Here is my much-awaited dotmap.
Top priority is the red dot which will be settled next turn, then blue dot after that, then orange dot, then green dot, which should probably be moved one tile southwest, then the southern most white dot (which will ultimately be a fishing village, but can be productive while Moscow is still in settler mode), then black and the last white.
I have not put a dot next to the wheat to show something. I do think that a city should go there, but VERY often, Civ3 players, even great Civ3 players, are blinded by one tile in a possible city radius. Putting a city one tile to the northwest of the wheat would give it one productive square, possibly two depending on how the borders connect. Irrigation would require two other tiles to be roaded and irrigated first, neither of which could be used, and at least one jungle tile would have to be cleared, so it would take a while for this city to become useful. We will want to settle it later, but not until we have a large enough workforce to quickly bring it up to speed.
It is important to make sure that the first few cities you found have several productive tiles from the start. You cannot count on border expansions because temples are so expensive and we will not be able to build cheaper libraries for quite some time.
@Grimjack: Your map is too spread out. We have very little land and need to take advantage of it better. I am definitely not a proponent of ICS and generally prefer to keep my cities as close to optimal spacing as possible, but remember that each city will not need more than 12 tiles until hospitals and depending on the case, you may have to go tighter than normal. I think this is such a case.
@Orbit: Too much waste. You should try to avoid wasting tiles around the capital if at all possible since they will be so uncorrupt. Your light blue dot will have no productive tiles, and your yellow dot will piss off the scandinavians by stealing their gems.
@SHard: Yours is very similar to mine, with the exception of your teal dot which I think is a little extreme in its placement next to Moscow. Moscow cannot afford to share its Cattle if it's going to be producing settlers and workers (which it is). Actually, upon further review, maybe Moscow can afford to share a tile, but I would recommend a city to the east that could share the wheat, rather than to the north to share the cattle.
@All: You guys did very well. Any city that could be on fresh water, was. Saving those shields on the aqueduct is SO important. Do not underestimate the power of the fishing village. Water tiles give a lot of gold and the extra cities help cut raise your "allowed unit" count under Despotism.
So where do we go from here? The settler will found where it is. I think the next tile should be SHard's purple dot/my blue dot, which has two bonus grass in its immediate territory. After that, we should grab the horses in the south, and then its up to you guys. You might want to grab the spices before someone else does, even if we cannot connect them for a while.
Ok, good that we did this excercise. Dot mapping is an important skill to have, especially important in SGs. Orbit, you are up now, your 24/48 starts now. With Infoman dropped, the order will be:
Grimjack => Just played
Orbit => Playing
SHard => On deck
Speaker => On the bench for now, but likely playing more often than he planned
Good luck Orbit!
Top priority is the red dot which will be settled next turn, then blue dot after that, then orange dot, then green dot, which should probably be moved one tile southwest, then the southern most white dot (which will ultimately be a fishing village, but can be productive while Moscow is still in settler mode), then black and the last white.
I have not put a dot next to the wheat to show something. I do think that a city should go there, but VERY often, Civ3 players, even great Civ3 players, are blinded by one tile in a possible city radius. Putting a city one tile to the northwest of the wheat would give it one productive square, possibly two depending on how the borders connect. Irrigation would require two other tiles to be roaded and irrigated first, neither of which could be used, and at least one jungle tile would have to be cleared, so it would take a while for this city to become useful. We will want to settle it later, but not until we have a large enough workforce to quickly bring it up to speed.
It is important to make sure that the first few cities you found have several productive tiles from the start. You cannot count on border expansions because temples are so expensive and we will not be able to build cheaper libraries for quite some time.
@Grimjack: Your map is too spread out. We have very little land and need to take advantage of it better. I am definitely not a proponent of ICS and generally prefer to keep my cities as close to optimal spacing as possible, but remember that each city will not need more than 12 tiles until hospitals and depending on the case, you may have to go tighter than normal. I think this is such a case.
@Orbit: Too much waste. You should try to avoid wasting tiles around the capital if at all possible since they will be so uncorrupt. Your light blue dot will have no productive tiles, and your yellow dot will piss off the scandinavians by stealing their gems.
@SHard: Yours is very similar to mine, with the exception of your teal dot which I think is a little extreme in its placement next to Moscow. Moscow cannot afford to share its Cattle if it's going to be producing settlers and workers (which it is). Actually, upon further review, maybe Moscow can afford to share a tile, but I would recommend a city to the east that could share the wheat, rather than to the north to share the cattle.
@All: You guys did very well. Any city that could be on fresh water, was. Saving those shields on the aqueduct is SO important. Do not underestimate the power of the fishing village. Water tiles give a lot of gold and the extra cities help cut raise your "allowed unit" count under Despotism.
So where do we go from here? The settler will found where it is. I think the next tile should be SHard's purple dot/my blue dot, which has two bonus grass in its immediate territory. After that, we should grab the horses in the south, and then its up to you guys. You might want to grab the spices before someone else does, even if we cannot connect them for a while.
Ok, good that we did this excercise. Dot mapping is an important skill to have, especially important in SGs. Orbit, you are up now, your 24/48 starts now. With Infoman dropped, the order will be:
Grimjack => Just played
Orbit => Playing
SHard => On deck
Speaker => On the bench for now, but likely playing more often than he planned
Good luck Orbit!
I always build a warrior from my second city and move it to my capital. The capital is usually 3-5 sizes bigger than the second city and so the high lux tax keeps the second city happy, so it it does not need MP at first. Let's get a barracks in St. Pete and probably Kiev too and they can build all the military our fledging civilization will need.
you a little is for not building a worker between settlers twice. We have 4 workers for 4 (soon to be 6 then 7 after the settler builds) cities. With non-industrious workers, that is just not enough. Worker management is one of the human player's biggest advantages over the AI. Always take advantage of it!
