Turn Discussion

[Provolution]

Actually go north, would be better to meet someone, as I guess we are in the far south.
Secondly, we would have out two workboats. Thirdly, the Stonehenge also places us accurately on the map, which would be very helpful to get this game, prior to calendar.

 

[cav scout]

I think either way is fine. We will send our 2nd workboat in the other direction.

What are we doing on our micro? I know Earthling, RegentMan and myself all think we should be working the 2nd wheat. Does anyone have any thoughts on the plan I laid out?

 

[Earthling]

Yes, I do have thoughts, sorry I should have posted earlier to make clear again. But I do prefer working the wheat, it really seems the best option since we are not in fact rushing to a tech with the current decision against Stonehenge, and I really want to start expanding/getting settlers out, especially with that new possible "continent" we've just seen if it's more than just an island to colonize. So after the second workboat a settler at size 4/5 sounds good to me. It's ok to tech Mysticism as we could want monuments anyway but I would pick up sailing when we can, and I generally like heading the Writing => (Math/Aes/Alpha) route, though this could change depending on how/when foreign contact is made.

 

[cav scout]

I agree. Everyone else ok with my plan for the next few turns?

I'd love for some of the other team members to comment- it's way too early in the game for our discussion to be falling off! So fire away, your opinions are valued.
----------------------------------------------------------------

And since we are talking about settlers, where do we want to found our next city? I think the 4-city dotmap done by RegentMan based on TyBoy's plan is perfect for our home island: Dotmap for four cities on our island.

I think we should found our 2nd city on the red dot (5W of continuum). Our 3rd city should probably be on the new island somewhere if we can get a galley in time.

 

[Earthling]

Yeah, it might be a little too bad now that we decided against Stonehenge that we didn't have time to go with a quick galley build (mostly, instead of the second workboat) though the two exploring workboats can't hurt too much, and they should get a lot of exploring in. I of course agree input and discussion is welcome as we go off exploring the world and especially if we make contact soon, but for now finishing the workboat => settler sounds like a decent plan (warrior or part of a warrior to get us to size 4/5 if that's how our cap works out of course, before the settler)

I am happy with either a four-city or three-city plan for settling our island, the second city gets wheat+silver regardless so it should be strong, and we'll have to see what we could get out in time to settle a third or fourth city on the other island/continent. Then we still have a lot of decisions to make - what to tech past the core techs like Writing, how much military we could use and maybe what wonders to pursue, not to mention diplo/trade.

Anyone want me to be updating our test scenario to where we are currently and the new exploration, or are we good with it?

 

[TyBoy]

The red and green cities are both going to be so strong I think we'd be crazy not to get them built quickly. With two wheats each and a nice mix of flatlands and hills they'll each be pulling their own weight in no time.

Are we still researching mysticism? With both of them getting a wheat upon border pop I think we'll want to chop a monument or library in those two right away. If not mysticism we shouldn't dilly dally about picking up writing.

In my experience there's little if anything gained in sending out a settler to found a city quickly compared to waiting a while until you can send a couple workers out with that settler to improve bonus resources and chop a little bit right away.

P.S. Red is obviously the stronger of the two with that silver available before a border pop.

 

[Earthling]

Yeah, we'd certainly get another worker or two before spamming cities three and four. The second city is good to go with getting wheat+silver as soon it can though imo.

One other thing to point out - the green city doesn't really need a monument at all, as the capital's culture brings in both that plains hill tile (possible copper/iron?) and it's other wheat. So when the time comes it's fine on just a granary/library. But we would build a monument in city #2, don't see why not. I could see settling two cities on our island before going overseas but I think strong expansion is what we'll have going for us so we do want to be ready to do whatever we can down the line to secure land. Remember the estimates on total land area - about 20 times the size of our island, but also each other team probably has an island about the same size, so not too much left in the end.

Edit: Also, here is an alternate 3-1/2 or 4 city plan. Mostly the distinction is a stronger second city (third city is the same) while the fourth would really be more filler. Though in some ways due to total food and all our fourth city either way would be a bit weaker.

Spoiler :

 

[cav scout]

I still prefer TyBoy's 4-city plan, with our 2nd city going to the red dot. I think that one open plains might have horses.

 

[Earthling]

Yeah, I'm really fine with either plan, and I think that's a possibility too. Was just posting that for reference. Anyway I do think that no matter the minutae I like settling 2 cities on our home continent and then getting the fourth one overseas, and we'll go from there.

 

[galdarian]

Based on the length of the river on the 2nd land mass it appears the map has been edited heavily. I'm not too fussed on the optimal positioning of the cities themselves. I think both plans have there merits. I do think we should be settling city #3 on the second land mass.

 

[TyBoy]

They both seem fine to me. Bottom line you just want each one to have a decent amount of food. The 4th one is definitely going to be a bit more filler no matter how you do it, the island just isn't that big.

You're right about that southern city, the 2nd border pop from our capital will pick up everything important that needs, I missed that.

 

[RegentMan]

Hmmm the 3.5 city dotmap doesn't look too bad. Any significant advantages/disadvantages?

 

[Earthling]

They are kinda similar and as mentioned I sort of have to agree the fourth city either way doesn't get too many food resources. Main difference in the 3.5 map is cities are a little less spread out over water - only that last one really gets much ocean, though most coast is covered all around regardless. It's settling the second city on the plains hill + having more resources that means the second city would grow quicker. The second city on that corner plains is rather food poor so it would pretty much have to have both wheat (remember spices will improve for 3 4 I think)

I think with the main/current 4 city plan we have a strong incentive to build Maoi statues on our homeland island in one of them, probably less so than the 3.5 plan though we'll see what's overseas.

Anyway however we settle, I think I am still in favor of two more cities on our home island before overseas. We'd just grow/tech quicker, and still it's not like we'd be way behind with getting overseas. We'd also be more able to send the fourth city out further/claim a distant crucial resource spot or something; if just one other city on the home island the third city overseas it would probably be like that closer crab site.

 

[cav scout]

I think the red dot location (5W of continuum) is the best spot for our 2nd city:

*It will have access to 2 wheats, 1 spice and 1 silver. The wheats can be irrigated easily when we gain that ability down the road.

*Good chance it will also have access to horses on that open plains tile.

*Will allow a culture bridge for ships to get to the coastal tiles to the NW after the first border pop.

*Good spot for Maoi.

 

[TyBoy]

I think you're right. When I posted that I didn't think it made any difference I had forgotten about the border pop likely opening up a new island to us, which may actually be a pretty big deal.

If the map is as I'm envisioning it, that island to the northwest may even contain another civ. In that case controlling that cultural bridge would be an important defensive move.

 

[Arakhor]

I think that crowding a fourth city in on our little island might be pushing it a bit as regards to space.

 

[cav scout]

I think that crowding a fourth city in on our little island might be pushing it a bit as regards to space.

I disagree. I think we can get 4 decent cities on our island. And I also think we should make the most use of any land on the map- there might not be that much to go around. Plus cities on our island will be close to our capitol and won't suffer from overseas maint.

Now this doesn't mean we have to fill our island up first before founding cities on other island. The 3rd and 4th cities can wait a bit while we claim lands further out.

 

[cav scout]

Here is a breakdown of tile allocation for the 4-city plan. The yellow F's show where we need farms to spread irrigation. The land tile usage for each city is indicated (but we will swap tiles around between cities as we are growing to full potential of course). The food surplus listed is post-irrigation, pre-bio:

Continuum- Commerce/Production/Wonder focus
2x irrigated wheat plains
1x spice grassland
2x silver grass hill mine
2x grass hill mines
1x plains hill mine
4x grassland cottages
1x grassland farm
Surplus of 4 (7 post-bio)

Red Dot City- Production focus
2x irrigated wheat plains
1x spice grassland
1x silver grass hill mine
1x plains hill mine
1x horse pasture plains???
2x plains farm
Surplus of 5 (9 post-bio)

Green Dot City- Production focus
2x irrigated wheat plains
4x grass hill mines
1x plains hill mine
2x grassland farms
Surplus of 4 (8 post-bio)

Purple Dot City- Commerce focus
4x spice grasslands
1x plains hill mine
1x grassland cottage
Surplus of 4 ...Also: Is that an invisible whale 2W of the dot???

 

[Earthling]

Yeah, that's weird. Can't think of any resource that would be revealed except oil but surely it doesn't do that?

Anyway, I am liking this plan now, and for agreement we can go with it - I would settle cities two and three and then cities off island before the 4th, purple city though. Specialize city three in production; let city four have the spices for commerce I guess when it is up and running, and city do is viable for Maoi. Anyway, we're still strong early with wheat and silver and all so can't go too wrong.

Thanks for the input. Again, if you want a test save (would need updating) but I think it's in the Starting Position thread.

 

[TyBoy]

It's important that it's pretty late in the game before your cities can get well into the double digits population wise due to happiness and whatnot, so while a 3 city setup would cover a lot of the squares on the island, the land there can support 4 solid cities at/near the happiness cap for a lot of the game.