City Placement

[zyxy]

If it's connected by sea, then indeed, the lux is available after Astro, or after we conquer the Great Lighthouse, whichever comes first .

I agree with ICS-ing the island, and with blocking the shoreline against invasion. A third lux is easily worth a few gpt on unit upkeep.

 

[donsig]

What unit do we block with? Pikes? Should we keep those extra warriors we've got on the one-tile islands and use them?

 

[zyxy]

Warriors is good enough. Any military unit will do, really, so take the cheapest/weakest available. We need 7 units, so that would be 4 warriors, the reg horse, the pike and then one more cheap unit (build an archer?).

Cities can go on the horse, NE on the ivory, and W of the ivory. We will need a harbor and can build a worker locally to connect the ivory. (We'll need a mainland harbor too).

 

[Paul#42]

Based on the discussion in various other threads I'd like to present a new dot map for discussion (sorry for pic recycling).

Spoiler :

I inserted some ICS-towns in corrupt areas for a deeper analysis.
Here's the new towns (order of settlement), their corruption and the reasons behind them:
(note that coruption according to CA2 based on the current settlement, not regarding the other planned towns)

1. black dot - 51% - though on a BG the only good spot there immediately to settle (N loses an iPl)
2. pink dot - 54% - clears a jungle, might get extra commerce from the gems immediately
3. orange dot - 43% - saves a hill
4. grey dot - 45% - saves a hill
5. purple dot - 43% - clears a jungle
6. green dot - 43%
7. yellow dot - 49%

Be aware that every of these settlement raises corruption for all towns with currently higher corruption: (The Mariona), The Hideaway, The Nursery, The Shallows, The Greenhouse, The Whale Pont.

Every new town offers instant benefit (at least):
less unit support 2gpt
covering a coastal tile spares a unit 2gpt
base income 1gpt / 1bpt
scientist 3bpt.
production wealth 1gpt (or even more valuable: 1spt for a caravel).

 

[donsig]

As long as we're at war I favor placing extra cities in the west. We must prevent BABE landing with guns and less coast to guard helps. We could also put another city in the marsh between The Nursery and black dot.

If we abandon a city later would the increased corruption it caused in other cities go away?

 

[Paul#42]

If we abandon a city later would the increased corruption it caused in other cities go away?

it would.

I did not place one on the marsh because our workers will be busy roading till we got Steam Power...

 

[General_W]

Proposed plan looks good to me.

I agree with Donsig that we should prioritize settling places that will help block a BABE invasion

However – I think the most likely invasion route for BABE will be to come past SubCom Island. Sure, that gives us warning – but BABE has to assume that sailing past Saber will give us even more warning. Going past SubCom Island also give them the ability to setup a base of operations, a potential healing center, and to ship chain all their units there down to us. (which is another subtle reminder from me that we should really try to get up there and see if we can't do some damage)

Anyway – back on topic…

I'd settle in this order:

• Green Dot
• Yellow Dot
• Black Dot (we're so open in the North-west, and BABE may come from the west)
• Orange Dot (Near current location of BABE galleys – would be nice to block this hill)
• Purple Dot
• Pink Dot

With obvious flexibility if we happen to spot some BABE galleys.

 

[Paul#42]

I'd settle in this order:

• Green Dot
• Yellow Dot
• Black Dot (we're so open in the North-west, and BABE may come from the west)
• Orange Dot (Near current location of BABE galleys – would be nice to block this hill)
• Purple Dot
• Pink Dot

Why would you settle the in my eyes) least exciting points first?
I'd even not place a unit there unless a ship is near.
The hills and the (almost) original planned sites I'd rate much more important.

 

[General_W]

As I stated, my proposed ordering wasn't based on the quality of the sites - it's based on getting blocking in place as fast as possible, in case BABE shows up in the next handful of turns.

It looks to me like at the end of turn 134 we had 2 settlers and were building 2 more @ 5 and 6 turns left to go each. If we don't change that, we're 11 turns away from having enough settlers to finish the plan (+ 4 or 5 turns to walk to the right location) means 15-16 turns away from done.
I'm just worried BABE will be here before then, and I'd like to have extra tiles blocked before then.

But I'm totally open to persuasion.