Newbie Help

[keensharp]

Hello everyone,

I just started out a settler game. I am very new to everything and trying to take strategy one step at a time. I have completed a few larger scaled both games both epic and marathon on chieftain and the level above.

Right now my focus is to get a hang of where to place certain specialised cities.
This game is normal speed. Seeing I play as a philosophical leader I was wondering if my capital city would be suitable for a GPP farm. And also where it would be wise to place a factorycity or a commercecity. The gold and copper looks good seeing there is food nearby aswell - but is it not too far away from my capital city? Any hints are much appreciated.

 

[bestje]

Delhi looks more like a good production city to me
settling in any of the territory you have explored is pretty close to your capital, its not like there is anywhere good very near to it anyway.

i'd settle the forested plains hill near the copper and the plains N of the gold.
I think settling fairly aggressively towards Monty and killing him off early on is a good idea or you will find yourself very squashed in

 

[keensharp]

Thank you very much for the reply,
In regards of a production city - what should I emphasize building and when?

Thank you in advance,
keensharp

 

[bestje]

For a production city you want to be building forge, factory, a power plant and ironworks to boost production and barracks, Heroic epic or west point so what you build is higher quality. It will probably eventually need some buildings to keep it healthy as well, but this isn't crucial

what to build at what time is a bit situation dependant, if you plan to attack Monty (and I would) i'd get a barracks then start producing axes and if you can't grab the horses as well a few spears too. other buildings can be added when they are available and you don't have an urgent need for units

there are some useful guides about this (and many other thing) in the war academy, i particularly recommend sisiutil's beginner's guide as I think it has a nice overview of most of the basics

Should have said this last time but better late than never, welcome to Civfanatics!

 

[Genv [FP]]

Just FYI, Monty, Shaka, And Isabella are a threat to you whenever you see them.

 

[eewallace]

Given that that is Montezuma over there, I think you should put your second city where you can grab the copper with cows and wheat, and the third where you can grab the horses, probably with the gold and wine. The gold/wine city is a good potential commerce city.

Also, hook up your stone south of Delhi and carefully select wonders based on what kind of GPP points they will give you. On settler level, you can probably nab pretty much any stone-based wonder you want!

 

[bestje]

before wonders get at least the first 3 cities up and the copper and horses connected, then maybe but I don't think you need wonders to win and its not worth getting into the habit of relying on always getting certain wonders.

secure yourself a few nice cities and kill off Monty first, as Genv says he's a threat. he's almost guaranteed to attack you at some point, so attack him first before he's able to defend himself. His capital will probably be a good city.

 

[grandad1982]

You need to decide if you want the copper or the horses first.

To do this move your warrior back to explore the immediate south of the horses and the gold. After that send him up north to explore around the copper.

Scrap that I noticed your settler is in in 8 turns. Do you have a escort for it?

Hmmm. I'd go for the copper first as Monty is a nutter who loves to spam millitary. Looking at the fog in the north I'm seeing tundra. Settle 1N of the cows? This will be a good millitary city while the capital can work on wonders, settlers etc.

As soon as the settler is out start a new settler pod (at least a settler and an escort, and preferably a worker) and settle the gold site. Getting rice and horses being imposible yiu need to decide what you want more.

 

[keensharp]

Okay. I wiped Montezuma. Took his capital (since it was somewhat close to my own cities and it had 2x gold) and razed his other city.

I settled near the gold/wine - but it does not really seem to grow well. (Thus I planted two farms on the river)

I grabbed the horse as well and everything is swell

I would like to thank you all for the advices. I could undoubtedly complete this game myself - but I am learning alot from this dialogue itself.

About escorting the settler? No - I did not even think of that. Is that normal procedure to escort the settler? (I have not experienced any ambushing of settlers on these level of difficulty)

 

[eewallace]

First settler sent out that early is unlikely to be eaten. After that, you pretty much need to escort them, unless you have so many units out exploring that you don't have barbarian/animals spawning in the spaces you can't see.

 

[bestje]

as long as there aren't any tiles you can't see on the route the settler is taking its ok not to escort them but otherwise its worth sending an escort. it also means you don't need to build a defender in your new city.

have you got any thoughts on what you want to do next?

 

[harusame]

lol, your city is a perfect start to win this game
stone, so many food and grassland!!
cultural win would be easy for you

i would expand to bottom left, nearby horse, rice, cow and wine
and top left, nearby copper, cow and wheat

i would consider to build pyramid on my capitol or the city at top left (copper+cow+2 plain hill),
capitol as GA farm+commerce (but just cottage everything, because you have already lots food)
bottom city as commerce city (maybe build great library later)

dont dilllute the GP pool
all wonders with different GPP need to be built separated
capitol = only GA (hermitage, national epic, parthenon)
top= only GE (pyramid, possibly Hanging garden, Forge)
bottom= only GS or GP, you decide

 

[bestje]

@ Harusame: I disagree with your GPP strategy, whilst it is worth trying to create as few contaminating points as possible. I think its better to have the NE in whichever city you want to produce your GPs and really focus on cranking GPP in that 1 city, otherwise you end up with a lot of wasted points.

In this case as a religion has been founded a GP would be useful and after that scientists and engineers. unless you do try for a cultural victory GAs are pretty useless

 

[harusame]

@ Harusame: I disagree with your GPP strategy, whilst it is worth trying to create as few contaminating points as possible. I think its better to have the NE in whichever city you want to produce your GPs and really focus on cranking GPP in that 1 city, otherwise you end up with a lot of wasted points.

In this case as a religion has been founded a GP would be useful and after that scientists and engineers. unless you do try for a cultural victory GAs are pretty useless

well, it depends on victory condition
for cultural victory, it is extremely important to keep your GPP clean, for GA only

cultural victory only needs
1-2 GA, which you can get from forge and pyramid early game, mainly to rush sistine chapel, and eventually Great library
1-2 GS, easy to get from library, mainly to lightbulb philosophy and education

the rest are for GA only


by the time you farm GAs, you dont need GS/GE anymore

 

[bestje]

do you not find it better to have one specialised GP farm?
though I can see some merit in your idea of trying to pop GP in different cities at different points of the game. Will try and compare and see what I think.

the main merit of one GP farm is that it can be geared up to do nothing else and you don't waste GPP elsewhere

 

[harusame]

do you not find it better to have one specialised GP farm?
though I can see some merit in your idea of trying to pop GP in different cities at different points of the game. Will try and compare and see what I think.

the main merit of one GP farm is that it can be geared up to do nothing else and you don't waste GPP elsewhere

the only GP farm needed for cultural is GA farm, which can be built later
1st and 2nd city need to be cottage spammed
though they are enough to generate each 2 GE and 2 GS, by the time you need them


mixing GPP in one city will sometimes cost you the game, especially in higher difficulties
getting a GE is necessary to rush sistine chapel, as well getting a GS is also mandatory to lightbulb education (otherwise AI would usually win the race to liberalism)
if you mix GPP, you will never know what you get

to win cultural, one must stop teching after getting liberalism, printing press, and nationalism
losing the race to liberalism means, you must spend extra turn to tech to printing press and nationalism (like 10-15 turn more)
which means you lose like 700-800 culture per turn


something like +200 GPP/turn is quite useless if you have chances like 20% GE, 50% GA, and 30% GS

 

[bestje]

fair enough, I don't have any cultural wins above monarch so I'll accept that it is a better idea at higher difficulties to switch cities for GP producution. my point was if your GPP are coming from specialists you can choose to only have that sort of GPP + the 2 from NE (does anyone else wish that NE just produced untyped GPP (like the GS GPP are in the new patch with espionage off)

 

[harusame]

fair enough, I don't have any cultural wins above monarch so I'll accept that it is a better idea at higher difficulties to switch cities for GP producution. my point was if your GPP are coming from specialists you can choose to only have that sort of GPP + the 2 from NE (does anyone else wish that NE just produced untyped GPP (like the GS GPP are in the new patch with espionage off)

yah but, usually from my experience, the GE from pyramid usually spawn shortly after i finish music > sistine chapel
so i dont need NE to help producing GE

then GS is needed very late, shortly before education
and GS is quite easy to get with 2 scientists from library
and we also only need 1-2 GS

then the rest of time, we concentrate on GA
so mixing NE++Pyramid+scientist can pretty much become problematic
besides, it is bad to build forge (for GE) in GP farm