Startup Plan Critique?

[Blitzstrahl]

Hello Civ4 Fans. I'm new to Civilization, starting with Civ 4. I've played several hours but am still learning a LOT. I have most recently read through city specialization articles (1, 2 and 3)and found them immensely helpful, but a little daunting.

So, I've found a nice easy leader (Philosophical and Financial seems to be highly recommended) to start with, and regenerated a Pangea map until I found what seemed like a fertile starting point. In short, I want to practice city specialization without the added challenges of shoddy terrain, proximate civilizations, etc.

I'm attaching a screenshot of my start, including dot mapping for the next 7-9 proposed city sites.

Would some of the Civ4 WIZARDS on this forum be so kind as to critique my starting plan? Much appreciated in advance.

 

[DaveMcW]

Needs more food.

You should aim for +4 or +5 food in all cities until they reach their max size. That will take forever with farmed grassland, you need to focus on food resources and floodplains.

 

[DampRain]

Hi, Welcome!

The screenshot isn't quite large enough, 2-3 screenies would allow better commentary on city placement.
Try and make sure every city has a food source (if it can't, consider farming some grassland to help out). Try and settle them in order of how good their food resource is so they get up and running faster, while considering distance. I expect the corn city would good to settle first (on this difficulty), but it placement maybe could be better (again need screeny).

The SE city could be placed closer to the rice, which would help its growth alot. Clam city, if there isn't anything above the mountain (in the black tile), think about moving it down 1 tile, more green less brown.
Atm it looks like, grow the corn and clam city to size two, chop a workboat in clam city. And use those two cities to help build all your workers that you'll need.

Not much else to say without more information. Make sure you keep at least 1.5 workers per city, preferably build the worker before the city. Get bronze working to help you chop out your settlers and more workers quicker. Once you have access, consider trying slavery (unless you have random events, in which case you may not be able to use it effectively).
Key building should be granary/monument. Monument if there is an important tile you need (to work or block land off, granary if you don't).
Aside from that, it looks like cottage everything, and you'll have plenty of beakers.

For techs, there is no point going polytheism atm, you won't get the religion (someone else has it and without religion you can't make use of monotheism OR. Important techs: bronze, writing, iron, fishing, sailing.

Also make sure you have one production city to continually produce military units, this'll help stop AI war declare. For tribute, don't be afraid to give it, as they'll likely declare if you don't. Good luck have fun.

 

[Blitzstrahl]

Alright, sounds like I didn't have my food figured out. I've restarted and passed enough turns to clear out as much fog as I could; The Native American are behind the NE fog, so I have not ventured up there any further.

I've replaced my proposed city sites, albeit with fewer of them, and split the screen up into two shots for easier reading, I hope.

I have also added what I *think* are the calculations for food and production, assuming 20 worked tiles and resource improvements. I'm BRAND spankin' new at that method of calculating, so I may have gotten it quite wrong.

However, using the numbers I've gotten, I don't have any city near the +4 or +5 food as DaveMcW suggested, but I have a food resource in each distinct city BFC. In fact, only two city sites have positive net food production (I'm assuming this means no GP farms in this civ?). The three cities across the south seem to have net-zero food production, meaning I could eventually work 20 tiles, and modest production, so they could be good production factories, right?

The two cities across the top, well, they STINK. I suppose I need them in part to get anywhere near to 6 cities and in part for the commerce bonus of coastal cities...

Thanks for your continued guidance!

 

[Ghpstage]

Alright, sounds like I didn't have my food figured out. I've restarted and passed enough turns to clear out as much fog as I could; The Native American are behind the NE fog, so I have not ventured up there any further.

I've replaced my proposed city sites, albeit with fewer of them, and split the screen up into two shots for easier reading, I hope.

I have also added what I *think* are the calculations for food and production, assuming 20 worked tiles and resource improvements. I'm BRAND spankin' new at that method of calculating, so I may have gotten it quite wrong.

However, using the numbers I've gotten, I don't have any city near the +4 or +5 food as DaveMcW suggested, but I have a food resource in each distinct city BFC. In fact, only two city sites have positive net food production (I'm assuming this means no GP farms in this civ?). The three cities across the south seem to have net-zero food production, meaning I could eventually work 20 tiles, and modest production, so they could be good production factories, right?

The two cities across the top, well, they STINK. I suppose I need them in part to get anywhere near to 6 cities and in part for the commerce bonus of coastal cities...

Thanks for your continued guidance!

The amount of food your city has beyond what is needed to feed the maximum population isn't very important, many of your cities will never get that big and those that do will spend most of the time much smaller. GP farms in particular will likely never work many of the tiles in its BFC, as much of its population will be running as specialists.
Also, how did you go about counting the yields? If you did it without considering the effects of improvements it would explain why they are so pitiful, those fish for example only show 2 in the pics but with a fishing boat and lighthouse they are 6 resources, lighthouse coast are 2 tiles etc, etc.

The +4-5 food surplus mentioned by Dave is about getting a high early growth rate. A size 1 city for examle only needs to work a food resource to get +4 or more food, and as it grows it will keep this surplus provided it works food neutral tiles (2 e.g. grassland).

Your city placement could use some work.
Wasting food resources is very bad, that fish in the south should be claimed, but its going to force a rethink of the cities south of London.
The spot north of London should be moved onto the desert tile 1W to give it acces to the grassland tile its on right now. When settling on any tile the city yield always has a minimum of 2,1, 1 so its sometmes best to settle on the weakest tiles like desert, ice or tundra to enable you to use stronger ones.

 

[vicawoo]

How come the capital is in a different place?

 

[Blitzstrahl]

I reloaded the game and in doing so placed the capital in the first seeded spot. No other good reason.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I'd say that your second City placement mapping is far improved.

The capital could even do with being settled 1W of where it is now, since there are otherwise a bunch of Hills squares to the west of there that will go unused.

That is, unless there is a Seafood Resource 4 squares west of the Plains Hills Wine. You'll want to move a scouting unit to the Plains Hill square that is 4 squares west of your current capital in order to check out the Ocean square that could potentially contain a Fish (or more likely, just more Resourceless-Ocean).


I might even consider moving the Cow City to the south 1W. That way, you'll pick up a Fish and a Plains Hills square, at the cost of not being able to work 2 Calendar-based Resources. I tend to value Calendar-based Resources very lowly, as you tend to get them more for Happiness purposes than you do for their strengths as a strong square.

Yes, Grassland Dyes are good, but I would rate a Fish Resource higher, especially for a Coastal Fish (often, Fish will be non-Coastal i.e. Ocean-based and will net you slightly less Commerce).

Spice Resources tend to be kind of "blah"--they are okay to work, but they aren't exceptional, either.


I'd want to see more of the hidden squares to the north-east revealed before finalizing the Pig + Stone location (for example, you might settle it 1N of where you placed it, if there is another Resource to be obtained within the City's workable squares), but then again, with the Native Americans being up there, you might not much choice as to where to put that City and you might not even beat them to settling in the area.

Given that very real possibility, it might be worth settling one of your first Cities to the NE, just to "block off" some land as being "yours." Similarly, it would be worth exploring around the Corn Resource to the NE, to see if you can find a suitable location around there to settle and can get a City in place before Sitting Bull does.

 

[Blitzstrahl]

OK, I think I've learned a few things. Most importantly, I switched to WorldBuilder so that there's no mystery about lurking black areas that I couldn't clear, or confusion about what city I started when seeding on the map. I think this method makes the process a little easier.

Taking the last feedback, I moved the city placements across the south so that I'm taking advantage of all food resources, with at least once resource in each city BFC.

I also moved the city placement north of the capital to occupy the desert spot - great tip about the city always being granted 2F1P1C!

I've also added two flags for each city placement; one says "Early" and the other "Total". These flags count all pre-biology improvements, assuming hills are mined and only resources are farmed, and lighthouses in all coastal cities.

Hopefully this answers both Dave's feedback about city placements needing at least 4-5F to start. In most of the cities, I think I've identified 4-8F that is accessible "early" meaning within the first three tiles worked. In some cases, I'd need a border expansion early to access that food resource, so maybe I'll have to chop-rush some monuments or libraries, etc. or build Stonehenge (given I don't have a creative leader).

I've also added a "total" flag, which hopefully gets to an analysis of the city placement's strength in the long run. I presume that if a city shows a positive balance of food in total, that the city could be able to work each tile in the BFC without starvation. I may not want to do this, or ever even make it there, if I focus on Great Persons, or if I can't achieve happiness or health supporting 20 population.

More importantly, what is to be thought about my capital, in the center, where I'm seeing a -5F total food supply in the long run? Does this mean that I should eventually plan on farming the flood plains and plain-plains? Alternatively, should I plan on the city pop in my capital never maxing out? Should I abandon that site and move my initial seeded settler to another site (keeping in mind I wouldn't know where with the fog)?

I think that's all my questions and trial analysis so far; I suppose I'm not much closer to identifying what my city specializations could be, but it seems I'd better understand the food potential for each site first.

Thanks as always!

 

[Dhoomstriker]

More importantly, what is to be thought about my capital, in the center, where I'm seeing a -5F total food supply in the long run? Does this mean that I should eventually plan on farming the flood plains and plain-plains? Alternatively, should I plan on the city pop in my capital never maxing out? Should I abandon that site and move my initial seeded settler to another site (keeping in mind I wouldn't know where with the fog)?

Well, it's unfortunately not the most balanced of situations... settling in-place gives you far less Hills for production purposes, while it provides you with more Grassland squares, so you won't need as much Food. So, yes, settling in-place I would put Cottages on your Flood Plains.


By moving 1W, you enable yourself to work more Hills squares--you don't necessarily have to work ALL of them, but certainly working the Plains Hills River to the N of the Plains Hills Wine is a good one to work, as is the Grassland Hills square to the SW of the Plains Hills Wine--the former because it offers you a free Commerce by being next to a River, while the latter because it only uses up 1 Food to work it.

I would probably Farm most or all of the capital's Flood Plains under such circumstances, because having a capital with access to a LOT of production can be very valuable if you want to spam Wonders there.


Your Fish + Cow City to the south, though, should be moved 1N. As it stands, it will get 4 less Ocean squares and 1 less Coast square by being settled 1N. In exchange, it will pick up a Grassland Hills square (which is pretty good production square to work in general) and it will be able to work a Plains Hills square that the capital will probably not be able to work for a long time. It would also be able to work 2 Grassland squares that could be Cottaged.

Pre-Bureaucracy, the Cow + Fish City could work the Cottages, while after Bureaucracy and once your capital is large enough in size, the capital could take over the duty of working those matured Cottages. Essentially, you'd work on maturing the Cottages when one City is relatively equal to any other City in terms of base Commerce output (pre-Bureaucracy) so that when the capital's Commerce has more value (post-Bureaucracy), it can immediately start working Cottaged squares that are immediately starting as Hamlets or Villages.


Also, I would suggest NOT getting into the habit of using the World Builder for City placement--it can be too easy to get caught up in finding the "perfect" City placement and being tempted to cheat in order to get there. It's better to learn how to deal with the information presented to you at the time, even if the results don't work out to be ideal.

That way, you'll more highly value the exploration of your initial Warrior or Scout on their very first turn and you'll become much more effective in "reading" the situation as to which direction you should send your first Warrior or Scout before deciding where you want to settle your capital.

 

[DampRain]

Hi, huge improvement in city locations. As you are not creative, in the cities where your food sources are in the outer ring, remember to chop/whip/build the monuments asap.

 

[Blitzstrahl]

Thanks all; I realize that I made a big divergence from the spirit of the game by using WorldBuilding, to where it is now much more of a pragmatic exercise in learning city placement, but hopefully this will guide my thought process more efficiently when I am really battling The Fog.

Also, any thoughts on long-term specialization, and the strategies behind food-surplus and food-deficit cities in the long run?

 

[vicawoo]

Remember how you get there is also very important, and often much debated. My biggest question right now would be, what's my second city?

My criteria would be easily available high yield tiles, and especially high food. I would go for between pig/stone or cow/fish.