Settlement locations

[DaveShack]

We have 3 posts in favor of the green pastures, and one in favor of getting the dyes first. Cyc, while your plan has merit and the locations SE and SW of the capitol are important to create a closed border as a deterrent to infiltration by our neighbors, there is currently stronger support for the other plan.

I'll be happy to poll it if you want, though there isn't much time. Either way please post your feelings on whether we should proceed with a poll or follow the preponderence of support in the thread for either plan, as early after you see this as possible...

 

[Furiey]

Considering the location of the Iron I think that we need to get out to those green pastures. This will also give us a city with production potential to assist in our future efforts. We will need a temple however to expand over the Wines.

That makes it 4 in favour of the green pastures, 1 in favour of the dyes.

 

[Chieftess]

1 - NO colonies!! We need the workers for our settler/worker factories! (provided we have them).

2 - Send our workers 2 by 2 to build roads. (2 workers each for a road in 1 turn).

3 - I suggest we build a road out towards the iron (which should be a 3rd to 3rd and a half ring city). Here's a screenshot:


Or, "Password: Ironfish"

White Tile - This is the iron spot. I would *NOT* suggest building here and trying the warrior to sword gambit. It worked in DG2 because the iron was close enough, and it was still early in the game. We're almost at the year 2000 BC, and by the time we settle there, it could be 1500BC, or even 1000BC. I think this game is going to HAVE to be a peaceful landgrab situation first...

Blue Tiles - These tile are next to rivers, and would get the iron within 1 turn (provided we had ample workers...). The downside is that we don't know the terrain around it, plus, it's also further away from our capital than other locations... It also borders the jungle, and there's a chance the Russia could occupy one of those spots.

Red tiles - These require a cultural improvement to get the iron. Slow yes, but we're not gonna be going to war anytime soon in our situation. The east red tiles are the worse, since they're in jungle. The tile by the lake is good, but doesn't have as many hills for future growth (it's quite possible that our FP could be very close to this city someday).

Yellow Tile - This is my perferred tile. This spot gets atleast 5 hills and 3 mountains, plus a bonus grassland tile (and jungle that can be irragated later), and what looks like might be 7 grassland tiles (+14 food in the industrial era). Remember that you also need a purposeful deficit of 2 to even out the city at size 21. The oddball hill REQUIRES that we use that fish. I also think that it's this spot that we can nab before the Russians do, and only IF we expand correctly.

There's also a spot 4 tiles SW of that wine in the picture (with numerous bonus grassland tiles) that looks like a good city spot.

 

[donsig]

Originally posted by Chieftess
1 - NO colonies!! We need the workers for our settler/worker factories! (provided we have them).

If we do have a worker factory it makes sense to use one of the workers to build a road through to the dyes and build a colony. Send a warrior with the worker and we will not have to waste a settler building a city in the jungle just to get the dyes we need. The worker will cost 10 shields and 1 pop point where-as the settler will cost 30 shields and 2 pop points.

 

[eyrei]

Problem is, the AI is likely to decide to send a settler...

 

[GenMarshall]

I would have to agree with chieftess on this. We need to get connected to that Iron ASAP.

 

[Chieftess]

BTW, for future reference, here's an estimation of the corruption rings: Corruption "Rings".

You'll see that the proposed city will be in the 3rd to 4th corruption ring (which really kicks in after the OCN is reached). Sure, we could say, "Yeah, the Russians are going to get that spot anyway", but from the looks of it, Russia has just as bad land as we do. Also, I recall an early GOTM where the only resource (iron) was on the other side of the landmass (about the same number of tiles away as our iron resource was). The idea was to get a city over there as quickly as possible (and possibly build outside-in). It's a stretch, but we can fit a few cities between the iron and Vo Mimbe.

Here's the alternatives:

North - desert, plains and sea.
West - Desert and floodplains.
South - Jungle and Babylon.
East - desert.
Southeast - Grassland!!!

Let the AI settle in the desert if they have to. We can take those unproductive cities later.

As far as resources are concerned... I just don't understand what our seemingly drunken obsession with wines is. (pun intended) But, as long as we keep cities at size 3 and lower (with MP), happiness is managable. At size 4, sure we'll need to raise the luxury rate. But, at the moment, we're concentrating on expansion. We need a worker plan to build roads for our settlers. This accomplishes if not one thing and one thing only - quicker expansion. It gets us a city atleast 3 turns quicker than with no roads. Roads are the rails of the ancient era.

BTW, it's not just getting the iron first (we're really in no shape yet to have a productive army), it's about denying Russia that resource. What we DO need is a few good cities in the east that can be a size 6 city and spit out swords every 3 turns or so.

 

[DaveShack]

Hopefully the mountains still under fog will hold iron closer to us than the one to the extreme southeast, but we want to play keep away with the one to the SE anyway. An outside in settlement strategy in this case starts to sound good because at this point we basically have to start walking in the direction of the only iron we know about, and hope we get to it first.

 

[Cyc]

Originally posted by DaveShack
We have 3 posts in favor of the green pastures, and one in favor of getting the dyes first. Cyc, while your plan has merit and the locations SE and SW of the capitol are important to create a closed border as a deterrent to infiltration by our neighbors, there is currently stronger support for the other plan.

I'll be happy to poll it if you want, though there isn't much time. Either way please post your feelings on whether we should proceed with a poll or follow the preponderence of support in the thread for either plan, as early after you see this as possible...

Hey DS, do what you want. I was just covering yer butt, cause you were out of town and asked for help. I counted four people that liked the locations on my map. I don't know where you guys get one from. If you don't want help, DS, don't ask for it.

 

[DaveShack]

Originally posted by Cyc


Hey DS, do what you want. I was just covering yer butt, cause you were out of town and asked for help. I counted four people that liked the locations on my map. I don't know where you guys get one from. If you don't want help, DS, don't ask for it.

Your help was very much appreciated, and I liked the locations on your map too, before our intrepid explorers discovered much better land off to the SE. I'm certain we will want to use your very well-designed plan for infill close to the capitol, once we have the distant and better land cordoned off.

Of course Chieftess comes along and trumps us both with an idea to go way out there and get the iron first...

 

[Rik Meleet]

I think 2 tiles north of the yellow or N-NW of yellow can be better. I am not IFOS, so I have to work with CT's picture.

I think moving a warrior/settler pair there will show enough to know whether to settle there or continue to the yellow. My hunch is that that city is very close to sea and lake and is nearly perfect as blockade as well.

2 - Send our workers 2 by 2 to build roads. (2 workers each for a road in 1 turn). Only native workers will accomplish this. Foreigners are lazy and won't accomplish the task in 2 turns.

I think Vandelay needs to go on as a worker factory, Deux Rivières in fulll settler mode and Vo Mimbre in warrior or spearmen mode.

 

[Chieftess]

I'd much rather build on that lake (the yellow spot). It gives us the most amount of production when it gets into the industrial era. (who knows if that location might become a future palace). I much rather build on a lake that gets us above size 6 without an aquaduct... Also, looking at the mountains and jungle, who knows if we'll have coal there in the future?

 

[Paalikles]

Good points by Chieftess. We should look to settle those sites with the best potential first. I might go ahead and contradict myself in this thread - but from the analyzis Chieftess has done here, I support yellow

 

[Will_518]

I support yellow too, fish when it expands, and bonus grassland next to it. Hills for good shields in the middle ages, and mountains with a bit of potential as well.

 

[DaveShack]

A poll has been created here for this issue.

 

[DaveShack]

Now we know a great deal about the grasslands surrounding the only visible source of Iron. I support the yellow location from Chieftess's map, because it puts a lot of hills, mountains, and jungle in the city radius. This is a potential Iron Works location, if the RNG blessed us with coal in that same mountain range.

Here is a map showing one possible city arrangement. The yellow and dark blue sites are clearly higher priority than the cyan and red, which might wait until after some settlement in another direction. OTOH it is good to fill in our borders along the road because that eliminates the chance an AI will plop a town down on our trade route.

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

I agree with the Yellow location.

 

[donsig]

Securing the wines sounds like a good idea. But we also need to expand in other directions as well, especially west of our capitol city. We need our core cities set up soon.

 

[Chieftess]

We could also build a city 2 tiles SW of that desert mountain (the one SE of the barb). Let's call it, "Barbarian Mountain" at some point into the far future to block the desert for ourselves. Also, a city on that river by the plains and forest NE of the wines and iron looks like a good spot, including 5 tiles SW of the Iron City (so as not to waste any tiles). Yes, the desert city won't be livable until the industrial era, but it will give us some sort of outpost out there.

It's quite possible that we could be building "rings" for our Forbidden Palace.

 

[Furiey]

Yellow and Blue are good, but I would be tempted to move Cyan 1 tile SE (it’ll be off the bonus grassland then) and Red 1 S. I would also put another one somewhere NE ish of Blue and Yellow – ie: somewhere in the Green location – not sure of the exact position though. I would put Green as higher priority than Red as hopefully we could position it so that it formed a border with Yellow and Cyan claiming the grassland.



It looks like it’s going to be more of an outside in strategy – but as donsig says we do need to think about other directions as well – we desperately need more Settlers.