I followed SirPleb's start strategy and founded Washington and later New York in exactly the same spots as he did.
After reading of other's success, I had palace jump on my mind, so I spent a long time (like 4 hours) thinking about how to place my first cities. After meeting England and Spain, I was convinced that I was on European continent and would have to sail for the New World, so I figured I would palace jump there somehow. I decided to build New York to the s and w of Washington because it was on a river, it had the bonus tile, and it seemed more central for a FP.
2900 Settled New York, building granary (to be settler pump).
2800 see purple outline on island to north
2710 happy wool connected -- can save even more shields
1750 3rd city Boston was on river with bonus sheep/wool to s and west, in land grab race against Spain.
1500 4th city Philadelphia on narrow spot of land to s and e, to hold back English. (Nice surprise later to find iron there).
1475 5th city Atlanta on flood plains
1325 6th city Chicago on river with lots of hills (to s)
1300 -- finally saw a 'purple person'
825 7th city Seattle.
ALERT: Blue aliens form a city in MY backyard! This cannot be tolerated!
750 destroy the Blue aliens outpost -- they of course are furious.
610 8th city Miami built where the aliens thought to sneak up on me.
Middle Ages reached, research Republic in 24 turns.
I was pretty happy with my start (until I read this spoiler, how can some get so many cities so fast!). I had grabbed some land, Spain and England were polite to me and we traded back and forth (and also traded with Purple and Blue). I spent a lot of time looking for trade deals, so I think I did pretty well there.
But I was a long way from building any boats and going to the New World....
After reading of other's success, I had palace jump on my mind, so I spent a long time (like 4 hours) thinking about how to place my first cities. After meeting England and Spain, I was convinced that I was on European continent and would have to sail for the New World, so I figured I would palace jump there somehow. I decided to build New York to the s and w of Washington because it was on a river, it had the bonus tile, and it seemed more central for a FP.
2900 Settled New York, building granary (to be settler pump).
2800 see purple outline on island to north
2710 happy wool connected -- can save even more shields
1750 3rd city Boston was on river with bonus sheep/wool to s and west, in land grab race against Spain.
1500 4th city Philadelphia on narrow spot of land to s and e, to hold back English. (Nice surprise later to find iron there).
1475 5th city Atlanta on flood plains
1325 6th city Chicago on river with lots of hills (to s)
1300 -- finally saw a 'purple person'
825 7th city Seattle.
ALERT: Blue aliens form a city in MY backyard! This cannot be tolerated!
750 destroy the Blue aliens outpost -- they of course are furious.
610 8th city Miami built where the aliens thought to sneak up on me.
Middle Ages reached, research Republic in 24 turns.
I was pretty happy with my start (until I read this spoiler, how can some get so many cities so fast!). I had grabbed some land, Spain and England were polite to me and we traded back and forth (and also traded with Purple and Blue). I spent a lot of time looking for trade deals, so I think I did pretty well there.
But I was a long way from building any boats and going to the New World....
