How would you dotmap this?

[RecoveringBldr]

All,

I am a long time lurker here and at 'Poly, but finally decided to join the fun more personally. I had played Civ 4 since it came out, but have had a several month lapse due to college graduation and getting a Real Job. I finally got back in (plus the Warlords expansion), and have been reading threads/playing games trying to get back up to speed.

One of my favorite things about CFC and Civ discussion is the early setup, since it is so crucial to further development. It seems many players (myself included) play a "waiting game" until they've explored their surroundings. I often take lots of time to work out what to do next around 3000 to 2500 BC.

Below is a great (I think) start with Mansa Musa in 2460 BC or thereabouts. I've put together what I think may be a good dotmap, but I'd really like to hear any thoughts on it you guys may have.

 

[RecoveringBldr]

I think Blue here is a great site; I'm not entirely happy with the western shore placements. I'd like to work both the banana and dry wheat, not settle on them, but moving both 1S would cover the fish with a better city.

Also, if you guys have any thoughts on strategy here I'd love to hear them. I was a devoted chopper in the past (clearcut, ho!), but it seems that's been nerfed a bit. I have been known to liberally use some forced labor in the past.

It occurs to me that the number of food resources available might be a good candidate for a specialist economy. I normally run mass-cottages, which is especially fun with Mansa. I've never done specialists on a mass scale; let me know what you think about that.

Not looking forward to Tokugawa in the east.

Fractal map, standard size, temperate, random nation/leader.

 

[KMadCandy]

if your capitol is already on yellow, you can't settle on pink, it's too close. sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

oops ps i forgot to say howdy and welcome to CFC!!! looked more at the map than the fact that you're new here.

 

[RecoveringBldr]

That's right; I must have left that in my Civ knowledge of yore. Yes. Yellow is the capital (had to turn down graphics due to old computer; cities don't show up that far out).

Of course, that means I've got to settle on those bananas to get the fish, and fish are so tasty I'll want to do that eventually, right? Perhaps not for a few cities, but Mansa IS financial, so...

 

[KMadCandy]

nanas are 5 food with a plantation, but no commerce. fish are 5 food with a boat, 6 with a harbor, but they'll come with ... oh blech, only 1 in this case, that's an ocean tile isn't it? if it was a coastal tile it'd be tons more tasty

you may want to plan a future dry (very dry, will be a long time to get irrigation down there) wheat/fishing village way south and a horse/nana city north of that and skip the annoyingly placed fishies.

the more urgent question is ... how aggressive do you want to be with washington? i mean i have no sense of how confident you are and if you plan to war early or anything like that. if this map is recent, and washington doesn't have those northern ponies yet, if you grab them and can keep them ... that would crimp his style. a lot. for a long time, depending on how much land/how many civs are to the east. i like aggressive settling when i'm playing with a leader i'm comfortable with; some folks don't. i like it even more if i'm planning on letting the civ live, so that there are 2 civs left for a possibility of trading. you don't yet know if toku and wash are the only folks around tho.

blue is beautiful, especially for mansa. one thought about scouting on this map, not for dotmapping purposes but for military intelligence. try to sneak a peek at toku's capitol from a hill if his borders haven't popped too much. he's notorious for almost never opening borders, so if you don't get near enough to see it now, you may not see it til you capture the cities around it *giggle*. i don't like him much.

 

[lilnev]

In general I don't like cities without a decent food surplus, so orange is out. Blue is marginal before Calendar, though I suppose it would eventually be fine. I would look at the spot just N of the Copper, living off flood plains (or NW of copper, I can't tell what that tile is). That would be my second city. It also frees up the Horses for an eventual Fish/Cow city in the far NW, though the Americans will get there before you. The Fish is indeed a little awkward, but I like it better than unirrigated Wheat (especially coastal Fish with a Financial leader, yummy). So I'd settle on the Wheat, planning on a lot of cottages.

peace,
lilnev

 

[Galileo44]

Don't do SE with Mansa, he's financial. Go CE certainly. Green is good for that, as it can support numerous cottages. The floodplains will be 3F3C with a cottage right off the bat. Other than that, move pink 1S and red can either stay or found 1S on the wheat.

 

[50_dollar_bag]

Looks like orange is just there to grab stone/copper/wines, maintenance won't be too bad because you're quite close to the capital but it pretty food scarce until Civil Service as there's only 1 farmable grassland square that i can see so working anything but grassland cottages will be pretty hard.

Green dot i was thinking you could settle 1SE, you lose a floodplain and are off the coast by on tile but you can work the copper and still have the horses and spices in range, it would make a pretty good production city with farmed floodplains and mined hills.

Pink and red are tough calls as it's impossible to have two food resources workable with your current dot-map. You'd have to move pink for obvious reasons either settling on bananas or forgetting about the fish altogether and moving 2S which would get horses in range, then i'd move red down a couple of squares, that gets wheat and fish.

I'd have a look a little better East of your capital looks like quite a bit of grassland river, probably worthwhile grabbing it from Toku later on unless he's slow to acquire it himself.

 

[RecoveringBldr]

Firstly, thanks for all your replies. It's great to see everyone's input on something like this.

I agree about food-poor cities; building something like orange is a killer for me, but I'm trying to get ahold of those resources somehow.

1E of stone may be better city site for that (lots of grassland), but I'd have to find some other way of covering the copper. Moving green 1 SE would do that, but 2 coast squares without lighthouses? AND using up a floodplain on a city square? AND moving the horses to ring 2? I don't know if Mansa can take that. I guess it would be a good hammer city--when I see floodplain, I instantly think, "Ooooh, cottages!" and coastal kind of reinforced the thought.

I agree completely about exploring more east--I've had terrible luck with exploring this game. 2 explorer-warriors got killed by animals. In forest/jungles. Previously undamaged. On prince. Rough.

About early war--as my forum name indicates, I am a recovering builder. I had always played earlier civs (II, III, SMAC, both ctp's, col, etc.) as a builder, but I have found a bit more balance in IV. I usually give myself one nice-sized war with Axes, Knights/Maces, Cavalry, Rifles, and Infantry/tanks (or Redcoats. I loooove redcoats), so I've done my share of warring. In this case I'd probably settle toward washington and battle toward Toku; America looks to be tundra-heavy an Toku is a jerk anyway.

Is Great Wall worth anything? Should I bother grabbing the stone first, or leave it until after green-area city? Or am I already too late?

 

[Galileo44]

Settle green first. Your borders from you capital will reach the stone reasonably soon if you build a wonder or two or grab a religion.

 

[50_dollar_bag]

Great Wall depends on the difficulty and the barb setting, the 1 GP point is pretty marginal, though it is GE points and they count as 1 source which helps work our the chance of a great person, so that plus a scientist would be 50/50.

Not having a lighthouse is not too bad a deal it can take most of the game to work the full 20 tiles in a cities fat cross, losing a floodplain is not so attractive but you have to weigh it up. And having horses int the second ring won't be too bad, you can build a monument while working the plains forest growing slowly but having it built in 10 turns.