Where would you settle?

[Gocho]

In place for sure, that will be a fantastic cottaged capitol with what should be a strong 2nd city with 2 food resources + river + whatever is hidden.

 

[gallego]

Personally I "can't seem to get away from" in-place. You got the plains hill, 13 cottages, trade route bonuses equivalent to a couple more cottages, coastal for more health, good surplus food, good production. Then coast/hills/cows/wheat appears to be a good production or hybrid site.

One other benefit from in-place would be that the food in the north can be used by another city to feed all the plains tiles.

 

[Cabay Jet]

That might get you some desert or desert hill tiles to the east of the lake, from the looks of it..

I'm thinking there may be 2 more flood plains and a hill back there judging by the way that river runs and the looks of the fog, but I could be wrong...

 

[vicawoo]

I just tested the sheep, you don't get 3 food. It's min(2,f)+bonus,min(2,p)+bonus, don't know about commerce. Since sheep doesn't get the food bonus when settled, that's probably the worst choice, since you lose the fresh water bonus.

I'd say 2N1E and settling in place are strong contenders, but I'd go with settling in place for the early game bonus. The other one has a little more food (if GP farm) and less sickness and more cottage tiles and river for levee, the original has fresh water, 1 extra turn, production bonus, coast access (trade routes and harbor are significant).
I guess the other has irrigated wheat, which should speed up settlers.

 

[Belisar]

Settling in place would be my suggestion for both short term and long term benefits.
Short term you have enough food, decent commerce from early cottages and enough production from stone, hills and chops.
Long term you have a good health situation and decent commerce potential.
The ideal coastal city for a non-financial leader has just 2 coast tiles, here we come close with just 3, one of it is a food bonus.
This makes up for the the 2,3 additional cottages one would get if heading inland in the long run.
This capital has a big fat mark on it crying "run bureaucracy and build great lighthouse and/or ToA here"

The additional food ressources north can be used by another city as someone has already pointed out.

 

[Babibo]

As xanadux said, what a start ! And some bad advice too.

I'd like to point out that the first decision factor for settling a capital is how much production you'll get to build your first worker and your first settler. When you are building a worker, or a settler, your city (well... your whole empire, in fact) doesn't grow. If you can build it one turn earlier, it's almost one turn earned for the rest of the game. Since the first turns are played very fast, we tend to forget how important they are...

Settling on a plains hill, or on stone gives you 1 more . With this single , you can earn 3 turns on Epic speed for you first worker, and even more with you settler. If you can ever settle on a marble-covered plain hill, do it. You'll have a very easy game then...

I would settle in place, or on the stone (stone in itself isn't a very good tile, IIRC, and you'll be happy to have it hooked up as soon as you have masonry to start the pyramids right away). My first build would probably be a work boat.

 

[xanadux]

What leader do you have? That can make a difference too.

Oh, BTW everybody, I apologize for being rude in my earlier post.

 

[Cabledawg]

Im a big fan of having a capitol with above average production. I would settle on the stone. The early production of workers and settlers, which someone else mentioned, combined with the number of hills and cow seems like a no brainer to me.

 

[McGoo]

I would also vote for settling in place. Settling on Stone would lose the fresh water bonus=less cottages to work. There will be a most likely a very good city location 5N, which will be on a river and have wheat and cows. Also, moving to the stone or north at all you lose out on all those beautiful forests. chopy-chopy.

I don't know if the OP every said what level this is...if it is lower lever the fresh water isn't as big as deal.

Something else to keep in mind is that the computer does tend to put hidden resources in the BFC of your starting location. That bare grassland hill looks kind-of yummy that way.

This should be a great capital city - enough production to get started and plenty of coinage for research.

 

[6K Man]

Great to read the comments and the rationale for each.

I tend to agree that settling on the spot makes sense. It's a plains hill for the extra hammer with access to stone, sheep, clams and what, 5 FP? Plus an inland lake which isn't bad for food and trade, either. And no turns are wasted moving. The city will grow fast with no lack of production.

The riverside hill to the NW is the obvious spot for city #2.

Thanks for the theoretical exercise.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

nice start. my old eyes can't tell which civ you're playing from the save. my initial thought was 2S of the wheat. I'm tired and need to sleep, but I'll be back. Nice question. Maybe one W of the current settler place, but I need to look first. In place is sweet, but do you really need that strong a capitol?

 

[50_dollar_bag]

I don't know if the OP every said what level this is...if it is lower lever the fresh water isn't as big as deal.

I've loaded it up and played it mostly through, It's Emperor, Hemispheres East/West 6 opponents, Aggressive AI.

Spoiler :

There's a S@#tload more floodplains to the East

 

[Calder]

If you settle in place you're lacking in production compared to settling on the stone which should give the same 2F 2P city square benefits. The stone site will enable you to have 2 mined plains hills +1 grassland hill, which all can easily be worked with 4 cottaged floodplains, wheat, plains cows, plains hill sheep and clams. One monster of a capital!

 

[Jet]

Settling in place means the capital can't work the cows or the wheat. That's way too big a price to pay for the single hammer you get for settling on a plains hill.

I would not agree with that in general, but I would agree for::

* right at the beginning. You're Gilgamesh. You can go Worker/AH and grow and pump starting units very efficiently.

* if you want a specialist capital. Maybe you're a specialist kind of guy, or maybe you want to build the Pyramids, or maybe you just want to exploit the cluster of food resources.

...

Regarding that tile, I'm surprised nobody has explicitly mentioned any of the stone wonders. One tile of road is OK, but quarries are time-consuming. If I felt like an Obsolete GW/Pyramids game I'd settle 1N and leave all 4 forests.

Spoiler :

Actually, that would be an interesting choice for this game. I might just have to try that.

Spoiler :

Ragnar has the highest "build unit parameter" of any AI, and you wouldn't be running his favorite civic. I've tried Emperor+ Obsolete games with Aggressive AI and Shaka or the like nearby, and the result is always

Spoiler :

a stack of Swordsmen up my butt in 1000 BC.

Of course you could Chariot rush him first, but then it wouldn't count as an Obsolete game. It would also (please excuse my arrogance here) be way too easy and boring.