Liquidated
Goofed Up on Cough Syrup!
Since no one else of 'mentor' level has commented recently, please allow a Liq to babble on a wall of text perhaps.
Basically, the way you judge a city 'dot' is by counting food surplus before all other concerns. Without extra food, a town is dead in the water until irrigation, biology and/or broken corporations. All one needs to look at is Poor Damascus from Boff-03 to understand how the irrigation to biology cycle works. That town didn't need Sid's to become The Entertainment Capital of the Ice Age
There's always other factors like fresh water, coastal access (and 'one tile off'), forests to chop and hills to mine, but before you really care about all that, check the food first! So with pork in mind when looking at a map for placing 'dots', take the total food a tile produces with basic improvements and subtract two. That's the total food you gain or lose from working that tile. Count the the big +food tiles first as total food you produce isn't nearly as important as how much surplus food you can (ab)use with the smallest number of tiles used up making said food. Think corn, pigs and coastal fishies, things you see nothing of in this start.
To make maters worse, the Capital is far more important than merely being a 'dot,' special considerations must be made. The initial town really needs to look at the core 7ish tiles it can work before any additional tiles, as the start of the game is where happys are hardest to come by. Keep in mind that the capital needs to be everything at the start; hammers to build, coins to pay rent and food/commerce for research. Later on it can specialize, but for the first 100ish turns, the capital needs to remain flexible. One should mentally form 'tile sets' the Capital can work in order to play the various roles you will have it perform. Sometimes you need hammers (and not growing!) and sometimes you need to grow (back!). Start with 3 tiles allotted for food and 4 tiles for what you 'need' at the moment. The eternal struggle between working food neutral grassland cottages vs. -2 food plains hill mines, that is what the Capital Game is all about... preferably with much rivers all around!
So this game.....
Keep in mind the fogged tile in the east is really at best +1 from un-irrigated wheat that's farmed. The other three from north to south are plains, plains, grass, all flat land I think from fog gazing (hence the -1 -1 +0). The others are easily seen by 'zooming in real close' and understanding how maps work
The SIP
+4 food working the cows, floods, and wheat. The saving grace is that it's mostly grass with definitely hidden resources around... prolly ponys at least, since the game likes to consider those food.
Grass is good because, so long as you have a food surplus and the caps to allow working more tiles, you can keep growing into grassland cottages. Problem is, with only +4 food surplus that's not nearly enough to work the hills in the area, meaning the fp is going to have to be farmed for +2 to bring surplus after 3 tiles at +5 food. After civil irrigates the wheat (maybe need sacrifice the lakeside forest in the east), we are going to assume is there, Surplus will be +6 and pretty respectable.
Not a horrible town but overall, but this isn't just any town, it's the Mommy and the Daddy. A very uninspiring Capital to start the game with to say the least.
Since 2 west is a total pot luck lets ignore that for now and why do the vets like 2 south (losing a turn more than 1 south west?)
SW
Already things are looking better food wise, with more riverside but less hammers. Being on the river is far better than the lake + one tile from a river BS they never fixed.
Right off the bat, screw the wheat tile until at least civil, that gives +5 food working the cows, and 3x floods. The floods add +1 un-health to the location, but fresh water helps it by +2. 7 total riverside tiles is an improvement over SIP's 5 as well.
+5 isn't being completely fair as one of those fps could easily be farmed for +5 food in 3 tiles, +6 in 4 tiles but that leads us to the real issue with this placement, hammers. The bfc only has a 2 hills; one grass, one plains (prolly iron) and that's That's not nearly enough for pushing out settlers to be honest. That's a mere 10 or 11ish hammers after 2x mines and pasture. If the place had insane food (pigs corn fishes), the whip could replace the lack of native hammers but this location doesn't benefit from concentrated food tiles either. There's only so many forests to chop for one-time burst hammers and mills are about 5k years away. Working unimproved forests is not a game the capital wants to play like ever.
So what 7 tiles to work. Always worth running the cow +3 floods hands down. Finding three riverside grasslands for cottages requires one to chop that forest to the south as you never want to be working the first cottages off river if you can help it.
Hammer/no growth mode would be... hmm. cow +3 fps = 5 food but there's two hills for -3 food and nothing else really able to eat the +2 food remaining.+2 food isn't enough to be bouncing back from a fresh whipping to pop 7 but there's nothing else compelling to work as the land is too green and flat hehe. Ok, so assuming there's a library up, run a scientist spec!
Growth mode: cow 3xFP 3xRvG +5food
No growth mode: cow 3xFP 1xPH* 1xGH** + SciS
*Can drop the plain hills to add a second scientist spec
** if one FloodPlain is farmed, can drop the Grass Hill to add a second scientist spec.
Beeline writing
So 2x south
5x flood plains and those tired old grassland cows for +7 food over 6 tiles. +7 food from 6 tiles isn't exactly whip friendly (you want high yield food tiles for slavery) but 3x hills (2 x plains, 1 x grass) are the capital plot above standard for hammers, and that plains forest will prolly never be worth chopping.
For the 7 tiles...
Like sw purple, gonna need 4 tiles for food... cow for +2 tack on 3 Flood Plain cottages for +5. 2x Plains hills are -4 and -1 for the grass hill, making the easy +0 food and 14-15ish hammers. For growth mode cow + 5 floods + riverside grass, all cottages.
Growth mode: cow 5xFP 1xRvG = +7 food
No Growth mode: cow 3xFP 2xPH 1xGH
Can swap in scientists for plains hills easily here.
The 2x wasted tiles in the south are not a big issue as by the time the town gets big enough to work all its tiles, another spec or 5 is hardly bad news. Oh and complaining about having to run more specs as a phil leader is asking to get kicked. There are only 1-2 plains scarring the BFC; one being that forest and the other being the bonus ? riverside tile in the SW that's prolly plains as well 
. The other 7 tiles are grass, 4 of 7 being riverside. Speaking of which, this location also picks up 4 more riverside tiles for a total of 11 workable river tiles vs 7 in sw purple and a mere 5 in SIP teal. 12 river tiles (counting the dot) is nice to have come Steam Power.
Oh about massed flood plains... every 2 is one sick face with the total number rounded down to nearest integer. 5 floods is only 2.5->2 sick vs fresh water's +2 health, meaning five floods is pretty much the ideal number of fp's to have in one town if not expansive.
If only that bloody sw fog ? was grassland corn, 2xS orange would be a really hoppin site.
----------------
2 west btw after seeing what we see, is pretty much saying "this area sucks, lets gamble!" as there's as much unknown there as known. If not for what the warrior revealed in the south, that gamble would have been a no brain-er.
Cheers!
-Liquidated
Basically, the way you judge a city 'dot' is by counting food surplus before all other concerns. Without extra food, a town is dead in the water until irrigation, biology and/or broken corporations. All one needs to look at is Poor Damascus from Boff-03 to understand how the irrigation to biology cycle works. That town didn't need Sid's to become The Entertainment Capital of the Ice Age
There's always other factors like fresh water, coastal access (and 'one tile off'), forests to chop and hills to mine, but before you really care about all that, check the food first! So with pork in mind when looking at a map for placing 'dots', take the total food a tile produces with basic improvements and subtract two. That's the total food you gain or lose from working that tile. Count the the big +food tiles first as total food you produce isn't nearly as important as how much surplus food you can (ab)use with the smallest number of tiles used up making said food. Think corn, pigs and coastal fishies, things you see nothing of in this start.
To make maters worse, the Capital is far more important than merely being a 'dot,' special considerations must be made. The initial town really needs to look at the core 7ish tiles it can work before any additional tiles, as the start of the game is where happys are hardest to come by. Keep in mind that the capital needs to be everything at the start; hammers to build, coins to pay rent and food/commerce for research. Later on it can specialize, but for the first 100ish turns, the capital needs to remain flexible. One should mentally form 'tile sets' the Capital can work in order to play the various roles you will have it perform. Sometimes you need hammers (and not growing!) and sometimes you need to grow (back!). Start with 3 tiles allotted for food and 4 tiles for what you 'need' at the moment. The eternal struggle between working food neutral grassland cottages vs. -2 food plains hill mines, that is what the Capital Game is all about... preferably with much rivers all around!
So this game.....
Keep in mind the fogged tile in the east is really at best +1 from un-irrigated wheat that's farmed. The other three from north to south are plains, plains, grass, all flat land I think from fog gazing (hence the -1 -1 +0). The others are easily seen by 'zooming in real close' and understanding how maps work
Spoiler :
The SIP
+4 food working the cows, floods, and wheat. The saving grace is that it's mostly grass with definitely hidden resources around... prolly ponys at least, since the game likes to consider those food.
Grass is good because, so long as you have a food surplus and the caps to allow working more tiles, you can keep growing into grassland cottages. Problem is, with only +4 food surplus that's not nearly enough to work the hills in the area, meaning the fp is going to have to be farmed for +2 to bring surplus after 3 tiles at +5 food. After civil irrigates the wheat (maybe need sacrifice the lakeside forest in the east), we are going to assume is there, Surplus will be +6 and pretty respectable.
Not a horrible town but overall, but this isn't just any town, it's the Mommy and the Daddy. A very uninspiring Capital to start the game with to say the least.
Since 2 west is a total pot luck lets ignore that for now and why do the vets like 2 south (losing a turn more than 1 south west?)
SW
Already things are looking better food wise, with more riverside but less hammers. Being on the river is far better than the lake + one tile from a river BS they never fixed.
Right off the bat, screw the wheat tile until at least civil, that gives +5 food working the cows, and 3x floods. The floods add +1 un-health to the location, but fresh water helps it by +2. 7 total riverside tiles is an improvement over SIP's 5 as well.
+5 isn't being completely fair as one of those fps could easily be farmed for +5 food in 3 tiles, +6 in 4 tiles but that leads us to the real issue with this placement, hammers. The bfc only has a 2 hills; one grass, one plains (prolly iron) and that's That's not nearly enough for pushing out settlers to be honest. That's a mere 10 or 11ish hammers after 2x mines and pasture. If the place had insane food (pigs corn fishes), the whip could replace the lack of native hammers but this location doesn't benefit from concentrated food tiles either. There's only so many forests to chop for one-time burst hammers and mills are about 5k years away. Working unimproved forests is not a game the capital wants to play like ever.
So what 7 tiles to work. Always worth running the cow +3 floods hands down. Finding three riverside grasslands for cottages requires one to chop that forest to the south as you never want to be working the first cottages off river if you can help it.
Hammer/no growth mode would be... hmm. cow +3 fps = 5 food but there's two hills for -3 food and nothing else really able to eat the +2 food remaining.+2 food isn't enough to be bouncing back from a fresh whipping to pop 7 but there's nothing else compelling to work as the land is too green and flat hehe. Ok, so assuming there's a library up, run a scientist spec!
Growth mode: cow 3xFP 3xRvG +5food
No growth mode: cow 3xFP 1xPH* 1xGH** + SciS
*Can drop the plain hills to add a second scientist spec
** if one FloodPlain is farmed, can drop the Grass Hill to add a second scientist spec.
Beeline writing
So 2x south
5x flood plains and those tired old grassland cows for +7 food over 6 tiles. +7 food from 6 tiles isn't exactly whip friendly (you want high yield food tiles for slavery) but 3x hills (2 x plains, 1 x grass) are the capital plot above standard for hammers, and that plains forest will prolly never be worth chopping.
For the 7 tiles...
Like sw purple, gonna need 4 tiles for food... cow for +2 tack on 3 Flood Plain cottages for +5. 2x Plains hills are -4 and -1 for the grass hill, making the easy +0 food and 14-15ish hammers. For growth mode cow + 5 floods + riverside grass, all cottages.
Growth mode: cow 5xFP 1xRvG = +7 food
No Growth mode: cow 3xFP 2xPH 1xGH
Can swap in scientists for plains hills easily here.
The 2x wasted tiles in the south are not a big issue as by the time the town gets big enough to work all its tiles, another spec or 5 is hardly bad news. Oh and complaining about having to run more specs as a phil leader is asking to get kicked
. There are only 1-2 plains scarring the BFC; one being that forest and the other being the bonus ? riverside tile in the SW that's prolly plains as well . The other 7 tiles are grass, 4 of 7 being riverside. Speaking of which, this location also picks up 4 more riverside tiles for a total of 11 workable river tiles vs 7 in sw purple and a mere 5 in SIP teal. 12 river tiles (counting the dot) is nice to have come Steam Power.Oh about massed flood plains... every 2 is one sick face with the total number rounded down to nearest integer. 5 floods is only 2.5->2 sick vs fresh water's +2 health, meaning five floods is pretty much the ideal number of fp's to have in one town if not expansive.
If only that bloody sw fog ? was grassland corn, 2xS orange would be a really hoppin site.
----------------
2 west btw after seeing what we see, is pretty much saying "this area sucks, lets gamble!" as there's as much unknown there as known. If not for what the warrior revealed in the south, that gamble would have been a no brain-er.
Cheers!
-Liquidated
, else none of the vets would moan and complain about plains tiles 
.
= 3 
= 5 
, but anything putting food/ hammers/commerce is a good guideline. I also agree hammers should be ignored when calculating a cities growth potential. 
