Please help me dot-map this island?

[Eunomiac]

I've just moved up to Prince, and found myself isolated on a large island playing Joao II of Portugal. Here's my tentative plan for the future (sorry for the large size):



The city crosses are labeled in the order I intend to settle them (with A being my capital, and B being my first expansion). YELLOW means wealth generating (my capital is the Jewish holy city), BLUE are research cities, RED are production cities, GREEN is my GP farm and PURPLE is a hybrid research/production city.

My strategy is to use the initial isolation of the island to expand rapidly and establish trade routes between multiple cities; with the exception of E, I took pains to put them all on the coast like a good little isolated-seafaring-civ-with-a-spiffy-unique-customs-house should.

I'm very scared starting out isolated like this, because I have no idea how well the other civs are doing. I don't want to make late contact only to discover they're all 200 points ahead of me.

So here are my questions:

• How bad is it to start isolated like this? What are the changes I should be making to my strategy to account for this unconventional start?
• I was hoping to take advantage of Joao's Carracks to settle islands early, but it looks like I could happily develop my starting island into a fairly large empire without having to rush-expand elsewhere. Should I finish with this island, ensuring that no one else gets a foothold, or immediately settle on other landmasses?
• I'm confused about D. On one hand, it has three gold mines and tons of coastal squares. It will make lots of fast money. On the other hand, I kinda want to build Moai Statues here with all the water spaces and make it a production city. Should it be another hybrid city?
• I'm also interested in your thoughts on F. It's a GOLDEN location, with rivers and resources and grasslands. I want to place it to take perfect advantage of everything, and am considering moving it one space upwards for the extra sugars, but then I either trade a river tile for a peak (bad) or lose access to the coast (worse).

I realize I'm probably overthinking all of this for Prince difficulty, but I'm trying to perfect my playing technique for higher levels and this is my first time graduating from Noble ;-)

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[xanadux]

I don't know why you like F so much. It doesn't have much food. It should be moved 2 North and it will be a super city. 3 sugars is nice food output. This is a good candidate for lots of cottages and to be your capital.

As for a GP farm, the best site would be A, but moved 1 NE to also use the wheat. This is a better placement in my opinion. If you want to work the gold fast, settle your first city 1 south of it and use the corn to grow. The gold city can use the corn to grow when needed and also has sugar for more food. Fitting in as many useful cities as possible is good for an isolated start. A should have been 1 NE.

Also, E is a horrible Great Person Farm. A great person farm has a lot of food, and E ony has one food resource. Farmed grasslands are pretty poor for supporting a GPF.

 

[DaveMcW]

Delete C.
Move E to the plains hill.
Give F all 3 sugars.

 

[kjnoren]

If you want to go for a GP farm, move F two tiles north. The sugars are as good as post-biology grassland farms. You won't have any coastal access, but you don't have any sea tiles in the fat cross either.

Production cities usually need goodly amounts of surplus food tiles, so consider moving C northeast-east so it picks up the wheat - the cow alone won't last long. That makes it possible to move central blue and southern red one tile north-east as well.

Are there any other seafood resources than those shown? There might be one hidden north of C.

 

[divergence]

I would tighten up the whole pattern a bit...this island will be your economic core, so I don't think you want so many unworked tiles (both land and coastal).

Specific suggestions:

A and B you've already settled, so we can't mess with those.

Move C west a couple squares, to pick up the unused coastal and grass/forest squares east of your capitol. It will now be a science city rather than production. This will chase the unnamed blue and red cities a little southwest to avoid too much overlap...possibly also making the red city better for science than production, but you'll pick up production elsewhere.

Now E moves northwest a bit, and becomes a good production site. F also moves northwest, picking up all three sugars while retaining plenty of river squares...this will be a nice GP farm.

Now you've got room for an excellent production city in the southeast part of the island, and can decide how to divide up the northeast once you've decided on exact locations for everything else. I'd eventually squeeze in a fishing city on the peninsula southwest of B, too, but not until the rest of the island was settled and my economy could take the hit.

 

[Eunomiac]

Thanks for all the replies! I have a bunch of follow-up questions (largely because I, as predicted, found myself >100 points behind everyone else when I finally did make contact); again, thanks for taking the time:

I don't know why you like F so much. It doesn't have much food. It should be moved 2 North and it will be a super city. 3 sugars is nice food output. This is a good candidate for lots of cottages and to be your capital.

I think this points to at least a few of the misconceptions I'm relying on. I've heard that flat areas with lots of rivers make better production cities than tons of hills, because watermills are almost as good as mines and don't cost food. As for moving it two north, that would cost the city its coastal access, and I always thought there was a cardinal rule against that, particularly for one's capitol. How should I value coast access against other concerns?

The explanation for E is as follows: I am mildly ******ed. I've never settled an inland city close to a big lake before, and thought I could build a Lighthouse for +1 from all those tiles (= +0.5 specialist, plus the gold). I was... irked... when I discovered my mistake I tend to think too far into the future, too; I consider how my GP Farm will look after I have Biology and don't have any health/happy problems. I realize now that the game doesn't start in the Modern Era and I should figure out how to make my cities functional early on ;-)

As for tightening up the pattern, how many cities should I expect to have? There are already nine, and if I fit in 2-3 others I could see myself hitting 15 or more if I ever expand to a location off of my island. Won't city maintenance be crippling at that point?

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Not sure why you would want lots of cities just because you're isolated. Doesn't make a difference. I would still settle normally, choosing quality cities, to take advantage of national wonders, and in fact, try to avoid any non-coastal cities even. Shooting for optics a.s.a.p., even at the expense of liberalism (first). Great lighthouse if you can, but since it'll only produce an extra 2 commerce a city for most of the game, don't fret over it. No - I'm thinking harbours in every city once you hit astronomy. Because you haven't been warmongering, and your empire is surely not the largest, all your trade routes will be foreign, and +50% trade route yield will be critical. Think of foreign trade routes as mature towns that do not need population, hapiness or civic upkeep to work (the tile).

It depends on where you want to settle site F (I would move it 1NW), but I'd settle that area sooner rather than later. Monarchy is useful to acquire the wine and gain military garrison hapiness. You only have 3 hapiness resources, grab them soon, and don't hesitate to place more than 1 archer per city for the hapiness bonus.

I really, really wish you had either animal husbandary or bronze working, or iron working eventually. If barbarian axeman show up and I don't have any strategic resources, I panic, a lot. More to the point - it determines a lot of where you (need to) settle. Try to research bronze working to chop those forests (you don't have jungle, lucky).

Site D is pathetic. There aren't rivers, you don't have enough food to work the 3 gold (until biology), the city upkeep is enormous, and barbarians will pillage your long road there all the time, not to mention the worker time to build that road in the first place. Make that your last city to settle on the island. Other than that, try to settle close to your capital, and then spead outwards.

I swear by oracle-COL, and this is a good map to pull it off. The island is elongated so courthouses and forbidden palace pays off very well.

Are you sure you're isolated? Build a galley to make VERY sure. There might be that one connected coastal tile or touching cultural border that can connect you to your neighbour.

 

[xanadux]

Well flat lands are nice for production ... with state property. They are bad production in the early game. There is no rule against non-coastal cities. Non coastal cities are usually better cities. Unless you are financial or have the colossus, most squares are better than coast, and unless you are financial and have the colossus, ocean squares are really poor. An inland city usually has better production and commerce potential than coastal.

 

[Gliese 581]

Well flat lands are nice for production ... with state property. They are bad production in the early game. There is no rule against non-coastal cities. Non coastal cities are usually better cities. Unless you are financial or have the colossus, most squares are better than coast, and unless you are financial and have the colossus, ocean squares are really poor. An inland city usually has better production and commerce potential than coastal.

Yeah, you mainly lose some health, and ship production capabilities of course. Having one non-coastal city is clearly better in this case at any rate, ESPECIALLY if you're making it your GP farm, and you want to work the sugar tiles anyhow.
Btw: The health issue can of course be balanced for by the higher food production capabilities of grasslands compared to sea and ocean squares.

 

[r_rolo1]

I'm a terrible dotmapper, but I want to give a sugestion: your dotmap does not take in account the UB of your civ. Your UB gives a extra gold by water tile, and your dotmap does not reflect that ( some more coastal cities would be nice.... and would pay by them selfs easily woth Collosus or UB )

P.S interesting map..... you should do some well placed forts to have a easier fleet movement

 

[Killroyan]

I would move F definitely 1 NW. It stays coastal and keeps all 4 resources. Missing out on 2 sugar is not the best to be honest. It is still 4F/1C which is a nice tile. Coastal cities are a must and you did that perfectly. Cottage the whole island and if you can get both the great light house and colossus you will be a happy man. No horses, iron or copper btw? If you haven't researched that yet, it will mess your map up definitely.

 

[kjnoren]

Site D is pathetic. There aren't rivers, you don't have enough food to work the 3 gold (until biology), the city upkeep is enormous, and barbarians will pillage your long road there all the time, not to mention the worker time to build that road in the first place. Make that your last city to settle on the island. Other than that, try to settle close to your capital, and then spead outwards.

Look north of D. It has a fish. That's enough food to work all three mines with a lighthouse, and you have no need for a road since you're connected via the coast.

 

[Krixx]

Move F two steps north.

There are also place for two more cities eventually.

One in the square southwest of B and one east of the lower of the two mountains.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

Ahhhhh! Makes me want to start a new game!!! Having that much land to split up looks like a nightmare/tons of fun

...P.S interesting map..... you should do some well placed forts to have a easier fleet movement

Agree absolutely. Put 2 forts to the southeast of A to split the island in half, and then place 3 more forts by E - 2 of them to the northeast, and one to the south east ultimately splitting the island into thirds.

Looks like a blast - have fun