First, I'll point out that the commerce comparison can be skewed (it sure is nice to have trade routes, though), because Ulundi can also grow on commerce tiles and those do not require 100H to work, nor do they incur maintenance hits. This is not the main point, though.
Yes it's kind of minor, but also let's not bury the facts with words, trying to make it somehow unclear. Maintenance is -2
upon settling 2nd, +2
from
, +1
from cc and +1
if working a farmed fp. +2
total. Growing a size in capital is +1
. So here,
-wise having capital at size 3 and having two cities at size 1 is equal. It's crystal clear and there is nothing skewing the comparison.
cap size 3 working cow, farmed fp, unimproved fp generates 6
5
per turn. Once 2nd fp is farmed (T32 or so?) it goes up to 7
5
pt.
cities sized 1 + 1 working cow and farmed fp generate 7
7
pt.
If I understand your argument correctly, it is that 7
7
pt is not better than 6
5
pt because they are divided to two cities. And yes, I do realize that before size 1 settler actually settles 2nd city, a growing capital is generating more while at size 2.
To me, the question is rather : when will this new city have contributed a relevant item ? And by that I mean a worker or a settler.
It's all good to have +2H but it doesn't mean a damn thing until the item in production has been completed. I think this is very important.
Fair, so may I suggest building a relevant item then?
The city has no great tiles to grow into so just stagnate it then. It does contribute! I'm also not totally sold on warriors not being relevant. You'll need some, even on immortal.
So, wer'e looking at a time frame whereboth of those cities are size 1, we have 1 worker, 1 improved pasture, a farm and we are closing in on Bronze Working (due circaT30).
The risk, here, very real, is that we are not ready to take advantage of Bronze because we have not set up a proper pump city yet. Alternatively, we could still try to push production from size 1 cities (chopping more workers and settlers) and never actually set up our commerce base.
You are underestimating size 1 cities I guess. I have no idea what "never actually set up commerce base" is and unfortunately your comments for the rest of the post seem more emotional than factual. I understand that you took a lot of time to write it and of course I appreciate that.
Now, let's look a little more closely at how Settler at size 1 works, because it will help make the comparison with size 3 Ulundi.
The worker improves the cows (5T) and then the eastern floodplains (9T). The settler takes 14T to complete and we can plant city 2 after 2 travel turns.
So : city 2 is settled on T27 (remember, Bronze due circa T30). On that same T27 : settler is out T25, so Ulundi has 2 more turns of doing stuff. Worker also has 3 more turns of doing stuff after completing the farm.
This is our situation and we are not close to completing another item.
If we go back to Ulundi size 3 : Ulundi hits size 3 after 12 turns of growth. That would be T23.
And it takes it 8 turns to build a settler. Put otherwise, this is a 6 turns delay towards city 2compared with settler at size 1. Settler out on T31.
At this point, Bronze is done or looming and we can use the very capable size 3 Ulundi that I describedat the beginning of this post. +7F, +5H.
Ulundi can build a worker in 5T, evenwithout a chop. With double chops, it can build a settler in 5T. We have a lot of forests and want to clear riverside to cottage. A very capable city.
Now, remember our 2 miserable cities from T27 ? What are they set up to do 4 turns later ?
None of them has reached size 2, they're kind of halfway there. Maybe one has started on a second worker ?
Let's say we task Ulundi to go settler, worker to make use of the cows and prepare for Bronze. After having stagnated for 14 turns on a settler, it can now keep stagnating foranother 7 turns to provide another worker. It will now have stagnated a grand total of 21 turns to produce a whopping 2 items !
So, this is the miserable timeframe where none of our cities are properly equipped to do anything, or complete any item, or keep up with the requisites of our tech discoveries.
Clearly you've made up your mind that one city generating less must be better than two cities generating more. I guess you need to try the "two miserable cities"-strategy yourself to see. At BW it becomes largely irrelevant that the
are split between two cities, you can direct them into whichever you want.
Oh and let's not forget the main thing - can you get the E city? For me it's an argument against size 1 settler, losing the race would hurt a lot. If size 3 settler, you'll see in time if you lose it or not I guess and can settle in the trailer park in the S or W.
Another very valid argument against size 1 settler is getting some warriors out to fog bust south(/west).
Very good position for worker stealing if you can do it.
