[Vanilla] More like Three Hills of Rome... where should I settle this start?

[guspasho]

Where should I build my cities? I've been practicing different strategies with this start and after watching Potato McWhiskey's YouTube about choosing city locations I tried different locations for Rome and I found the plains hill works best, but I'm still stumped for afterward. (Obviously I need to clear out that barb camp.)

I marked the screenshot with pins so I could identify what I thought are the most important tiles to consider for settling. Potato recommends settling in the 4th-5th rings around your capital, so I put down hexagon pins to mark the 5th ring around Rome. The plus-sign pins mark tiles with 4+ food/production, and the hill tiles are highlighted by the map search (awesome feature - visible hills!) The city center pins are some city locations that I'm eyeballing.

But the pinned city location in the 4th ring from Rome doesn't look like a good city location. In fact, I don't see any good locations in the 4th-5th rings. Rome only has three hills, including the one it sits on, and not enough good tiles to share with closely-packed cities. There are few hills and few 4+ yield tiles in the 4th-5th rings around Rome too. However, there are plentiful hills and high-yield tiles beyond the 6-ring to the west and the south. I'd have to settle out of reach of the trade routes and fill in the 4th ring around Rome later. So does this map lend itself to forward settling and then filling in?

I marked another city location I like based on its proximity to the flood plains, diamonds, and high yield tiles because it's a good site for Pyramids, but it's 7 tiles away from Rome. There's no one nearby to rush and legions don't need iron, and I have tons of room to expand into, so I'm thinking peaceful REX and building Pyramids for the extra builder charges. I know from cheating (trying previous strategies on this start) that there's no desert nearby except that one flood plains tile near the diamonds to the SW. I don't know if Pyramids is a smart play for my second city but I think I could be safe from barbs with one or two more warriors from Rome until my third city can start pumping out units. With free monuments maybe I could have Serfdom and 6-charge builders by the time Pyramids are complete, and since it appears that each builder costs more than the last, this could save me a huge amount of cogs in the long term.

What do you think? Where should I settle? Is this start a poor candidate for building densely? Thanks in advance!

(Savegame file is from Vanilla Civ 6 for iPad, with all DLC civs. I have no idea if you will be able to load it.)

 

[PiR]

Hi

Yes I was able to load it on PC.

I'm no Potatoe but I would either suggest:

• if you want to remain close to your capital, next to the river when you can put a lot of farms
• my preference: to go to the coast and build a nice harbor (I love harbors) - exactly where your scout is

I haven't played Rome yet (!), so I don't know about the hills preference.

 

[Buktu]

Since there was lots of land in fog or war, even close areound your capital, I used the console to reveal it since you said you played this start more often and already know a little bit more about the map. I will put my screens in spoilers anyway if you would rather not see them since they might contain informations you did not have so far.
In general I would recommend to settle yuor cities close to each other because you will not only be able to cluster your districts better this way but you will also be able to found more cities in total which raises the number of districts you can build. The capital and a few really great cities might need a little more spacebut imo it is enough if the have this space in one direction (in my plan your capital has the space south east).
My suggestion for the second city would be the pyramids city. That wonder is just so powerful that it is always worth a try. In this game you also have some woods to chop into the wonder as well.

Spoiler :

So lets move on to the screens. Since I saw the whole map I quickly tought of a good (might not be perfect) way to play the rest of your cities. Ofc not all of them are going to be good cities but the less good ones still might decent filler cities or have access to unique luxuries. I would consider to conquer/raze Mohenjo Daro if you are not able to grab on the sugars next to it.
I would focus to grab the land next to my neighbours after your second city so this means expanding east and south.
The cities which are pinned with maybe are cities I would like to have but I am not sure if I can get there fast enough to beat the AI. Especially in vanilla since there is no loyalty pressure. Which is ofc good on the one hand since you do not have to care about it yourself but on the other hand the AI might settle right in between your own cities iirc.
I did not play vanilla since R&F came out so this complete plan might miss a thing or two that were different in vanilla compared to the current state (GS+NFP).

 

[Qwan]

My first thought, upon looking at the map: where the horses? I almost always have Animal Husbandry researched before I finish my first settler.

Given what you've explored, I'd agree with the location you've marked for your next city, even though it's a little close to Preslav, and maybe a little far from Rome. I like my cities 5-6 tiles apart; I find 4-apart to have too much overlap. 6-apart means they can share tiles in the expensive 3-ring, which could be useful if there were important resources there (like horses). 5-apart means they can access tiles in the other's 2-ring, so, for instance, one then then other could focus on growth. Also, since all your Roman cities start with a monument, you'll get more cultural expansion earlier than typically other Civs do, which makes farther-apart okay.

Being that close to Preslav means you probably won't get some tiles 3-away that are 2-away from Preslav, but that should still leave you plenty of tiles. And you ensure you get some tiles 3-away from Preslav (the rice and the diamonds due west). Those two tiles are good, as are the two 2F2P.

Plus, looking ahead at districts, there's a nice Commercial Hub + Bath triangle with that city. I rarely build Aqueducts, but the Roman Bath is special enough (and cheap enough) that I would. Good city for a watermill, given 3 rice in range eventually, and the two rice northeast set up a food triangle. (With Feudalism, they will each get +1 food.) And, there are two tiles between two mountains; no, three if you chop the forest. Campus + Holy Site + Plaza or Commercial Hub? Maybe you could put an Industrial Zone on the other side, next to the Bath, adjacent to the two diamond mines and quarry, for +4 adjacency. Given the three rice, you ought to be able to make this a high population city, and support a lot of districts.

As for the rest of the map, you haven't explored enough for me to decide. There's a coastal city west, but I'm not sure where. The hill on the river sees the three sea resources you've seen, and has an obvious Harbor, but you lose the benefit of the hill. Settling ON the coffee immediately gives you that resource, without a plantation, but you lose the gold from the plantation, but then again, you gain 1 production. You could also consider a Commercial Hub on the hill, which again loses that hill for production use, but the Commercial Hub gets +2 adjacency for the Harbor, for a total of +5 adjacency, and so would be very Splendid if built 2nd. Biggest downside is that the Whales luxury is out-of-range. I'd like to see more of the coast before deciding, both north and south.

There's a Holy City north somewhere, that would put a Holy Site adjacent to two Natural Wonder tiles. There is probably a city south, adjacent to the Lake. There are a couple tiles west which are adjacent to 3 quarry-able tiles, which might be good for an Industrial Zone. Although, I prefer to consider their placement after city placement, as I like their power range to cover lots of cities, to minimize power plants, power resource consumption, and pollution. And after knowing where strategic resources are, like iron and horses. Anyways, those 3 quarry-able tiles are out of range of Rome, so that suggests another city around there.

One UI-mod you might want to try out is Radial Measuring Tool.

But let's talk tech. I can understand why you researched Mining, as you had stone to quarry. And Mining leads to Bronze Working, which reveals Iron, which is rather important to the Romans. And with a barbarian outpost already nearby, you should be able three barbarians for the boost. But why Pottery-Irrigation? You don't need to build a Granary, with fresh-water cities. Sure, Irrigation allows the Cotton luxury, but you don't have a builder for that, and besides, with your pop so low, you don't need that amenity right away. And you don't have anyone to sell the luxury to. So what if it was boosted; you're not using either for a while. One reason to get Pottery early is to lock in a Campus cheaply; but you don't have the boost for Writing. And you don't have a great Campus location for Rome. So what would I suggest researching instead? Have I mentioned wanting to know where the horses are, yet?

If there are horses already in the tiles you control, that's an immediate 1F1P tile boost, without even building a pasture. The pasture fulfills a Eureka and could have been one of the three improvements to boost Craftsmanship. If they are not near Rome, then it would be good to know where they are, as they'd make an early city rather good. And if you don't have any horses, that makes Iron even more important to find. Oh, and as for improvements, I see that the Farm boosted Irrigation, that the Quarry boosted Masonry, but you really didn't need the 2nd Quarry, as they are only 2F2R, and you have a woods-hill that gives you the same. You'd need pop4 to use them all. Unless you run Agoge to build units, you don't need Craftmanship, and you could have more quickly researched Early Empire instead, to get a Governor. Like Amani, who if you put into any of those city-states, would give you suzerainty, and thus their visibility. And, with Mohenjo-Daro, you'd get full housing from water without fresh water, liberating your new city placement. So I'd have used it on the 2nd wheat tile, or I'd have saved it in case I revealed .... horses.

So while I answered your original question, I hope I've also given you a perspective at how I look at an the beginning game.

Hope you're having fun!