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Once again - key starting tiles are?

planetfall

Emperor
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Jan 18, 2002
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I think this has been asked a million times, but I'm just not getting it. On king and higher it seems to be critical to have a capital city that grows fast.
So what do you look for in tiles available in order to play offered world map and offered city positions?

I thought being by water and/or by wheat would really boost growth, but it's not working. The earliest I can build a second city is by turn 40, but usually it's between 55 and 60. Build order is based on waiting til pop 3 to start city settler production. So it's usually scout, builder, (slow growth= warrior) or if pop 3 (settler).
After I get 3 cities, then I start building military units like crazy.

Thank you all for your ideas.
 
Settling on a luxury resource helps. Trade it right away for extra gold if you can. It's nice to be surrounded by tiles that are at least 2 food, 2 production.
 
Well balanced for grassland (food), hills (production), and resources. Avoid water; you can't use it for food, production, or districts.
 
I always try to settle near high production and high food if I can, because that is vastly more influential for a good game than some long term benefits such as ideal settling for a cluster of high adjacency industrial zones/harbours (which lots of people want to do).
Ideally in combination, because it sucks having a population 5 city with no production, as much as it sucks to be starved for growth at population 2.
That being said, I try to get a combination of both yields (2f/2p or better as an immediate tile that I can work), though I value production a bit more than food if I have to choose.
This is because I can salvage a game by getting out my first settler at population 2 that much faster, but I cannot really salvage a city that only has high food but nothing else going for it.

I also value any tiles that have faith or culture on them, and will easily spend a few turns walking my settler close to a tile that has one of those yields (as long as it doesnt really compromise on food/production priority).
Having free faith allows you to get a pantheon of your choice much faster than waiting for faith through god king, and its also "free production" in that it allows you to run urban planning (one of the best cards in the game early on) over god king (which you only pick for the pantheon anyway).
Some exceptions apply, as you should of course pretty much never work a pearl tile unless it is absolutely critical for your starting location (plenty of desert for instance, for desert folklore).
Having free culture equally allows you to get to god king faster in case there isnt faith available, and has good long term value as well which lets you delay a monument.

I should disclaim that this is mostly important on Deity level play, because you can still get a good pantheon early on on King level, while it is nigh impossible to consistently get any good picks on Deity if you do not have a faith tile to work.
I also almost without deviation produce a settler as my second build item, usually after a warrior or slinger, because having that second city up is absolutely crucial for me for snowballing fast.


Edit: While potatomcwhiskey has some good videos on settling spots, he does make the awful mistake of valuing long term benefits too much.
Case in point, one of his videos has him settle suboptimally because he wants a high adjacency harbour later on in the game.
A harbour arrives relatively late as a build option in this game (around the early mid game), and initially just tends to give you an extra 1-3 gold if you get good adjacency on it over placing it suboptimally.
1-3 gold in the midgame is an absolute joke to prioritize over a good ancient era location, and while you can get extra production on it even later in the game, that extra late game harbour production will never be worth delaying your ancient era snowball for.
 
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Thank you. I'll give your ideas a try. I had been going: scout-builder-warrior-settler but the second city takes just too long and having at least 3 cities seems to be critical for early game. I thought the issue may be tiles, but it looks like it's more build order. Agree harbors are overrated as navy really doesn't count in this game. It's just an occasional nuisance.
 
So I tested your gameplay ideas and same game was 10 to 20% faster and easier. Great. Also found potatoe is on X, so added him to those I follow. I'll probably play a few more at current level and then bump a level. I can play emperor, but it hasn't been as much fun as king as my start was way too slow for the initial military rush. So far the only difference I have seen in gameplay is as you advance thru levels, the early game has more military units targeting your cities very very early.
 
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