Settlement - master plan discussion

I think we now have enough information for a master settlement plan.
Here is my initial proposal to start the discussion.



In my opinion the two copper sites are prime locations due to the multiple different resources found at each, and we should consider stretching our reach to grab them while the grabbing is good. While it's true the western site would face cultural pressure from Spain, I think it wouldn't be in any imminent danger of flipping. If they're the target of a future war, depriving them of copper would potentially deprive them of spearmen to counter our horse archers. The northern site, having elephants and gold, would give us two luxuries to raise the cap on our cities, in addition to the copper for better weapons.

First out, excellent sites DS, but I think we need to build closer to Arete.

For the Faith city, I would recommend the Dye-port, as the river will connect resources right away with Sailing, and it will be a reliable commercial powerhouse.

For depriving Spain of copper, we may intend to do that with a horsed archer pillaging strategy,.

For the Warlords city, I would prefer to stay close to our own city, not too far away, guarding those mountains, the northern site north of those pigs would provide an immediate food boost for sudden growth.

The northern site you've suggested, Provo, would indeed be a good production center, with the river (= farms) and rice to feed your workers in the hills.

As for our site, I am undecided. Yes, the dye port would be a great commercial city, but the production power is low. How are we to build our religious monuments with little to no production?

Thanks for the comment on the northern city AK. I think "borrowing" the pig pasture for a bit to boost the city to a certain size will benefit us more, as we then can cover more hills with producing military units, barracks, stable etc, potentially a wall too. If we deforest the tile east of it, we can cover the pass NW with a hit and run over that isolated plain, and towards the rice paddies. Excellent defensive positions, as well as prohibiting Babylonian cities settling south of the desert, which is the main strategic move here. One of those hills may have iron in it too, I hope. Above all, with sailing and a couple of roads, we benefit from the same resources Arete benefits from, plus we can reinforce easily in all directions with both cavalry and infantry.


There are several forests around, make sure we get math and sailing, math for 50 % chop bonuses, and sailing for Moai Statues. Moai Statues would be very beneficial to a religious city, with Great People (Great Prophets, utilizing Philosophical Trait) and a hammer per ocean tile. Then we get calendar, and the city bursts with gold. Currency is near then as well.

Also, you got cows and hills there, so there is some good hammers if you add Moai Statues with it. Two hills, Cow and 2-3 forests makes for a good production anyways.


I think we should discuss the Math, Sailing, Calendar and Iron Working potential for an integrated city system, using sailing along coast and river to save turns building roads etc to interconnect empire. I can very well see Moai Statues in a Dye Port City and Great Lighthouse in Arete. Philosophical is a Great People trait, so we need some relevant wonders.

For Arete, I think we should build a warrior, then a new settler, so the Warlord City can be built right away, not wasting more time.

Nothing says Fractal like 5 dyes in a row.

What's the purpose of the left city in the second row? It doesn't appear to have any unique resources. Our scouts will probably find better spaces than that shortly. If we just need to keep our empire connected through that space, I'd rather move it one square southeast and have it replace the cow/silk city.

I think that city makes sense from a logistical point of view. River connects you see,we just need Sailing early, not late.

We also need Archery for defense and Horseman Archers.

rspeer said:

What's the purpose of the left city in the second row?

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It would be one of the last I'd place, after the point where maintenance is no longer a problem, and the purpose would be to maximize tile utilization.

Provolution said:

First out, excellent sites DS, but I think we need to build closer to Arete.

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The closer sites don't have the best resources. I'd feel a lot more comfortable if we got them ourselves than I would with letting the others get them and then trying to take them away.

For the Faith city ...

For the Warlords city ...

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Here we discuss what is best for gameplay. It does turn out that the dyes city is logical for the Faith in a way, though I agree that the question of how to get adequate production needs to be answered. However it is extremely foolish to carry through with building the Faith city first and thereby forgoing the much more important military resources which make sense for the Warlords city. If we go with your suggestion, those may be the only two cities we get to build.

I think you are being overtly pessimistic on our behalf, but then again, that is your job

That Faith City will also be a temporal support point for near infantry support (archers etc) of a Spanish War, so we dont need to drag troops from allover the place for many many turns, but to get a quick victory with an integrated road and river trade system. Sailing ties in with this.

This is not an extremely foolish strategy. As I see it, it is extremely foolish to have a lone warrior guard a disconnected city far into the interior, and thus limit our warfighting potential.

Also, the Warlords City will grow very fast by building at the northern city, courtesy borrowed pig farm and later on paddies. Sailing will connect dye city instantly.
With Cows, Hills and forests as well as some grasslands, its still a good city, well ahead of connecting dyes, so the city got plenty to do before Calendar and later Iron Working is researched.

Since we need Archery anyways for horseman archers, and we need an instant road to build horseman archers from Arete (and build barracks and stable as well as defensive archers),, our military strategy would be of an early war with an expert cavalry charge backed up by archers from a nearby city (Faith, if they are willing). Copper we may get when Spanish are out of business from that southern spot. I am not wasting our men in some deep probe Apocalypsis Now scenario. The three added techs we found gave us an advantage, lets leverage that one.

In simply gameplay mode I view the two cities we need are the copper-cow fish city and the northern gold-ivory-copper-rice city. The first one in partricular is libel be be taken soon, So I would settle that location first. It will be a good city for great people, production and solid in commerece. I think this location makes good sense for the church. I would take the northern city next. I am noit to worried about barbs. One warrior-archer in the city and one horse archer to hit them as they come would make it safe. We have two other civs on our continent so there wandering units will reduce barbs extensively. We could then back fill or take madrid if neccesary.

The closer cities do not offer much at this point in my opionion. Dye port eventual will be very strong, but not now.

In the end these cities are in the hands of the fatih and the warlords. So I will defer to them.

copper-cow fish city and the northern gold-ivory-copper-rice city

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THe northern city is worth alot more than the western, and thats why i would go for that city first. We have fish, and there are other locations for cows so we don't get anything new except for the copper.

I agree with Joe. Gaining Copper and Ivory coupled withour horse will give us the early military trifecta. Then we can easily take the western city if it is founded before we get there with our third settler. Thogh I think Spain will settle more south west and still give us our dye city regardless.

In simply gameplay mode I view the two cities we need are the copper-cow fish city and the northern gold-ivory-copper-rice city. The first one in partricular is libel be be taken soon, So I would settle that location first. It will be a good city for great people, production and solid in commerece. I think this location makes good sense for the church. I would take the northern city next. I am noit to worried about barbs. One warrior-archer in the city and one horse archer to hit them as they come would make it safe. We have two other civs on our continent so there wandering units will reduce barbs extensively. We could then back fill or take madrid if neccesary.

The closer cities do not offer much at this point in my opionion. Dye port eventual will be very strong, but not now.

In the end these cities are in the hands of the fatih and the warlords. So I will defer to them.

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I agree with everything written in the above quote.

The northern city is worth alot more than the western, and thats why i would go for that city first. We have fish, and there are other locations for cows so we don't get anything new except for the copper.

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To clarify, if we take the southern of the two great city locations mentioned in my first quote, then we cut Spain off and can launch a war from here later, making the war potentially much quicker and more easily managed. The North city should be next in my opinion. All of the other city sites, with the exception of the one that Provo points out as a defensive location are "filler". Provo's defensive city should be our third city IMHO.

As this is a gameplay perspective.

However, from another point of view, if I were the Protectors of Faith, I would be salivating over the southern city, as it would become a beacon for our faith. We would know how much support we have from the Gods and more quickly learn of our strength of faith in the Gods. Also, this sight has awesome future potential in terms of wonder building, etc...

If I were the Warlord City, I'd still want the hill city for all of the reasons that Provo Stated, and also because the city on "paradise hills" near gold and ivory is too far to support our war effort in the South.

Initially I thought I would go for the Dye port, however, I have since changed my mind. Hear me out, and I think this makes sense gameplay-wise and roleplay-wise:

Gameplay: The northern gold-copper-rice site is a very good site that has good commerce potential and production potential. As well as getting us Bronze, it will also allow us to increase our happy cap greatly with the gold AND ivory. Finally, we claim Bronze with this city, freeing us form having to scramble for the Bronze south of Spain. We can then settle the Dye port and a city further south (they would share only the cow tile) near the Bronze later. The only downside to this location is it's distance from Spain

Roleplay: The Dye port is tempting, but we don't know what to do with the Dyes yet (now that I think about it, WTH does having a Calendar have to do with dying things?). Plus, I think that gold is much more attractive for a religious city. Gold is used to make idols, monuments, etc.

Two questions:

Logistics?

Defense?

Provolution said:

Logistics?

Defense?

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The northern site may be further away from Hatty, but honestly, I don't expect the war with Hatty to be terribly difficult. In fact, Bronze may come in very handy for us (Spearman > War Chariot) which we would not get with the Dye port. That being said, yes, for the Spanish war, the northern city has less logistical and defensive value. However, it may be inevitable that we war against Lincoln as well, and I would hate to see him gobble up this good site early on, when we won't be able to dislodge him.

AK, Axemen from Bronze, provide great protection for Horse Archers from Chariots, but you are also right about Spearmen, and I actually like that the Religious faction is considering said location near the gold and ivory. We named it "Paradise Hills" in the warband discussion did we not? I see a great story here, concerning said location as a possible gateway to salvation, etc... I for one, actually support this line of thinking. The gods have smiled on us so much already with 3 technologies from the local villagers, why not support them further with this awesome demonstration of faith?

I for one, believe that Hatty will rush for a city closer to her borders before jumping for the southern city site with copper and fish, let alone a jump for the die, the AI doesn't like Jungles if something else is nearby.

Provolution said:

Two questions:

Logistics?

Defense?

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Turik, an old and weathered man came out of the forests and jungles to the west, unknown to anyone, and ignoring everyone. He simply grabbed a stick, and pointed at Diamondeye, AluminumKnight, and Stryder...he simply pointed and gestured for them to follow him. He lead them without answering any questions, to the shore of Arete. The small party arrived in time for the maritime fog to clear and the sun to shine down on the beach. With his stick he carved these words into the mud, the first recorded words of Aretan "Where there is a will, there is a way. Faith is the way."

And when he was done, the old man knelt there in the mud kissed his hand, held it to his heart, peared up at the sky, then got up and put a hand on AluminumKnight's shoulder.
In the voice of a wise grandfather, he said to AluminumKnight, "You have heard and seen all that you need to know and have demonstrated that knowledge already, even if you should not understand yet where it has come from. I leave you now, but I will return one day to see what your people have wrought. You will have these words, and you will have your heart to govern what to do with them."
And with that, he simply left, stroaling easily in a way that made him appear to be far younger than he looked and vanished into the jungle again.

:b: on the plan for what we currently know.

But at some point, probably very soon, we need to fog-bust those sea tiles to see if there are any sea resources hiding in them.

We do not want to found a city and then see that there is a sea resource that can't be used by any city. The food is much too valuable to waste.

I would also add to it an infill city 1-2-2-2 our capital (after all boundary marking cities founded, so probably around 1000 AD). (It will easily pay for itself in commerce.) Now if one of the 4 fog sea tiles it would work contain a resource, it would need moved up.