capital floodplains

[dizzygreen]

How would you guys play this floodplain rich start? I am playing Bismarck on standard sized big and small, monarch, epic. I was giddy to have rolled this as an Exp leader.

 

[DMOC]

Cottages!!!

(I suggest building a worker first.)

 

[dizzygreen]

Really? That was my first instinct but as IND and with aggressive AI on for the first time I figured maybe workshop the whole mess with a couple farms.

 

[DMOC]

You need metal casting in order to start workshopping. Pottery for cottages comes sooner, and will help research. Also, workshops take a lot of other techs (such as Chemistry, which I think gives +1 prod to them) in order to really be good.

 

[Dirk1302]

Farming the tiles costs 2 turns longer/tile. As a result you grow into unhappiness soon and in the end lose out on 1c/turn the first 10 turns, 2c/turn the next 20 tiles etc.Cottaging the tiles may sound boring but it's generally just best with fps.

 

[duckduckswan]

With that riverside gold and cottages, this could turn into a wonderland. Imagine what bureaucracy would dofor it

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Farming the tiles costs 2 turns longer/tile. As a result you grow into unhappiness soon and in the end lose out on 1c/turn the first 10 turns, 2c/turn the next 20 tiles etc.Cottaging the tiles may sound boring but it's generally just best with fps.

The idea here being the the corn feeds the mines, and the cottages come into play after the first wave of cities are productive, or are you recommending bringing cottages on line while the settlers are still being trained?

 

[Negator_UK]

Cottages, and before BW.

Tech & Quiver for a while, and don't for get to get alphabet early so you can trade to maintain your superiority.

 

[Edzako]

One thing I don't understand is why foodplanes almost always comes with extra gold or two, as if all this extra food would't enough.

 

[dirtyparrot]

What difficulty are you playing under? If you're playing Emperor or below, I would probably beeline for Pottery right out of the gate. Cheap granary plus early mature cottages, pays for nice expansion. Warriors strategically spawnbusting will be able to buy you enough time.

 

[DaveMcW]

Cottages, and before BW.

The problem is the corn isn't irrigated (-1) and the hill has gold (-1). Building settlers and a granary without chopping takes too long.

Agriculture
Bronze Working
The Wheel
Pottery

 

[Negator_UK]

The problem is the corn isn't irrigated (-1) and the hill has gold (-1). Building settlers and a granary without chopping takes too long.

Agriculture
Bronze Working
The Wheel
Pottery

Ok, I bow to your immortality ...

BUT ....

Why not research agriculture, farm the corn, and a few FP's, then grow the capital to a pop 5 settler pump pdq - would chopping be so essential ?? why do we need a granary ?? - health ??? - could we not leave the trees alone to combat this ??

 

[CarlH]

When I come accross a concentration of flood plains like this I am now more inclined to split between two or more cities to avoid/minimise the health problems. That way you can have two or more strong (but not uber) cities, which will hopefully have some decent production as well.

In this case I might have settled:

1) Berlin 2E 1S (which misses the corn but gets the silk). 5 flood plains and fold and whatever is to the east;
2) GP farm on the plains 1W1S of the cows, which gets the corn, fish and cows; and
3) a third city to the west to use the remaining flood plains.

Without the surrounding area this is a bit of a stab in the dark, but seems viable and you end up with 3, tight-knit, decent cities. And you dont lose the flood plain you've settled on.

 

[Dirk1302]

The idea here being the the corn feeds the mines, and the cottages come into play after the first wave of cities are productive, or are you recommending bringing cottages on line while the settlers are still being trained?

Continuation depends on scouting i think, if it's crowed i'd go Dave's route ag->mining->bw->wheel(or archery)->pottery. If not i'd go ag->mining->wheel->pottery->probably archery. Worker can build roads on the forested mines while researching pottery in this case.

Why not research agriculture, farm the corn, and a few FP's, then grow the capital to a pop 5 settler pump pdq - would chopping be so essential ?? why do we need a granary ?? - health ??? - could we not leave the trees alone to combat this ??

Farming the fps is loads of work 7 turn/tile. Since we need to cottage these asap you'd spent 12 turns/fp, too much imo. For settler pump purposes a fp farm's no better than a mine. If it's crowed i'd rather chop and mine. fps and corn are good enough to grow to 6 anyway. I agree with leaving some forests but the forests on the mines have to go anyway.

 

[azzaman333]

Cottages, Cottages, Cottages.

Cottages.

 

[Silu]

"I just want to say one word to you. Just one word: cottages." - Calder Willingham, The Graduate

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Beautiful Bureau capital site! Tons of cottages and a few mines to get the hammer bonus from bureau. I had a start like this with Pacal on Saturday. Great game.

 

[UWHabs]

Research agri, mining, then to pottery (unless if you find a neighbour on your doorstep and want to try to rush.

Farm corn, farm 1 FP, mine gold.

cottage everything else.

win.

 

[Monsterzuma]

Tech Agriculture, Wheel, Pottery, BW. Go Worker first and farm over the corn and 1 floodplain (can't cottage up in time and farms help our early game too). Then Cottage up 4 floodplains and improve the gold last (it hinders growth and doesn't offer much good when all you can do with hammers is build warriors; the tech boost would also proove irrelevant) and work it. Now play the everyday worker/settler pumping game. Your expansion will begin to pick up right about the time any regular empire would succumb to it's maintenance costs.

If this was Immortal, you'd have to be very careful about getting barbarian defenses up in time. This means not growing over size 4 until you're safe and keeping some cash around to upgrade warriors to axemen.

Since we need to cottage these asap you'd spent 12 turns/fp, too much imo. For settler pump purposes a fp farm's no better than a mine.

The farm will contribute to our early game just fine as it is, so we won't need to cottage the tile until very late when worker-turns have long become cheap and plentiful. FP farms are quite a bit better than mines in that they don't hinder city growth but in fact accellerate it.

 

[shyuhe]

I would farm the first FP and cottage the rest. The corn isn't irrigated so it'll be nice to have a second food tile to help growth, especially once you work the gold.