My Huge Sid Milk Run

[Chamnix]

Well, I haven't played any more, but I decided to try to plan my permanent city locations following Lord Emsworth's excellent expose on city placement. I'm sure I'll have lots of temporary towns regardless, but the more cities I can put on the right tiles right away, the better off I'll be.

My goal for now was to identify city locations that would be as high or higher scoring than an all plains city. I may end up having to lower or raise my standards as I settle the rest of the map, but I decided that was a good starting point.

Here they are:

Comments welcome!

 

[Elear]

What do all the black "X"s mean?

 

[Chamnix]

Those are mistakes that I couldn't figure out how to just erase .

 

[Elear]

I know the feeling.

As for the dots themselves, in the second picture, for the very left-most teal city, I wonder if it wouldn't be better +1 NW?

P.S. - How'd you get the nice blank grid of the map?

 

[Calis]

CTRL & Shift & M

Learned that from Chamnix

 

[Chamnix]

Ctrl+Shift+N gives you "Clean Map Preferences" where you can select what you want to show when you "clean map" with Ctrl+Shift+M as Calis mentioned.

The leftmost teal tile in map 2 - it is on a hill right now instead of grass, but also if I moved it NW, then I would lose the cow and grass between it and blue dot unless I built culture in one of them, and the expansion would take in a lot of bad tiles.

 

[Elear]

Ctrl+Shift+N gives you "Clean Map Preferences" where you can select what you want to show when you "clean map" with Ctrl+Shift+M as Calis mentioned.

The leftmost teal tile in map 2 - it is on a hill right now instead of grass, but also if I moved it NW, then I would lose the cow and grass between it and blue dot unless I built culture in one of them, and the expansion would take in a lot of bad tiles.

Thanks, I didn't see the hill, and I thought the borders might automatically connect.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I think I'd blow off anything in the tundra, for the long run, at least, even with the food bonuses. and I'm not sure plains with just a whale is all that useful, at least after you get all the jungle cleared.

 

[Elear]

I think I'd blow off anything in the tundra, for the long run, at least, even with the food bonuses. and I'm not sure plains with just a whale is all that useful, at least after you get all the jungle cleared.

I agree in a sense with this thought. There should be plenty of excellent land available without having to resort to possibly second class spots. Look at current Russia. Take the Russian lands and start planning your milking there because it's going to be an excellent vacation spot for your dear people.

I think the tundra spots are not necessarily bad since they all incorporate heavy amounts of sea though it's hard to say at this point.

 

[Donny Brook]

Sorry to change topics so drastically, but I only need a quick response...then back on to your excellent effort.

I re-read page one of this thread as I was interested in your initial settings since I am setting up a new game. In terms of your choice of opponents, you said you chose the Ottomans so someone would get Poly relatively quickly. Is that a known path for them? You have two other scientific tribes in the game (Russia, Babylon), so it's not simply the fact that they're scientific. I'm trying to improve my odds for the monarchy slingshot.

 

[Bartleby]

I can vouch for the fact that the Ottomans really love to go for Polytheism.

 

[Elear]

The Sumerians also adore Ceremonial Burial -> Mysticism -> Polytheism -> Monarchy.

 

[Chamnix]

What they said.

I have no idea why, but certain tribes are biased toward certain tech paths more than others .

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Are you planning to keep around several civs for WH? Otherwise the tundra spots won't really be profitable.

 

[Chamnix]

I'm hoping to. I have the OTC Zulu as a pet already, but I'm not sure how many tribes I'll be able to do that to without losing my war happiness from them.

Of course I will settle as much grassland as possible before resorting to cities in tundra. I guess there are 2 goals in my dotmapping so far. First, I want to identify city locations that are better than all plains locations because I expect to have to use plains when I am at the domination limit. I think those tundra locations can be better than plains cities, but only if I have substantial war happiness as Lord Emsworth pointed out.

The second reason is really just to avoid putting cities in the wrong spots. I'm going to be slapping lots of towns in these areas for quick population. Many of the towns will be abandoned eventually, but I don't want to look back later at a town I keep and say I wish I would have placed that town 1 NE instead of where it is. For that purpose, I don't really care if the tundra is going to be a permanent city or not; I just want to know if there is going to be a permanent city in that area, then it will go on that dot.

 

[Spoonwood]

I think those tundra locations can be better than plains cities, but only if I have substantial war happiness as Lord Emsworth pointed out.

I feel at a loss here. Just take the luxury slider to 90% (or 100%) by that point. Or if those tundra towns have two content citizens make one a geek for another happy citizen. Specialisits give you as many points as content citizens, so you end up with an extra point that way. Also, I really don't feel too sure that tundra towns work out better than plain towns in general. You can't really use civil engineers (at least not all too well) to get improvements, so you'd have to buy the markets, aqueducts, and hospitals there (and maybe courthouses or police stations... and also mass transit systems). That sounds slower and less cost effective overall since you'll have to at least put more cash to those cities when you want improvements ASAP, I'd think.

 

[Chamnix]

It won't be 2 content citizens:

Marketplace/Luxuries = +20
Sid Freebie = +1
JS Bachs = +2
Cure for Cancer = +1

Sum = +24

I need +40 to keep 20 happy citizens. If the city only has enough food to support 22 citizens, then you can't hire enough entertainers.

At some point, I no doubt will be running very high luxuries, but assuming this city is not close to my palace, I'm only going to have a handful of uncorrupted gold to work with.

 

[Spoonwood]

Marketplace/Luxuries = +20
Sid Freebie = +1
JS Bachs = +2
Cure for Cancer = +1

Sum = +24

Where's the luxury slider luxuries?

At some point, I no doubt will be running very high luxuries, but assuming this city is not close to my palace, I'm only going to have a handful of uncorrupted gold to work with.

Through in a courthouse and a police station in those cities. After all, you've got plenty of time to build them in this one. On top of that you mentioned proximity to your palace. So, try to save an MGL towards the end if you can... or just pick a spot that seems like the best for corruption purposes, cash-rush a courthouse and police station there first, and then swap your palace to that spot (maybe centrally located, maybe not). Your original core can build courthouses and police stations while you work on the new palace if you worry about corruption there.

Also, I think some of the spots which have only tundra and coast can't work all those tiles. With just coast and sea squares, one fish gives your 4 tundra squares, and a whale gives you 3 tundra squares, right? When you consider the growth factor also, at least to me, that seems to make using sea squares in those spots pretty useless. A gray and a green look bad like this... they won't even get to 20 citizens. Well, not as much of a happiness deficit then, but not as many citizens.

 

[Chamnix]

No matter where my palace is, it won't be near all tundra cities.

But you are right about the food. If I don't have enough food for 20 citizens, then the city is considerably less valuable.

I'm not too worried about growth because slow growing cities will just have workers added.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Don't forget the MPs. These content faces are much more easy to be had than the happy one from the lux slider, if you are a Monarchy.