Help Prince Charlemagne out with his city placement

[PaxImperator]

Hello all,

I'm getting back into Civ 4 and playing as Charlemagne on Prince difficulty. I always used to play on Noble difficulty, so Prince is still new to me.

I'm considering where to plonk down my third city. I need the copper so I can axe rush Asoka, but I'm not sure where to place the city for it. The proposed site misses out on the corn, but does get coastal and deer.

Any thoughts on where to put city #3?

Some more information you can't get from the screenshot: I have stonehenge so the city needn't be on top of or adjacent to the copper. There is very little of note to the south of my two cities. Mostly jungle. I get the feeling I'm lagging behind in technology somewhat. My capital only has a single commerce in its big fat cross, which explains it. I'm planning to cottage up Prague to try and catch up.

 

[Lexicus]

Hmm, that is fairly tricky.

Honestly if I were you I'd reload an auto from before you built the first city. Here the surrounding land is so bad that your best options are going to be to build cities that share the food tiles with your capital.
I would have put the second city 2E 1S of the northern corn, another city 1SW of the oasis south of where Prague is now, and probably another city 1S of the cow so it can also work the pig.

As things are there I'd settle the city so that the copper is within the first ring, you want to get it hooked up ASAP and start getting some axes.

 

[PaxImperator]

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I guess I haven't lucked out with my initial city spot and leader this game. Still, I'll roll with it. I'll put city #3 immediately northwest of the copper and see how things pan out.

 

[rah]

Why not 1n or 1NE so you can eventually reach both deers.

 

[PaxImperator]

I continued playing before I saw your reply, rah. I put the city where it is so I could start mining the copper ASAP. I probably should have put it immediately North of the copper. At least the current position has worked out well enough in the short term.

I settled 1 NW of the copper, mined it and started whipping and chopping axemen in all three cities. Once I had around six on the border with Asoka, I declared war on him and took Delhi. Asoka must've been a popular guy, because Zara Yacob declared war on me in return. I'm yet to see any of his units appear. He's someplace East of Stalin, who is East of me. After taking Delhi, my axemen continued to Asoka's second city and took it. Exit Asoka.

Now, question time.

Religion
I have two holy sites: Delhi for Budhism and Bombay for Judaism. I overenthusiastically converted to Budhism just before Stalin embraced Judaism. I have two Budhist cities and one Jewish city. Would I be wise to convert to Judaism to make Stalin like me more?

Should I consider opening borders with all civs without a state religion in hopes of spreading my state religion to them? I've already done it with Korea but Wang Kong is Stalin's worst enemy.

I'll get a great prophet 19 turns from now. I plan to use him to build the holy site for whichever religion becomes my state religion. That should help fund further expansion.

Expansion
Zara yacob's too far away to go after, so I'll just wait till he will accept a white peace.

I think five cities may be pushing it already, but that gold next to the river is so tempting. I guess I'll nab it before someone else does. What do you think about putting a city immediately West of it?

Technology
I'm three turns away from Alphabet. I guess I can do some tech trading to back-fill techs I've missed so far. I don't really have a plan after that, though. Maybe I should beeline engineering so I can get landsknechts quickly. Any thoughts?

 

[Gumbolt]

Adopting a religion is a quick way to get all Ai plotting against you. Really if you want to learn civ4 stop focusing on religions. It won't advance your game greatly.

I don't like fact your capital is at size 2 and unhappy. If you wanted axes for a war chop them instead of whipping your capital to death. 4 food resources in your capital and your probably only using 1 here.

What is your plan for happiness here?? Mids?? HR civic?? Gold resource?? Can you trade for any resources??

Open borders is mostly a good thing once you have writing.

At some point you need a plan for your capital. Cottages?? No river. Great People farm??

 

[6K Man]

If you're planning to rush, I’d put the Copper city 1S of the Copper, which will make connecting it to your other cities easier and gives you better (i.e. green) tiles to work. The dotmapped spot makes no sense, other than it being on the coast; there’s no tile worth working besides the Copper and Deer.

2W of the Copper is the other option, to work the Corn. But that means you have to wait 10 turns for borders to expand, and then mine the tile, road it, and road to the city. That’s a longer wait than optimal when rushing – if you aren’t rushing that would be my preferred spot.

 

[MegaLurker]

Placement of your second city doesn't really make sense. I'd have settled it 1E of the brown cows. The location of the copper is pretty bad, not worth planning your whole early game around. I'd have researched AH and looked for horses instead. But if you insist on doing it I'd suggest two other options:

-1S of the copper, gets it right away, gets the 2H city tile, can work farmed green riverside (4 of them, eventually).

-1NE of the corn, needs to chop a monument and then wait for the copper but is a much better unit pump so makes up for the slower copper date with more units contributed.

 

[Lexicus]

Delhi is great land with the three corns. I would make Aachen a GP farm and move your palace to Delhi or Bombay (I think Delhi has more riverside tiles but too lazy to actually count). Get cottages up there ASAP and then start running Bureaucracy.

 

[Macksideshow]

If you're planning to rush, I’d put the Copper city 1S of the Copper, which will make connecting it to your other cities easier and gives you better (i.e. green) tiles to work. The dotmapped spot makes no sense, other than it being on the coast; there’s no tile worth working besides the Copper and Deer.

2W of the Copper is the other option, to work the Corn. But that means you have to wait 10 turns for borders to expand, and then mine the tile, road it, and road to the city. That’s a longer wait than optimal when rushing – if you aren’t rushing that would be my preferred spot.

I'm with 6K Man all the way here. 1S and 2W1S are also less distance to palace maint which I think will be critical here. I think you should have gone 2W1S as I dont think your other cities will be ready for an axe rush immediately after placing city 3 anyway. Use the extra turns to get your roads in place and grow pop to whip into axes. And also grow some cottages to support captured cities.

 

[PaxImperator]

I don't like fact your capital is at size 2 and unhappy. If you wanted axes for a war chop them instead of whipping your capital to death. 4 food resources in your capital and your probably only using 1 here.

What is your plan for happiness here?? Mids?? HR civic?? Gold resource?? Can you trade for any resources??

Open borders is mostly a good thing once you have writing.

At some point you need a plan for your capital. Cottages?? No river. Great People farm??

I combined chopping and whipping, and probably went overboard with the whipping. It'll take some time to recover. You raise a good point with regard to my plan for happiness. I didn't have much of one. I can get gold and furs, but would definitely be better off with hereditary rule. I can't trade for any resources just yet. Aachen will become my great people farm.

If you're planning to rush, I’d put the Copper city 1S of the Copper, which will make connecting it to your other cities easier and gives you better (i.e. green) tiles to work. The dotmapped spot makes no sense, other than it being on the coast; there’s no tile worth working besides the Copper and Deer.

2W of the Copper is the other option, to work the Corn. But that means you have to wait 10 turns for borders to expand, and then mine the tile, road it, and road to the city. That’s a longer wait than optimal when rushing – if you aren’t rushing that would be my preferred spot.

Point taken that I need to work on my city placement.

Placement of your second city doesn't really make sense. I'd have settled it 1E of the brown cows. The location of the copper is pretty bad, not worth planning your whole early game around. I'd have researched AH and looked for horses instead. But if you insist on doing it I'd suggest two other options:

-1S of the copper, gets it right away, gets the 2H city tile, can work farmed green riverside (4 of them, eventually).

-1NE of the corn, needs to chop a monument and then wait for the copper but is a much better unit pump so makes up for the slower copper date with more units contributed.

Animal husbandry was one of the first techs I researched because of the pigs around my capital. It revealed no horses within reaonable distance of my starting location. Maybe I'm drowning in iron though? The site must have *something* going for it.

Delhi is great land with the three corns. I would make Aachen a GP farm and move your palace to Delhi or Bombay (I think Delhi has more riverside tiles but too lazy to actually count). Get cottages up there ASAP and then start running Bureaucracy.

Yeah, I'll make Aachen my great people farm, cottage up Delhi and Bombay and move my capital to whichever one's most profitable.

 

[MegaLurker]

If no horses, fair enough.

You can win a Prince pangea (or even a 2 continent map) with only Knights. So if your goal is fastest date there's no point spending the hammers to move the palace. Those hammers would be better spent on just about anything, including building research or wealth toward Guilds and then Feudalism. Assuming you do get horses eventually.

 

[lymond]

that land up there is so crappy you could just settle on the copper if early rush is your goal.

Prague was a really bad settle. You have a tremendous amount of food around Aachen and could overlap several cities in the vicinity.

Prague could have gone on the PH 3E of Aachen.

 

[PaxImperator]

I've played some more turns. It's now turn 100. The war with Ethiopia finally ended in a white peace. I built the oracle in Delhi and used it to get Code of Laws because maintenance costs are killing me. With some Rathauses and a new palace in Delhi in a few turns, my situation should improve a bit. After some research and tech trading, I now have Alphabet, Monarchy, Sailing, Ironworking and Priesthood. I also got my first great person - a great prophet.

Sumeria has converted to Budhism and Korea to Judaism. I'm thinking I should convert to Judaism for diplomatic reasons. Russia and Korea are more powerful than Sumeria. I plan to build the Temple of David to help spread the faith and get some more cash, which I badly need.

In terms of civics, I can switch to hereditary rule and/or caste system. I'm definitely switching to hereditary rule so I can grow my cities some more, but I'm torn on caste system. Aachen could start generating a whole lot of great scientists with it, but wouldn't I be missing out on whipping?

In terms of technology, I'm researching mathematics and then civil service for bureaucracy. Or should I pick up currency first to help my ailing economy? Or something else entirely?

In terms of expansion, I don't think I can financially support many more cities right now. There is physical space though. Louis to the South seems to be having trouble with all that jungle, as he's only got three cities. I think I should continue to build up my current cities, then either settle more or take someone else's with Landsknechts. Probably Gilgamesh, since he's lagging in tech and score because I've refused to open borders with him. He still only has contact with me and Wang Kon. Any thoughts?

 

[Lexicus]

In terms of civics, I can switch to hereditary rule and/or caste system. I'm definitely switching to hereditary rule so I can grow my cities some more, but I'm torn on caste system. Aachen could start generating a whole lot of great scientists with it, but wouldn't I be missing out on whipping?

Well, what would you want to whip?

 

[Gr8scott]

If you made me pick, I would go 2W and 1S of the copper. With the food, at least the city can be reasonably productive quickly.

 

[Seraiel]

The reason why your economy is so bad is because you don't build enough Cottages. Rathäuser are great UBs but Courthouses in general are too expensive and especially shouldn't be needed before having 12-15 cities (values for standard map-size, non-ORG, non-Rathäuser) . Your capital should be fully cottaged, the other cities look ok but the Plains-Cottage was bad again, Plains cost so Plains-Cottages effectively cost because 1 = 1.5-2 via the whip, try to only work Grasslands and resources unless running a Golden Age where Plains-Cottages give 2 . And you need to pay more attention to the micro of your cities, the capital is i. e. working an unimproved Grassland-Hills-Forest, things like that shouldn't happen. The GHF costs 1 and gives 2 so you're basically getting nothing because 1 = 1.5-2 again. Best case (don't know the exact numbers for the city-size) is that you get something like 0.5 from working that tile but pay 0.5 for that. Better whip units or (only the most necessary) infrastructure. Try to get 2-pop whips or larger so make sure that you have 31 (normal speed value) or more left when you whip. With larger whips you'll have less anger problems.

 

[pandamancer]

You are still doing ok-ish for Prince level. Just as Seraiel said, you need more cottages. I think caste system wont help much at this point because you have a low happy cap. Try acquiring happy resources through trade. Trade your 3 corns! Try running scientists and build research to hasten mathematics (in case the AI still don't have it) then currency.

Adopt Judaism. Sumerians might hate you so gift him some useless tech to make him cautious. Or just crush them once you have currency