how do I settle this desert to work the gold resources?

[bhavv]

Hi. I started a nice and easy Carthage game on Noble, and got a nice huge starting island.

I have this desert here with three gold resources and wondering how I can possibly work all three of them:

Spoiler :

The game suggests that I build on one of the Golds to also get a fish, but I would rather not lose the gold resource, I would rather later settle a filler city 2 South from the cow to get the fish.

Now if I settle where the settler is, I get 3 gols, two flood plains and an oasis - I could farm the two floodplains and work one Gold for each farm, but then I dont think I can work the third gold without really slow or stagnant growth?

I could wait untill I whip a galley to explore 3N, 2E on the next island and see if those two spaces have any resources to mak settling 1N, 2E possible for one of the golds, and then also settle 1N of the Pig to work the other two, this wold cause me to lose one of the flood plains, but there wouldnt be any overlap with my Silk city.

P.S. I know I have sitting bull twice, I made a mistake when choosing my civs doh.

Edit - I just realised that settling in place would lose one of the golds. Maybe I will just have to settle on top of the gold that the game suggests and get a city with Pigs, Fish and one just one gold

 

[ParadigmShifter]

1S of the oasis if you don't mind being 1 off the coast.

 

[r_rolo1]

I would definitely split the gold mines to two cities

 

[MkLh]

Settle where you are. Don't farm floodplains, financial floodplains are too valuable for farms, cottage them instead. Settle another city north of pigs to work with 2 gold mines. Fish you can grap with an eastern peninsula city.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

1S of oasis. You're not going to get useful cities there beyond that any time soon. If you do that you get 4 commerce resources, and with the FP and oasis enough food to work them. A solid short term city, and it won't tie up maintenance like 2 cities.

You don't give up seafood, and the only tiles you would work otherwise are a plains hill, a plains, and if you can't fit a useful city otherwise later possibly that NE FP.

 

[Rusten]

2w of fish + 1sw of oasis.

 

[Ghpstage]

Definitely 1 S of oasis as says that city will have enough food to feed all 3 gold and the incense from pigs oasis and floodplains, the commerce that'll give you will be a nice boost to your economy.

 

[bhavv]

I suppose I will go with 1S of the Oasis then, I wont get the two extra GLH trade routes or a Cothon in the city, but will be able to work the golds.

I restarted to place my second city away from the Deers, as 2E 1S from Utica has an Iron resource that was completely unworkable before, and I could place Hadrumetum on the Glacier river to get the Deer and Marble resources:

Spoiler :

City location is still my weakest aspect of the game, but these ones seem to be well placed for the map I have, and then the gold city will have to lose the benefits of GLH and Cothon, is it really worth it for the golds?

Carthage and Hippo are good cities, the rest are just ok. I miss my mega Sugar city

 

[bhavv]

Actually, after more exploring, what do you think of this? (settling the higlighted tiles):

Spoiler :

I see what I did wrong with the Civs - I picked Lincoln and Sitting Bull twice instead of Pericles and Frederick oooops!

I changed my selection of civs to Pericles, Frederick, Lincoln, Sitting Bull, Peter, Mansa Musa now, but made a mistake here.

Settle where you are. Don't farm floodplains, financial floodplains are too valuable for farms, cottage them instead. Settle another city north of pigs to work with 2 gold mines. Fish you can grap with an eastern peninsula city.

No, you see for each floodplain farmed allows you to work one desert mine with a gold resource - if I were to have settled in place in the first screenshot and cottaged the mine, the city wouldnt have enough to allow working the Golds. Normally floodplains are better cottaged, but in the middle of a desert you may need them farmed for food instead.

But I can go ahead and cottage all my floodplains now because each city will have a food resorce to allow them to grow.

 

[DMOC]

I think you probably should have gone with a city 2w of the fish. Then, to claim the other gold, you can settle near that northern clams or near the pigs/oasis.

 

[UncleJJ]

I would built 3 fairly good cities on that area, all on the coast so they could work coastal tiles and build cothon (extra trade route). They would share overlapping tiles
like the oasis and incense and grassland farms, and work coastal tiles.

The best sites are:
a) 1S of the floodplain, working the eastern Fish, floodplain (farm), oasis and both gold plus as many coastal tiles as you like, whipping in infrastructure and later ships and units.
b) 1W of pig, working all the grasslands as farms once chain irrigation is allowed.
c) On plains, working FP (farm), Pl hill, incense and southern Fish

Each of those cities could have about +8 food when not working the mines and so could run a few specialists for a time and maybe generate a GP or two, depending on other cities. They would also make good whipping cities.

 

[MkLh]

No, you see for each floodplain farmed allows you to work one desert mine with a gold resource - if I were to have settled in place in the first screenshot and cottaged the mine, the city wouldnt have enough to allow working the Golds. Normally floodplains are better cottaged, but in the middle of a desert you may need them farmed for food instead.

A cottaged floodplain and an oasis gives you 2 food surplus which is enough for working with one goldmine. A pig city can work with another two. I'd say that situations where farming floodplains with financial civ is better than cottaging are very rare.

btw. Rusten's placement was the best before the fish appeared.

 

[CumuloNimbus]

I would just restart. You've got a ton of useless land on your island.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I wish I'd actually seen the fish initially...

 

[bhavv]

I would just restart. You've got a ton of useless land on your island.

But will I get another Island this big with all the AI really far away on a standard 7 civ Archipelago map again?

Spoiler :

=D. Its a nice Island. I only built the Glacier city for the marble and the desert city for gold, now I'm going into the jungle. And I cax rex like crazy with Carthage + GLH, just need to build Granary > Cothon > Courthouse in every city.

The Glacier city is pretty good - it has a deer on forest plus both marble and iron on the hills. I am just going to keep it at size 3 continuously producing Settlers.

 

[bhavv]

Uber expansion

Spoiler :

Now I just wait for Courthouses and Markets to finish in my major cities and I think I have 6 more locations left to grab.

My rate will pick up once each city has a cothon and couthouse built, but I need monument and granaries first, I want to get as many cities with monuments as possible before reaching astronomy because the +1 from CHA doesnt seem to obsolete, but I wont let my rate drop below 40%.

 

[UncleJJ]

Don't you have a religion? Building a monument slows down a new city development a lot particularly if they have to wait for the border pop to work good tiles. This late in the game I send a missionary as well as garrison and workers with each settler. If you have a state religion and OR then it also means the buildings are cheaper and get built faster.

 

[bhavv]

I completely forgot to choose a religion o.O

I switched to Budhism after taking that screenshot and am using pacifism for my capital, cant be bothered spreading it.

I'm building Monuments because I have a Carismatic leader.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I would have settled several cities:

(not in any particular order)

• Riverside desert hill.
• 1 SE of clam as you marked.
• On riverside plains, as you marked.
• 1 W of the pig.
• Eastern peninsula city

Since you have the GLH you want as many cities crammed in as you can. Each of these cities would have enough food to work all their nearby tiles. The three gold mines could be divided between three separate cities that way, and you wouldn't be wasting one of the grassland tiles where you can put a cottage. I don't like wasting grassland tiles by settling on them unless I have to. It's better to set on useless desert and work the grass instead.

Also, since you're financial, these cities can each start working coast once they reach a few pop and have worked their nearby tiles.

 

[UncleJJ]

I agree with you PieceOfMind, at least 3 useful cities can be built in that area and most of the good tiles worked. I disagree about the cottages though, both the floodplains and all the grasslands would be better farmed (once chain irrigation is available) and then use the excess food to work coastal tiles as the cities regrow from periodic whipping. That allows all the useful infrastructure to be built and the cities to grow bigger faster. Carthage gets good income from trade routes and coastal tiles. The excess food can be used to spam out units or more settlers / workers and work the gold tiles and incense, or to run specialists as mini GP farms producing the first 2 or 3 GP before the main one comes online.

Despite having a lot of desert this area is quite good at this stage of the game as it is easy to settle and requires only a few high value tiles to be worked. That means the cities pay back the investment very quickly and allow the workers to move on to other areas. Also having 3 cities in close proximity is useful strategically for defence as they can pool military resources if there is a threat and provide rapid reinforcement.