A Start Question

[Sun-Pin]

Monarch/Panagea/Ottomans/Large Map/Random Topography.

After building my first capital, I struck out to the east and found two interesting things. First, the Romans about ten tiles away.

Second, five tiles away a river/flood plain area with six wheat squares within a 21-square area.

How would you use such a gold mine? The Romans will have iron/Legionary shortly.

 

[Belisar]

Hurry up! A quick initial expansion is always key.
Six wheat? Try to build two cities and share them!

 

[ivory]

Read Babylon's Deity Settlers, an excellent tutorial by veteran player BamSpeedy. Already the first chapter contains answers to all your questions.

 

[Sirp]

With that high food, you can probably get two cities to +7 food per turn, meaning they can each grow every 3 turns. If there is potential for lots of shields nearby, like bonus grasslands, that'll let you combine shields with food, which'll be even better.

Try to make that a settler/worker producing area. Make friends with the Romans while you expand. They won't get legionaries so quick - the AIs aren't that quick to hook up and use resources, and especially not the Romans.

-Sirp.

 

[WickedWombat]

Ya best build a granary there if you want to succeed.

The Romans are fast, cunning, suckers that you need to take out fast.

Defend that city well and turn it into a settler pump. BUILD GRANARY SOON!! You must expand quicker than they do.

Trust me, take them out before they take you out.

 

[elpadrino87]

Sirps right, the AI really doesn't prioritize linking up resources, and when they do, its usually only to one or two cities. Plus, the Romans aren't scientific, so they have to research bronze working and then iron working, then find an iron resource. This doesn't meant that you should take your time to get there though. It probably wouldn't be a great idea to use those squares for only one city, since the shield output would be non-existant. (you can't mine flood plains) and your citizens would be subject to disease.

 

[Sun-Pin]

I can build a city next to two of the wheat stalks but on a plains square. The area surrounding it is mostly plains and flood plains, no hills. It's food rich and shield poor. I thought I was playing the Ottomans, but it appears that it is the Carthaginians. Confusion reigns because I'm usually playing several games at one time. After discovering the wheat, I saved the game and returned to the Celts game I was playing.

Since the area is a bit resource poor, I should probably mine the plains squares. But, should I also pop rush the improvements (barracks and temple)? There are no luxuries anywhere to hook up, so growth has it's problems.

 

[Chieftess]

Yeah, build two cities. What's the terrain like around them? If there's lots of mountains/hills, I think 3-4 wheats on floodplains are enough to support them by the industrial age.

 

[Renata]

I wouldn't even bother with granaries with that much food, and I would also not mine the plains (unless you'd otherwise be at a useless situation such as 8 food per turn). You don't need temple or barracks either. Use the luxury slider to keep the two cities happy, and let your other cities build military. If Sirp is right and two cities at +7 food each is possible, and if each one could also average 5 shields per turn, then the two together could turn out two settlers every six turns - a truly massive expansion rate. You wouldn't even have to worry about escorting the settlers - who cares if you lose one?

Renata