r_rolo1
King of myself
2SE catches 1 desert river 
King of the World #4: Mansa Musa
- Thread starter Neal
- Start date
2SE catches 1 desert river
Yes but it won't matter until the city reaches size 15 anyways.. Being able to reach size 2 without getting unhealthy is kinda important..
Disregarding jungles, SESE loses 2 flood plains, a plains hill, a riverside plains, and a plains Elephant. It gains two desert rivers, two river plains and a plains.
Net, we're turning two Flood Plains into Desert Rivers, flattening a plains hill into an ordinary plains, and turning a plains Jumbo into a plains river. All of those are downgrades, IMO.
So SSE is, long-term, a vastly better capital site than SESE. But Oyzar brings up an excellent point that SSE suffers significantly from health problems in the short term. And we all know about the butterfly effect of early edges snowballing into huge advantages late. In addition, giving up some prime tiles opens them up for later cities.
As I'd said, this Mali start is fascinating. Even with total information, I'm completely torn as to which way to go.
Net, we're turning two Flood Plains into Desert Rivers, flattening a plains hill into an ordinary plains, and turning a plains Jumbo into a plains river. All of those are downgrades, IMO.
So SSE is, long-term, a vastly better capital site than SESE. But Oyzar brings up an excellent point that SSE suffers significantly from health problems in the short term. And we all know about the butterfly effect of early edges snowballing into huge advantages late. In addition, giving up some prime tiles opens them up for later cities.
As I'd said, this Mali start is fascinating. Even with total information, I'm completely torn as to which way to go.
No..You only lose 1 floodplain(there is another floodplain on the bend in the river), the plains hill is in jungle so won't matter until after IW anyways. Yes the loss of the phants and the floodplain hurts, but in return you get to actually do something early game. Seriously though settling 14E 2S might be alot better. That would allow you to get most of africa for yourself and maybe even block saladin if you are fast enough in taking out hatty.
slobberinbear
Ursine Skald
I think your dots are fine, Neal. It's just a tough situation.
I strongly urge you to research pottery first then beeline iron working. It's the only way to make Timbuktu productive, get some research gonig, and allow you to work on your other cities.
You could also farm some of the floodplains and make your capital a whipping area for a bit, so you can get out settlers to block Izzy from the North Africa area.
I strongly urge you to research pottery first then beeline iron working. It's the only way to make Timbuktu productive, get some research gonig, and allow you to work on your other cities.
You could also farm some of the floodplains and make your capital a whipping area for a bit, so you can get out settlers to block Izzy from the North Africa area.
Ultimocrat
Warlord
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2007
- Messages
- 274
Settle on the Nile on turn 7, 1N of the cows, skirmisher-rush Thebes, and play the rest of the game as Egypt.
Better to settle on the elephants for +1 hammer...
I'm not at home so I cant make a dotmap but what I've always felt was the best choice looked somewhat like slobbering bears dotmap.
Green and blue cities are in the same spots.
Red I move 1east so that it is on the oil as oil comes so late that I don't build around having it as an additional ressourse.
Purple/maroon - 1 north of where it is. I know it suffers a small hit on health but I do this for 3 reasons 1 bonus to production right off the bat. 2 Fogbusting a barbarian infested area and 3 significantly less overlap which leads to better cities long term.
For build order I would suggest building the maroon city first. you won't need to rebuild your palace for a while because it is so central and you can pump out workers/settlers like mad working 3 FP you have cottaged.
The health issues are just as tough in that city as they are in the green city and green city is only just as good until IW
I also think it is important to settle the Northwest of africa early, if you don't make it your 2nd city then izzy's culture just takes over and you have no chance at a decent spot. I believe it also adds two much needed health ressources which you will want to connect quickly.
The other potential northern city I tend to ignore as culture from (romans or greek i forget) make the city next to useless.
Once you have built the cities above I would say you have to make the big decision of taking Izzy or REXing southern africa. Your UU suggests REXing, but if Izzy gets a holy city there is a lot of value in taking her down (I would suggest rush Cats/elephants)
Izzy's city is one of the best military production cities on the map, which is a weakness in Africa so personally I like to go after it.
Green should be 3rd, blue 4th, red 5th (which is city "2" on neals map), then I would build city "3" from neals map and so forth.
Green and blue cities are in the same spots.
Red I move 1east so that it is on the oil as oil comes so late that I don't build around having it as an additional ressourse.
Purple/maroon - 1 north of where it is. I know it suffers a small hit on health but I do this for 3 reasons 1 bonus to production right off the bat. 2 Fogbusting a barbarian infested area and 3 significantly less overlap which leads to better cities long term.
For build order I would suggest building the maroon city first. you won't need to rebuild your palace for a while because it is so central and you can pump out workers/settlers like mad working 3 FP you have cottaged.
The health issues are just as tough in that city as they are in the green city and green city is only just as good until IW
I also think it is important to settle the Northwest of africa early, if you don't make it your 2nd city then izzy's culture just takes over and you have no chance at a decent spot. I believe it also adds two much needed health ressources which you will want to connect quickly.
The other potential northern city I tend to ignore as culture from (romans or greek i forget) make the city next to useless.
Once you have built the cities above I would say you have to make the big decision of taking Izzy or REXing southern africa. Your UU suggests REXing, but if Izzy gets a holy city there is a lot of value in taking her down (I would suggest rush Cats/elephants)
Izzy's city is one of the best military production cities on the map, which is a weakness in Africa so personally I like to go after it.
Green should be 3rd, blue 4th, red 5th (which is city "2" on neals map), then I would build city "3" from neals map and so forth.
I have an idea. All of these capital sites suffer from either horrific health problems that cannot be solved until health resources are online or Iron Working is researched, or from being so ridiculously far away that we'll be hopelessly behind once the capital is founded. Well, how's this for a compromise?
We found those two cities, get Sheep, Fish and Wheat hooked up, then found the SSE capital as our third city and go on from there. This north African capital can be founded on turn 3, so we're not losing too terribly much in the way of turns (even the closest sites are turn 2). And the site has pretty decent early-game production.
This way, by the time that those southern cities are founded, we'll have Iron Working and plenty of health resources, and we'll just be getting big enough that those happiness resources will be useful. Then, once that SSE site comes into its own, we move the capital there. The only problem is that Isabella's religious culture might deny us that wheat tile.
Thoughts?
We found those two cities, get Sheep, Fish and Wheat hooked up, then found the SSE capital as our third city and go on from there. This north African capital can be founded on turn 3, so we're not losing too terribly much in the way of turns (even the closest sites are turn 2). And the site has pretty decent early-game production.
This way, by the time that those southern cities are founded, we'll have Iron Working and plenty of health resources, and we'll just be getting big enough that those happiness resources will be useful. Then, once that SSE site comes into its own, we move the capital there. The only problem is that Isabella's religious culture might deny us that wheat tile.
Thoughts?
r_rolo1
King of myself
Better to move to Nile.....
PaulusIII
Unholy Warlord
In that case you might want to rename your civilization and capital to Carthage.
Founding on that star is imho not a good idea. You will be getting a slow start there because you'll need AH, Masonry and Fishing to get any sorts of food/production.
interesting plan. and if you can do it by turn 3 it might actually work out well. I agree with oyzar though about moving your city 2 2N1W if you concentrate on getting a monument/library out quick you should be fine with the wheat
The only prob i really have with the plan is that the cost of moving the city so far probably exceeds the value of basically having access to fish. I think you would be better off making war with someone and taking their ressources.
The only prob i really have with the plan is that the cost of moving the city so far probably exceeds the value of basically having access to fish. I think you would be better off making war with someone and taking their ressources.
In that case you might want to rename your civilization and capital to Carthage.
Heh. Fair point. Though, honestly, the two cities would serve more as a jumping-off point to claim Mali proper with better "raw" tiles, production-wise, than flood plains and jungle.
So, to all those saying that I should head east to the Nile, where?
I'm not seeing a great spot that wouldn't be devoured by Egyptian culture. And, besides, if the plan is to rush her, we're giving her a seven- or eight-turn head start!
Ultimocrat
Warlord
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2007
- Messages
- 274
On the elephants on turn 8, gets you a worker 5 turns later than usual, as the 2-hammer start saves 3 turns. You'll have a plains cow, plains forests, a 2-hammer start, and floodplains -- I think you can outproduce egypt's (relatively) hammer poor start. Tech Ag-Hunting-AH-Archery and rush, making sure to pillage the horses 2 E of Thebes.
You're playing as Mali so just for the sake of it, settle near the starting location (i.e. same tile or adjacent tile) if it is not optimal. That's part of the challenge.. your later cities can go wherever but your capital should be at the starting postiion.
Part of playing mali is that you can move your settler far and wide and do alot of different things...
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