Dot Map Help

[kgsolomon1]

Well I'm in pretty good position away from my two nearest rivals (haven't scouted south enough though) and have a few archers fog busting. Going for Mono which is something I almost never do, but I saw stone by FPs and thought I'd make a run for pyramids while I was at it. Anyway just looking for some city placement advice, I try to do my own but I just havent played enough I guess. I just got my first settler out so trying to decide the best site for my second city and then on from there. The picture is linked below:

 

[DaveMcW]

Settle all of the sites before you even think about the Pyramids.

 

[smackthewise]

This is how i'd do it
EDIT: Did a re-edit, there is a lot of overlap, but if you work the right tiles it shouldn't be an issue.

 

[Andvare]

I don't understand why you'd wait so long before getting the settlers out. You only have two resource tiles in your BFC (and have settled one tile away from the ocean, and one tile away from another cow).
I would have gone for BW, settled one 4W, whipped monument, build/whipped boat-boat-boat and have that city REX. Doesn't work too well without creative, but with it, you could skip the monument, and just build the darn boat.

I'm betting that you have iron in your BFC.

Cities: Depending on the time, the aggression of the AI's, and the importance of the mids' (I would probably skip them), I'd settle 4N-1NE (next to one of the jumbos, with rice in the BFC); 4NE-3E (next to the mountain, wheat and stone in the BFC); 3E-1NE (gold-cow-banana), alternately just 4E, if fresh water is your thing; 1SE of the eastern-most jumbo (gold-jumbo-banana); 4NW-1N (cow-2silk). Edit: All this after that juicy 3fish city. A 3 pop city producing 11food-1hammer is great for those workers/settlers, and would make a great site for the statues.

Then use the jumbos to kill the AI, with iron (you'll need iron working quickly I'm betting, with that jungle there, could easily be that the AI south of there is far away) created axemen to support against pikes.

 

[vicawoo]

Basing this off of smack's:
1st city: 1W of yellow, no monument, stop growth at size 2
2nd city: green flood plain city, but 2N of rice.

Blue city doesn't have enough food to be meaningful. Better to relegate gold to orange city, but settle 1W of plains hills. Basically only loses a plains forest.
Blue Ivory city can go 1N for some more flood plains.

 

[dubrown]

I agree with vicawoo's ideas, seems alot more efficient. I would likely have settled green fish city early to get an early GP farm going. Also, I'd prioritise IW as you have no nearby accesible copper and I bet there'll be some iron nearby the capital. Either that or make sure you have Archery for some barbdefense.

Though some better exploring to the south might reveal a copper hidden down there. The horses to the north might be another option for some early troops, there as well needs some better scouting to find the optimal cityplacement.

Edit: Forgot, don't be afraid of overlapping, most cities will not be able to work their whole BFC until very late in the game, so thus, allowing overlap isn't a waste but can be a good way to grow, for example, cottages. Also, when doing cityplacement, always looks at the food, a foodpoor city will not be of much use until earliest biology, as always there's exceptions, it may claim a resource you need and then it has a reason, even if it's foodpoor. Also look at where you place, if it's possible to place a city by a fresh water source or even better a river, it's a better option than in the middle of nowhere, never place a city one of the coast if it's possible to put it on the coast, else you'll have a few coastal tiles that can never reach full potential as you can't build a lighthouse.

 

[kgsolomon1]

Thanks for all the replies! I was trying the strat of building archers until capital hits max happiness then pumping out settlers and workers. I have one archer protecting the capital and three other archers fog busting, as well as two warriors scouting towards the south. I definitely saw the fish city and planned that one. I agree with And that the blue city should be one W of where it is on the dot map so its not on the jumbo and gets the rice. Here is what I came up with:



I'll settle Jumbo city first, then fish city, then black, then cyan, and fill in with purple. Thoughts?

 

[Wurth]

Stupid question, but what exactly does the term jumbo city mean? if I were to hazard a guess, I would assume it is referring to a city which could support a very high population, but I wanted to be sure.

 

[Sian]

(going from kgsolomon's dotmap which seems reasonable)
i'd say purple fairly early for the gold ... by working the gold and the cows it can pay for maintainence in 1 or 2 cities shortterm ... Black fairly early as well and spam Cottages on it for paying longterm Maintainence ... and if you can make it (doubt it) a city 1SW of the gold south of Rangar

i'd go somewhere like green>purple>black>south of rangar, and do a line westover backfilling south which appears to be no enemy land ... and got a lot of jungle so it can be stalled for quite some time, if for nothing else then because AI are unlikely to expand into Jungle untill forced to it due to its massive need of workers to be profitable shortterm

 

[smackthewise]

Stupid question, but what exactly does the term jumbo city mean? if I were to hazard a guess, I would assume it is referring to a city which could support a very high population, but I wanted to be sure.

He is referring to the City site north of the capital with the Ivory resource.

vicawoo's City advise was definitely better for my dot-map too. Though i never mind settling on Ivory as you still get the resource benefit and the benefits of the 'camp' for it are marginal anyway, I will often cottage over Ivory.

 

[Anomander Rake]

Stupid question, but what exactly does the term jumbo city mean? if I were to hazard a guess, I would assume it is referring to a city which could support a very high population, but I wanted to be sure.

I would assume that it's the city that can work the elephants

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumbo

Jumbo (1861 - September 15, 1885) was a very large African bush elephant, born 1861 in French Sudan, imported to a Paris zoo, transferred to the London Zoo in 1865, and sold in 1882 to P. T. Barnum, for the circus. The giant elephant's name has spawned the common word "jumbo" as meaning large in size. Jumbo has long been the official mascot of Tufts University.

AR

 

[UWHabs]

Especially settling on plains ivory you get the 2 hammers on the city tile. Otherwise the tile just ends up something like 1-3-1, which isn't bad, but isn't great.

 

[Andvare]

[snipped for space]
I'll settle Jumbo city first, then fish city, then black, then cyan, and fill in with purple. Thoughts?

So basically my suggestions then .

Dark blue could go one north, depending on whether you want it to be a production city (then it stays) or a commerce one.

Light blue should go two south, as there are no reason it shouldn't have one more dye. You'll also get rid of those mountains in the BFC, and potentially get a few more resources there as jungle calender resources often appear in clusters.

Yellow should be one west, one south west. Or one west two north west.

You seems to be coming down with horror vacui.
If the land is bad, don't use it. Non-river plains are pretty useless until biology (except if there are many food resources there, which isn't the case here). There are no good reason to place the yellow were it is.
You don't have to pack your cities so close together, though you shouldn't fear overlap either.

 

[EmperorFool]

Going off of the latest dotmap by kgsolomon1, I'd settle Cow + Gold city first to give you a research boost and fund a good REX. Both are in the first ring, and plains cow is one of my favorite tiles.

Settle the fish for a powerful GP Farm if you can chop a monument there; otherwise leave it until later. I tend to prefer expanding out and leaving space "behind" be against a coast that I can settle without AI contention. You'll have to keep a wary eye on Ragnar to see when he starts to crowd in on "your" land.

Stone + Wheat would be next, even though it will be costly at first. Plop down a bunch of cottages and you're all set. You won't want to risk Ragnar stepping in there before you do. Don't worry about crashing your economy short-term for acquiring choice land that will benefit you for the rest of the game.

When you settle the Jumbo city, move it 1N to capture two more FPs. You're not going to want to share the Cows in your capital with it. At 131, plains Jumbo is a riverside grassland hill mine + 1 -- not too shabby in my book. Moving it also gives it immediate access to the first FP so you won't have to steal the Cows to make it grow.

 

[kgsolomon1]

So Ragnar started to take me out I either fail to have enough military or have more than enough and lack in other areas. You were all right, it took me way too long to start REXing, Linc took most of the jungle area before I could get down there with iron working, and I just made it to the stone city before ragnar did. I got the pyramids but look where that got me. Here is a screenshot, any thoughts on my improvements, etc.?

 

[Joshua368]

That stack isn't so bad. Mostly useless spearmen, only five axes. He may take a city but just build/whip axes and it should be easy to shatter that stack and retake anything lost.

Just don't give up okay.

 

[EmperorFool]

BTW, don't be afraid to Cottage those Bananas, even if you're going to build a Plantation later. Better to have all the before that. I agree with Joshua368; turn this into a good learning experience. Pump out Axes and make Ragnar bleed!

It's hard to see the improvements on some of those tiles in a screenshot. If you post a saved game, we can investigate your cities and check out the graphs to give better advice. Of course, this was initially about dot mapping, and it looks like you have a pretty solid base there.

Yes, you should have started sooner. My typical actions when starting the game are Settle, build Worker, build/chop Settler. I'll put a Warrior/Scout in there or Work Boat as the situation warrants, but the sooner you can plant the second city, the sooner it can start growing.