Where to put my second city

[yellan]

Hello everyone! I've just picked Civ 4 back up after a good few years but it was always my favorite in the series. That is not to say I'm terribly good at it, though.

I settled in place for my first city, a nice spot I must say, and there are some good options for where to place the second... but I am stumped as to the most optimal choices. I welcome any and all suggestions!

 

[jnebbe]

I'd probably build it right above the barb bear since you'll get 3 food in the fat cross and you could start improving the farm immediately. Normally you'd want to look for copper or iron or maybe horses, idk if you have those techs yet or if there's just none in your area

 

[lymond]

Did you tech BW yet? That's really what you should be teching now. fishing not doing much for you at present. Which Persian are you?

If you knew saw the fish before settling I might have settled 1E on the gold.

You have a few choices here. I like 3 spots just SE...all would work but I don't see all the map. Starting 1SE of the Gold tile (1NW of cows), you could settle that tile or each of the 2 tiles S of that tile. Each spot gets an instant trade route and the second border pop would give the city the fish too. The first two spots can use the cows, while the lowest spot can work corn immediately. Working corn immediately is probably the best, but that corn could be used for another city farther S, but I can't see what is down there. Regardless, either of those cities spots are immediately productive and connected.

Another interesting option is 2N of the gold N of cap. The idea here is that this city works the gold indefinitely until borders can be popped later for fish and corn. Less productive city early on but keeps a gold working early which is huge boost to commerce and tech. There are some forest next to the spot for chopping at least. (Nice spot to work gold early as cap won't be able to work all that gold while whipping stuff and running scientist later.)

Those are the first spots that come to mind for me. Something over to the E with corn and all those flood plains make for a great Bureau cap.

Probably 3 or 4 spots in that area to the SW/W/NW of Cap that can be settled at your leisure.

Oh..and knowing where copper is would really help...Not sure I see horses either.

Edit: On second thought for that N city you could ignore that fish and actually settle on the tile the bear is on. It's a Plains hill with immediate access to corn and then city can work a gold as well. Fish is in the ocean and can be accessed by a number of spots. You might get it later with a city to the E of it, or Joao settles over there first and you don't get it any way cause he beats you to border pop. 1E of corn is the better option really.

Might actually settle that first to get corn improved and work a gold faster, as the city will actually be pretty productive. Then another city to the SE)

why do you have two scouts and not one warrior?

 

[yellan]

@lymond Thank you so much for detailing your thought process, this is really helpful. Seems like you are not worried about wasting the pigs? Or would you cram another city at the very top of that landmass later on?

I am Darius. I do have Bronze Working. There is one bronze to the southeast by a bunch of furs. No horses anywhere to be seen. I expect you're right about fishing not being the best choice of tech. I hit the obvious ones and then got excited to just pick something and explore more.

 

[lymond]

Oh..yeah...pigs for another city up there. As said, you have 3 or 4 cities on the full strip of land on the West side, or including the island up there. Basically when it comes to strong food resources like food, fish, pigs...consider each one a new city.

Copper is a bit far away but probably a city 1NW of it at some point. Not great food..basically a "resource" city, but it does have some production with copper+deer at least.

Not sure what level this is, but since you won't have a strategic online anytime soon you need some fog busters out there.

Still not sure how you got 2 scouts unless you are playing with huts on.

If you had BW, I'd probably chop the first settler before improving anything else. Seems like you should have at least 1 warrior built though while city was growing.

 

[lymond]

Ah..yes..looking at water tiles I coulda easily seen you were playing Darius. If you have BW, Fish is not bad at all really. You might go GLH anyway, and it opens up sea tiles for commerce. Like that lake can be use for better growth and some commerce early.

oh..another thing I meant to consider with a city to the SW is access to one of those golds...1NW or 1W of cow allows city to work gold eventually.

 

[yellan]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking re: the Fishing -- maximize the tiles I could work.

I do have huts on. And it's Noble.

I'm not sure what you mean by this: "Not sure what level this is, but since you won't have a strategic online anytime soon you need some fog busters out there."

I mean, I've read about fog busting and how that works but I don't know what you are saying I am lacking. Apart from Warriors. I can build some now for sure.

 

[earthy]

I'm greedy, so I would probably be tempted to settle near the corn/floodplains and block off joao from all that goodness.

 

[lymond]

Well, you should be okay on Noble, but I'm talking about barbs. Eventually they will become a problem but I think you can bust things pretty well here early. A unit will fog bust a 5X5 tile area from the tile it stands on.

So you popped a scout from a hut? (most here don't play with huts/events on) Whatever you do..ha..don't build scouts.

That is a great city, earthy! On Noble he should be able to get it even though Joao is one of the faster expanders.

Honestly, with my first warrior I'd be running up to steal all his EXP workers

 

[yellan]

No scout building, got it I've always liked the huts and events but I can see where they wouldn't fit in well with planning everything out.

@earthy I know, right? I don't want him to have all that. Might have to just steal it later. Too bad I don't have horses.

 

[lymond]

Events are annoying to me, and most don't like huts as a) it skews the game b) become basically irrelevant for IMM/Deity players..you are just feeding them to the AIs anyway. Not good for learning either.

I mean, one game your Scout gets a little gold and maybe another scout while a warrior steps into a hut and pops 4 or 5 barbs..woohoo!..while the next game you pop IW or Horse Back Riding....very very different results.

Post your start save

 

[yellan]

Here's the start save. I am using the BAT mod.

Edit: and an image of the start.

As you can see, the scout was off to the west so the fish wouldn't be revealed. But, would it be better to move 1W after the scout revealed the marble, or stay in place?

 

[lymond]

Posted a bit of early play here:

Spoiler :

Kinda silly on noble but at least give you an idea of what I did here. Really on this level I would have expanded much faster. Stole a worker from Joao, and as you can see nerfed him to the dark ages. I would have stolen more if I had IMMs or an Axe online sooner. I think he popped a warrior from a hut which was hovering around my borders too, but once he had archers that was too dangerous especially with settling so close. Well, if I had early IMM, Joao would be dead..ha.

GLH slowed me down some as well and the fact that Pers is not great for whipping. But that is GLH anyway..build it and then expand like crazy. Island to NW is definitely next grab for boosted trade routes and hope to find China's border for all those juicy foreign trade routes with GLH. ( I would have had my scout wb over there sooner but scouted island first and with worker nab from Joao I could not move that way so had to backtrack all the way around.

Flood plains city is fantastic and goal will be to move Palace there for Bureau, and I'm close to CS already. Used free mish from CoL to spread to new fish city for free border pop...usually scout with free mishes but that is not needed here.

Qin was teching Alpha which I've had for some time. With currency I can tell that he is teching it by checking trades, so just gave it to him for 40g.

With all this good land I'd like to have more cities by now. I will kill Joao soon probably with just axes. He's so boxed in..ha..granted he could send settlers out on boats.

I recommend just playing standard map size for now while learning. Playing larger maps does not help you.

ha..I popped one hut since the scout was on the W side and I scouted that area first. By the time I got over there, Joao had popped an extra scout and a warrior and cleaned any huts that may have been over there. I did get the Wheel.

 

[yellan]

Wow, this is awesome, thank you! I am heading for bed as it's an early morning but I very much look forward to checking this out in more detail tomorrow.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Edit: On second thought for that N city you could ignore that fish and actually settle on the tile the bear is on. It's a Plains hill with immediate access to corn and then city can work a gold as well. Fish is in the ocean and can be accessed by a number of spots. You might get it later with a city to the E of it, or Joao settles over there first and you don't get it any way cause he beats you to border pop. 1E of corn is the better option really.

Might actually settle that first to get corn improved and work a gold faster, as the city will actually be pretty productive. Then another city to the SE)

Yes, this is city 2 for me as well (1E of northern corn). City 3 shares another gold tile from the capital, going 1W of the southern plains cows, or NW of the cows.

The idea is that your capital produces +7 food from pigs and sheep but -6 from 3 gold mines : you need some sharing to allow growth.
So : cities 2 and 3 grow to size 2 on their food, take the gold, start a worker.

re : gold tiles : since they hamper growth so much, it's probably best to grow Persepolis before they are improved.
Hence : delay the first settler until after Persepolis has grown to size 3 or even 4. (Doesn't hurt to work gold when building settlers/workers.)