Need some City advice

[Skallagrimson]

Here's a dilemma I sometimes run into: sea coast cities. These cities are DESPERATE for hammers because you need a good navy to be able to defend your seafood or to extend power to other continents, and 40 turns to build one frigate ain't gonna cut it. But if you have Colossus and/or Financial those extra coins from the sea coast seem to tempt toward commerce, easy traderoutes, etc. It's the biggest source of my headaches in the game, trying to balance the navy needs with the economic opportunities. It's such a HUGE bonus if you can find a high-food, high-hammer location for a good naval shipyard, with lots of forests for health-and-lumbermills, or chopping, on fresh water (too) for health, and hasn't already burned a national wonder so you can get both Heroic Epic and West Point (elite navy cranking out at a high rate). I jump up and down for joy when I find a build-spot like that, but it's RARE. Random map generations always seem to wanna put deserts near the coast, anywhere the rivers feed into the ocean.

 

[cabert]

Here's a dilemma I sometimes run into: sea coast cities. These cities are DESPERATE for hammers because you need a good navy to be able to defend your seafood or to extend power to other continents, and 40 turns to build one frigate ain't gonna cut it. But if you have Colossus and/or Financial those extra coins from the sea coast seem to tempt toward commerce, easy traderoutes, etc. It's the biggest source of my headaches in the game, trying to balance the navy needs with the economic opportunities. It's such a HUGE bonus if you can find a high-food, high-hammer location for a good naval shipyard, with lots of forests for health-and-lumbermills, or chopping, on fresh water (too) for health, and hasn't already burned a national wonder so you can get both Heroic Epic and West Point (elite navy cranking out at a high rate). I jump up and down for joy when I find a build-spot like that, but it's RARE. Random map generations always seem to wanna put deserts near the coast, anywhere the rivers feed into the ocean.

Not THAT rare.
Often it's a former AI capital city that will go into this category

 

[Horgh]

Thanks to everyone for the comments and advice. I finally finished my game the other night. I built all my cities and was cranking out the science and gold. The other continent was quiet except for 1 war which ended in a vassalage between the the 2 largest civs after me. I finally realized I needed to decide on a victory condition after cruising along for many years just building my cities and cash reserves. I decided to try a cultural win around 1829 and was successful around 1930. I actually beat the number 2 civ to a diplomatic victory by a turn or two.

My 3 culture cities were Rome, Thebes, and Neapolis. I figured that since I was isolated, powerful, and had an economy cranking away I would be fine. I built 3 cathedrals in each city and several cultural wonders. I used Rome and a later city as GP farms and received 3 GA in that 100 year period. Culture was ran at 100% for the last 50 years or so. I kept my production cities cranking out units for protection and then turned them to science. My coastal production cities cranked out subs and battleships for most of that time as well. I think I had close to 40 of them by the time I ended.

So anyway, it was a fun game and I learned much from the playing and from following this thread. Thanks to all of you for your comments

 

[Horgh]

I have started a new game and would like to get some city placement opinions again.

I have my first 2 cities in place, and am now ready to add a few more. I have mapped what I think are the next 2 sites:

A will be a commerce/science city, and was placed to grab the flood plains and the horses and the wine.

B seems to fit with what's left in that area and will be a hybrid. It has 2 peaks and 1 desert but seemed to be the best fit with wheat, pigs, and marble.

I have a few thoughts about where to place C:
1. 1 tile W of the wheat to grab 2 gold mines, the wheat and the fish
2. 2 tiles N of the middle gold mine to grab 2 of the mines and the rice.

I am leaning toward number 1, and saving the rice for a different city up on the river. I would have liked to gone farther north and grabbed the corn, iron and an elephant but that is right on Brennus's doorstep who is currently the most powerful civ.

Any comments, advice, or criticism is appreciated.

Here is the map without any of my dot-maps if anyone wants to do their own.

Spoiler :

 

[oyzar]

with this setup you got basically no production senters i would move A SW then build a city ¤n of A's current location as that would make for an excelent production city with sevral hills horses and rice. On this map you obviously need ironvorking asap. also be sure to claim that wheat /fish&2|gold city asap

 

[KMadCandy]

i didn't look at it for very very long since others are better at this than i am. but these are my first thoughts:

move site B one tile NE, so that it's on the jungle next to the pigs. it'll overlap with A by 2 but i think it's a much better site. it gains you coastal access, gets rid of the useless 2 peaks/1 coast bottom row of the original site, and will have enough food after the pigs are pastured/wheat farmed to work the marble and the gold hill you'd pick up (even before the wheat is irrigated, and even if you leave the overlap tiles for city A).

doing that leaves room for you C, by the other gold hills. i'd put C on the coast, to get the fish. i think that there are hills in exactly the wrong places over there, btw, for that wheat 2N of the fish to ever be irrigated by the river nearest to it .

if you go with your C1, and put it 1W of the wheat, it's not on the coast. technically you could workboat the fish from my B or from athens, but i can't see why you'd place C one square away from coastal access on purpose. oh i guess to get the spice? you already have one spice in sparta, so it wouldn't be a new resource. to me that's not a good trade, i'd definitely put it on the coast for a lighthouse/harbor/ship-building etc.

do city A first of course. settle C before B. B is backfilling your own territory, you're far more likely to lose spot C to an AI than you are B, at least as far as settling goes. if they want to expand militarily, welllllll, that's a whole different story.

there's something on one of those southern hills outside of athens's culture ring, but no resource flag. what is it?

 

[Uncle E]

I'd almost chance a city one tile south of the iron which would give you good health w/ river access (chop them jungles tho), 2 sugarcanes for food, iron (of course), 2 ivory resources for dumbo units, and spices ... it would run you way more in upkeep costs, but imagine if your northern neighbor got it and pumped iron units and war elephants your way?

Next id try to get the city by the horsies

 

[cabert]

I have started a new game and would like to get some city placement opinions again.

I have my first 2 cities in place, and am now ready to add a few more. I have mapped what I think are the next 2 sites:

A will be a commerce/science city, and was placed to grab the flood plains and the horses and the wine.

B seems to fit with what's left in that area and will be a hybrid. It has 2 peaks and 1 desert but seemed to be the best fit with wheat, pigs, and marble.

I have a few thoughts about where to place C:
1. 1 tile W of the wheat to grab 2 gold mines, the wheat and the fish
2. 2 tiles N of the middle gold mine to grab 2 of the mines and the rice.

I am leaning toward number 1, and saving the rice for a different city up on the river. I would have liked to gone farther north and grabbed the corn, iron and an elephant but that is right on Brennus's doorstep who is currently the most powerful civ.

Any comments, advice, or criticism is appreciated.

did you develop an allergy to gold?
try this one :

this is only for the first few cities, with room for fillers afterwards
I'd go for the iron straight away, then gold and gold, then horses.

What did I look for :
- health resources aren't all equal. rice, wheat and corn are superior to all others because they are bonified by the granary! You want all 3 resources.
- happiness resources aren't all equal! You know mining and you know hunting, so gold and ivory are superior. + ivory allows war elephants, and gold is the best commerce tile available (with enough food to work it )
- strategic resources aren't all equal. Your UU needs copper or iron, but spain's UU needs iron and horses and crossbows require iron. So if you don't want a bad time fighting spain (will come soon), take the iron away from her. horses isn't as important, your UU deals with HA or chariots with ease

 

[Skallagrimson]

Iron and Ivory in the same fat-cross means it's not even a question, at all. HUGE military bonus if you can build War Elephants, as a stack of 'em can even screw up plunders by industrial-era Cavalry, and can also double as defenders to wipe out axemen, swordsmen, archers, VERY versatile units.

The AIs will be racing toward the Iron/Ivory location, and if they get there first, you're screwed.

I don't care what anyone says about "REX" not being a valid strategy anymore, AIs REX all the time and they build huge powerful empires because of it. I've NEVER been successful just hanging back with 5 cities, and the larger I've grown in the beginning, beating the AIs to the sweet resource-grabber locations, the more I've succeeded. The only caveat to it is that you have to supply the coins for that expansion with cottages, gold, silver, furs, etc., and get Currency and Calendar early enough on that you can sustain the growth. When that doesn't succeed you get what I call "unit vapor-lock" because you don't have the option yet to build Wealth or Research, have no more buildings you can build, and can only build units, which in turn drag your economy down even more from support, or get deleted such that the production is wasted, or you launch a war against a neighbor which might not be well-advised in its timing due to how many allies they have, their tech level, etc. But, as long as you don't fall into unit vapor-lock, REX, REX, and more REX is what I say. Spam those cities before the AIs do, and Iron/Ivory are FIRST!!!

 

[cabert]

^^At this point rexing is indeed the best move, at least up to 6 cities.
Unless of course Isabella gets the painful idea to come stealiong "your" land .
Then you stop building settler and workers and switch to phalanxes, catapults, elephants, axes or whatever and take those cities back (+ hers).

About techs, I think it's time to start building libraries and aim for the great lib.
You're philosophical, you want great scientists!

 

[Horgh]

Thanks for all the replies

I wanted to grab the iron elephant site but Brennus (not Isabella) has a city close by and includes the northern elephant. I am concerned that the city will get overwhelmed by culture or by Brennus's forces.

If I can get a settler there ASAP, and send along a bunch of military, will that drain too much of my coffers because of the distance? I guess I can bring all my workers and chop/improve like a madman to get it up and running before Brennus gives me grief. If I get a large military presence and stay on Brennus' good side, I should be OK. Right now Brennus, IIRC, is at +1 with me, but he founded Buddhism so if I can convert that should make him happy enough to leave me alone.

Thanks again for the tips and comments. I will try and play a little bit tonight and give an update.

 

[KMadCandy]

you just have to balance the risk of being overwhelmed by his forces against the far better military you'd have to face those forces if you have iron and elephants. i'd personally not worry too much about culture, you can fight that battle peacefully (brennus instead of isabella is a good thing as far as that goes).

you don't have iron anywhere else. when someone comes at you (might not be him, but someone will come after you at some point), you'll want iron for sure. and it looks like there's something on a hill east of athens? flags go weird at the very south of screenshots is why i wonder, is that a resource?

good luck!

 

[Horgh]

Turns out that the beauty of a spot up by the iron elephants was too close to his capital to let me settle. His military is also far greater, so I pulled back and developed my other cities. Things are going okay. I need to get more workers going, and all this jungle is taking awhile to get situated. I am sure Brennus will be my first target. He has some great real estate, plus he has been acting like a prick so he needs to learn a lesson.

More later this week...

p.s. not sure what you are seeing KMadCandy, the only missing resource flags are the fish and crabs at the bottom of the screen. I will also have iron sw of Athens in not too long. Fortunately my axes and phalanx have been defending well so far. Brennus demanded some tribute and I had to give in due to a large stack sitting in his closest city

 

[KMadCandy]

that's cool, we go to plan b. let brennus do the landscaping for us, maybe build a building or two for us. then we move in! good luck!

 

[Skallagrimson]

Thanks for all the replies

I wanted to grab the iron elephant site but Brennus (not Isabella) has a city close by and includes the northern elephant. I am concerned that the city will get overwhelmed by culture or by Brennus's forces.

If I can get a settler there ASAP, and send along a bunch of military, will that drain too much of my coffers because of the distance? I guess I can bring all my workers and chop/improve like a madman to get it up and running before Brennus gives me grief. If I get a large military presence and stay on Brennus' good side, I should be OK. Right now Brennus, IIRC, is at +1 with me, but he founded Buddhism so if I can convert that should make him happy enough to leave me alone.

Thanks again for the tips and comments. I will try and play a little bit tonight and give an update.

My policy toward the most powerful rival on a continent is:

1) Convert to their religion. This isn't because you *like* their religion or *want* it to spread (as spreading it will add gold to their shrine), but, if that civ attacks you all of HIS cities that have that religion will be extra unhappy because he's at war with their "brothers of the faith". Even if I only have one city with that religion, I convert to it, to hang that unhappy threat over him if he tries an invasion.

2) Find who his (other) most dangerous rivals are, and support them as much as possible: favorable tech trades, etc. If those two civs are at war and I still can't afford to actively jump into the war, I will at least bring the powerful civ's enemy up to my level of tech to give him a harder time of it, after which I'm usually able to catch up in power and able to leap into the war at the tail end of it, when there are still about half of his cities left to be taken. And when all is said and done, that rival I'd helped all along is now extra friendly to me and often offers a defense pact late in the game.

In the case with Brennus above, I'd still drop a city near the Iron to grab at least one of the Ivories, and then work with Brennus to prevent invasion as I've described if you're worried about that.

I'd consider it a very unlucky thing to have Isabella as a neighbor and NOT have Ivory (as Pikes against Conquistators are not extra-special, as Conqs have a bonus against melee!)

 

[Skallagrimson]

Oops, too late for the Iron, I see. Try to at least grab the Ivory, if possible!

Copper alone for a military conquest, damn you're going to need a LOT of catapults!

 

[Killroyan]

Hehe Cabert, we think alike. You almost made the same changes in the dotmap as I would have made although I would move the lower blue city 1 spot to the west. This would net you in 2 more watermills sites or at least 2 riverside tiles instead of 5 sea tiles. 1SE of the rice would be workable too but you need to cut a lot of jungle for that.

 

[cabert]

Hehe Cabert, we think alike. You almost made the same changes in the dotmap as I would have made although I would move the lower blue city 1 spot to the west. This would net you in 2 more watermills sites or at least 2 riverside tiles instead of 5 sea tiles. 1SE of the rice would be workable too but you need to cut a lot of jungle for that.

well, my blue site is coastal (that was the reasoning for this).
But I agree, 1 W is stronger. 1 tile from the coast, but only 1 sea tile

 

[Skallagrimson]

I often don't have the luxury to be picky, but when I do I prefer seacoast cities to be in a "bay" or an opening of sea where there's sea access but not as many inefficient open-sea squares (2F and 1C, those are specialist-flippers there!) I love the coast when I'm Financial or have Colossus, but most of the time, just the minimum to get a navy going.

 

[KMadCandy]

p.s. not sure what you are seeing KMadCandy, the only missing resource flags are the fish and crabs at the bottom of the screen. I will also have iron sw of Athens in not too long. Fortunately my axes and phalanx have been defending well so far. Brennus demanded some tribute and I had to give in due to a large stack sitting in his closest city

ah that's what i meant. west/east, i'm like really really bad with that. there's no flag on that iron so i wasn't sure what it was. i think it might take 2 border pops not just one to get it tho.