How to Dot Map?

[jingo_man]

Hi,

I have searched through available guides, forums and SG's and understanding the principle, I still do not grasp the workings of how to "dot map". This is a recent phenomenon to my Civ knowledge and only came about when reading some SG's but I can see the immediate advantages of doing so.

I have [mostly] read through the "RB1 - Cuban Isolationism" story which has dot mapping involved. I have also read "SISIUTIL’S CIVILIZATION IV STRATEGY GUIDE" which has a small section on dot mapping and the maths involved with "tile scoring".

I am confused at how, given any land in any game, how I can fully construct the arguments I often see in most games (allowing for the player's own interpretations, of course)... For example, in "Cuban Isolationism", post #67, it states:

<QUOTE>
* blue dots: 3 food apiece (after Lighthouse)
* green dots: 2 food apiece (no shields, though!)
* yellow dots: 1 food apiece (windmills on the hills)
* dark blue dot: mystery tile. Something unusal is there, but I can't tell what.

We're looking at a low-shield size 13 city! Plan A is the plan, methinks.
</QUOTE>

How does Sirian get this "low-shield size 13" from? or is it black magic??

Does anyone have a simple tutorial that walks through performing this analysis? Tile scoring is mentioned in the Sisiutil doc, but I did not fully understand the explanations (obviously...)

Any help would be appreciated.

Regards

jingo_man

 

[The Great Apple]

Welcome to CFC!

He's basically working out what's the best population/production the city terrain can support in the near future. There is 24 food possible in the city radius (before biology), +2 from the centre tile, hence a 13 pop city (26 food / 2 food per pop). He's ignored that non-riverside tundra tile as it's yield is only 2 food, and hence is no use until biology. I would imagine most players work this out in their heads instead of putting dots on a screenshot, but the principle is the same.

From this you can work out how many shields, and how much commerce you expect the city to gain, and hence what you want to build there, and how it fits into the grand scheme.

EDIT: This is the image in question:

 

[jingo_man]

thanks for the welcome, green apple.

ok, so 26f / 2 = 13 max city size.

how does this correlate towards working out production, commerce etc? i think i am short of the "required leap of faith"...!

from the SISIUTIL guide, it has the following:

<QUOTE>
• Tile scoring:
o Within a potential city’s fat cross, count and add all the surplus food (beyond two) that tiles will produce as positives. Grasslands are even, as are coast and ocean (assuming you will eventually build a Lighthouse). Floodplains and oases produce +1; for food resource tiles, count how much food beyond two they will provide after their required improvement (a farm, fishing boat, or pasture) is built.
o Now count and add all the “food deficits” as negatives: plains are -1, deserts and peaks are -2. Hills depend upon their overlay: grassland hills are -1, plains and desert hills are -2.
o Add the positive and the negative numbers. If the result is negative—which it almost always is—this is the number of farmed tiles the city will eventually require to reach its maximum population.

</QUOTE>

In this instance, that would the numbers be? And is this what would be used to calculate the production & commerce, etc?

Regards,

jingo_man

 

[JavalTigar]

It is impossible to give you what the numbers are because we can't see all the +'s and -'s of a particular city.

BUT IF YOUR CITY WAS LIKE THIS

GH PH C
FL FL FL G P
G G X DC P
F G SH CO CF
GR GR CO

GH=GRASS HILL, PH=PLAIN HILL, C = COWS, FL=FLOOD PLAIN, G=GRASSLAND, P=PLAINS, DC=DESERT COPPER, F= FOREST, SH=SHEEP, CO=COAST, CF=COAST FISH, GR=CRASS on RIVER

You get + 12 food if every tile is worked (for food, no cottages) assuming my math is correct.

production and commerce I will let someone else figure out exact numbers, but this would be a great commerce city cause you would not farm the GR or FL and instead put up cottages and would still be + 7 ahead on food, at least. and production would be good with a mine at the hills and copper.

This was close to what my capital was on my last game.

 

[The Great Apple]

In this instance, that would the numbers be? And is this what would be used to calculate the production & commerce, etc?

That method doesn't appear to be the method they're using in the first example. If I understand it correcty that method assumes 20 population, which isn't true in this case, as the terrain is very poor. I supose you could pick the best 13 tiles and it would be similar.

Really, I just use commen sence, rather then a fixed "method". You work out that by farming/windmilling those tiles you can get to size 13, then you look at what hammers and commerce those tiles will give with those improvements on, and now we have the hammer and commerce output.