[BTS] Starting City Planning Help

[Gunboat Diplomat]

The Game:
BTS
Normal Size
Normal Speed
Prince Difficulty
Pangea Map
No Huts
No Events
No Diplomatic Victory
Hannibal
BUG mod (on Mac, so limited functionality)

The Player:
I've been playing since Civ 2, but IV is the one I keep coming back to (haven't got VI yet).
Been lurking here (on and off) for about a decade now... hi!
I've read pretty much the entire War Academy over the years, and whilst I think I've understood most of it, I still seem to have trouble implementing the lessons with any consistent success. Hence, I'm still playing on Prince and only winning around one in four games.

The Question:
So, I thought it might be helpful to go the other way. Start with a specific example and work back to the general. So, if you'll indulge me, I've attached a dot map of my start and I'll outline below what I plan to do with the cities if I happen to grab the sites before the AI does. I'll state my thinking behind each choice so that you can (gently please, it's my first time) poke holes in my logic.



Starting with the site east of Carthage (we'll work clockwise from here)... I'm thinking of putting my 2nd city here. Lots of food for whipping, and some hills as well. I'm not sure if this would qualify as a GP farm later (I'm not particularly good with city specialisation) but either way I'll be able to run a few specialists here once I get library/forge/market up.

Next the city south east of Carthage. Probably my 3rd city. I'm planning this as my main production city once I've got IW and can clear all that jungle. It has 5 (edit: make that 6, apparently, I can't count) grassland hills and thanks to the river and rice, I'll be able to work all of them (depending on happiness, of course)

The next two cities (due south and immediately southwest of Carthage) look distinctly like cottage spam sites to me. The one with Gems looks like a good commerce city but there's not a lot of production in either of them.

The one to the far south west shares three tiles in its fat cross with the Celtic capital, so I'm thinking I might put it one tile east of its current location. It's a decent enough site and the spices would be nice, but I don't expect to actually get it. Maybe after I kill Brennus.

The site due west of Carthage is defensible and has a mix of food and production, but it's not screaming at me to take it. Low priority.

The site to the north (sorry about the clipping) has clams in its first 8 tiles, and the three you can't see are coast and two ocean.

There is a coastal site to the far south east that I might take to grab the dye at some point, but it's not a big priority for me right now.

Of course, I haven't discovered IW yet, so any of the above could be modified depending on if/where iron shows up.

So, does anyone have any thoughts on how I should start this game?

 

[Pedro78]

Hey!

I definitely see some flaws here. Would you mind attaching the save? It would allow people to get a better overview of the situation (everyone will tell you that everything is situational in this game), and I could make my own dotmap and post it here. Then I'll start "poking some holes"

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

Too easy Pedro78. Thanks for taking the time.

 

[Pedro78]

Here's my dotmap for the early game :

Spoiler :

#1 city on the PH (plains hill): very good early hammers working plains cows. Can build an Axe while growing to size 2 then build a worker + a settler working cows + copper

#2 city grabbing the clams : will work Carthage’s gold, allowing the latter to grow on cottages

#3 city on the Silk – FP for food, good commerce. A couple of forests is always good. Bananas will make it very strong long term but even without them I would likely settle that city here. Can also share a riverside grass hill with Carthage (mine or cottage)

The spot I marked as “after IW” is to be settled upon reaching IW and work the farmed banana initially (borders of city #3 should have popped by then). Then grow and work the gems (need to pop borders ASAP to get the second gems). But there’s no rush in getting it, and it’s not a big deal if you lose that spot. Jungle cities really shouldn’t be priorized and are often not worth settling.

About your dotmap –

You’ll never get the far-SW grass cow spot – it’s right next to the Celtic capital.

When playing a non-creative leader, every city should have some kind of food (can be floodplains if you have enough workerturns available) in the first ring. Food is king in this game and waiting 10+ turns for border pop just isn’t worth it, especially when you have to build a monument. This is true in 99% of the cases. Later in the game things can be a little different as you have ways to pop borders quickly (build culture, religious spread, run an caste artist for 3 turns…)

Settling on PH is often very valuable and most of the time is the right choice even though the city isn’t as good long-term.

Edit - Dry rice isn't much of a tile, that's why I skipped the western dry-rice spot (dry rice alone is not worth settling a city early on). You probably have some more land to the East that is better than the southern Jungle

Now about the game itself –

BW first? In 99% of the cases you should improve the food first in your capital. Did you build a warrior before the first worker? Again, 99% of the time (in non-fishing starts) you should build a worker first, unless you plan to warrior-rush or go steal some workers. Also, why did the worker come so late, have you been working the lake? Again in most cases you want the worker ASAP so better work the 3-yield tiles when building it.

The right path would have been hunting – AH. You won’t need agriculture early on here as you can find out during the first 5 turns (you can deselect tech for the first 5 turns and keep your beakers, at T6 the game will auto-select a tech for you).

Improve the Pigs then cows then gold, then build a settler at size 3. Almost never build a settler at size 1 (especially with a non-IMP leader and especially having great tiles to work like pigs and gold).

All these comments should point you in the right direction, hope the holes I've poked aren't too big


Oh and I usually advocate that Prince is not a good difficulty to learn how to play (the AI is just too slow), imo for optimal learning you should fire up an Emperor game (or IMM if you feel comfortable enough) on the forums and let people give you advice from turn 0, or play along the Nobles’ club series – they’re great for learning, and you’ll always find people here who are glad to help and share knowledge

 

[InovA]

Firsly: You should have built a Worker before your Warrior, and I believe you whipped out your 1st Worker? Don't do that. You also should have gone Agriculture -> Animal Husbandry before Bronze Working, you need food hooked up before anything else. And you shouldn't begin building a Settler until 3 Pop most of the time.

For cities: I chose similar to Pedro, but a bit different:

1. On the Plains Hill north of the cow, east of your cap. I chose this because of the Flood Plains surrounding it within the 1st ring. You aren't a Creative leader and you'd like to go Pottery soon to start your economy, Flood Plains are great tiles for cottages. If you settle on the PH west of the cows, you'd have to build a Monument in the city and wait 10 turns before you could start building on the Flood Plains, but a city here would be able to share 2 more cottages (on the grass river tiles) with your capital, helping progress them sooner when the capital isn't working them.
2. Picked the same Clams spot. There's an argument to be made for the spot 1E of this - a city 1E could share the cows with the capital, is a Plains Hill for the +1 , and if you build a Monument (6 turns while working the cows) then begin building a Work Boat, it should time out such that it built both of these faster and can hook up the Clams faster than the city spot Pedro and I chose. If you have Mysticism by this time, build the city 1E on the Plains Hill and do it the way I said, otherwise put it where we've both chosen.
3. This is a tough call... I like settling 3W of your capital, sharing the Pigs with your capital, and then settling on the bananas 3S 2W of your capital. But then again settling on the Silk 1S 3W of your cap is better because it keeps a grass river tile open. This prevents the banana spot I wanted, but you could settle on the Plains Hill 1E of the western rice. In the either case you definitely want a Monument in the 3rd city to help start working the Flood Plains for cottages. As Pedro chose, you want to be hooking up Gems after this for the + boost, and a Gem city with food in the ring is preferred, so maybe go with the 2nd settling option here, so that the Bananas spot isn't preventing you from settling on the spot he marked (3S of cap). Spots beyond this would involve the Eastern Corn or Rice after you've scouted more, or the northern unscouted area.

In the end you have enough surrounding land that you don't really need to think about rushing to claim spots that your neighbors might take (though maybe Korea wants your gems spot - as I think about it more, make this your 4th, maybe 3rd city, and the Plains Hill rice your 5th if the eastern/northern locations don't look better). Since you've already started on this Settler, chop 1 forest then build a pasture on the pigs tile and get your capital up to 3 pop before starting a 2nd worker. Tech to Pottery so that you can start cottages in both cities soon, chopping when building the next settlers.

 

[lymond]

Pedro gave awesome advice, so nothing to add other than to point out something about Pedro's dotmap that I think you should note. It appears that you are adverse to overlapping cities. Actually, city overlap is a good thing in this game. It allows for early tile sharing, better worker management, and reduces distance maintenance....all important things for moving up difficulty.

Ha..I think Deity players sometimes forget how hard this game was when starting out. Prince is fine for now, or even Monarch, but I'm not so sure Emperor would be best right now. Still, if you follow our advice closely you should have no problem playing Emperor in a game or two.

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

When playing a non-creative leader, every city should have some kind of food (can be floodplains if you have enough workerturns available) in the first ring.

I can use that. Thanks!

Now about the game itself –

and

Firsly: You should have built a Worker before your Warrior, and I believe you whipped out your 1st Worker? Don't do that. You also should have gone Agriculture -> Animal Husbandry before Bronze Working, you need food hooked up before anything else

Yeah, ummmm... this is a bit embarrassing. I didn't know I was going to be posting the save game when I started, so I was experimenting a bit here. I'd recently read up on a bit of whipping strategy so I was playing around with that. Also, this was actually my 2nd attempt at this map. I aborted the first try some time before turn 50 because, even though I went with my usual worker-warrior-settler build order, it ended up taking me quite a bit longer to get my 2nd city up. So I thought I'd play with whipping to see if that helped.

The out-of-order techs were similarly experimental. It was an ill-conceived attempt to use early chopping to speed things up.

(you can deselect tech for the first 5 turns and keep your beakers, at T6 the game will auto-select a tech for you)

Would you believe that I've never actually tried this? I just assumed that the end of turn popup would keep popping up the way it does for city build queues. More useful info! Thanks again.

And you shouldn't begin building a Settler until 3 Pop most of the time.

Ok. This is new (to me). I usually just start straight after my first warrior is out. I'll try waiting. Thanks.

Oh and I usually advocate that Prince is not a good difficulty to learn how to play (the AI is just too slow)

o.O Well, the last time I tried Emperor I was soundly beaten in short order. Admittedly, that was a few years ago, but I don't think I've improved much since then. If I can't win a Prince game before the mid 1800s, I'm not sure how moving up in difficulty is going to help (other than ending the games a lot quicker )

It appears that you are adverse to overlapping cities.

I certainly used to be. I have recently found the virtue of sharing cottages early on, but I'm still getting the hang of it. It seems to require a bit more micro managing than I'm used to.

Ha..I think Deity players sometimes forget how hard this game was when starting out.

lol. I've been playing this game since the month after it was released, so I'm not so much a new player as a terminally incompetent one. I think your prediction of it only taking a game or two to have me up at emperor is delusionally optimistic, but I'll give it a red-hot go.

Thanks again everyone for your help. I might restart the game and see if I can do any better.

 

[Fippy]

I would settle here first

Spoiler :

Cap could spare pigs at size 3 while building settlers & workers, until 2nd city can stand on it's own feet with floodplains (monument needed).
That's rather niche thou and advanced, normally you would not think about sharing your only food
Silk gives 3c city tile, and it's overall a good city cept it would start slow without pigs..but it's no biggie giving them away while Carthage does not grow.

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

Spoiler :

Just testing out spoiler tags because I can't seem to easily find anywhere that describes how to use them, and I want to play along with the latest NC game.

Spoiler :

Now I'm testing to see if there are any tricks to nesting them