To violate the rule of "one tile of the coast"?

[Winth]

Ya see, I'm trying Suleiman now and I stare at this screen for about 5 minutes.

While this city grabs a good deal of production, it is one tile off the coast... And this is a no-no. Is it? I have seen many successful games with several cities like that. "The Mearas", a succesion game in which I already participate, has some awesome cities in that setting.

Is it a justified use of a "no-no" move?

 

[DarkFyre99]

I'd say no.

Your city may snag the plains cow, but that doesn't give you enough extra food to work any of the hills. You'd have to build quite a lot of farms to work all the hills, and you can't chain irrigation to two of your grassland tiles.

You do have access to coastal clams, however, if you settle two tiles West-Southwest of your proposed location. If you settle there, you get fresh water, the ability to build levies, and enough food to work the gold AND the grassland hill. If you keep the forests to build lumbermills, you'll have an excellent mid- to late-game shipyard. Especially if there's iron in one of the unforasted tiles in the BFC, and you allow the forests to spread to the others. If there's more seafood south of the clams, then you wouldn't have to build a single farm in that location.

In addition, settling two tiles West-Southwest of your proposed location would allow you to use the plains cow for a city two tiles East of your proposed location, which make another decent commerce city, especially if there's seafood down there as well.

 

[JBossch]

grabbing a plains cow is definitely not worth settling one away from coast. go two tiles West-southwest as darkfyre says.

 

[DigitalBoy]

Settling a tile away from the coast isn't always a bad thing, but I'd settle near the coast here for the sake of that clam tile.

 

[Airefuego]

Yes, coast

another option to grab the cow later is with a city that also takes the northern wheat.

 

[AlessioCerci]

Another vote for West-Southwest of your suggested location.

 

[Johan^^]

Settling off the coast by 1 title is no problem. The problem in your case is the food.

A city with the clam+ gold+river is way better than your spot. This could become a very powerfull city.

I´ll rather say... settling 1 title off a river is a no go in BTS. Health bonus and Leeves rock

 

[madscientist]

Another vote for SSW. You get teh seafood, fresh water, 2 hills, no mountains and still have the gold/insence.

 

[Gliese 581]

I vote SSW..

Edit: I meant WSW of course, west side of river.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

1 tile from the coast is a good rule to follow, but sometimes it can be broken. I've founded a few cities off the coast, but I don't do it often. In this case, it's definitly not worth it. Get the clams instead of the cows, you'll be glad you did.

 

[CivCorpse]

I vote one NE of the clams. but after you settle a city SW of the corn to block it from the AI who is more likely to settel closer to themselves. You share the Gold tile but you can alternate using it to let each city grow without losing the loot. The corn city also crabs the cows (Eat mor chikin). It will have the corn,cows and 3farmable grasslands before CS. With Sp you can workshop that pile of plains and preSP you can wotk a few workshops and the mined hill. Or the gold hill.

 

[Lanstro]

also the w-sw position is cheaper maintenance wise

 

[MrCynical]

There are occasions when settling one tile from the coast is worth doing, particularly if you only catch one or two water tiles in the city radius. This however is not one of them, as the location highlighted simply isn't very strong compared to the coastal alternatives.

WSW has a lot of advantages. As well as being coastal it's on a river, giving an immediate health bonus and later allowing a levee. The clams will be immediately usable, whereas you'll have to wait for a border expansion to use the cows in the other location (which, as others have pointed out, is very short on high food tiles - plains cows are only +1 net food).

Finally the WSW site fits neatly with your capital location, whereas the other location will need a heavily overlapped city to avoid wasted tiles.

 

[Winth]

Shame on me. I settled as you suggested. Got it to quite a long game. I am, however, too passive when it comes to war... My "in-a-rush-built" army took Rome, vassalized Augustus, and then died when Kublai, Suryavarman and his two vassals (I hate this vassal system sometimes. An AI with several of them is a total runaway...) going after me.

I'm stopping playing Pangaea maps. :/