Praetorian Question

[Perugia]

Go IW before Wheel. You may get lucky and find iron next to a river, so you don't have to road it to get it online.

Bh

I don't think this is very likely as the map generator does not normally place iron on a river (unless its a special case like a capital or a hand made map). Do you have a screenie of iron on a river you could upload?

If you don't have rivers then the wheel is definitely better first as connecting your cities while researching the expensive IW provides trade routes which you can use to speed up IW. At higher levels you will need to get any gold, siver or gems you have online to raise the happy cap.

 

[Bhruic]

I don't think this is very likely as the map generator does not normally place iron on a river (unless its a special case like a capital or a hand made map). Do you have a screenie of iron on a river you could upload?

I've had it before. It's actually pretty common. Generate a standard size map or bigger and check with world builder, you'll very likely find some Iron beside a river.

If you don't have rivers then the wheel is definitely better first as connecting your cities while researching the expensive IW provides trade routes which you can use to speed up IW. At higher levels you will need to get any gold, siver or gems you have online to raise the happy cap.

I don't know about you, but I only play BTS, the happy cap is 4 for all the higher difficulty levels. And what you are talking about is situational - sure, if you've got something you really need to hook up, deteour to Wheel. But it's not likely you will. Nor is it likely you're going to have multiple cities if you beeline IW. You'll want to hold off settling until you know where Iron is going to be.

Bh