Dotmapping for an SE Game.

[Severus]

I've been playing a few SE starts recently to try and get the most out of its potential to dominate the early game and in my current game i've come to the position below and have the dilemma which usually starts to throw me and ultimately leads me to play more of hybrid game than an out and out SE, namely:
a) is it better to go for a few outlying small cities clustered round a food resource each to allow them to run two specialists after whipping a library and contribute not much else for the entire game? or
b) should i be aiming for two or three bigger cities which have the longer term potential to run more specialists but which will force me to adopt caste system to make use of this?

Here's the game:
Standard size, fractal map, 7 opponents, sharing a medium sized continent with Huayna Capac who won't trade since we've made no contact with any other civ.
3 cities are in place, one strong production, one commerce and a food strong capital which is currently producing axemen/settlers for expansion into the eastern peninsula shown below, and a great engineer due to pop in around 20 turns to build the pyramids.
I've dotmapped two different versions which i think best illustrate my dilemma and would be very happy to hear any thoughts on which is stronger for an SE.
Cheers in advance!
Option 1:

and Option 2:

 

[Mutineer]

I like second picture.
Northen city with 3 food special couls be deducated Draft Centre, as It would have enogth food grow to grow 1 size each turn on normal speed from cise 5 to size 6. Ideal to exploite Global theater with Draft or Slavery. 2 Other city would have 2 and one foos special and ;ust one could be left for far future, when you get Iron working and enogth spare workers and other resources to sustain slow grow city for a while.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

I would probably settle only three cities on that penisular. City maintenance is too high to make it worthwhile settling lots of useless cities. I'd prefer bigger cities - once you grow big enough to exceed the 2 scientists from a library in these secondary cities you should also have other options like merchants available.

I hate the first version - lots of city maintenance and not much output per city. And none of these will be powerhouses in the late game.

The second is much better - three fairly good cities initially. I wouldn't hurry with the last city on the penisular though - its going to be marginal for a long time. Eventually it will make a reasonable cottage city for some more cash.

 

[Severus]

Cheers guys,
I was leaning heavily towards the second option myself and thought the only benefit from the first was to potentially get more scientists up and running quicker but i'll play the second option and see what happens.

 

[Galileo44]

Yeah, as Mutineer said, you have a great Globe Theater/Drafting city. 1 unit per turn from Nationalism to Infantry.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Cheers guys,
I was leaning heavily towards the second option myself and thought the only benefit from the first was to potentially get more scientists up and running quicker but i'll play the second option and see what happens.

Rather than settle marginal cities to get more scientists, thats probably time to go to war for more good city sites. Going with a lot of cities and scientists might get the first batch of great people out quickly, but once each city produces a scientist it essentially becomes a liability, barely generating enough commerce to pay its maintenance costs. And you have that liability for the rest of the game.

I'd rather start warring once I had filled in all the good city locations I could occupy. It will take a while to build three settlers and build libraries in each city anyway, not to mention the units to defend these cities and workers for each city.

 

[Severus]

Thanks InvisibleStalke, you've probably just pinpointed why my SE games tend to start off promising and then begin to feel ever weaker than my CE games. I think i'm guilty of just seeing a food resource and putting a junk city down beside it simply to run two scientists and contribute nothing else for the rest of the game instead of using more considered city placement like i normally would.
I'll have to start using the Globe/Drafting combo as well. I never normally use Nationalism although the couple of times i have ive been impressed with its ability to create a sizeable basic army quickly.
Thanks again for the comments guys, i'm sure theyll help my SE games become more productive.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Northen city with 3 food special couls be deducated Draft Centre, as It would have enogth food grow to grow 1 size each turn on normal speed from cise 5 to size 6.

How do you figure this? The city has a food surplus of +12. Growing from size 5 to 6 takes 30 food, and the granary holds 15, so you need +15 to grow every turn.

 

[Mutineer]

David, should I sad allmost every turn? You like picking, don't you?

 

[DaviddesJ]

David, should I sad allmost every turn? You like picking, don't you?

I like to understand. If there's something I'm missing, then I like to know what it is.

The town can generate +12 food surplus at size 3, just as well as size 5. So wouldn't it be better for the city to be smaller, anyway? At size 3, you only need 13 food for growth, so you could grow 12 times in 13 turns. At size 5, you can only grow 12 times in 15 turns. I think.

I'm wondering if there is something special about the size 5 that you suggested.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

I like to understand. If there's something I'm missing, then I like to know what it is.

The town can generate +12 food surplus at size 3, just as well as size 5. So wouldn't it be better for the city to be smaller, anyway? At size 3, you only need 13 food for growth, so you could grow 12 times in 13 turns. At size 5, you can only grow 12 times in 15 turns. I think.

I'm wondering if there is something special about the size 5 that you suggested.

I'm sure he referring to the minimum of a size 6 city for drafting. So then you regrow from 5 back to 6.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I'm sure he referring to the minimum of a size 6 city for drafting. So then you regrow from 5 back to 6.

You need to get enough culture in the city, in order to draft, right? I guess you could use a Great Artist. Or maybe use the food surplus to run a bunch of artist specialists for a while.

 

[Mutineer]

Drafting does not depends on culture. You only need 10% of population to be your nationality, making useally imposible to draft in newly conqured cities.. Main condition is minimum size 6.

 

[Stumpy123]

The northern city site is great for whipping in addition to drafting; you should be able to get some good stuff from it even if you eventually switch to caste system. Also, the hills will help in production, so it doesn't take 150+ turns to build something.

I also noticed your homeland has a convenient chokepoint; planting a heavily fortified city on the plains tile (NE of the clams and SE of the wines) will make getting to your other core cities difficult and expensive. Also, I'm not totally sure about this, but it would also make a canal city; that is, ships can move in from one side and out the other, instead of going around the peninsula. However, ships may be able to do this anyway, as the bodies of water are connected diagonally. Again, not totally sure about this either, so I hope someone who knows more can shed some light on this situation.

 

[DaviddesJ]

However, ships may be able to do this anyway, as the bodies of water are connected diagonally. Again, not totally sure about this either, so I hope someone who knows more can shed some light on this situation.

No, you can't move between diagonally adjacent water tiles if there is an isthmus between them. (I can't remember for sure, but maybe in Civ3 this was ok?)