IA discussion: where to settle 2nd city?

[DaveShack]

No, this is to separate those with good eyes from those without

I never thought of calling it impressionist, but that's surprisingly accurate given how it looks.

Hey, don't look at me... this was taken directly off the window for the crprings tool by Dianthus. It's probably from zooming in so far.

Oh, wait, he has an option for "smoothed graphics" It looks much better when smoothed. And our empire won't need to be zoomed in quite so far in the near future, or at least we can hope.

 

[wlievens]

What is RCP?

 

[Rik Meleet]

RCP in the academy.

 

[DaveShack]

Well, green is winning strongly over abstain. but north and south are split evenly. Guess we'll need a poll, should be up later today.

@Zorven, my personal preference is to use RCP as a guide only, and choose actual locations based on terrain and bonuses. However, I was specifically looking for comments like yours, as I don't want to lessen anyone's experience by overemphasizing it if there are strong feelings against it.

 

[Cyc]

They're all too close for my liking, DaveShack. I'm with the "need more info" crowd.

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

I think we need to decide if we are going to go for this dense build pattern or not first. Then that dictates the direction of city placement.

The key being, if don't stay consistent with a dense build, then we are screwing ourselves later, as we will hold back our best cities from a corruption standpoint.

 

[jorge_roberto]

Originally posted by Bill_in_PDX
I think we need to decide if we are going to go for this dense build pattern or not first. Then that dictates the direction of city placement.

I agree with Bill. I've created a thread to discuss the city placement strategy first.

 

[Rik Meleet]

For a cultural victory, build dense. That is not neccesary for a 20k cultural victory. Our 2nd city (or 3rd at last) has to be in a productive area.

Tha capitol isn't suitable as 20k site; no palace prebuild posibble there.

I think that is worth considering.

 

[DaveShack]

Good information or not, we need to make a decision before the next turnchat, in case a settler is produced during that time. A poll has been opened here

 

[DaveShack]

We have slightly more information about our surroundings, so time to start up discussion on settlement locations again. Here is an updated picture.

Here is a dotmap with the squares available to cities placed on the dots. This is not necessarily the best way to do it, it is merely the first example. I chose this example because there were some comments about the spacing being too close in the last suggested map, so this one has slightly wider spacing.

All placement schemes have their pluses and minuses. In the above picture, the green dot is problematic because it does not pick up the cattle until growth, and we can't expand borders until either Ceremonial Burial or Writing are known. This map also shows a gap where there are some mountains which can't be worked, and mined+railroaded mountains are among the highest shield producers inthe game.

Please feel free to suggest adjustments or submit your own suggestions.

 

[Cyc]

DS I would move the darker blue dot 1 tile East, The Pink dot 1 tile SE, and the red dot 1 tile SW. That would tighten things up nicely. If we can't get CB pretty quick, we should be putting more work into it. The green dot isn't going to be a major producer, so building a Temple right away should be no big deal. Building a road all the way out to those grapes is going to take a while so having a Temple in the red city by then should also be doable. It would also be easier to hook up on those dyes to the SW, if a lux is a major concern.

 

[Donovan Zoi]

The Blue site is the way to go because of the Flood Plains. But how should we position it? I almost think we should shift it NE, but am undecided on the matter.

Regardless, the location will give us 7-8 Flood Plains, which are instrumental for growth. We should concentrate on the location of this site only for our second city. The rest seems to be slim pickin's.

 

[DaveShack]

The blue dot would be great for growth but would require massive improvement to get any production, because floodplain will never produce a shield without a bonus resource. It will take irrigated floodplain to offset mines on zero food tiles. Ideally we're also looking for somewhere that can be high shield without having to irrigate 1/2 the tiles, and doesn't look like any such is available yet.

 

[Donovan Zoi]

Sure, Dave, but this city will still be a starting point for the growth of our nation. Maybe we will have to save our 20k city for the third or fourth city founded. As you and I agree, the options are minimal at best.

Lets go Blue so that we can put out the workers to improve this city. It's growth alone will more than make up for our unfortunate start. And since we are Industrious, a steady stream of workers can complete all the tasks that you mention in a short time.

 

[ravensfire]

I would also push the green dot North one, and move the cattle out of it's radius. When we have another warrior, we need to scout to the south east - there has got to be a better spot for a city that can use the cattle there.

If we can get the blue site up and running with the high food surplus, we should have enough workers that the jungle won't be that much of a problem - a stack of 4 industrius workers should make short work of the problem!

-- Ravensfire

 

[ravensfire]

I'm going to have to do some research when I get home tonight or sometime tomorrow, but ...

We really, REALLY need to get some scouts to the South. The North and the East, at least close at home, don't have a lot of long-term production possibilities. The Blue site will be critical to our expansion, as it should be to pump setters and workers as fast as shield are around. For that reason, it should stay where it is. Access to that one hill will give it's production a nice boost.

I'd like to see our norther warrior work west a bit more, then take a southernly route to see what's there. We don't have a good, high production site that's close - that's really going to limit us.

Short term - gotta take Blue. I would like to see Green, then Red settled soon (need French wines!). Any further expansion needs more information.

-- Ravensfire

 

[donsig]

I agree with DZ in that the area of the blue dot should be our second city but, like Cyc, I would move it one tile east. Perhaps we could make a worker or two from that city?

 

[Paalikles]

I would like to support the position taken by mr Donsig and mr Cyc, as I agree on the blue-spot city to be moved more to the east

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

I agree also with Cyc's approach. City number two can be a settler/worker factory. No matter what we find to the south, it is time to face up to the reality that we must improve a lot of our home territory.

 

[DaveShack]

Blue dot 1 east is looks like a better placement of that town, if it is used for the purposes suggested in the discussion, which is a worker / settler pump. Once the floodplains are irrigated, we need several mountains to produce shields, to get the food and shields in balance.

Until some lux are available, we'll need to MM it probably by alternating food and shield tiles, to keep the pop from growing too high, but that's a separate issue.