Where to build cities.

[Redaxe]

i don't really get the debate about 'where to build a city'. Once you start a game you'll have to cope with the map you are given. Any city after the first is about 6 tiles away from the first. Most of the time the choices are limited 'cause of other players. So if you are lucky you can choose the second, but it's not as if you can be very picky.

Not true. Careful positioning of a city is crucial if you want success. You might delay your empire by a couple turns moving your initial settler away from some crappy flat plains/plantation resources to a hill with nearby cattle/wheat and you'll have a far stronger civ in the long run.

 

[MightySpice]

And what do you do if you discover that the gras was not greener a few tiles away? You turn back or do you restart? You just lost a number of turns you will not get back.
I move my warrior and check if there is a better position 1 or 2 tiles away. Most of the time i build my first city in the first turn of the game.

 

[inthesomeday]

And what do you do if you discover that the gras was not greener a few tiles away? You turn back or do you restart? You just lost a number of turns you will not get back.
I move my warrior and check if there is a better position 1 or 2 tiles away. Most of the time i build my first city in the first turn of the game.

This is uncommon, I'm fairly certain most players will move their capital at least a few tiles before settling, but even regardless of that it's still important to know where to expand. If you're always settling your expands based solely on proximity you're not going to get very far.

 

[beetle]

Build on a hill. Preferably a hill with a Luxury Resource like Gold/Copper/Salt/Silver or a bonus resource like Sheep.

Especially for your expos, settling on hill is good as it gets you an extra hammer. It is remarkable how that helps early. Every other non-special has exactly the same yield -- except hills give you one extra hammer.

Settling on mining lux is particularly good but not salt. You loose a yield. I think it may be the only lux that you want to avoid settling on top of.

I wouldn't go that far. Another factor that should be brought into account is how much forest you have around your new city. I'd rather settle on a flat land and be immediately adjacent to a few forests then be 2-3 tiles away (assuming resource access is the same). If I can chop 2-3 forests immediately that's the equivalent of a free ancient era building.

This is very good advise, as those early chops are so helpful. If the chops let you build a watermill and workshop, then even with zero hills the expo can be okay.

The main downside to settling on anything, even if the yields show no loss, is you lose a good tile to work, which is why I favor tiles I couldn't be working for a while anyway if I do it.

This fact drives my decision making quite a lot actually. If I can help it, the only non-special I will plant on is copper/silver/gold -- because why give up a tile? You would never work a flat desert tile (or unimproved marsh) -- but if you settle that spot it gets the same yield as a city on plain or grassland. So settling on flat desert nets the city one more tile to work.

I'm fairly certain most players will move their capital at least a few tiles before settling

I think it depends on your definition of “few”. I would wager that most (i.e., half or more players) settle by T1. The map algorithm gives you an above average spot initially. It is very much a case of diminishing returns the longer you wander. Plenty of exceptions of course, lots of anecdotes, but the math heavily favors SIP over even a one turn delay. Even knowing that, I resist SIP in most games, but settle by T1 in nine out of ten games I would guess.

 

[danaphanous]

I agree my settling priority is to claim the worst terrain feature possible while keeping resources in range (desert spots, tundra, snow and marshes) if I see no valid hill or hill lux usually. The hidden upside to this is, as you say, one additional workable normal terrain tile. This is less important in a wide liberty game because you rarely end up working all your flat tiles though, but I think it's excellent advice if you think you'll grow the city big. If you claimed dance of aurora or desert folklore you get even more benefits from settling on flat desert or tundra because they are very difficult to work otherwise and it's extra faith.

when I first started I used to regret not getting windmill in early cities as the engineer alone is better then the hill hammer, but not anymore. I honestly think the windmill is a worse deal in your first expos. Takes too long to get to and there are too many other building competing for your attention at the time. I prefer the early production boost in almost all cities unless I'm somehow founding late when windmills are already around. This only happens in "for fun" games, not competitive ones.

 

[MightySpice]

This is uncommon, I'm fairly certain most players will move their capital at least a few tiles before settling, but even regardless of that it's still important to know where to expand. If you're always settling your expands based solely on proximity you're not going to get very far.

I never said ''solely' on proximity. And don't worry about me getting far. I win pretty easy on emperor. Going on an uncertain adventure with your first settler seems pretty stupid to me.
My point is that you can wish all that want, but if you play a competitive game, the places you will be able to settle are limited. I usually play the tradition-route and in that case it is important that cities are not to close to each other, because they will be big.

 

[Redaxe]

This is uncommon, I'm fairly certain most players will move their capital at least a few tiles before settling, but even regardless of that it's still important to know where to expand. If you're always settling your expands based solely on proximity you're not going to get very far.

Hmmm this is a gamble - unless you do the whole save & reload thing... I tend not to move further then the distance I can move my warrior on the first turn. Really the key to success is having enough food to be able to get to size 3 fairly quickly and having enough production to be able to build some early settlers.

Most of the time you're guaranteed some reasonable dirt where you start. If there's a lot of bare plains/grass chances are there are going to be lots of horses which will really help.

I've seen mediocre maps where spending a few turns moving around would yield a similiar or even worse result.

Expo's are a bit different as you've had time to scout

 

[inthesomeday]

I typically move my settler 0-3 turns on quick speed multiplayer, where there is no save/reload. If I can see a great spot I'll always move to it. If I'm on a terrible spot I'll explore and find a hill with a growth til within usually 3 turns. If I'm on mediocre land with no better spots I'll settle in place.

 

[Redaxe]

I typically move my settler 0-3 turns on quick speed multiplayer, where there is no save/reload. If I can see a great spot I'll always move to it. If I'm on a terrible spot I'll explore and find a hill with a growth til within usually 3 turns. If I'm on mediocre land with no better spots I'll settle in place.

Yeah usually you can find a hill or at least some production tiles around.

Won't turn this into yet another liberty vs tradition thread but even a mediocre start can be ok if you focus on getting you're settlers out early. Chances are some of your expo's will hit some better dirt so you get some better dirt to build on.

So in a sense a lot of early cities can compensate for weak dirt

 

[beetle]

I typically move my settler 0-3 turns on quick speed multiplayer...

I understand and agree with the conventional wisdom for taking an extra turn or two in multiplayer.

If I'm on a terrible spot...

I think actually “terrible” spots are vanishing rare in SP (unless the map is over crowded). Even if you select cold and sparse, the starting script will still drop each major civ settler in a better-than-chance-location considering what is available. The mathematical odds of a player, with no information, doing better than the algorithm are not high.

If there's a lot of bare plains/grass chances are there are going to be lots of horses which will really help.

That is a good observation! I know it’s confirmation bias, but it feels like half the time I don’t SIP that I up planted on a strategic resource!

 

[MightySpice]

Really the key to success is having enough food to be able to get to size 3 fairly quickly and having enough production to be able to build some early settlers.

What a strange remark. The key to succes in civ is that you make the most of what you get. In my current game as egypt i started in the desert (at least historically correct). Not a great place to start, but slowely i am competing. It's early in the game. I'll let you know if i won.

 

[inthesomeday]

What? The desert is one of the BEST ways to start, it opens up Petra (doubly so as Egypt), wonderful flood plains civil service farming, and desert folklore, the most broken pantheon in the game.

 

[MightySpice]

Flood plains? Shouldn't there be a river?
Petra? Desert folklore? I play civ 5 vanilla.

 

[danaphanous]

ugh, vanilla has such sparse options compared to BNW. I don't even think they had religion back then. Did you really start in the middle of the desert with no river? I've never seen the spawn-finder be that mean before. Did you at least get some oases and hills? Those aren't bad...and generally the spawn-finder is pretty balanced in that if it starts you in majority terrain known to have poor yields (desert/tundra) they give you more resources or luxuries to make up for it. I read the math behind the algorithm and they actually do take this into account. Of course if their idea of "extra" resources is loads of incense then...lol

I agree that playing every start, even poor ones, is fun and it's what I generally do as well. That said, the early keys to success are still growth and settlers so I'm not sure why you have a problem with Redaxe saying so. Any game where you don't grow and don't build settlers will be a losing one Exception: Venice, but you still grow as fast as possible with them.

 

[Redaxe]

What a strange remark. The key to success in civ is that you make the most of what you get.

Actually it isn't. "Making the most of what you get" is actually a more subjective and vague term. You might roll a salt/marble start and spend 50 of the first 100 turns building Ancient Wonders and delay your settlers while you do this.
You might have a nice capital by the end but you might lose the best spots to the AI and the cities you do build are going to be smaller then they could otherwise be.

Even though you rolled a good start, delaying settlers to build wonders actually slowed your civ down in the long term. The civ next door that didn't have the great start could claim all your good land by turn 50-60 if they prioritised settlers.

 

[beetle]

Even though you rolled a good start, delaying settlers to build wonders actually slowed your civ down in the long term.

I think this is an excellent point. Marble in the first ring is not a good enough reason to chase wonders. Hitting a culture ruin is not reason enough to open an extra SP tree. If you get lucky -- but then play differently than usual -- you have just thrown away the extra advantage the particular map was trying to gift you.

 

[MightySpice]

@redaxe
I might do a lot of things, but i am not so sure what you are talking about. Building wonders? Delaying settlers? What has that to do with my remark?

When i start a game there are three things that are uncertain: what leader will i be? what 'dirt' will i get and who will be next to me? Civ is about making the most of that start. It's makes a big difference if you end up in the desert, at sea, on hills or very nice next to a river with lots of fertile ground. Civ is about making the most of that. It's makes a big difference if your next door neighbours are the zulu and the aztecs or ghandi and the english.

I get the feeling that a lot of players restart when they don't like the 'dirt' they were given. Or start wondering around with their first settler (which i will repeat is a really stupid thing to do). Chances are it only will get worse.

 

[inthesomeday]

"Making the most with what you have" isn't something you can queue up on the build order or the tech tree, and if somebody asked "What's the key to doing better in civ" and you told them that they'd be pretty disappointed. Yes, obviously this is the goal of a civ game, or at least how to win one, but in order to do that there are lots of smaller steps inside of it. However building settlers and growing rapidly are things that you can make a guide about or be sure to intentionally prioritize at the start of the game. They're both very key things to focus on when playing civ. There's nothing you can do for which your goal is "making the best with what you get". There isn't an advisor for that, and there's no demographic about it. It's not so much a key as a handy slogan that helps remind a player what the most basic fundament of the game-- or most games-- is.

 

[beetle]

I play civ 5 vanilla.

OMFG, why?

When i start a game there are three things that are uncertain: what leader will i be?

I also don’t see the appeal letting the game pick who you will play. It is the one variable in GotM (and every other series) that the player knows going in.

I agree with the other points you raise in your most recent post to this thread.

 

[MightySpice]

i play vanilla since a few weeks. i was tired of ideologies in BNW.

The random leader is nice because it challenges the player. You can chalenge yourself by stepping up a level or by randomizing things.