GOTM 38 First Spoiler - 500 AD min. or Submitted

[Jbourne]

If I were so focused I would have killed my initial settler too, wouldn't I?

This remind me of a Civ3 game (when I first realized that I did not have to settle on the initial turn) where my settler and warrior went opposite directions and a barbarian ate the settler.

 

[Htadus]

Errrr... I was referring to the other city, the one in the NW of the capital.....

funny how we each think differently. The red dot city was my third city built just for:

1. Getting Stone hooked as soon as possible for Pyramids.
2. Build one of 6 universities
3. Protect north of cap from barb and last but most importantly
4. to develop 3 cottages for the capital to use when it is done building stuff.

EDIT: it also allowed me to have minimal barb protection while building buildings.

 

[dalamb]

Errrr... I was referring to the other city, the one in the NW of the capital

Oops. I should have looked at the map rather than relying on my poor memory. Well, I guess whether it was a mistake is worth discussing. The NW city gets me stone and gold. I knew there was little food there, but it seemed worth it just to have the resource; stone is pretty valuable for a couple of wonders, such as Pyramids. So, do others think this is or isn't enough reason for something with so little food?

If I were so focused I would have killed my initial settler too, wouldn't I?

There's "focused" and there's "downright crazy".

 

[haphazard1]

Thanks for the screenshots, dalamb -- interesting to see what others did the same, and what they did differently.

Your Pasargadae is exactly where mine (and jesusin's, apparently) went. This was an excellent site, if slightly short of food. Gold, copper, sheep, and lots of hammers for a military/wonder pump.

I agree with jesusin that the red-dot city NW of the capital just had too little food to justify it being the third city. Even more important (to me, at least), is that the land there was yours -- no AI was going to take it from you, and you could afford to settle it later (if you decided to settle there at all). Instead, you could have been settling towards the AIs to claim the land between you before they could.

My third city went in the desert east of Pasargadae, south of the river, claiming gems, stone, copper, and cows. So I got stone from city #3 (as you did), but also got gems and started blocking Caesar and Louis from expanding in my direction.

I kept settling aggressively, and got the triple cow/iron site (Cumae, but French in your screenshot), plus everything on the southern river all the way to the coast. I also got the horses site, but settled it north and east of where you did, with another city south of it (north of Pisae on your map) to take the flood plains Pasargadae did not get.

So by 500 AD I had more cities than you did (9, with a settler on the way for #10), and I had taken much more land which in your game fell to Caesar and Louis. This would allow me to put more cities later into the mountains and other "rear" areas, filling out my empire and ending up with much more land total, without having to fight the AIs.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

The city with sheep, gold, copper is great, I think it is the same spot I settled my 2nd cultural city, the one that was destined to be "the hammer cultural city".

I guess that means I'm even more food-obsessed than you. I agree with you about dalamb's red dotmapped spot, but in my game I also considered and rejected his brown sheep-gold-copper spot as being far too food-poor (though it may be OK for a short military game; I was playing for space, I'm not sure what dalamb was aiming for?). I put my 2nd city 1E of the copper, where it made an OK production city, fed by several floodplains - not brilliant but as good as I could find on this map. It meant I had to wait till my culture hit 100 before I got the gold, but happiness wasn't going to be a problem on this difficulty anyway.

In slight defence of dalamb's red spot, it did have a floodplain and grassland if he was willing to share it with the capital (personally I wouldn't but that's because I'm moving towards focusing on super-powerful bureaucracy capitals), and by settling on the desert, he enabled irrigation of the plains and grassland N of the city, which would otherwise have been completely unirrigable. Even so, I don't think I'd have settled there.

 

[Htadus]

I guess that means I'm even more food-obsessed than you. I agree with you about dalamb's red dotmapped spot, ............................

In slight defence of dalamb's red spot, it did have a floodplain and grassland if he was willing to share it with the capital (personally I wouldn't but that's because I'm moving towards focusing on super-powerful bureaucracy capitals),...................................

OK I must defend the red dot City again. Red dot city was great to create a super-powerful Bureaucratic capital. It was able to develop one each floodplain, grass and plains cottages for the capital. So once you are done building all the health, science and wonder buildings in the capital, you can start working a fully developed town instead of a new cottage in place of one of 6 mines or windmill...including the silver tiles.

BTW on a side note, I wish we can build cottages on foodless plains hills too.

 

[haphazard1]

In slight defence of dalamb's red spot, it did have a floodplain and grassland if he was willing to share it with the capital (personally I wouldn't but that's because I'm moving towards focusing on super-powerful bureaucracy capitals), and by settling on the desert, he enabled irrigation of the plains and grassland N of the city, which would otherwise have been completely unirrigable. Even so, I don't think I'd have settled there.

It was possible to bring irrigation down from the north. I put a city 1 NW of dalamb's red dot, but I did so quite a bit later in the game than city #3. It would never grow all that large, but with everything chain irrigated it could work the gold and the silver. A nice little commerce city with trade routes added in, and close to the capital for minimal maintenance costs.

 

[jesusin]

OK I must defend the red dot City again. Red dot city was great to create a super-powerful Bureaucratic capital. It was able to develop one each floodplain, grass and plains cottages for the capital.

Settling 2SW of where you did (the red spot) is much better. 1corn, 2FP for itself, 1FP to help the capital. I used it as a secondary GPFarm, getting 2 (or was it 3?) GA out of it. But a food rich city can be used for just anything.

Gold you don't need, since you already have in your second city. Stone can be get somewhere else more easily.

And of course, it wasn't my third city, there's more land to claim first.

 

[dalamb]

Your Pasargadae is exactly where mine (and jesusin's, apparently) went.

OK, so not as bad as I thought when the 5FP science city got pointed out.

Even more important (to me, at least), is that the land there was yours -- ... Instead, you could have been settling towards the AIs to claim the land between you before they could.

I haven't started to think in terms of "expanding toward the AI" yet, or at least not consistently enough.

My third city went in the desert east of Pasargadae, south of the river, claiming gems, stone, copper, and cows. So I got stone from city #3 (as you did), but also got gems and started blocking Caesar and Louis from expanding in my direction.

Critically, I had failed to spot that stone; note it's in the black area on my dotmap. So it sounds like my primary mistake was not exploring nearby territory enough. Somehow I assumed that my first few cities needed to be nearer my capital, perhaps because an old foolish mistake was building a city far to far away just to grab a resource (probably stone, too -- I was really fixed on getting the pyramids back then).

Settling 2W of where you did (the red spot) is much better. 1corn, 2FP for itself, 1FP to help the capital. I used it as a secondary GPFarm, getting 2 (or was it 3?) GA out of it. But a food rich city can be used for just anything.

If you mean my red spot, I think that's 1W 1SW, on top of the silver.

Thanks, everyone; I'll try to apply these lessons in my next few games to fix them better in my thinking about the game.

 

[jesusin]

If you mean my red spot, I think that's 1W 1SW, on top of the silver.

Thanks, everyone; I'll try to apply these lessons in my next few games to fix them better in my thinking about the game.

Oh, sorry, I meant 2SW, I'll correct my original post.

Thank you for provocking this discussion, we are all learning from it!