Pangaea - Game Planning Tips

[Pangaea]

Playing a new game, and got thinking about this thread while making an early dotmap. Like always these things are temporary and where I actually settle will depend a good deal on what else I find nearby, and of course what the AIs do. But it should serve as an example.



All of these cities are only 3 tiles apart, which is the minimum, and several of them have nice overlap with the capital. The 'satellite' cities can then help grow floodplains cottages for the capital, and once I have more happiness resources (or Hereditary Rule), the capital can gradually take over more mature cottages (hamlets or villages).

The first settler is on the tile NW of the corn, which will be my 2nd city. Grabs green cows (pretty good tiles, if not stellar food) and the horse once the capital expands borders again, without the need for a monument. Maybe the third city will go further west, we'll see. Copper+plains Cow is terrible really, but could be a good worker and settler pump. Pretty lucky to have both copper and horse in the third ring, but I only really need one of them if I wish to rush early. Shame about all the jungled food nearby, but those cities will be good down the line.

This whole area actually looks really good, with 4 happiness resources. Desert to the east, but maybe there are 7 golds or something, haha. And if things go like I hope, Washington won't be alive for very long. He has a nice capital

(Now that I've written about this, I'll probably arse up something and 'lose' the game)

 

[sampsa]

@Pangaea did you consider settling on gold? I think it's likely better.

 

[Pangaea]

Why on Earth would I want to settle on gold? If there are 3-4 golds, sure, I can see it then. But as the only source of gold, and thus ruining that great extra commerce in the early game? No, definitely not. I'm almost feeling you're just pulling my leg now by suggesting to settle on gold in every map where a gold is visible

Oh, and of course many of those tiles weren't visible when settling either, like the corn. Hadn't the city had real food, I'd probably just have re-rolled.

Anyhow, the point about my post wasn't about where to settle, but to highlight an example of city overlap. Especially in cases like this with heaps of juicy FP tiles ripe for cottages, it's good to have a few cities near the capital that can help grow them. It's good for lower maintenance too, and they are easier to defend in the early game. Barbs on especially Deity can be bru-tal.

 

[sampsa]

Certainly not pulling any legs. Yes, sacrifice some early , but gain a stronger capital long-term, not hindered by a food-negative tile. Also, main point being getting the first settler out way earlier (via whip). So traits play a role, too. I'd rather do it on deity than on immortal though, as it's easier to get -resources via trade and faster access to HR.

 

[krikav]

This landscape is so beautiful, an abundance of good city placements.
"Bunny-jumping" along rivers and lending food toward new cities as they come along is wonderful.

I am also a strong advocate of settling on gold, but thats usually if it's riverside (if I'm fin) or if it's plains hill gold.
I don't like the move much here though, since it encumbers the possibilities to settle two corn-sharing cities up north.
Mining that cursed desert gold is also a considerable investment in workerturns.

 

[sampsa]

I am also a strong advocate of settling on gold, but thats usually if it's riverside (if I'm fin) or if it's plains hill gold.

Well it is plains hill riverside gold, so +1 +1.

 

[Fippy]

Food negative tile is of little importance here imo, with wet corn and loads of floodplains.
Likely that i would settle on gold with a FIN leader for +2 , but for basically 1 only (hard counting 1 extra as advantage in HoF games) nopes.

With more info a gold capital still looks very strong here (horsie placement), but no way of knowing they could also be south on green river.

 

[krikav]

Well it is plains hill riverside gold, so +1 +1.

Must be that my eyes decieve me now that I'm used to playing with blue marble (everyone should btw).
It's indeed 3 hammers on that tile.

So that would mean a 12T worker (or would it be 11T, since we have 4 hammers after borderpop, for the exp-bonus?
And by settling on the gold, the worker can improve the corn right away, so we gain a turn there as well.

 

[sampsa]

Yep, 11T worker, so worker out 3T earlier and corn improved 4T earlier. Seems very tempting to me (especially for a HOF-game), and probably leads to near size 20 capital by 1AD. Sorry for the de-rail though.

 

[Pangaea]

If no legs have been pulled, in that case we simply disagree. I'd rather work the best tile in the game and tech faster than ruin it and gain a lousy hammer and commerce. Sure, it's nice to settle on plains hill if it suits, but not the single gold around. That's just a complete waste in my book, especially in a game where I'm planning to go to space. Besides, next to nothing was visible here besides the gold and some floodplains. Going onto the gold would be a totally blind gamble. The horse and copper would obviously not be visible either, nor the corn.

But this is just a big derail. What I wanted to show was city overlap. This map happened to be a really nice example of it.

 

[Pangaea]

Well then, maybe this will please somebody?

Spoiler :

Don't particularly like 'ruining' such a wonderful tile, but it probably makes sense here. Oporto can borrow corn, and the capital is swimming in food just based off all those FPs. Evora should probably keep the rice if I want to cottage the river. The gold city north can therefore borrow the cow from Oporto. The two green tiles NW can be farmed, it can work the horse, and gold and iron cities can swap on working the stone. Gold can also help grow cottages for Evora. New York has also been captured so I have another gold that can be properly worked. This city will never be fantastic, too many non-workable or bad tiles, but as it looks like I will secure the GLH, all coastal cities are worth settling, including this one.

It doesn't show so well in this image, but I've settled cities around the capital, roughly like outlined before (although Washington was a raging moron and ruined rice by settling in the worst spot possible - he needed to pay for that with his life). Not able to work all the cottages yet, there are simply too many, but a good bunch of them are well on the way to villages and towns. And of course a good reason to *not* ruin capital gold in these Hall of Fame games is to be able to Oracle Civil Service. Glad I managed that here, as it looked questionable due to Gandhi having capital marble, which he hooked up early. He got a double holy city capital, so I guess he started focusing on missionaries (I saw a few) instead of building a super-early Oracle.



Oh, sorry about the desktop background partly being glued onto the screenshot. No idea why it happens, but it sometimes does. Usually it's on the top of the image though. Noticed after uploading it, and can't be arsed to redo it. Lazy git.

Sorry to @Peacefanatic for sort of hi-jacking the thread. I'll go back to tormenting Victoria now

PS: Am I the only one who get a little confused by Lincoln having Washington as capital, and not Washington? It's probably just down to Lincoln being first when city names get taken, as I often select them in alphabetical order. :nerd:

 

[sampsa]

If no legs have been pulled, in that case we simply disagree. I'd rather work the best tile in the game

I don't want to have a pointless argument, but now I think we are getting to the center of the debate. Gold is not even close to being the best tile in the game. Of course depends on the situation, but at least 5/6-tiles are better overall and often even a floodplain cottage is better, especially in long games. Post-library even a scientist offers better payback, assuming a will be spawned. So consider the possibility that you are valuing the gold tile too high.

I haven't seen a T0 screenshot and I understand that the decision might have been impossible with the info you had. Then again, my original question was simply "did you consider it?", not a harsh criticism over why you didn't do it.

 

[Fippy]

Maybe @lymond or others who are good with getting stuff moved can request a thread split

While here, grass gems are the best commerce tile imo.
Difficult comparing gold with something like corn, in any standard game i would take corn + gold over 2x corn cos it also gives +1 happy and it's not like teching would be unimportant early.

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: Thread split, not sure what title name you wished, but I think you can change it to what you want. If not, report the OP and tell me what you would like.

 

[lymond]

thanks, leif!

I'm a bit torn on the decision myself, since I've always tended to, especially when there is plenty of food to work it, keep a plains hill gold available to work for the early commerce boost. Certainly different if one has multiple golds in the city. I do see sampsa's argument though that settling on gold makes for a good city and faster start. Either way, it is an excellent starting cap.

Settling on gold adds two FPs, including the one destroyed, and river horsies, although that would have been an unknown at the the start. Conversely, it loses three river grass tiles.

For me, I'd probably settled like Pangaea did here, especially in a HOF game, where that early research bump makes a huge difference.

 

[OldDude]

Playing a new game, and got thinking about this thread while making an early dotmap. Like always these things are temporary and where I actually settle will depend a good deal on what else I find nearby, and of course what the AIs do. But it should serve as an example.



All of these cities are only 3 tiles apart, which is the minimum, and several of them have nice overlap with the capital. The 'satellite' cities can then help grow floodplains cottages for the capital, and once I have more happiness resources (or Hereditary Rule), the capital can gradually take over more mature cottages (hamlets or villages).

The first settler is on the tile NW of the corn, which will be my 2nd city. Grabs green cows (pretty good tiles, if not stellar food) and the horse once the capital expands borders again, without the need for a monument. Maybe the third city will go further west, we'll see. Copper+plains Cow is terrible really, but could be a good worker and settler pump. Pretty lucky to have both copper and horse in the third ring, but I only really need one of them if I wish to rush early. Shame about all the jungled food nearby, but those cities will be good down the line.

This whole area actually looks really good, with 4 happiness resources. Desert to the east, but maybe there are 7 golds or something, haha. And if things go like I hope, Washington won't be alive for very long. He has a nice capital

(Now that I've written about this, I'll probably arse up something and 'lose' the game)

@Pangaea, how do you get those BFC silhouettes?

 

[Lennier]

BUG Mod lets you "dot map" for planning future cities.

 

[OldDude]

BUG Mod lets you "dot map" for planning future cities.

I have BUG installed. I've looked through it and couldn't find anything mentioning that. I think it would be very useful. Would you mind telling me where in BUG I can find it?

Thanks!

 

[ArchGhost]

I have BUG installed. I've looked through it and couldn't find anything mentioning that. I think it would be very useful. Would you mind telling me where in BUG I can find it?

Thanks!

Alt-X brings up the dotmap tool. Pick your color, left click places one, right click the center removes one. Right click a non-center exits the tool




Not that I'm qualified to the level of the fine folks debating this, but I'd also not think to settle the gold.

-in typical games I wouldn't plan for such a long term as giving up the gold for the long term gain of 2 FPs and a trading PH for a GH (for one city, no less), especially with the capitol whose job is expansion speed first and all else second. That said I don't like bureau caps and I've never played for a high score

-that gold mine nearly doubles early commerce if worked, saving much more on early teching time. It would help the rest of the run to BW and quickly get you to Pottery.

-you can't know the horse is there when making the decision. Otherwise with Joao, yeah +1 hammer and gaining horse, an amazing production tile, is way better than a single gold mine which takes +4 food to offset in the spot Pangaea chose (because of FP unhealth).

-As sampsa and krikav point out, this doubling down of traits + hammer gain is indeed really speedy... but at the cost of a large boost to early tech speed (especially so since one would be expanding so fast)

-I would plan to split this many floodplains anyway due to excessive surplus so killing one with 1S of gold settle is no biggie, but you would also roll over to -3 health with 8 of them. It's impossible to know how much health you'll earn back in resources from T1 and I just don't like to do it, inexperience talking here?

It's more of contention of absolute of absolute hammer output vs. value of early commerce here, for me. Since there's plenty of food, and Joao's traits can make up some of the windfall of the PH settle anyway going forward (BW on), I'd definitely value the gold more myself. The commerce gain, especially by also cottaging the Incense early, for the price of offsetting -5 food (-3 from tiles, -2 from 6 FPs) at size 3 is huge.

 

[OldDude]

Alt-X brings up the dotmap tool. Pick your color, left click places one, right click the center removes one. Right click a non-center exits the tool

Awesome. Thanks @ArchGhost!