First City Settle

[InovA]

Things to consider:
- Qin Shi Huang [IND/FIN]
- Vanilla, Prince Difficulty, Huge Fractal map with 18 players
- Starting tech: Agriculture, Mining
- Already one turn late to settle!

I'm a little stumped here...
>If I settle immediately I'll get 2 food resources and 1 flood plains in the east but probably abandon the Fish tile forever.
>If I settle on the pigs I lose a few river tiles and I don't get to build a pasture, meaning less food overall, right? (Not completely certain what happens when you settle on a food)
>If I settle 1W of the pigs, I get all 3 foods at the cost of losing river tiles, being 2 turns late to settle and not gaining the flood plains to the east for this city.

Also a tribal village map shows a lot of spices and jungle to the north, so I'll probably want my 2nd city to the east anyways and can gain the flood plains for that city.

So what do you think is best here?

 

[Gumbolt]

Well that looks bad. The more you settle to the left you gain 2-3 dead mountain tiles.

Where did your settler start??? You could still move settler 1NE and 1 south. This would then leave a fish city on the coast. Without save hard to tell what is in fog.

Option 1. Agree shame to lose the fish. Remember you are financial so cottages and rivers are king.
Option 2. See thread about settling on resources. Avoid if possible. Especially for a pigs resource.
Option 3 is impossible. All those lost commerce tiles with a financial AI??? Plus 3 mountain tiles?

I prefer my option above. Can the warrior still move???

 

[rah]

I'd settle one east of there and hope you pick up something. Otherwise you could be short of hammers. But what do I know.

 

[Hugethman]

You can only gain the fish by settling on the pig or the jungle, both are bad spots bc of settling on the pig and three mountains which I dont like. Also there's less food if you settle West at all I think.

you dont have any nice tiles to work at the start unless you settle 1SE and thats for the sake of 10 commerce as you'd be working the FP instead of the pig/corn. So I would settle 1 South for the coast, pig, corn and FP. Id probably build a worker first and get the corn on board. The worker has plenty to do. I would probably research BW then fishing. In the time it takes for you to tech BW and have a worker you'll probably be like size 3 working corn with farm, pig and FP, which combined with those forests is favourable for whipping some settlers.

 

[rah]

If you go 1 e you still get to work those three squares and get fresh water, and there are 3 squares that you can't see that might give you something more. And only one non jungle hill for the cap isn't enough in the long term. While you may not use them often, it's nice to have a few around.

 

[InovA]

My Settler started 1 SE of where he is now, I agree it would have been best to move him to what is now 1 E. Think I'll settle there now, 2 turns late but not so bad. And right! The financial bonus with the river will be very nice.

 

[lymond]

you really should get BTS

I forget that vanilla does not have standardized map scripts (or maybe you don't have the game patched up to 1.74).

Huge/Mara games are such a bad way to learn the game. Bigger is not always better with this game.

if possible, try not to pop huts before you settle your city (or better yet don't play with huts)

I assume warrior move was to check for seafood, assuming settler was 1SE. Means no knowledge of corn. I'd probably have just settled in place with that knowledge or moved 1N away from coast detecting jungle to the W.

 

[Pangaea]

Basically what lymond said

I don't see a good reason to move the settler where he is in the posted screenshot. You (probably) wouldn't see the corn without moving him, so settling in place would be a fine choice. I suspect there was a hut where the settler is now, and you went there to grab it (and got a map). If you had settled in place, that hut would have automatically grabbed it anyway, as it would be inside your cultural border.

By settling in place (2E of pig), you would miss out on the corn (that you wouldn't know about), but you'd get a fine collection of (green) hills, a floodplain, and quite possibly two more floodplains. That would give you plenty of food to work with, and possibly more depending on what is revealed to the east. You'd be riverside for extra and be coastal for a possibility to build the Great Lighthouse (assuming this is present in whichever version of the game you have -- I've only ever played BtS, coming late to the game). Later on you could put a city 1W of the pig, to grab both the fish and the corn, and the pig in overlap with the capital (though naturally the capital needs to work it at all times). The jungle to the north is offputting, but you could have a city up there to grab spice and corn.

Overlap is good. It keeps your empire more compact, which means lower maintenance costs (not a big problem on lower difficulties, but a huge issue on higher), and it would be easier to defend against barbs and other AIs with nasty intentions.

Maybe there is more seafood to the SE, so you could put a city over there, maybe helping to grow cottages for the capital on the floodplains (another reason overlap is good). Maybe yet another fine spot NE, where all the hills are, provided there is some good food to "fuel" them.

A good general rule to follow is that

"All cities should have food, and all food should have cities".

Your empire doesn't necessarily become stronger with a city with 3 sources of food (though it would make for an excellent Great People farm). Maybe 3 cities with a source each is better. More commerce, and more cities to build units to kill other AIs with.


(edit) I see you mentioned this is on vanilla, on a huge map. Even more reason to try to build the Great Lighthouse then, as you're likely to have many cities, and two extra trade routes for all coastal cities is a huge deal in the early to mid-late mid game.