[BTS] So Many Floodplains!

[misterfilmgeek]

What to do? I fear SiP would make this city a health hazard. 1S seems a bit better with fewer FPs and another forest to chop. This on Monarch, so health is manageable, but I wouldn't want my growth to be hampered early.

Any advice?

Edit: Save File and World Builder Save File attached. Settings for main save file are Monarch, Big and Small, Epic speed, No Huts/Events, Aggressive AI, 7 Opponents (as opposed to 6), and locked modified assets is off.

 

[Pangaea]

Hard to say just based off a screenshot, but I reckon your argument for 1S is sound. That gets you 'only' 7 floodplains, which due to rounding only yields 2 . Much more manageable. Would also enable a city 1S of gold on the desert hill, especially if there is proper food nearby. And that city can help grow cottages for the capital.

If there hadn't been such a massive amount of FPs, 1W would be tempting, despite missing out on capital BFC marble. Settling on the marble too for a great tile, but not really an option here I think as you'd miss too many FPs that way. It's probably not fresh water either.

So think I agree that 1S is a good move here. With some luck there is a good resource 3W of the marble.

 

[sampsa]

I wouldn't worry so much about . -1 effectively turns a floodplain into a grassland, which is not a bad tile. It's rare to not have any grain resources around so unhealthiness won't usually hit pre-monarchy.

So I think I'd SIP. I'd also very likely settle on the desert gold, as +2 city center is very nice while riverside financial desert gold is not as great tile as it might appear at first glance.

 

[lymond]

I'd be very tempted to settle on the marble here...nothing to do with health though.

Otherwise, I see no problem with SIP here. fantastic spot for a bureau cap

 

[elmurcis]

I would like to settle 1S and have 2nd city 1NE from Gold and another 3N probably from Pig... As Bureau SIP looks great but having 3 early cities next to river with 6 (I guess) shared cottages for future Bureau-capital sound better in my garden (might discover something else that would change picture). But listen to veterans here

 

[Fippy]

Settler on Marble for me too (like Lymond), floodplains are good but i like fast starts better.
Palace can still be moved later, and more fps help not early.

 

[lymond]

That start looks very worthy of posting a save to the forum, if the settings are not wonky

 

[Pangaea]

That start looks very worthy of posting a save to the forum, if the settings are not wonky

Agreed. Would be fun to try out this thing. If the settings are very wonky, you can always post the WBSave, and then we can edit the file to our wishes. Looks like a fun map, and it has caused some discussion as well.

I'm not ecstatic about SIP though. It may result in negative health right away (depending on difficulty level), which means a 20-turn worker. Not the most awesome start

 

[sampsa]

I'm not ecstatic about SIP though. It may result in negative health right away (depending on difficulty level), which means a 20-turn worker. Not the most awesome start

Don't think that is possible, or even close to possible, unless the map script is weird.

 

[Pangaea]

Don't think that is possible, or even close to possible, unless the map script is weird.

It can happen, I actually had it in a failed settling in the recent Nobles Club game I posted, because I forgot to account for the jungle .

Looking at the city list in a current Immortal game, we get +2 from difficulty level, and another +2 from fresh water. With SIP here we get 11 FPs, which results in 4 . Plus another one at size 1 (one per pop). That would be -1 on T0, and a 20-turn worker.

It's great with lots of FPs in the capital because they make for wonderful Buro cities, but I think this is too many. 7 is a good number because that is only 2 (0.4 x 7 = 2.8 => rounded down to 2). 3 can be okay, albeit a little rough prior to hooking up food and getting a granary, but 4 is too much I think.

Edit: I see the OP mentioned this is Monarch and the health is okay there, so my comment must then be seen as a more general one, not for this particular game at Monarch. The bonus is probably 3 or 4 there, which makes it okay on T0 even with SIP.

 

[ArchGhost]

Move away from the gold and in the other direction. Desert hills are pretty crappy and unless there is a food resource off to the North/Northwest (which appears to probably be some amount of desert, actually, judging by the hills and the FP you can see on the other side) there's no incentive to grab it with the capitol. You can settle a city later that will grab more floodplains and eventually work the gold too with as little as 1 or 2 farms, but doing so with the cap is a trap here.

As a couple have pointed out, moving to the Marble could be a good play. Depending on what is East of the Pig/Marble you can just settle on the Marble itself or keep going. There's definitely at least one more FP 2N1E of the pig (and maybe 3N1E of pig too) so you could even have room for another city that can share pig + FPs by moving South.

I don't really use bureaucap a lot but it can sometimes be a good idea to split terrain if you have too much food, or in this case, too much unhealth from all the FPs. Spread it out and you make better use of the land in the low happy-cap stages of the game.

But the biggest thing I see immediately upon a glance is that you don't want to fall for the gold trap based on the edges of what can be seen.

 

[misterfilmgeek]

Thanks for all of the advice! I had planned to get back to this sooner, but life. I'll post a save tonight. Settings are Monarch, Big and Small, Epic speed, No Huts/Events, Aggressive AI, 7 Opponents (as opposed to 6), and locked modified assets is off. I'll figure out how to get a WB save so that difficulty can be adjusted.

Edit: Save files attached to OP.

 

[floydmcw]

I got around to playing this map and it's amazeballs.

I have more money than Scrooge McDuck.

You know those games where you can't see a single gold? Well that's because ALL THE GOLD IS ON THIS MAP!