Great starting position for GP farm city - but how to manage it?

[richarnd]

BTS game. I'm Augustus Caesar (Imp/Ind), Huge Terra map, marathon, prince, 5 other civs (going for late game over early game conflict).

Got this as my starting position:


Shot at 2007-08-01

Obviously this is a great site for a food and specialist-heavy great person farm city. The forests and hills hopefully also give it enough production not to be totally crippled.

The question is, how do I manage the city, both on its own, keeping growth high and avoiding health problems, and as my initial capital?

I usually build worker first, but I'm thinking about not doing that here. I have agriculture and mining, but farming the flood plains would just give 1 extra food, which hardly seems worth a worker. (farming the corn does have greater benefits, but is that worth it either?) I could mine the hills, but I'd lose the forest, which might be key for health reasons.

What would you do?

 

[DaveMcW]

I would reload and settle on the edge of the floodplains (no more than 9 in the city radius). You are already losing 2 food from unhealthiness at size 1!

 

[richarnd]

I would reload and settle on the edge of the floodplains (no more than 9 in the city radius). You are already losing 2 food from unhealthiness at size 1!

That's one option, of course - divide the floodplains between 2-3 surrounding cities. It's probably the best option, in fact, but I'm curious to see whether this city is manageable.

By my count, there are 13 floodplains in the fat cross.

 

[svv]

As someone else said in these forums, sickness from flood plains is never a bad thing; the extra food from the flood plains overcomes the food loss from sickness.

Anyway, that city can be both a GP farm and a commerce center. Cottage all those flood plains. Try to build pyramids. Get metal casting, build a forge, and hire an engineer. Later build ironworks here and farm great engineers.

 

[xanadux]

Too much of a good thing. In practice, all those flood plains will never be used by your capital. And 14 flood plains of unhealthiness is just crippling. This is a great start, but settling in the middle of it ruins it. you can put 3 or 4 cities around to split up the flood plains, and whether you go cotagge or specialist, it will rock commerce wise. Personally, I would reload, settle 3 or 4 cities around those flood plains, go pure specialist at first, farming all the flood plains. Get granaries up, and use the whip for production.

That's me though, with that much food, any decent strategy you pick should do nicely.

 

[Meanness]

I would split up the flood plains, but if you want to settle here...farm one of these flood plains next to the corn and then cottage the rest. At the beginning of the game, I like to have some flexibility, and work food or commerce based on need.

Also, I like to make my capitol a science city whenever possible, to take maximum advantage of bureaucracy without rebuilding the palace. Pick a different city for your GP farm.

 

[Jet]

Regarding what DaveMcW said, I'd have to see it. (I don't want to do the arithmetic in my head). If was really terrible, I guess I'd restart. Otherwise, what I'd do is cottage it. Food resources are best for GP farms. Flood plains are just OK. For this city in particular, due to its health problem its total food is only good, not outstanding. Cottaged capitals are good because you start to work cottages early and can use Bureaucracy. I'd mine the plains hill and leave the other 4 forests until I had high enough health. I'd look for health resources and probably Environmentalism.

Personally I very rarely split up flood plains for health, but it's wrong to say that flood plains are "never a bad thing". If you actually work all of them, then yes, they're 2.5 food each. But before you're working all of them, you can take a hit.

 

[vicawoo]

Man, it'd be nice if you had an extra forest so you could chop mine both hills. But I'd mine the plain/hills, since food shouldn't be an issue.

Production = 6 + working forests. You're going to have to whip and maybe settle a great prophet. Maybe a copper is going to pop up. I'd have an early cottage or two.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

BTS game. I'm Augustus Caesar (Imp/Ind), Huge Terra map, marathon, prince, 5 other civs (going for late game over early game conflict).

The question is, how do I manage the city, both on its own, keeping growth high and avoiding health problems, and as my initial capital?

Personally, I applaud the choice to settler here, in so far as you've already decided that you want a late game, and this position has the potential to be a lot of fun.

First thought: food is just as good has hammers for putting out workers and settlers (not quite true depending on traits, but you can make it almost true by using the whip). So I would be expecting to use this city as a worker/settler pump in the early going - that will allow you to control the population without stacking whip anger.

Second thought - National Park would eliminate all of your population pollution, at which point the number of specialists you could support would explode. That might be a lot of fun.

Since I'm thinking about using the whip for a lot of production here, I'd be thinking about Bronze Working first, and trying to time the development of a first worker so that it can be whipped. However, I'm not so clear on whether that's as sensible a timing as it would be on normal speed.

Once Machinery comes in, it may make sense to start dropping watermills in place. Watermills and farms require no development time, so assuming you have enough workers, you can switch them back and forth at a whim. That will give you a lot of production capacity for adding wonders to your city of specialists.

Which is to say, for much of the game I would expect your floodplains to have different kinds of improvements on them, and that would would switch around which tiles you were working depending on your immediate needs.

Depending on the surrounding terrain, you might reasonable decide that this city is going to handle all of your research needs (via specialists), and run caste system + hereditary rule, pumping portable happy into the city while you concentrate on health and the slots you'll need later.

 

[gettingfat]

Wow, this is the perfect site for Mayan (exp/fin). I still won't take so many floodplains though.

 

[futurehermit]

Desperately search for wheat and rice, as well as other healthy resources

Get the GL there

I would cottage everything and run specialists off the excess