Dotmap advice

[Soupturtle]

I want to win my first proper game on immortal, and I'm looking for some advice on initial city placement. Unless the game gives me a great start with lots of obvious resource taking city spots, I tend to struggle with city placement a lot, so I would really like some advice.

I'm playing immortal/epic with Brennus on a standard size pangaea with standard number of opponents. I've done some exploring, and am about to start on my first settler. I feel like I've been given a pretty average start, with plenty of room but no obvious power cities. I've already popped archery from a hut, so there doesn't seem to be a rush to find horses or metals. I've attached a map. My thinking so far was as follows:

City 1: a gold city seems like a given, and would be great for early development. But there really isn't enough food. 1S could grow to size 5 working 2 farmed floodplains and 3 gold, but would stall there. 1W would have health issues. The current site has a few more forests for health and can share the ivory to build its monument fairly quickly, and can work 2 farmed floodplains, 2 gold and a couple of cottages for a solid commerce city. How much should I worry about losing the gold to the AI if it's not in the first ring though? Settling west of the gold seems bad even by AI standards, but they could try to settle south.
City 2: a blocking city up north seems required. Trying to get the crabs gave too much plains/tundra for my liking, while this site has some useful overlap and ok food. I'm not sure what this is though. A production city that helps grow some cottages? A commerce city with good production to build the infrastructure? Or should I just not try to specialize this one?
City 3: a proper production city seems required, but once again I'm not sure where the food is going to come from. Looking at it again, this site has even less food than I thought when I drew it on, as the sheep hill and the plains cow will both only give 3 food, right? But maybe it's still worth it for the green hills?

Beyond that, doing something with the dry corn and the ivory in the east seems like a given, and I'm thinking the riverside option is probably better than the seaside one. Is it worth it to put a city by the sheep in the northeast to grow some cottages for the capital? Or should I put a city without any resources of it's own next to the wine, just sharing the corn and the wine? I'm guessing there should be either some metal or some horses somewhere in here, so that will probably dictate at least one more city. How many cities should I be looking to build in here? Is there any worthwhile plot on the coast?

As for strategy, I'm pretty sure I want to build the oracle when I've been given marble. I'm guessing for currency or code of laws. With how little food I have, is it even worth it to get bronze working early? After that, since I have no obvious great person farm, maybe I should try to build some marble wonders in my capital to generate some great people that way? Especially the great library, and maybe try for the parthenon, the MoM and the taj mahal as well? Or should I be looking to put my ivory to fast military use, possibly even by oracling construction?

edit: One final minor question: can I get bronze working and pottery before teching to priesthood, or does that push me too late? Or can I even get animal husbandry as well? I'll also need to get the wheel, to hook up my marble. I don't really have a feeling for how much I should be trying to get done before building the Oracle on this difficulty.

 

[Ironlungs76]

Hi!

#1 looks fine to my eyes. Certainly I'd be going there ASAP!

I'd settle #2 1W and make that a Cottage spot. Site 1 can help work some cottages with some nifty micro.

One last thing to consider, looking at your starting Capitol it appears to be an excellent Heroic Epic spot given the hills/Marble/Ivory and decent food. Again, personally, I wouldn't Cottage that site (at least not long term), instead I'd be more tempted to Cottage site #2 (and maybe consider moving the Palace there in spite of the tundra tile in its BFC). The dry Wheat can be easily irrigated by 1 farm where your current #2 is. It will have more riverside tiles, a couple of Flood Plains, site #1 can help work some cottages and a couple of hills. Looks pretty decent as a cottaged Bureaucracy Capitol to me, unless you'd rather have a high production Capitol in which case leave it where it is!

I have a slight issue with #3 as it's one tile off the coast. I'd be tempted to place it at either 1W (can still share the Sheep while your Capitol is running specialists and has a couple more green tiles to farm after Civil Service) or 2E for the harbour/customs house benefits.

You don't appear to be pressed for space at all so I wouldn't be too concerned with anything like an early Elepult attack, I would just expand peacefully to 7-8 cities.

Also, I'd settle 3W of the northern sheep (although not urgently). I know you said about plains/tundra tiles but it would make a decent Maoi Statues/GP spot with those 2 seafood resources (if you can get Stone or, if not, whip into them). Build a Library there and just let it run Specialists so it's not a total junk spot (decent whipping potential too - Globe Theatre maybe instead??).

If you are thinking Oracle and successfully get CoL then you needn't worry too much about losing the Gold resources for #1 as your Religion will be founded there so it will have pretty high Cultural output early on. Obviously if someone settles right in front of them then you could have problems but you've got Elephants for that eventuality, right?

The eastern side of the map will probably be best decided depending on what resources appear, as you rightly say, but I'd probably get the Elephant/Fish site set up 2S of where you indicate at least so it can work the fish and, again, for a Harbour etc (the unhealthiness should be easily offset). I probably wouldn't even bother settling the eastern Cow it seems pointless given its location, rather get the Corn/Sheep site instead.

Glad to see you haven't made any immediate plans to settle the jungle, let someone else do that dirty work for you

Just something to think about

 

[Zacar]

The first thing to note is that.. you haven't built the settler yet, have you? If you haven't, build it first and plan then after you have explored even a bit more. Resource knowledge in the northern tundra coast would help in deciding.

I would settle somewhere along north coast, either the plains hill with crabs or the plains site with 2 seafoods (a bit far :/). The tundra isn't that bad at that spot, just compare to the ugly western desert. This doesn't necessarily rule out #2.

After you have mapped some city sites, you can then revisit unclear ones like #1 covering 2 or 3 gold (both are awesome for early research, but beware barbarians at border improvements).

There could be a fish hidden near coast of #3, though unlikely.

 

[aitkensam]

For the east, as other parts seem well commented already, I'd want a city 1SW of ivory (picking up the magical fish and a couple of hills) so that would lead me to prefer the easternmost "?" and something else up by the sheep.

However, as others said, these are later cities so lots more information (map, resources, diplomacy, tech rate...) should be available by the time they need settling.

For City 3, although it's one off coast maybe you don't care as pangaea often lends itself to earlyish finishes.

 

[Pangaea]

If you install BUG, you can dotmap with Alt-X, without having to do this in Paint or whatever you used. It's very quick and a great tool.

Gold city looks good. Alternatively you can put it 1S, but then you'll lose the two northern FPs, and you probably can't work all three golds anyway.

#2 looks fine too. Dry wheat will automatically be wet once CS is online, as cities transport water when the terrain is flat. Otherwise you can put a farm there. Explore a little more in the north, though, in case there are deers or silver or something like that, maybe sea food too. You could potentially split up the sheep and wheat.

#3 I don't like, as it's one off the coast, meaning those coast tiles will be near useless as you can't get a lighthouse there. Not sure about the best option as plains cows basically suck, but perhaps 1E of it, to grab wine and some green hills, plus at least one farmable grassland riverside. Not much cottage land in the capital anyway, so perhaps better to just farm what you can, be able to properly work the hills and make it a production city (possibly with HE). If you decide to use #3 however, despite being 1 off coast, it can be a good production city if you farm the grassland and work the greenhills.

Further east, you can for example put a city 1E of the cow, to grab both the cow and fish, which will be decent food. Lousy production, though. You can also put a city 1E of the other sheep, to grab sheep and corn. Okay food, but lots of plains, though you have some forests to chop and grassland to farm later with CS.

Looks like you haven't focused your espionage btw. It's better to put it on one AI, preferably the best techer, so you know what that one is researching. Of these guys, I suppose Darius is the best bet, though I suppose all are pretty good techers.

Don't like maps with so much brown, but those golds will certainly help your tech rate.

 

[Soupturtle]

Thanks for all the advice so far. I'm now thinking to stick with 1 and 2 as I have them (or maybe move 2 1W, although I don't like settling on riverside grassland), then try to get city #3 by the double seafood in the northwest. Then possibly my marked site 3, fish + ivory in the east, and whatever unfound resources in the east dictate.

I'm not sold on the palace-move and not cottaging the capital yet though. As far as I can see, I've got 4 riverside grassland, 2 riverside wine (which are as good as non-riverside towns until printing press, and don't need time to grow) and 4 non-riverside grassland, plus some commerce on my two main hammer tiles in ivory and marble. Isn't that plenty of commerce for a good capital? Or is riverside really such a big deal that you would consider anything worse than riverside grassland as not useful for a commerce city? I would like to be more convinced before spending a bunch of hammers on moving my palace.

Also, isn't the whole "don't put cities 1 off the coast" thing a bit overly dogmatic sometimes? I get the reasoning, but it's only two coastal tiles in this case, and I don't see any better options for using all those green hills. It's got the sheep, the cow, and the riverside grassland below the wine, and that seems to be all the food that can possibly be wrangled from that area. It probably shouldn't be my fourth city, but I don't see what else can be done with that area.

 

[aitkensam]

My understanding is that one off coast and the necessity of moving palace are very dependent on game length (or next attack date or resource urgency etc). If I plan on cuir rushing the world, for example, I rarely bother with either. For space games there is more time for the better long-term city placement to recoup early losses.

 

[Seraiel]

I would plant 3 two south to grab both dyes.

 

[Izuul]

#3 is fine where it is. Coastal cities are overrated IMO. Unless you have a good reason for settling it coastal like the GLH or a seafood resource to work, you should just settle it in the best location. Moving #3 coastal here either kills a forest or a grass hill and moves the city further from the capitol. None of those things are good. And would you really invest 60H in a LH here so that you can work a couple of 2F2C tiles?

 

[Soupturtle]

I would plant 3 two south to grab both dyes.

Are you sure? I'm sure you're a better player than I am, but that would leave it with a plains cow in the second ring as its only food source - there wouldn't even be the possibility of grassland farms until civil service. And if I wait until then to settle it it will probably be gone, I'd imagine. Or would you just let it grow very slowly on the various grassland tiles and possibly some windmills later on?

 

[Seraiel]

Are you sure? I'm sure you're a better player than I am, but that would leave it with a plains cow in the second ring as its only food source - there wouldn't even be the possibility of grassland farms until civil service. And if I wait until then to settle it it will probably be gone, I'd imagine.

The city doesn't need more food, not saying that it wouldn't be nice, but with Cows + 2 Dyes it's actually a really strong size 3 city. The city can also grow onto all those Grasslands without anything changing with the Food.

Having the Sheep actually loses 2 Resources and gives the city 1 more / turn, I find that is no good decision.

Settling Gold first is more important though, so if you miss that site, you can still take the helper-city Sheep / Cows site.

 

[Izuul]

For the record, i wasn't speaking to the dyes debate, strictly coastal vs non-coastal city. Moving 2S for the dyes is an entirely different issue.

One thing on that though, Palace 2nd border pop will grab cows so you can settle that in 2nd ring of city #3. You should get that border pop on T50.

 

[Zacar]

#1 1W I think you got plenty of health resources

 

[Fippy]

#3 is good if you like growing cottages for your Cap, better than dyes if you play that way.
4 green cottages could be used. I would not think production city here thou, maybe later.
Other grass tile not in your Cap maybe a farm.

 

[Seraiel]

#3 is good if you like growing cottages for your Cap, better than dyes if you play that way.
4 green cottages could be used. I would not think production city here thou, maybe later.
Other grass tile not in your Cap maybe a farm.

Trading away 2 resources for GPT probably already makes more GNP than all Cottages it could grow for the capital so it's definately superior.

 

[dutchfire]

Any idea where the other civs are? Do you think you can still get the southern dyes if you wait for them?

I would settle site 1 asap and get to working those gold mines. Meanwhile, fogbust the backland to the east. I might put the second or third city 3W3S of site 1 to grab the other gold and block of that part of the continent. Site 2 and the Crab+Fish site to its northwest are also good.

The east is not so attractive. An ivory+fish+cows site and a corn+sheep site seem decent enough, otherwise there's little there and I'd settle it a bit later.