Is it possible to backfill too much or too soon?

[Yonez]

Playing a game as Huayna of the Indians. I kind of fancied doing some wonder spamming, so I've been doing that, but the map gods have given me a nice set-up with Gandhi as the direct neighbour to the west, meaning I've grabbed some spots that I really would not have got otherwise (this is on Prince/Huge). Thing is, it's 715AD and I've got 14 cities (the most), but I've dotmapped on another 14 that I can comfortably get. I've got no one to the east which is where all the space is, and there are a couple of tundra spots below my land and Gandhi's too.

I'm just not sure how quickly or how much to continue rexing (though I suppose, at 715AD it can no longer be called rexing!). Only two or three of those dotmap cities will net me new resources (these I'm going to settle asap), and seeing as the only things I'm lacking (after trading for dye) are sugar, gems and bananas, I'm not sure how much of a priority they are. I've got plenty to trade with as it is. The other thing that's putting me off is the fact that I've kind of got a little bit of a tech defecit. Where I've got Aesthetics, Literature, Drama and Music, Cryus has Machinery, Compass and Optics, and someone I've not met yet has Philosophy. I've only just got Code of Laws, so courthouses are about to get built, but as my science slider is stable at 40% (110 beakers) I don't want to slow down too much at a key moment. I've only been beaten to Liberalism once since moving up to Prince, don't want it to happen again!

I would attach a screenshot but the land is too big to really show, so I was wondering if some of you learned folks could look at the save and give advice on how to proceed.

Oh and incidentally, after just trading for Feuadalism, Gandhi will now vassalise, which could net me Theo to speed up Paper. He is, as per usual, the worst enemy of four people, and as his closest neighbour Stalin is one of those people and is gearing for war, I'm just wondering if it'd be a bad idea (for me) for him to join Team Huayna. And as a final note, I don't fancy a war until I've got to cannons or riflemen. Just not my style before that.

TL;DR version: In what order and when should I settle the proposed cities?

 

[kossin]

1. Get more workers and improve your current cities
2. whip away unimproved tiles

3. Settle food resources, skip the others in the dotmap - you could rework it a bit in some places to get less desert/overlap share food resources to grow

There are a lot more things to be said about cities but that's a start.

 

[Leventis]

Just took a quick look at the save, and I couldn't understand how you only have ~100bpt at first glance. I saw some cottages there (you need more though, rather than farms IMO) and your land is really good. Then I looked at your capital, and I can honestly say I've never seen a city with an academy, but no library!!


I'd build one there.

And another 7 or 8 of your cities could use them too. Your dotmap is fine for where the cities should go, and there is no reason why you could not have already filled your backyard some time ago. Don't worry so much about not teching fast through overexpansion -- it is a problem when you don't build libraries in your shrined, academy capital. Getting better at specialising cities, building more cottages, workers (you need 5 or 6 more) etc takes some practice, and this is where you can improve the most IMHO on the basis of this save. This game is still winnable, definitely -- more workers & cottages. Oh, and a library in the capital!

 

[Yonez]

Wow, thanks for the quick responses!

You know, sometimes when I romp home on Prince, I think maybe I should move up to Monarch. But then when I forget to build a library in a commerce city and manage to leave a city unimproved up to size 10 or so I realise I probably need to work on my game a bit more. I think I'm just too lazy to be an efficient player! But yeah, workers were my next priority, I'm going to get a few more of those out next. I think I'll just build workers and settlers now for a bit, I guess those couthouses can cut the extra costs.

 

[Airey]

@Yonez

Spoiler :

Took a quick look at your game. Your game is very good. You are doing the basic things very well, which is surprisingly very hard to do. You should consider moving up a level.

Some suggestions:
1. look up some strategy in this forum regards to managing citizens manually.
I see you are still using city automation which hinders your game without you doing anything wrong.

Spoiler :

At Bombay:

Spoiler :

I see you are making Market. My guess is you are trying to use that to have 2 extra merchant slot for your city specialist. You can look up forum with regards to how multiplier works with slider. Excellent guild by Excl here. Attn to Specialized Cities. And info about great person generation via specialist. Excellent summary/organization by JackOfClubs here re: specialist economy.
Normally it's not much use building science multiplier AND money multiplier in the same city.

Tips of getting money for expansion and gaining + relationship modifiers.

Spoiler :

Because you have different state religion than most of other civs. If you don't feel like changing, use trades to improve relationship (which gains weight over time). You also get money of of trading your excessive resources. Just be careful not trading health resources to civs running HR, for example.

But ya, your skill is way above this level. Time to try something new. An excellent way to learn, is play on the same map and romp up the difficulty by 2 levels.
Then one will have better knowledge of land and have less distractions. Can focus on learning what to sacrifice at higher level much more. My 2 cent...good luck.