City Placement - A Nice X-Mas Gift

[Benford's Law]

Hey all,
Since it is Christmas I thought I'd have a little fun and try out a (Huge Map/Fractal/Marathon/Random, Climate, Civ, and Sea Level/Emperor difficulty) game. I'm not a strong player, so the difficulty is probably a bit over my head.
However, I did start as Suryavarman II of the Khmer in a cold world with a high sea level. The starting terrain looks fairly promising, with lots of good resource (high commerce, stone, and marble) and production tiles even though I'm near a tundra in the far north. Mehmed II is my main problem to the south, but he is below the jungle and his capitol is blocking off an apparently critical isthmus further south. This map layout would obviously reward some quick expansion, but I am asking any true Civ experts how they would approach city placement in this scenario. I can go ahead and place them myself, sure, but I love to hear other peoples' strategic thinking on these threads and I'm sure I can always learn something here....I consider it an X-Mas gift!

I am running BTS 3.13 with Bhruic's patch so I don't know if it can be used by everyone.
Here's the save:
View attachment Sir James II BC-2575.CivBeyondSwordSave

If the save doesn't work here are a few screenschots:

Close up to the Khmer capitol:


Further up in space:


Furthest out showing Mehmed's Isthmus block:



Hope these attachments work okay. Merry X-Mas to all!

~Benford's Law

 

[Airefuego]

Hi BL and Merry Christmas to you too!

Wow, what a great starting dilemma! There is some fabulous rich land to the south, and some big rivers. Surya is expansive / creative, so he's a good land grabber. But it would mean founding some of your early cities a long way from your capital, which could get expensive or hard to defend on Emperor level.

I suggest you take the risk and go for the big land prize. If you can get all that land and make it productive, you will be hard to stop later.

Start by founding a couple of blocking cities just north of the jungle. One riverside city (two tiles west of the copper) can grab the corn, pigs and copper. NICE. Meanwhile the other (a little further west) could sit on the coast near the rivers and grab the incense (I don't want to say exactly where because I can't see the exact tile types too well, but there are a few spots that will do the trick. Or you could sacrifice the coastal position and also grab the horses A little overlap with the other city will happen in any case, but that's fine as both sites have a lot of nice river tiles and grasslands).

Make sure the two fat crosses will combine to block the continent, and then you can backfill the gaps at your leisure.

This will get you a big chunk of very good land. It also gets you two important strategic resources (copper and horses) WITHOUT you needing to found the relatively junky cities that would be required to grab those same resources in the tundra - especially the tundra copper, yuck.

Strategy after that? Defend those two cities well, and try to keep Mehmed happy. Get your economy on track, get some courthouses into your far-off cities and cottage up those rivers. Get that second gold mined, and fill up the land with cities gradually as your economy allows. Your aim is to peacefully develop all the land you have grabbed, so that by mid game you are a mighty powerhouse! Oh and make sure your power graph stays up, as Mehmed may well backstab you at any time if you have more money than soldiers...

 

[Benford's Law]

@Airefuego,
Your advice sounds very good. I agree with pretty much everything you said. I only need to wait one more little marathon speed turn to finish an archer escort for a settler that has already been built.
I will definitely try to pursue a peaceful strategy and hurry those city sites next to the jungle. Will cost some money, but I'm working on the wheel/pottery at the moment, too.
I just hope my settlers make it down there in time!
Futurehermit had a very good thread on city specialization for mediocre players like myself:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254994

I will have to make some dotmaps and see what I can come up with.

Thanks, Airefuego! EDIT - Sorry, misspelled your username!

~Benford's Law

 

[Gooblah]

City List:
1N of the Silk east of the capital
1SW of the Corn east of the capital
1S of the Horses northwest of the capital
1N of the Corn (on coast), south west of the capital
1NE of the Incense (on west coast)
1NE of the Horses south of the capital
Either 2W or 2N/1E of the Corn 2 tiles in from the east coast
1N of the Copper, north of the jungle barrier
2W/1N of the Silk in the middle of the jungle region
1NW of the northernmost Silk in the Jungle Region's West Coast
I suggest settling the second city, then the Southern areas, then the Jungle, after amassing Workers and Chariots to guard and chop.

 

[Benford's Law]

@Gooblah,
Thanks for your dotmap and advice. I am putting up a slightly updated screenshot at 2500 BC where a scout at the far northeast revealed a corn resource near the incense and tundra (thus, fully exploring everything north of Mehmed's chokepoint).
The screenshot also shows the exact location of a group (Archer, Settler, and Worker) waiting for my orders:

I initially wanted to move the group down to where Airefuego suggested, but you seem to advise settling near the tundra copper, anyway, for the second city.
I'm having a tough time deciding whether to get really aggressive here and settle 2W the copper by the jungle (incurring significant maintenance costs, but helping to cut off Mehmed before it's too late). Or just settle where you suggested and take my chances for a cheaper cost. Right now I'm still leaning towards the "big land grab" and sealing off Mehmed as soon as possible......With that worker along I figure I could mine and hook up the copper right away with a starting defense already established by the escorting archer. There's still time to change my mind, but my intrepid group of adventurers are getting farther away from the capitol.

Decisions, decisions....

~Benford's Law

 

[Gooblah]

It may be too late due to the position of your Settler Group, but maybe you should settle on the coast; that way, you can whip a Galley to hold another Settler Group to be produced currently by the capital, which then settles the east coast jungle site to spread throughout the jungle...

 

[Airefuego]

hi there Benson, I think you are only about the third the person ever to spell my username correctly

I really suggest that you stay true to the ambitious land grab strategy. If it comes off, it will get you some really big advantages later. By contrast, if you go for a regular approach where first you settle near your capital, you aren't getting anything out of the ordinary.

I must respectfully disagree with Gooblah's dotmap, too... here are three reasons why:

Firstly, the city site claiming the northern copper near your home is a very poor site. Grabbing copper early is a good idea, but you don't need to build a junk city to do it THAT early (unless you are planning an axe rush, which I think you aren't).

Meanwhile the southern copper city is a prime powerhouse site - pigs, corn, copper, and riverside with grasslands, plus forests. It will be a very good producer early game with whipping and chopping. Late game with levees and watermills it will crank out troops at will. Alternatively, if Mehmed "ceases to be a problem" earlier in the game you can cottage it up and it will make you a million.

So I suggest you get your settler group down there first thing.

Second, Gooblah's dotmap requires three cities to block off the peninsula. You only need two. I'll post a proposed dotmap in a few secs.

Thirdly, it is true that the southern copper city is a long way from your capital, and it will require some work to hook up. But it's not as hard as you might think. Because of those beautiful long rivers, you can connect your first three cities with only FOUR road tiles. I'll put this on the dotmap. (You will need Sailing to allow the river trade to function - I know you don't have this yet. Incidentally this is the reason that whipping a galley for your settler group is not going to work).

Send down a single worker to do the roads, accompanied by an archer for barb defence. Once the worker arrives all the way down south, he can join the worker that the southern copper city will have produced, and in tandem they can hook up the resources and chop out a settler FAST to found City Three to block off the continent.

 

[Airefuego]

Ok here's a proposed dotmap:



You can see an example of how four roads can connect everything.

The green city is the your massive second city.

The blue city placement is somewhat negotiable, you can put it on the cyan dot if you want and it doesn't change much. Another alternative is the yellow dot, which grabs horses but loses coast. I prefer to get coast now and grab the horses with a better inland city later, but it's up to you

This third city will never be massive, but it will be ok, it has a floodplains and a lot of river so it will be a solid cottage city.

Remember the key reason to found the third city is to block off the continent. Don't stray from this goal! Some might suggest a slightly better site which grabs more resources in the short term, but don't do it - remember, this city is grabbing an ENTIRE CONTINENT (well, half of one ) and you can grab every single one of those silks, corns etc later.

(I haven't dotmapped any other future city sites , you can do it easily enough, especially after you know where the iron is - but one priority could be to claim the second gold resource, you'll need the cash. And cottage up those rivers!) Good luck, let us know how it goes...

 

[Benford's Law]

@ Airefuego and Gooblah,
Thanks very much for showing me how you would play this out. I have learned a few important things here, to be sure! (Namely, I shouldn't be playing Emperor games! )
Nonetheless, I have some updated screenshots at 2050 BC:
As you can see, I went ahead and took Airefuego's advice on this one and the second city is already at size 2 and a worker has completed the pig pasture along with finishing up the copper mine.



I *very reluctantly* decided against Gooblah's suggestion because of:

A) Any city in the jungle right away would be a very poor production site that would always be under severe cultural pressure because it would be parked right up against Mehmed II's Ottoman capital. (True, I could always send troops down there to help with this....and more land is always good if you can afford it....but I had to draw a line somewhere.)
B) Airefuego is right. I don't even have fishing yet. It would have been quite a task for me to whip out a galley.

Another settler group is now coming down from the Khmer capitol to take over the cyan dot in this screenie. This coastal city will never be a production powerhouse and it will always need some support from the future production cities up north, but it still looks like I'll get it, anyway:


Right now I am taking a close look at some of Gooblah's suggested future city sites further north of this area. I won't build them right away, of course, but he did provide some good locations for backfilling.

~Benford's Law

 

[Airefuego]

Looks like things are going great!

 

[Benford's Law]

Thanks Airefuego, it looks like this area will be successfully cut off for the short-term.....BUT, I also am starting to recognize the wisdom of why Gooblah wanted to have a lot of coastal city sites. It would be more of a long term advantage for the Khmer civ, because they get half-price harbors and granaries to create some nice income from foreign trade routes.
Just to show what I mean, Snatty had a diety-level game showing the income power of foreign trade routes.


Since trade route income is determined by the population size of the trade partners in a large way along with harbors....having half-price harbors and granaries as an Expansive civ would be a perfect fit for extra coastal trade income. to Gooblah for seeing this long term potential for coastal cities. I'll try to focus on a few more coastal cities up north even though I didn't see your long-term thinking when I was so worried about Mehmed down south.

~Benford's Law

 

[Ultimocrat]

What are barb settings? With a chunk of land that big, they may be a factor in how you decide to settle (hook up copper/horses as fast as possible, keep the line of resource access from your capital fogbusted). In fact, I think it might be better to grab horses (it's nice to have fast units when you have this much land to cover) with city #3 before blocking the isthmus entirely. Actually, now that I look again, you can accomplish both tasks by settling two west of the south horses. It's a pretty decent city site long-term, though it lacks a food resource for short-term growth.

 

[Airefuego]

Grabbing the horses is a good idea (it was an option on the dotmap) and if Benford chooses to do this with City 3, the best site might be 2 west and 1 south of the horses, so you get the southern flood plain for food.

 

[Benford's Law]

It's funny you should ask that barbarian question, Ultimocrat
I had this game on the standard barbarian setting. (Raging barbs are too tough and dangerous....but having no barbs is too lame and unrealistic for me....Standard setting suits me just fine for some excitement and potential Level 4 units with 10XP).
Standard barb settings on an Emperor game with a huge map? (Uhmmm.... ) Let's just say my expansive plans came to a screeching halt.

I was well aware I was going to need some fogbusting units outside my cities, and I figured Archers would fill the need. I had one archer stationed in the hills to the northeast of my capitol and one to the south. I also kept another fogbusting archer to the north of my new second city so the 2-movement point workers would have almost a completely lit up "corridor" that would extend continuously and efficiently from the capitol to my next two cities. It was a cool idea that helped to bring extra workers down south quickly to start building cottages.

The only problem was, the barbs came in **relentless** waves towards my capitol from the northwest, west, and east....where I didn't fogbust very well. Need I say what happened next? I managed to hold on to the capitol, but my improvements were pillaged and ruined.

I'm not very familiar with Emperor games; this is only my second one. I did it for the extra challenge and to see what it was like. I will play more Emperor games for the heck of it (but I can only seem to win on Noble and below for now.)

Here is a posting showing my first Emperor game as Pericles being ruined by a "Massive Barb Uprising" at 2500 BC:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6288337&postcount=23

You were right about those horses, Ultimocrat. I needed them for fast-moving chariots inside the city borders for when barbs sneak through my fogbusters.
Even though I am only playing a standard barb setting on Emperor difficulty, I will be paying closer attention to this excellent thread by slobberinbear concerning protection from barbarians. As I said before, I DO like the extra excitement and XP that barbs can bring.....but I didn't prepare myself adequately for them.

By the way, I did end up settling my 3rd city on that cyan circle I showed in my last screenshot, not thinking I would need horses at the time.

Time for another game! (With a little more knowledge, too....)

~Benford's Law

 

[Airefuego]

It's funny you should ask that barbarian question, Ultimocrat
I had this game on the standard barbarian setting. (Raging barbs are too tough and dangerous....but having no barbs is too lame and unrealistic for me....Standard setting suits me just fine for some excitement and potential Level 4 units with 10XP).
Standard barb settings on an Emperor game with a huge map? (Uhmmm.... ) Let's just say my expansive plans came to a screeching halt.

I was well aware I was going to need some fogbusting units outside my cities, and I figured Archers would fill the need. I had one archer stationed in the hills to the northeast of my capitol and one to the south. I also kept another fogbusting archer to the north of my new second city so the 2-movement point workers would have almost a completely lit up "corridor" that would extend continuously and efficiently from the capitol to my next two cities. It was a cool idea that helped to bring extra workers down south quickly to start building cottages.

The only problem was, the barbs came in **relentless** waves towards my capitol from the northwest, west, and east....where I didn't fogbust very well. Need I say what happened next? I managed to hold on to the capitol, but my improvements were pillaged and ruined.

I'm not very familiar with Emperor games; this is only my second one. I did it for the extra challenge and to see what it was like. I will play more Emperor games for the heck of it (but I can only seem to win on Noble and below for now.)

Here is a posting showing my first Emperor game as Pericles being ruined by a "Massive Barb Uprising" at 2500 BC:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6288337&postcount=23

You were right about those horses, Ultimocrat. I needed them for fast-moving chariots inside the city borders for when barbs sneak through my fogbusters.
Even though I am only playing a standard barb setting on Emperor difficulty, I will be paying closer attention to this excellent thread by slobberinbear concerning protection from barbarians. As I said before, I DO like the extra excitement and XP that barbs can bring.....but I didn't prepare myself adequately for them.

By the way, I did end up settling my 3rd city on that cyan circle I showed in my last screenshot, not thinking I would need horses at the time.

Time for another game! (With a little more knowledge, too....)

~Benford's Law

Holy @#$@! Sounds like the barbs were fierce... well, I guess with hindsight we should have predicted that, with so much space leading directly to you... Darn.

 

[Benford's Law]

Yeah, it was brutal! I wasn't completely surprised by it, and I figured it could be a problem....but I should have taken the barbarians more into account with all that land.
Thanks for helping me out with this game Airefuego, Gooblah, and Ultimocrat. I did learn some things out of it.
I'll just keep playing more games in the dark and lurking Sisiutil's ALC game threads for now...


~Benford's Law

 

[Black Mech]

Looks like I'm not the only one that had problems with barbs today Sux that it happened.

 

[Gooblah]

Ouch! Oh well...Practice and praying to the RNG gods makes perfect!

Try posting another game, and I'll be sure to check it out/.

 

[futurehermit]

That is a lot of tundra/ice