Second City Placement - Emperor

[SittinDown]

Hoping for some advice on 2nd city placement / general next steps.

Map is continents. I got WvO for my leader, so Creative / Financial.

First map (I did not re-roll), got double wet corn with a green pig and green cow.

Not sure what to do with the second city... just built first settler, considering building another settler immediately, since it'll be done in 9 turns, and I already got 2 workers.

<edit, updated the screenshot based on feedback>

Spoiler :

North is all Jungle.



Thinking of plains SW of pig, to get early copper. Also thinking of PH 1W of Clams, for capital cottage help. Also considering PH 1E of Gold, for the dry corn and gold for early commerce. Also eyeing up that corn / pig site between rivers farther away.

 

[nate46]

this is a hard decision, lol.

Byzantine is imperialistic so if you're not planning to go early warmonger, i'd suggest jacking the wet corn on the river before he gets it. Can build the city on the plains 1NW of the wet corn and get the copper and marble also.

Another option is the square where your warrior is. you get the copper and also can share the wet corn from the cap to grow fast... after that build 2-3 commerce cities and you'll be ready to attack.

or you could just go straight for the gold and ignore the copper. i can't remember how bad the barbs are on emperor difficulty, but i think that's probably safe on emperor. Although i don't know what year it is, you cut off that part of the screenshot.

 

[lymond]

(that picture is just way to large for my screen - it hurts my eyes

well, we don't see everything around your city here, but first thing that comes to mind is 1S of the Pigs seems perfect..or 1SW if you value having the copper sooner over the extra happy

pretty darn good start and land

 

[SittinDown]

thanks for the advice - i updated the image for higher res, and wider view of game map, and didn't crop it this time.

barbs in emperor aren't a problem this early - though i'll have to escort the settler out of the cultural borders b/c animals.

 

[nate46]

thanks for the advice - i updated the image for higher res, and wider view of game map, and didn't crop it this time.

barbs in emperor aren't a problem this early - though i'll have to escort the settler out of the cultural borders b/c animals.

in the first screenshot, i thought i saw byzantine's cultural borders in the bottom left corner... i guess that was something else? Well in that case there's no rush to settle the river wet corn. honestly you could settle anywhere, there's so many good spots.

 

[Fippy]

Def. gold city first, desert copper is really not desireable early on Emp where you have time until barbs become problematic.

Commerce and happy compliment such food rich Caps.
And if you settle for gold early, you can work it earlier

That looks fine, Mister Lymo ~~

 

[lymond]

shots still a bit small

Anyway, I'm a bit curious as to what you've been building since you are still size to at 2500BC and don't seem to have much going on. Is that your first settler queued?

ugh..edit...learn to read, lymond...I see you have your first settler out already, so nevermind. But make sure you time your growth to improvements. With two wet corns, I might consider a 2pop settler whip into a new worker, grow, start second settler. try to get 3 or 4 warriors in between all that, you can grow onto highest hammers tiles to speed up warriors

I recommend having warriors station outside your borders for 5X5 tile spawnbusting. If there is a warrior in Amsterdam he should not be there - he should be spawnbusting.

edit: so 1S of pigs, Miss My?

oh..and op..try to make sure you unfog that coast to the SE soon

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[Lazteuq]

I would go with the gold and pigs area,too. Then, I think spread quickly down that river, only filling in coastal cities after you establish a sort of border wall. It seems like rushing anyone doesn't really make sense because you have such nice land, which means the copper is not high-priority.

 

[SittinDown]

good ideas...

you're right - T36 for settler 1 is slow.

...the warrior was healing after getting beat up spawn busting earlier. (got down to .1) and didn't have any forest hills nearby.

i built 2 workers, then queued a scout for a bit to get to size two (3 turns) then built the settler. I think I may start on an earlier save and do 1 worker and chop for settlers. thoughts?

(also worth noting, I found 2 huts, which gave me Mining and Sailing; so I have 0 gold).

 

[Izuul]

Building two workers at the start really isn't necessary and that slowed you down a lot. Build a worker first (15 turns in most cases) then build something like a warrior while you grow the cap a little before building the first settler. Size 3 is probably most common for the first settler, but it kind of depends on what you have around the capitol. With double wet corn here you will grow fast but you won't get many hammers into your warrior so you will definitely hit at least S3 before you finish the warrior and start on the first settler.

 

[lymond]

yeah..queue warriors, not scouts. use the warriors for growth periods, and finish them off by working hammers with citizen 3/4. get them out bustin'

ah, Iz..second worker would explain it...couldn't really see what was going on (and there doesn't seem to be much worker action here but maybe i can't see anything..definitely appears no chopping has occurred)

(many here play without huts/events)

 

[SittinDown]

Thanks Iz, and lymond. Took your advice and restarted, and played to turn 50.

Spoiler :

Build order:
Worker -> Warrior -> Settler (with 1 chop) -> Worker

Tech:
BW -> AH -> Wheel -> Pottery -> Writing.

Founded:
2640 - Utrecht
2080 - The Hague

Am I not chopping enough early on? I felt like I was always improving food resources (or gold) that were getting worked, so it seemed better to do that.

Plan is to start chopping and cottaging the capital to get grain and library, once I get another worker out - been busy improving the food resources.

...next step maybe settle PH 1W of Clams - cottage helper city for the capital with nice production potential? without currency, I'm leery of building farther away.

Fogbusting was going okay, but lost some warriors to an archer to keep the Hague safe.

 

[nate46]

Am I not chopping enough early on? I felt like I was always improving food resources (or gold) that were getting worked, so it seemed better to do that.

Yes, you aren't chopping enough.

First of all, you built too many roads. The roads you built connecting utretch are fine, you get +2 commerce from two different trade routes... But the road on the corn and the road in the general direction of the hague is not worth it at this point. Connecting the hague only gives you one commerce (rather than the 2 you get from connecting utretch), so its not really worth it to connect that city until later.

Animal husbandry and improving the cows is not worth it at this point in the game. Amsterdam has way more food than it can possibly use until you get your happy cap up. Whipping it is not a good idea because you're creative (for a library) and your tiles are too good (financial lakes), so you should be working the lakes and the specialists-- its already perfect at size 6 (the happy cap)--two corns, two lakes, and two scientists. That's it, you're done. Improving anything other than the two wet corns for amsterdam is a waste of worker turns. Don't need cows, don't need to whip it (not a good idea to whip away scientists or financial lakes.). So the granary is also pointless, don't build that, since it doesn't have much growing to do to reach happy cap.

if you don't improve the cows you save probably 6 worker turns ( have to move the worker to the cows and back, it's so out of the way). +2 worker turns from each of the pointless roads... you could have had 2 1/2 more chops, which could have got you an extra worker, about. The extra worker then could have got to work chopping a settler...you definitely could be more developed by now if you had skipped AH and just chopped.

 

[Fippy]

I agree with the few not needed roads, but AH?
That was good, also speeds up writing.

My view here, Amsterdam is not your real Cap later (if you are a builder ).
Utrecht has enuf food for a great Bur Cap, 5 from Pigs + 6 floodplains is plenty, gold and even more green + brown river tiles (they are fine once you get some limits on growth).

I would not want to hold growth by worker building here.
Pigs + gold leaves you with only +3 growth for some time, that's fine and will pick up with floodplains but you should get by that phase without delays.
Esp with financial, that city is just way too good for "low" tasks.
Palace + Library builds.

Amsterdam can and should produce most settlers and workers needed, it's really powerful for that task.

Currency is not needed for almost endless expansion with Willy, better mindset is seeing Utrecht's commerce powers & getting fp cottages, and from Amsterdam settlers + workers fast cos there's so much land worth settling here.
1w of pigs, another great commerce city you should grab before Justi
And down your own river, more floodplains.

Always remember, "slider position" is not important early.
You can be in better shape with 0% for a while later and fast expansion, with such great economy traits.

 

[nate46]

I agree with the few not needed roads, but AH?

hmmmm...

i guess if your plan is to make utretch the bureau cap then go for lib or something, then you'd want that pigs up and running asap.

but for fastest catapult rush (tm), mine the pigs and ignore the cows.

what i'd probably do with his position (does anyone actually care?)... worker first obviously... grow to cap to size 5 (since you have such nice lakes to work)... work wet corns, mined pigs and lakes. Then chop 3 workes then 3 settlers. Should have 4 cities and 4 workers by around 1900 or 2000 bc.

 

[jade8880]

Could you please post your start file? Thanks.

 

[SittinDown]

tried to put together the advice of many here....

started earlier again, and chopped / warrior spammed / focused on settlers / expansion.

Spoiler :

Turn 71 -

4 cities, and sealed off the rivers to the coast. Just finished 5th settler, and deciding where to go. Thinking of near the spice to seal off Byzantines to the North, though I do like the corn/horse site by Utrecht. If I found a 5th city now, my science is going to go downhill. If I research Masonry / Construction, my GS can bulb Alpha, or I can academy in Utrecht.

networking in the copper shortly...mined it before I had roads. i feel like I needed an extra worker - Utrect

(Playing around with the palace move idea... seems early, but I had nothing else useful to build in there [already have a library], and it's at the happy cap.)

Techs:
BW -> AH -> Writing -> Wheel -> Pottery -> Math. Starting on Alpha, but debating it's merit since I only met 2 AI's... maybe Masony / Construction is better, and just Axepult Byzantines. I don't think they have copper, since I've only seen them have archers so far against barbs.

I'm assuming at this point I'm on a big island with these 2.

 

[Fippy]

Very nice how you use advice and update / replay frequently, if you keep doing that you can learn much from here

Save game would be useful, but a couple things i can see from your screenie too.

No floodplains cottages in Utrecht is late at turn 71, looks like you needed another worker. Also when looking at your copper, if you improve here you should also road. Only reason for that tile are pretty much Axes.

With more worker turns available, you can also create foreign trade routes via roads to Justi.

With a warrior in Utrecht, happy cap can be 5.

Justy is plotting..!
Scouting him needed fast, and copper roads so you can defend yourself.
Switching into his Reli could have avoided that problem, probably.
He cannot plot at pleased, and friendly is very possible with religious AIs.

There are also many good points here.
City placement looks strong, only 1 road on corn to connect The Hague is nice.

Overall, having another worker early + switching into Buddhism would have probably put you into a much more comfortable position..but it's nice progress, not everything can be perfect

 

[nate46]

you have too many forests and too few workers and not enough cottages. need to turn forests into workers sometime before or around 2000 bc, then spam cottages. 3 forests chopped = 60 hammers = 1 extra worker. You've got 6 forests just sitting around in amsterdam, not counting the ones that border utretch. could have turned those into two workers a long time ago, which would have given you enough worker turns to build some cottages by now. I don't see what you're saving them for.

you also need a warrior in utretch for happyness.

you need to grow your capital to max size before building workers out of it (you can grow in between chops... switch to worker on the turn the chop comes in, then switch back to growth other turns)... it doesn't take long to grow with two wet corn and you've got all those nice unworked tiles (lakes and the cow). with 2 wet corns, there's no reason amsterdam should be anything less than size 6 by now.

also, i agree you should upload the 4000bc save file. if i'm going to be commenting so much i ought to be able to play it out, too

 

[SittinDown]

I really appreciate all the feedback everyone!

nate - took your advice and chopped way more (though still short of your advice, which I will probably try one more time).

Fippy - took your advice and cottaged the heck out of Utrecht.

Spoiler :

+64 science versus +43 last time - thx to cottages.
6 workers versus 2 last time.

Changed the tech order and did wheel / pottery before writing. this delayed the GS, but otherwise, made for a much stronger economy.

About to chop 2 forests in Amsterdam.

skipped the Palace build in Utrecht and went Granary after library. I can build the Palace once the city is a little bigger, I figured, since I'm nowhere near Bureau.

Only downside was that I did one worker when I should have done settler. I was ~6 turns slower on Rotterdam, and Justy beat me to the site I liked, so I had to move it a bit. Should be okay in the long run, since I plan on taking that anyway.

Hopefully not too late, but I'm starting my axe / cat rush now, should have Construction in ~9 turns.

Made a couple of mistakes (didn't optimize build queue in Amsterdam, and am short a population.... (i did whip the library). built a road on the river next to Amsterdam for absolutely no reason.... left several forests around Amsterdam that could have been another city by now, caught myself with the slider not at 100/0 at least twice. Built a cottage at the Hague that I can't work, when I should have been chopping.)




...I'll post the save soon - but I'm holding off because I think if other people play way ahead of me I'll have a harder time deciding to play it out.