Next turn -3750bc

[Jayne]

Regia Fanatica founded and research started on Ceremonial Burial.

Another hut found and 2 specials. I think we should found a city on the hill. The archer has moved, but the settler hasn't.

Advisors: Please poll on whether to settle here or not, what to do with the archer and what to do with the hut.

I'll play again on Wednesday afternoon GMT.

 

[Talar]

Pop the hut! An archer have nothing to be afraid of this early

Maybe we should build on the SE hill and leave room for a smaller city on the pure green up north.

 

[Zelig]

Pop the hut.

I think we should settle on the grassland up north and hold off building a city on the hill until we can mine it to give us +3 production.

 

[GaryNemo]

The Settler would be best used making Road improvments while the Archer scouts and we decide where to build City#2. Our Science is slow: discoveries in 10 turns, and 0 gold.

Right now, our Capital is building a Phx when I think it should be building a quick Warrior. Also, we are working the buffalo, which has no road. We need to decide whether to create a Road on the Buffalo or the Green Shield first. I prefer the GLS. Then RF can grow and build a Settler.

Anyone check my logic and agree?

 

[Zelig]

Originally posted by GaryNemo
The Settler would be best used making Road improvments while the Archer scouts and we decide where to build City#2. Our Science is slow: discoveries in 10 turns, and 0 gold.

Right now, our Capital is building a Phx when I think it should be building a quick Warrior. Also, we are working the buffalo, which has no road. We need to decide whether to create a Road on the Buffalo or the Green Shield first. I prefer the GLS. Then RF can grow and build a Settler.

Anyone check my logic and agree?

Oooh, a save.

Yes, I agree on all counts.

 

[Leowind]

We need more settlers, so I agree to road the GLS first, then go found a city! I also agree to switch production to a Warrior. We have an Archer wandering about so defense shouldn't be a huge concern just yet.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

I agree on roading the grassland first and changing the production to a warrior. Leave our worker on the buffalo until the grassland is roaded. Let the city grow and build a settler. In the mean time have the existing settler build roads on the buffalo and to where ever the next city may be built.

 

[Kev]

I'm a bit torn where we are now.

Putting a road down would be all well and good, but I would almost rather take advantage of the whale/fish trade squares right away rather than wait for the road building. I would also prefer to go to the hill and then build the city before the archer pops the hut (which can be done without losing anything since the settler has not moved yet). Building the city first would assure that we do not pop any barbs, and I don't think we'd get a city either (hut within the city radius). An advanced tribe wouldn't be horrible in the hut spot, but there is a good fit for cities from what we know of the map right now. We can build on the hill and then the third city can go on the non-shielded grassland in the north corner.

Of course, I always hate to build on a hill without another settler beginning the mining process first. I would think that most know that 'trick' in that it gives the city site extra resources when completed and cannot be done with a city already on the spot. Don't know if we would even consider that 'fair' for our purposes. Anyway, that process would take quite a while and take up a lot of settler turns that are better used this early to make roads and make new cities.

Totally agree about the warrior first in the capital. It will be helpful in exploring the rest of the land is encompassed by the capital. Perhaps we may even uncover a special that the city can take advantage of right away. If it is a special that involves trade, then we wouldn't necessarily need a roaded square right away.

Like I said, I'm quite torn and wouldn't mind going either way.

 

[DvR]

I also agree on roading the grassland shield first and building a warrior who can scout the surrounding land for the other two specials..
Also, the tax/sci/lux rate should be on 5.5.0 because that also gives us discoveries every 10 turns, but 1 gold aswell..
So as long as the turns per discovery don't increase, I say pump the tax rate..

EDIT: also, the hill site doesn't have to contain 3 specials, it's a 50/50 chance.. it could be just the fish and the whale..

 

[EnriqueCR]

I agree with Jayne about founding the second city on the hill, because we´ll can use the fish and the whale. There is too many forest, but when irrigated, we´ll have plane or grass,(i don´t know at this moment ). I don´t think the road is useful now. I think we´d better found some cities, and then connect them by road. But this is an item of Domestic advisor.

 

[GaryNemo]

There is no reason why we can't build a Hill Mine city there. Personally, I never build on a hill unless I can put a Settler there first to build the mine. So let's wait on that one.

Settler W W and Road GLS, Archer pop hut if you must, then SW W W SW to scout what may be superior sites. New Warrior SW S?

I'm not sure we'll get any gold until we get two arrows at RF. We need that Road! Then probably a Road on the Buffalo, so when RF is Size=2 we'll get 2 beakers.

 

[Shahadet]

I believe it would be a waste of time roading the grassland. Our priority should be on getting more settlers and increasing science production. I for one would like to see the following actions taken:

i) Change Phalanx production to a Warrior
ii) Realocate worker at capital to an ocean square, giving us 2 beakers and reducing the science research time by half.
iii) Build the city on the hill. The whale & fish resource will offset the poor resources of a non-mined hill, not to mention the, as yet unknown resource.
iii) Use the second city to begin immediate production of a settler.

Hopefully we will get another unit from the hut. If we get gold instead then it can be used to ruch build the settler just before reaching size 2 (a completely full grain box) in city 2 so that the city will not go into riot mode.

Further more, from what I have concluded about the location we will find optimal city sites quicker by explorer along the east and west axis.

These are my initial thoughts on the game so far.

 

[Zelig]

Originally posted by DvR

Also, the tax/sci/lux rate should be on 5.5.0 because that also gives us discoveries every 10 turns, but 1 gold aswell..
So as long as the turns per discovery don't increase, I say pump the tax rate..

Even though it says 10 turns, it won't give us any science, since we have only 1 trade, which would be tax then.

 

[Leowind]

I'm torn on the hill city. This early in the game I think it would be a mistake to wait to mine the city, so to my mind the only choices are to build there anyway without the mine to take advantage of the specials, or to head back NW and build on the grass and build a properly mined hill city at that location later. I would almost lean towards the later (grass city), but of couse that is going to lose more time as the settler walks back there. We've lost much time already.

Capital: serf on ocean or land? On land will give faster production, but is that needed right now? On ocean will give faster science, but will it slow settler production which will slow science in the long-run? I almost think the ocean, especially if it can start putting some gold in our treasury so we can IPRB(Incremental Partial Rush-Buy), which can help make up for the lowered production. The serf can always be moved back later if needed, of course.

 

[Zwelgje]

If we decide to build on the hill we must have a settler there first to start a mine. It would be quite a waste to not do that IMHO... But it would be quite a waste too this early in the game to have a settler spend so many turns on building a mine while it can found a city and get some science going on.

At this moment I'm actually thinking of not following the strategy we used in the prior game. Then we built cities preventing overlap with some fillers (I know I'm not supposed to use that word anymore... ) in between. Now I would like to put many cities close to eachother to maximize land utilization in the early game. Maybe a crazy idea which only Gary will agree with.

I agree to switch to warrior in RF. We don't really need that much defense now and a warrior is enough to quench unhappiness when it grows.

 

[Elsaak]

now that I experiment the use of fillers cities, I agree with both of you (GN and Zwelgje), too...!

 

[GaryNemo]

Interesting discussion!

The result of the many filler cities is productivity. Right now we have no river, hence a productivity crisis. I am totally against building the Hill City without a Mine - terrible productivity.

We are in the center of the map. Let's use our None Settler for a moment to build some roads, some productivity. The Archer and new Warrior can figure out where there is some good green, then we'll found City#2 with our None, and City #3 with the RF Settler.

 

[Shahadet]

Although I understand the concerns of the people against the use of the hill site I do not think it would be wise to wait around before building a second city.

So the hills could be improved, but at great expense to the overall speedy development of the game. Not every city has to be perfect after all. For example, it is quite apparent that many people here prefer most of their cities to have atleast 3 specials. This is not always possible and its not really necessary. People are looking too far ahead into the game when the focus needs to be on early speedy expansion and scientific growth. If we build the city on the hill then we loose out on some production, but if we keep looking for 'ideal' spots we loose valuable development time. The hill will produce 2f 1s 0t as a city square. Its not great but its better than nothing! Besides which there is a whale resource in the region which compensates for the loss of development potential nicely.

Consider the short term benefits of development over the late game benefits of a couple of extra shields. In diety the decisions you make in the early turns reflect on the rest of the game. I am for the founding of the city on the hill immediately. The overal benefits outway the long term potential. What really is a couple of shields compared to a good early start? So what are the benefits?

i) The city is in (roaded) range to supply caravans to the capital city in one turn.
ii) We will be able to start production of settlers earlier
iii) If the city is planted on the hill square it will have access to 3 special resources
iv) Found now, and we gain an extra beaker, vital to scientific pursute. At this early stage every beaker counts. If the work space in the capital is not chnaged to work the ocea square to halve science then the 2t from the whale will provide that extra beaker needed to take the turn cost from 10 to 5.

There seems to be no grey area in this discussion. Although I am not entirely supportative of one of these options it does not change the fact that they exist to us.

We could settle the city and use it to churn out settlers, provide the extra beaker, never let it grow to size 2-3 (if funds allow, see rushing the settler idea in my earlier post). The city could then later be dispanded (settler produced at size 1) and rebuilt with a mine on it once we have 4 or 5 other cities.

We could always move the settler to the forest square, irrigate it and make a costal city on the plains. (Im not comfortable with this but rather that than wait till a settler is produced to mine a hill!)

 

[GaryNemo]

Shahadet, I appreciate your concerns for speed. Somehow we voted yesterday for the Settler to move to its current location. I thought it was going to return to Road the GLS. Whatever.

The loss of a few turns does not justify avoiding the right thing. The Hill city will be a poor producer of science for thousands of years. If that is to be, it had better be built with an internal mine.

What we need now are cities on Green, with Roads. The Warrior can explore and come back before RF grows to Size=2, leaving the Archer to proceed West then South.

 

[Shahadet]

Gary,

I don't think the city site is great but like in all games of civ2, you play the cards your dealt. I just can't accept wasting time with 2 settlers to make 1 city. Its too early to be bothered about a couple of shields. I don't think that the science will be amazing in the city but the ocean squares, fish and whale will make it an adequate producer of trade. By the time the capitol has built a settler I would like to see it making a 3rd city site not fine-tuning a hill for a second city. Its more than just the loss of a few turns, in order to execute your plan it will require a second settler which we will have to wait for. The time requirements for ‘perfecting’ a city site just don’t way up to the early scientific benefits. As this is a Deity game I cannot emphasise this enough. I don’t see why each city site needs to be perfect. This play style has its merits but it also has some problems such as time requirements. Sure grassland would be nice, but so would a couple of gold mines and a river. If we do not build another city within 2-3 turns then our science progress will be hampered leading to a much later discovery of the next government form that we are going after leading to a slower development of multiple cities, not just that one hill side town. We have to consider the effects of this decision on other cities and our ability to create them sooner rather than later.

It is obvious we have different views on this issue. The best I can do is offer a compromise (see my previous post). I am sticking to my guns for now however. No hard feelings I hope.