click to expand...

No cities allowed within two tiles. You literally can't found it.

It made me laugh too! I didn't bother chopping the settler, obviously ...

I would really like a trading option to buy units from a friendly Civ. It would be just like the real world! ... get rich by being peaceful but selling tanks to your rivals, then setting them against one another!

Maybe you could "contract" for stuff, so you weren't restricted to only buying stuff the AI already had sitting around.

In this game, I'd happily render unto Caesar 150 gold for a galley, allow 8 turns for him to build it and another 8 for delivery!

That's a pretty interesting situation.

I know this helps in no way at all, but one stone resource is definitely not worth settling off the coast. You make up the fresh water bonus with a harbor, and you get the resource in your borders soon enough anyway. Working the actual stone tile is nothing special.

Poor luck though!

Thats funny stuff. Thanks for sharing.

Too bad it's not an OCC game. Then again you are off the coast so no fishing boats so maybe that wouldn't be so great after all...

Yeah I didn't even think about the fact that he can't build fishing boats until he starts a nonexistant second city. Reload time!

DaveMcW said:

Now you know why settling 1 tile away from coast is a no-no.

Click to expand...

/nod

<Ctrl>+<W>

That's a very rare and peculiar start ... I've built test cities like this in World Builder but never thought it would actually happen in a game.

Thanks for posting ... that's just crazy!

Very interesting start. It would be interesting to reload from the start and see how it would play out.

I probably would have settled the coastal grasslands (do others agree?). This would have been a really good production capitol. It's hard to tell with the fog still there, but city no. 2 could easily grap the copper. And maybe another location on the desert penisula to get the pig island and work the stone?

Could you past the original save? This looks way more interesting then the game I started last night.

This is just excellent!
Thanks for sharing - it's a real gem

And v.funny too. Good luck with the culture flip then

I don't usually use the World Builder, but in this case, I think it would be justified to just stomp that mountain that's in your way. If you want to be super-minimally impactful, you could just turn it into a hill

That's one of those times I just reload the autosave and settle my capitol correctly. It isn't like you have a whole lot of foreknowldge to completely change the outcome of the game. The *other* option would be to settle on the corn, but the horses are more useful than the stone.

that's awesome! you were totally stuck! it would be mega-hard to get a culture-flip since the places legal for anybody to settle aren't near your city tile, and will probably be farther out by the time anybody does consider settling there. sheesh.

the annoying peaks remind me of a game i abandoned.