Gold city
I see your points about roads.
It is my belief that this point should be our #1 point. Plus, with a "direct Road connection," Saladin may also feel more inclined to send us a Missionary. Surely, you could believe the code saying "if there is a direct Road connection to a City, treat Missionary-spreading as a higher-priority item."
But okay, let me address your main point.
But settling on that desert can be considered "aggressive settling".
I would agree.
However, you also have to conceed that settling on the Des Hills Gold is equally considered to be "aggressive settling."
If you look at my screenshot of the area, we can see that there is a City directly west of the Galley. I cannot tell how many times that City's borders have expanded, but they have expanded at least once, as the Settler considered the Desert square to be a "valid" settling option (I checked before I closed the game, and all of the Desert squares 1 square away from the Settler can be settled upon (due to not being within a 2-square radius of another City), with the exception of not being able to settle on the square 1SW, which is within Saladin's borders).
We also see a City to the SE: Basra.
Finally, it is clear that there must be a 3rd City to the SE, due to the layout of the cultural border expansion. We can surmise that the Plains River Marble (that's a pretty strong square to give to the AI, by the way, DynamicSpirit) was obtained within that City's fat cross.
But even if we don't make that assumption, you can extrapolate based on the two squares of Cultural borders 1SW of our Settler and SW + S of our Settler, plus the Culture S + S + S of our Settler and the two squares of Culture below those squares to be able to know EXACTLY where that City is situated:
It must have "Refined" Culture and therefore the Warrior in the screenshot is standing within the 4th ring of Culture, such that the City is SW + W + W + W of where that Warrior is standing.
I will tell you that EITHER location will be deemed to be "aggressive settling," and either option will lead to an equal negative Diplo modifier for Shared Borders.
So, I am afraid that there is no differentiation between the City locations based on this point. We're going to upset Saladin no matter where we settle, so the best thing that we can do is aim to get Buddhism out of the deal ASAP so that we can start pleasing him again, and so that we can get a Buddhist Missionary off-continent before we lose the City in a war.
because it's faraway (only 1 tile, but it can be enough) from Sal's borders.
It won't be far enough away, due to the proximity of 3 nearby Cities. Either location will give us the negative Diplo modifiers.
So i prefer the hill, not for the defensive bonus,
As I said, that "bonus" will be for all intents and purposes meaningless. At very best, we'll have an Archer and an Axeman and a Spearman if we defend that City aggressively.
Saladin has Swordsmen and Longbowmen. PROTECTIVE Longbowmen, i.e. extra First Strikes (through having Drill I and being more inclined to promote them to Drill III with Barracks + Vassalage). He also has access to Catapults, and as soon as he learns Horseback Riding, he will be able to build War Elephants, due to Justinian feeding him Ivory for Saladin's Marble.
Toku has a similarly high-tech military.
Either AI would wipe out our City in moments, regardless of whether it is on a Hills square or even if we fortified 3 of our military units on a Forested Hills square on their continent.
The fact is that an AI can and will send their "stack of doom" at an on-continent City. If we get attacked, we'll lose the City.
We'll get equally attacked in either location based on "provoking" Saladin with Close Borders, as we'll equally be "aggressively settling."
Better send a worker there and build ourselves a road in the desert than have a "our close borders spark tension" for that city.
But that's not the choice here. We'll get the same "Close Borders sparking tensions" issue in either of the two selected City locations.
Since Sal owns the Buddhist Shrine, i'm expecting to see a missionary soon after we'll settle.
Expect all that you want. I'm not willing to wait that long. I'd rather take advantage of BTS' Trade Route code and get ourselves a direct Road connection to the Buddhist Holy City. It's a timing thing: I don't think it's wise to delay until we can get a Worker there and have the Worker build a Road.
Putting up our own Road on the Desert will take a minimum of 9 turns. That will be 9 turns of Goldfish being subjected to an about equal chance of getting Christianity through a Sea-based Trade Route as it will to get Buddhism from a Sea-based Trade Route.
We want as close to a guarantee as we can get to obtaining Buddhism there through natural spread, as yes, Saladin may eventually send us a Missionary, but in the meantime, he may just decide to declare war and take over the City. Plus, the sooner that we get Buddhism, the better.
And then to have Sal asking us to convert. And we'll agree. Then we can switch again to Confu until we have our core cities Buddhist.
You're free to plot strategy all that you want, but until we get Buddhism, it won't be applicable. I think that we can all agree that the sooner we can get Buddhism, the better off we'll be, espeically in terms of having a fair chance to convert Isabella before she goes Theocratic on us.
I think that we also all agree that the number one purpose of settling in that "aggressive settling" location near Saladin will be to grab Buddhism. If it weren't for grabbing Buddhism, it would be a big risk to settle there--I'm not sure that I would do so the way that we are playing this game (low Power Rating--too low to increase sufficiently--plus a peaceful approach = why risk war by settling on an AI's continent?)... it's just taking a big risk. However, we are willing to accept this risk if it gives us a greater chance of snagging Buddhism. So, let's make this "bigger chance" a reality by increasing our chances as much as possible and getting that Road connection from turn #1 after settling.
Therefore, I still have to go with settling 1W in the Desert, due to the immediate Road Trade Route connection.
Trade Routes make the choice for us
If you saw the thread displaying the power of Road Trade Routes (and this was even just in Vanilla--BTS Roads seem to be even more powerful for Trade Routes) for spreading Religion, you'd understand where I am coming from on this issue a whole lot better. It was from a
message by DaveMcW.
Throw in the fact that we get a connection via Roads through hidden squares but do not get this connection to hidden squares through Coastal Trade Routes, plus the fact that the Buddhist Holy City is hidden from view, we will most certainly increase our chances of natural spread just by settling by that Road.
Working 2 Resource squares instead of just 1
Finally, if you aren't persuaded, consider Mitchum's argument about being able to work both the Fish and the eastern Gold.
1 Missionary costs 60 Hammers. 1 population point whipped gives us 45 Hammers.
If we want to be able to whip Missionaries without constantly having to wait until we grow to Size 4, then we'll need a source of Hammers.
The Gold will give us 2 additional Hammers, meaning that we'll make 3 Hammers per turn.
Even without a Granary or a Lighthouse, we can grow off of the improved Fish + improved Gold from the point of "just having whipped at Size 2 with an almost-full Foodbox" back up to "Size 2 with an almost-full Foodbox" in:
- Approx 36 Food required
- 2 Food (City Centre) + 5 Food (Fish) + 0 Food (Des H Gold) = 7 Food - 2 * 2 population = 7 - 4 = 3 Food per turn
- 36 / 3 = 12 turns
In those 12 turns, we can make 36 Hammers, such that we'll:
a) Be able to whip a Missionary immediately
AND
b) Every couple of times whipping, we'll even be able to self-build another Missionary, giving us 3 Missionaries instead of 2 Missionaries in roughly the same amount of time that it would take for us to whip 2.5 Missionaries if we instead worked a Coast square instead of the Des H Gold
The difference is not only 0.5 Missionaries in that timeframe, but the fact that we only whipped twice when we used the Gold and had to whip 3 times when we just grew with Food, which is a non-sustainable practice (heavy whipping will eventually make the City too unhappy to be productive).
So, while I appreciate and understand your argument about "aggressive settling," we are unfortunately going to suffer from this diplomatic penalty regardless of which of those two City locations that we choose, so we might as well take the preferred option based on the other reasons presented.
And of the other reasons presented, I feel that their order of importance puts "having a Road-based Trade Route connection to the Buddhist Holy City" as the most important reason for settling 1W in the Desert in favour of on the Des Hills Gold.
It would be nice to get his gold. Are we getting negative diplo points already for trading with Tokugawa's worst enemy?
Although to be fair, I wasn't involved with luring the Barb Galley the first time...
