Even if copper is on the hill we can still make warriors by not teching hunting!
Missing the acceleration that the extra hammer provides will be a big mistake IMO.
If this were multiplayer, I think everyone would agree that anything other than the PH is a weaker move. The difference is that in singleplayer the tendency is to give longer-term potential a higher priority. But whether we REX or rush, we want that fast start, and don't expect the game to go long enough for the loss of green tiles to matter. Note, settling PH saves one forest for chopping. PH also frees up more room for good city in N or NW that could share tiles with (grow cottages for) capitol.
I'm pretty confident that that there are at least 2 minable hills in BFC if we settle the PH, perhaps 3. That's important because we're going to want hammers, too.
One factor nobody mentioned yet is that by moving to the plains hill we would not be able to work the corn (3f+1c) until the first border pop. So that's -1C compared to in place, at least for the first 8 turns. I don't think this affects time to first tech, though, since most commerce comes from Palace at this stage.
Copper/iron is an unknowable parameter, and really the only thing that could make PH less attractive.
Note: by moving settler as if to settle PH, we will actually obtain a lot more information before that actual settling choice is written in stone.
The start we have is ideal for fast rexing. Slavery can be used very effectivelly to 2 pop slave settlers and workers and even 3 pop slave stuff....so grabbing lots of land should not be difficult.
Pottery is key to that so that city can grow working farms and cottages, to cover expansion and allow 2-3 pop slaves.
If we get some luxuries around we should be able to expand at double the rate to every ai, grab the land, cottage everythiong while building up army to take close neighbours...grow huge and tech fast to UN. It should be as simple as that...if the land surrounding capital is as good.
Oh yeah... Pottery before writing, absolutely. No REX will last long if there's no pot. BTW- I doubt its as simple as that. There will likely be some challenges along the way due to game conditions, but I doubt that these challenges require an overhaul of the strategy you outline, more like timing adjustments. We'll see. The more I think on it, the more certain I am that UN is the way to go. Culture locks you into some strategies that are not very flexible at all.
I think before we pick a settling spot, we should run a test to see how fast we can pump some first units out (warrior + settler + 2 or more workers). There are so many forests around here, and we have fast workers. This looks like a dream REX starting location. Makes me wonder what surprises are in store for us...
Excellent idea! Everyone report here how fast (and how) you are able to make the units above in each settling scenario.
Be sure you do this testing in one of the TEST SAVES, and NOT in the official game save.As for the suprises... if it were Gyathaar, I'd expect the game conditions to require whole new strategies. But that would be upfront obvious in the game description. Eldine seems to allow a standard type of game within some very specific guidleines. This seems a whole lot easier from a strategy standpoint, but we'll see. I expect we throw out our entire plans after 10 turns. Heck, we'd do that in a standard game anyhow, just for fun.
new topic, new thought:
We have been forewarned that fur is exceedingly rare, however there has been no discussion or revelation about the other clothing resources. Obtaining them may well be non trivial. Another reason not to Declare on anyone.
I think this is a good guess. The challenge is not so muchto get them to trade it to you (I mean, your getting them friendly to vote for you, after all). The challenge is to get it from the ones who are worst enemies of your friends and suffering the "you refused to stop trading with our worst enemy" penalties all over the place. So remember that we don't need them until the very last turn, and if trading for them earlier hurts diplo situation, we can be patient.
Guys sorry but this is basic stuff...I cannot believe we are even discussing this
First...in place produces 4 hammers per turn towards a worker not 6 and on plains hill produces 5...so 90/4=23 turns for worker 90/5=18 turns ....4 worker turns just like that, 4 turns corn earlier etc etc....that is for first worker, second worker will come alot earlier as well due to faster improved land and the extra hammer, settler much earlier etc etc....the effect is a snowball running down a hill, it starts small and it is massive at the end.
Now for the first 100 turns consider that the plains hill is 100 free hammers! Why on earth would we want to throw away 100 free hammers + lots of worker turns and extra food etc etc
The only reason one could argue is that settling on plains hill would leave capital with no hills, but that seems not true.
This resource counting and build-turns calculation is one of my weaknesses. I'm glad we got this discussion going, I'm learning much (made same error as deckhand, forgetting the 2F consumed by citizens).
Now that I've thought about it a little bit, I will change my answer and agree with Indiansmoke. Settle on the Plains Hill. Even if we get a Tundra tile or two, we're not gunning for effective size 20 cities. And the snowball argument is compelling. No hunting for a while that means (at least until after we confirm we didn't settle on Copper or Iron!). We DO need hunting by the end so that the Holy Fur is active!
EDIT: Oh great, now I have to change my answer again! Umm, we aren't guaranteed ANY other hills if we settle on the bare hill (except maybe my fog-gazing Tundra hill). Methinks it could be a trap by the Devil Satan! Man, this is tough.
Using the GOTO button, the warrior will always prefer to traverse the terrain with highest defense bonus (forested hill). The settler will prefer to STOP on the most defensible terrain, but traverse the fastest path for a 2-move unit. The white line shows differences due to elevation. Defense bonus is FH>F>H>P I'm not sure how rivers affect the defense bonus calculation, so there is some uncertainty. So its a little tricky deciding if a tile is a hill or a forest if its next to a plains. FH is usually pretty high degree of certainty, though. Long story short: we should have minimum 2 hills for mines if we settle the PH, and that's enough. Also, as a settler/worker pump the hills are not strictly necessary at all. We would work the corn and some cottages while building settlers&workers to a good whip-point. We'll have to favor working cottages over mines anyhow to keep the economy alive.
You're missing the fact that the first population consumes 2 food (and thus does not become hammers). Thus we're choosing between 4 and 5 (post-calculation) hammers per turn, as Indiansmoke said.
