Help with choosing where to settle

[Acidrain]

Hey! I browse the forum quite often but I barely post anything... so I decided to start asking things what I want to know instead of browsing the forum for 2 hours for my question and get half the answer I was looking for.

I would want to know where would be the best place to settle?

Spoiler :

 

[mechaerik]

Hmm... the cows are tempting, but thats a huge desert. I would normally settle near the cows, but then you would be screwed after development...

 

[Fei Kelei]

I would try 1 west to keep all the crab but work more land tiles. Looks like a nice amount of food and hammers, plus a early happiness resource, so I don't see any advantage of moving to the suggested tile. Hopefully the rest of the land around you is better than that desert.

 

[champ82]

Next time post what difficulty you're playing at. Food is a lot more important at higher difficulty levels. At noble I barely took it into consideration - and got away with it. One can't get away with that on Monarch.

Also, what civ / map type you're playing on.

You're Portugal?

The location the settler is on looks good. Lots of food. Coastal access to build ships later. Lots of hills for production and trees to chop for rushing wonders, settlers, whatever. Plus you got silver for happiness (+2 with forge, same as Notre Dame) and some extra cash, which is good for a capital (+8 gold from palace, build a marker, grocer, bank etc. later down the road, if you run Buracracy (spelling) that's serious bucks.) So I would start him off right there. Build a tririme soon to protect those crab fishermen from barbarian galleys.

If you build Maoi Statues, which I'd take my time with as it is expensive, you'ld have a diesel all around city production for wonders and units (sea and land) and lots of gold for research and money.

This position is ideal for portugal - you'll have a production coastal city to pump out your UU and hopefully grab some land no one else can, and the UB will make you that much more cash.

I always settle in the default position. I've played probably 25 full games and 15 half games and never regreted it. The only time I didn't settle in a default position was in an Earth map, I was in tundra so I moved somewhere warmer. I've seen the computer not do that - it's a disaster.

 

[Acidrain]

The Civ is Ottoman, leader Suleiman and difficulty is Prince. I already forgot the map type lmao, I think it was Fractal, I always choose Fractal.

Thx for the tips.

 

[BarrageQueen]

I say settle in place.

Trying to get the cow or the wheat will take at least two moves, unless you make a big sacrifice of settling atop the silver. Plus, the desert will come in to play, as others have mentioned.

I'm curious about what lies in the fog to the west. Depending on what's there, it could be worth the settler moving 1W. That said, your warrior's ill-positioned to clear the fog in that vicinity this move. So all in all, settling in place should be the best bet.

 

[Cutlass]

I'd park the city on top of that silver. Added commerce and happiness from the moment of settling, hill for defense, 3 crabs and a cow for food. Build Moa Statues and get a free hammer on 9 tiles. It would take you a fair amount of hunting to get anything better than that.

 

[Fei Kelei]

I'm curious about what lies in the fog to the west. Depending on what's there, it could be worth the settler moving 1W. That said, your warrior's ill-positioned to clear the fog in that vicinity this move. So all in all, settling in place should be the best bet.

Whatever is to the west, I doubt it's worse than 3 ocean and 1 coast tile, which is what you'd give up by moving 1W. Anything other than ice, tundra, or desert would be better than those ocean tiles, so I see no reason to stay in place rather than move 1 west.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Settle in place. Utilize that as an early game production house (work crabs for food and mine all those hills. 3 plains hills and 1 grassland gives you 15 /turn which is great for early game. Since you have silver right there, you can build and still keep a decent tech rate.

After you explore more and find a more balanced area for production/commerce rather than production/food, settle and get that up and running and find another commerce strong city and develop cottages there. Then farm the grassland tiles in the BFC of your first city and use as a GP Farm.

 

[dirtyparrot]

I would probably settle in place or on top of the silver. I think that it's wise advice to look to focus more on the relative short term than the best potential city.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Yeah, a good production city can build the Palace in 8 turns. It's worth it to settle where you're at to collect the food and production and then transfer capitals later. That kind of city can go back and forth from production to specialist heavy. Building your science boosting buildings relatively quickly (and Oxford/NE) is always great when you can switch right back to working 6 specialists!

 

[morchuflex]

I'd move 1W: you'll get more land tiles at the cost of only one turn.
Don't settle on the silver: you'd get +1 hammer allright, but no commerce, which is a shame.
For once, I'd also consider following the program's advice. true, that's a lot of desert, but the wheat and cows beat clams hands down (at least until you build a harbor).

It also depends on your starting techs: going south makes more sense if you can research AH from day 1.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

I'd move 1W: you'll get more land tiles at the cost of only one turn.
Don't settle on the silver: you'd get +1 hammer allright, but no commerce, which is a shame.
For once, I'd also consider following the program's advice. true, that's a lot of desert, but the wheat and cows beat clams hands down (at least until you build a harbor).

It also depends on your starting techs: going south makes more sense if you can research AH from day 1.

You don't need to force a capital down your own throat. Using 3 turns to grab land that includes more than 1 square of desert is WAY less desirable than a 3 crab (15 with lighthouse) capital.

 

[morchuflex]

You don't need to force a capital down your own throat. Using 3 turns to grab land that includes more than 1 square of desert is WAY less desirable than a 3 crab (15 with lighthouse) capital.

Why "3 turns"? It's only two. And the loss of time would be compensated by the extra hammer from the center tile.
But more importantly, since it's the first city, short-term considerations should come first. The capital needs a lot of food AND production ASAP. A 3 crab coastal site is very nice for the mid and long term (Moai), but for a capital, trading 2 crabs for a cow and a wheat certainly doesn't sound like a mistake.

However, as I said, my preferred option remains going 1W. In fact, it seems a no-brainer to me.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

My bad on the 3 turns. I couldn't see clearly. Either way, I won't ever settle further than 1 tile away. Short term gains still see MUCH better at the current location. Forests to chop, farm-able grassland thanks to that lake, and production heavy tiles. Much better to have a production/specialist city. Emergency naval production, get those multiplier buildings up quickly, and food for tons of specialists. Plus 0 turns wasted moving.

I guess it's all a matter of flavor. After all, you WILL lose 6 tiles to useless ocean/coast. However, given the strat I've suggested, you have no need for any tiles other than those discussed above.

 

[MkLh]

I'd say 1 west even without seeing further tiles: all you lose is 1 grass tile, 1 coast tile (mediocre at best without fi) and 2 ocean tiles (useless) and get at least 1 more hill to mine and possibly more. I don't think there's a way to get cows without sacrificing more valuable tiles.

 

[Bob the Barbari]

Going west should give you 1 plain, 2 grassland and 1 grassland hill and one unknown tile from what I see, at the expense of what was mentioned. But I would settle at place. Even ocean is far from useless with Moai and Lighthouse.

 

[ZeroOne]

Trying to get the cow or the wheat will take at least two moves, unless you make a big sacrifice of settling atop the silver.

How would settling atop the silver be a big sacrifice? This is actually what I have been meaning to ask: If you build a city atop some resource, will they build a mine/pasture/well/whatever automatically to that city? In other words, if you built your city on a tile with Uranium, would you then have Uranium available in all your cities?

 

[Joshua368]

How would settling atop the silver be a big sacrifice? This is actually what I have been meaning to ask: If you build a city atop some resource, will they build a mine/pasture/well/whatever automatically to that city? In other words, if you built your city on a tile with Uranium, would you then have Uranium available in all your cities?

You get the resource but you lose the tile yield. With silver that's a tidy sum of commerce.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

I'd much rather have the silver mine worked for the BIG + that it gives. 3 and 6(?) is, IMO, an amazing tile.