Settling options - spoilt for choice...

Hi all - Playing a standard Terra map as Willem on Emp.

Rolled a pretty awesome start and just reaching time to place first settler, but really struggling where to go with the first couple of settlers and which order (even with Creative which usually makes it fairly easy)... guessing I need to do some tile sharing... any ideas would be great!

Here's the start:


2440BC - First Settler built:


My thoughts...
So, first problem is I want to find a way to share corn, so much food for one city. Also, I want to get some of the nice floodplains NW but these pretty much have to be two diff cities as far as I can tell.
So I was contemplating 1N of stone and 2N of corn as two separate cities (and for 3rd settler I might even trust the blue circles...!?).
For ref I don't have AH in yet although it could be done quickly if needs be.

A bit scared the first two would be too overconcentrated though. I know it's ok to overlap to some extent but is this too much?

I'd be looking at cities:

1) between the wheat and the ivory. This city is going to be fed primarily by the western corn in the capital.

2) a city where the wounded wolf is. This city is going to be fed by the irrigated wheat

3) a city three tiles north of the capital, which is going to be fed by the northern corn.

4) a city on the green hill next to the wines and pigs.

5) something to the west of the green cows -- probably the desert tile on the corner, but it's not clear with the coast line obscured.

ps - I'm really confused by the order of your tile improvements in Amsterdam

I try to avoid more than two fat cross tiles overlapping. In fact I usually try for no tiles or only 1.

That city is a food paradise. I'd work it for that. Whip out half the game, then focus on GP?

If I moved anywhere, seeing this prior, it would be down and right 1 tile. That would free up some corn, but cost you hammers and you'd only get desert for your chivalry.

Pretty much what VoU said. Though I would place city 3 3N1E (on the Spices). City 4 2S1E of Pigs and another city 2E of the sothern eastern Corn. Doesn't make a big difference.

I think your first concern in this game should be your tile improvements. 2 unimproved Corn (1 wet!) and an unimproved PH Gold
Those 3 tiles should be improved before starting on cottages (or chopping for that matter).

Pisskop said:

I try to avoid more than two fat cross tiles overlapping. In fact I usually try for no tiles or only 1.

That city is a food paradise. I'd work it for that. Whip out half the game, then focus on GP?

If I moved anywhere, seeing this prior, it would be down and right 1 tile. That would free up some corn, but cost you hammers and you'd only get desert for your chivalry.

Click to expand...

I think I would overlap this capital as much as possible and just cottage everything within the BFC (having the outside cities work the cottages).

i wouldve settled the initial city 1S. ik settling on a flood plain is frowned against, but in the long run its better because you can build its UB a dyke (although im not sure if the dyke requires you to be river side) but more importantly you pick up grassland cow giving u three corn (easy irrigation) and grass land cow for a great GP farm. for your second city, I would settle in sitting bulls face 1SW of the copper. youll block off sitting bulls expansion to the west and give you copper (you dont have any other revealed strategic resources so) giving you options to wipe sittiing bull. also its hills so if he were to attack you hed probly attack your hills city. with creative youll be able to pick up those river tiles quickly which you farm giving you some food. also your finicial and you have a gold tile so youll be able to do without suffering to much in economy. lastly, why did you cottage before mining gold? sure long run its better but short term go gold first.

can u upload this game i want to play this one because it looks fun!

Pisskop said:

I try to avoid more than two fat cross tiles overlapping. In fact I usually try for no tiles or only 1.

Click to expand...

Which is pretty darn bad advice

OP - Settling on the Stone seems a no brainer to me

2W or 1W of Spice seems good to. Lot's of food to share with this cap and help work cottages too. Nice and compact.

I'm gonna play this just to see the ridiculous tech lead this bureau capital will get you.

Ecori said:

Pretty much what VoU said. Though I would place city 3 3N1E (on the Spices). City 4 2S1E of Pigs and another city 2E of the sothern eastern Corn. Doesn't make a big difference.

I think your first concern in this game should be your tile improvements. 2 unimproved Corn (1 wet!) and an unimproved PH Gold
Those 3 tiles should be improved before starting on cottages (or chopping for that matter).

Click to expand...

Actually both unimproved corns are irrigated. Your whipping arm should fall off from use with a start like that.

Thanks all for the advice.

I like VoU's plan in general, so I think I'll basicaly follow that mostly.
Settling on stone also seems like an awesome city though, should have scouted better to know whether there is another good city SW of that cow...

VoiceOfUnreason said:

ps - I'm really confused by the order of your tile improvements in Amsterdam

Click to expand...

I have to admit I was confused by what order to improve here (esp with Fin making cottages so shiny... So much wet corn I thought I'd end up too one-dimensional (i.e. fooooooooooood) and not be able to manage it all even with heavy whipping. Probably with two happy resources I'm wrong though.

For ref I went Min/TW/Pott/BW, builds went worker/warrior/worker at size 4/settler
First worker did riverside wet corn/cottage/cottage/part chop second worker using forest which was 2S of city.
Then chopped settler.
Next I was gonna go the two corns and a road to 2nd city while getting lib in capital and up to size 6/7 (if ivory is hooked up), putting gold in sooner if i will exceed happy cap in cap.

I think I'll play this start a few times and check how they compare. There is so much stuff around I found it really tough to choose the right order. Prob will help me learn which improvements really are the best.

@brutus it should be uploaded already, if not I can do it later.

What better way to ask for a shadow then to not farm 2 of your 3 wet corn

aitkensam said:

I have to admit I was confused by what order to improve here (esp with Fin making cottages so shiny... So much wet corn I thought I'd end up too one-dimensional (i.e. fooooooooooood) and not be able to manage it all even with heavy whipping.

Click to expand...

Guiding principal - always work your best tiles.[1]

Here, it should be pretty clear that your best tiles are

• River corn
• Oasis corn
• Lake corn
• Gold mine

Not necessarily in that order.

Obviously, that's already way too much food, and we haven't touched the oasis or the floodplains yet. On the other hand, our dot map already told us we aren't going to work all the corn here, but instead to hand it off to other nearby cities. In the mean time, it accelerates Amsterdam's growth AND puts some build oomph into the training of workers and settlers.

(Side point: recall that unhappy citizens don't hurt your production when training workers or settlers.)

As for the exact sequence to improve these tiles..., well, I'm pretty sure that irrigating some corn tile first is right. After that is less clear. You could game it out, and maybe learn some general principle that trumps "food first" in cases like these, but I don't expect such a lesson will be frequently applicable.



[1] Always, of course, doesn't mean always, but something closer to "unless you have a powerfully compelling reason to do otherwise"

VoiceOfUnreason said:

"unless you have a powerfully compelling reason to do otherwise"

Click to expand...

I guess it's time to actually do the maths for once so I see why each improvement is better (bleh Excel...). Financial felt compelling to me, so instinct obviously not safe!

This might not be a common start, but at least it's extreme enough on the food side that it should highlight the principles to me fairly clearly, exacerbate errors (timewise) etc.

As financial working 2 floodplains cottages gives you 6, 6 and 0 the first 10 turns.

If you were working 1 wet non-riverside Corn + 1 non-riverside PH gold you would get 6, 8 and 3 which is superior in every way for the next 30 turns.

That is one sick capital site! Triple (great) food, FPs, lots of forests and lots of riverside cottage tiles too. To top it off.... gold. Amazing stuff. Make the best of it

VoU's suggestion looks good to me. You may also want the copper. Hopefully there is food in that area, apart from the FPs.

There are 3 very easy settling choices to make here. Settle on the stone first it is an amazing spot for helping your capitol, next I would settle a city on the RSGL 1N of your settler. Then I would settle on the brown coast cow corn city after I settled some more inland as you have that city spot on lock down from culture.

No way you share the capital food and take away from the 5 turn settlers it can dish out. Settle towards the AIs and rex. If you know what you are doing you can oracle monarchy as well (forest chop while making settlers) to grow the capital big or abuse the whip. Second city does workers and third does library->Great Scientist I'm thinking but it all depends on your exploration and options.

What a monster capital!

Spam satellite cities to take advantage of the overflow on food. Which is pretty much what post #2 advocates.

What VOU said, more or less ^^. I don't like his "exact" placements for all cities but in general they work very well.

One more city I'd add for sure would be 3S of Capital. Lets you share wet corn, get the cows later, and most importantly, share/swap 3/4 cottage tiles.....same thing the city 3N would be doing.