2nd city site??? - Isolated

[4lord]

Good afternoon, everyone. I am looking for some advice as to where to place the next city of Mr. Oranje's empire. The settings for the game are as follows:

Difficulty: Prince
Map: Shuffle
Everything else is standard. Goodie huts and random events are on (forgot to take them off ).

For my initial city, I ended up settling in place. Figured the abundance of seafood and access to the stone would be a good start since it will provide plenty of food for my GP and the commerce that exists with Oranje's financial trait should provide enough for commerce, if not, when I settle another continent, maybe I move the palace???

Without further adieu, here is the screenshot:

Spoiler :

What I think I know:
It seems I am very isolated, maybe the only one on my little continent/island. I didn't fog bust the southeast point because I wanted to see what was around my city...will head there in a bit.

The only spot as far as food goes would be the fish/corn area, but with the jungles and the lack of IW at the moment, would I settle 1NE of the corn??? The only other food is the rice to the southeast, but that is too far. Settling amongst the silks adds little value to me at this point, since it would not be on the coast and in the middle of a jungle, which makes it not a viable option until IW comes in.

Wonders:
I was thinking about the Great Wall, but I don't think that is necessary. I can handle the bards with spawnbusting. Maybe Mids, but not sure if that would be necessary, unless for fail gold? Definitely will try for the GL as it is plainly obvious with the start/map/leader.

Any and all feeback is welcomed. Thank you in advance and happy Civving!

 

[4lord]

I posted the save over in the Civ5 - Strategy & Tips forum on accident.

If you would like to access it, it is over there, until a moderator deletes it and I can re-attach the file over here. Sorry for the inconvenience.

 

[Windsor]

I'd probably settle on the sugar giving you a 3 city square and you can work the two grasshills and the oasis.

Corn+fish is a decent option too with a WB from the capital. Think of it, probably slightly faster. Didn't bother doing the math. Depends also what's further south. Might want to save corn for a inland city.

 

[elmurcis]

Hmm.. there is an island to SE actually.. would be very interesting to see what is there because except fish+corn city can't see anything good short term (you can whip food and/or run 2 scientists for 1st G Scientist). But would have to settle on that jungle hill to keep some space for Fill-up city to use that fresh water lake..

 

[4lord]

I overlooked something...the oasis in the middle, to the southeast corner of Amsterdam's border. That provides fresh water to the grassland E of the hill, and to the 2 grassland tiles to the S and SE of the oasis. It would also allow me to borrow the hills from the capital if needed as well.

Spoiler :

However, other than providing a buffer the capital, what good would that do me?

One other thing...isn't it odd that there is a random hill in the middle of the forest surrounding Amsterdam???

 

[elmurcis]

Problem with this city is that you need road for trade route while settling corn/fish needs only sailing tech... and I would take it fast anyway for lighthouse/galley/settling that another island for better trade routes anyway.. And Great Lighthouse here is good choise too (when isolated any commerce is very important, can't relay on Oracle+tech trades)

 

[4lord]

So the decision has been made....#2 will be the corn/fish and #3 will be the hill besides the oasis.

Spoiler :

Workers are building roads to the new cities (probably should have improved the hill in the capital first, but will get to that as soon as the road to #3 is complete. Warrior is spawnbusting for city #2. I also found out that I am not alone on this island, I met a Portugese warrior to the south. So I guess that means that the southeast tip does not end in coastline.

I have attached the save from the earlier post as well as the next one below....let me know how bad I have done .

 

[lymond]

I'd settle 3S1W of the Dam. City can share a clam until corn comes online. you can fit 2 cities in close proximity to Dam to share seafoods. (note: keep that in mind when netting seafood and for gawd sakes net your fish before clams.)

Net both fish and then the 2 clams accessible by other cities (although you can finish wbs for those clams at or after the settler - a good settler whip will get a 1t wb anyway). 3rd clam can probably be ignore for quite some time.

all that jungle is a mess for some time, see 2 close overlap cities work well and then maybe that fish city 2 SW of corn.

you really don't need many cities for some time if you are truly iso, and the jungle cities are more of a hindrance that asset. the fish city is okay though simply for food. GLH could pay off here.

still possible you are not truly iso here. I usually get out a scout workboat and send him out..you can even out explore, but I'd make sure he heads to the important areas first as auto-explore is sometime wonky

(note: the 2 cities I mentioned,and likely the 3rd at the time it is eventually settled will provide insta-trade routes, and have low distance maintenance)

 

[Chase_2_Rabbits]

So...what's the plan here?

Have you hooked up the stone? it's hard to tell from the screenshot. If you have, why?

It looks like you have 2 workers. Workers are good and all, but it's insane to build 2 workers before a settler on a seafood start!

We need the whip with all that food in the capital. With no apparent pressure to settle quickly, we can just 3pop whip all early settlers at size 6. Also, why have you hooked up both clams and ignored the higher food-yield fish? There's a case for one of each given lack of other commerce, but 2 clams? I don't get it.

I agree with lymond that 3S1W of cap is good for a second city - at least if we've got the clam they can share up and running. This allows you to get the corn hooked up before you go on to build city "2" on your map, so they actually have a decent tile to work and whip from straight away. I'd even consider building 3E of Amsterdam. It can also share a clam and can work the stone; I'd certainly be building that if the GLH was my plan.

 

[4lord]

My thinking on netting clams before the fish was the extra commerce it provided. I net +2 for the clams as opposed to +1, if the fish are netted. Thinking that would allow me to tech faster with a minimal negative effect on growth. Is that faulty thinking?

Netting 2 Clams: +8 +6
Netting 2 Fish: +10 +2
Netting 1 Clam/1 Fish: +9 +4
Unless there is some magic number to hit, wouldn't the tradeoff of -2 be worth the +4

The city suggestions from lymond are spot on, though. For some reason, I never thought about the spot 3S1W of Dam and then the other one 3E of the Dam would be better. Allows for growth as well as decent production while keeping maintenance costs minimal.

I will restart from 4000 BC with the changes in mind. I will also scout the whole continent to ensure my position with potential neighbors. From playing before, I know that Jaoa is down somewhere to the SE, so I am not alone.

 

[Chase_2_Rabbits]

You're right that the overall yield of + is greater on the clams; but my feeling is that the food is more important at this stage on this map.

We don't actually need much at the moment. The only worker tech we need is BW. We pretty much have to open with Mining -> BW on this start. In the 20ish turns it takes BW to come in, we explore and then have to make the first important tech decision based on the direction we're going in. If it's the GLH (seems a reasonable choice given the lack of river for cottage spam, no marble for the aesthetics route and generally a bunch of pretty crappy land) then Sailing -> Masonry.

All in all this seems a fairly tough map based on what we know so far, so we need to make lots of good decisions.

 

[4lord]

Chase...thank you for the feedback and opinions. The map did seem tough, which is why I decided to stick with it, it adds more of a challenge.

 

[Chase_2_Rabbits]

No probs, happy to help

I played a bit of the map myself since you posted a 4000BC save. Having had a proper look, I think GLH is the way to go. Built in 1840BC, screenshot and 1800BC save attached for reference.

After finishing Sailing & Masonry to unlock the GLH, I went Wheel, Pottery, Writing. On the way to Currency, probably via Maths as it's cheaper - no real need for Alpha here, I doubt I'll get much trade out of Joao on Prince. Second city is building a galley to explore/transport a settler to the island to the SW and set up some intercontinental trade. That'll probably be my 5th city after I settle 3E of the Dam and the fish/corn city to the SW. From there our settling options look pretty poor; but that's the beauty of the GLH - even weak cities can contribute as long as the trade route income is covering the maintenance.

By this stage of the game, I'm usually starting to think about how I'm going to win it. Although I must admit, I've no real idea on this map yet! In the short term, I'm going to whip settlers at pop 6 in the capitol and let the overflow go into the Mids, chucking in some more hammers while I grow back to size 6 (and my last 3 chops once maths is in). It's hardly an essential build here, the GLH doesn't need bigger cities and I don't have loads of good tiles to work in bigger cities using the Rep happiness; but I can get some extra research running scientists in my cheap libraries...and Police State could be useful later on. I won't be too upset with fail gold, though.

After that, who knows

Head for Astro?

Maybe someone else will have some ideas.

 

[lymond]

My thinking on netting clams before the fish was the extra commerce it provided..

4lord - Probably the most important first thing to learn in this game is that FOOD is KiNg. Commerce will come, but getting that food for growth and production is huge. A lot of production is wasted early by netting those clams first.

1st Settler should be out by around 3000BC. I'd 2pop whip settler 4>2 would be good here with OF into 2nd worker or wb for a clam for new city. (depends a lot on timings with worker, improvements, chops that i would not know without playing)

Mids is a good play here for early happiness and science boost. Save chops for that once stone is hooked up and put some settler/worker whip OF into it.

GLH good too, ofc, and could probably be build in a 2nd city on this level.

 

[Chase_2_Rabbits]

1st Settler should be out by around 3000BC.

I managed 2800BC, although that included a chop that I wasn't wild about making given that we only have 8 forest squares on the visible map and are contemplating building 2 wonders! We want to be quicker than 2120BC, though

-----------

I played on a bit longer although I started getting sloppy. 75AD, minor spoilers:

Spoiler :

I've only got 8 cities which is below par given that I've got the GLH and there are 4 more potential coastal city spots (plus one inland) still available. On a harder difficulty level, I'd have lost a couple to Joao.

First caravel is just setting off to explore. I put a GS bulb into Astro as my capital isn't really bureaucracy-worthy. I'll finish it off after a diversion to Construction in order to conquer Joao (and maybe Engineering if Joao goes for Feudalism, he's doing Monarchy at the moment). He's got 4 cities down to the South of our island.

Still no plan to win the game! If I can be bothered, I'll probably just throw some troops into half a dozen galleons and set about conquering everyone

 

[lymond]

2800BC is fine, C2R. I was just ballparking it without testing.