WOTM 03 First spoiler

[Vatec]

Challenger, Goal: Fastest Diplomacy Victory (which may turn into just surviving)

SNIP

Bad move: I only have 5 workers, thinking I wouldn’t need that many as it will be hard to expand and I could just capture them when I start warring. Now I’m working lots of unimproved squares as this is a hard area to upgrade. (I was impressed to see some folks do early worker steals; I stopped doing that after we switched to Warlords; guess I need to rethink it again.)

SNIP

It's definitely a crap shoot. You have to pick the victims carefully. Both Cyrus and Ramesses are pretty good targets, since they are basically "builder" personalities rather than "fighter" personalities. Even with them, if you wait too long to ask for peace (I got away with stealing a Worker from Cyrus and pillaging a Farm almost every time, but when I tried leading one of his Archers on a merry chase across the East in an attempt to slow down his settling of the Copper spot, he refused to consider peace thereafter) it gets iffy. Basically, if they think they're stronger than you are, and you've allowed the "this war spoils our relationship" penalty to get out of hand, you've got yourself a lifelong enemy. If you sue for peace early enough or actually defeat them convincingly in battle, you'll probably be OK. Every time I've stolen Cyrus' Worker and sued for peace quickly enough, he's ended up being my Hindu brother and one of my closest friends anyway. Go figure.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Also, on this level I’m not used to being behind in tech after Alphabet, so I wasted some time building granaries with all the resources nearby, which should have been spent building military; had I skipped that, I could have hurt them critically before they got to Longbows. Seeing Axemen and War Elephants roaming around also dissuade me until the future, if ever, as they are the research masters right now. My goal now is to hopefully get to Macemen first and get others to join me in a routing of the Egyptians. Alternatively I may go after Persia, but that doesn’t help me stop Egypt from running away from the rest of us. Too bad I can’t just switch to Egypt’s religion and end up being on the winning team.

I'm starting to think that hesitating to attack the AI can be a mistake. I finally completed and submitted my game yesterday (it was a loss, but after 500AD so no details here). After doing that, I went back to my earliest post-4000BC save to see if I could do anything differently. The save was 360BC, I'd completed the Oracle and founded my 3rd city. In the actual game at that point I was fanatically building archers to defend myself with if I got invaded, while waiting till I got cats before I actually went on the attack. In the replay I just took the risk of leaving my cities with marginal defence and headed off towards Egypt with my stack of units as soon as I had two gallic warriors (plus some archers and two chariots). Played to 500AD and by that point I'd pretty much destroyed Egypt as a major force. I was still behind in techs but now had the kind of solid base, with 8 good cities, that I'd expect to get a fairly easy victory on.

Definitely a bit galling to realise that I probably had after all started with a very workable strategy, which could well have got me a victory (rare in this Wotm?), but I threw it away in the 300BC-500AD period by being too protective of my own borders.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

3) I guess I can see how a non-traditional start strains credibility but it's still a little unfair to make a blanket assertion regarding the ethics of other players. I play competitive bridge and I feel the concepts of "Active Ethics" apply in all endeavors.

In defense of that poster, I posted my spoiler his after so I know he didn't single me out I'm a little embarrassed at the implication, but I think my past radical history speaks for itself <grin>. I'm not exactly crushing the game like the 'simulated cheater', either - lol.

That was me and re-reading it, I do kinda regret saying that now, it came across as more suspicious than I intended. I think partly I was picking up on the general theme at that point in the thread where IIRC there had been a couple of throwaway comments about 'cheaters' and partly some of the discussion of the map was leading me to idly ponder in my own head the relationship between what a map might normally lead people to do and how you might do things differently if you had foreknowledge and whether that's something that could be used (in a statistical sense, not in a singling-out-individuals sense) to estimate whether reloads are going on etc.

 

[A'AbarachAmadan]

It's definitely a crap shoot. You have to pick the victims carefully.

But certainly still viable. In Vanilla, I still consider building a warrior to be almost the same as building a worker as I'll just go get one. With the worker don't move right away and improved AI now it is certainly a finesse move. It really can grind an AI to a halt.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

With the worker don't move right away and improved AI now it is certainly a finesse move. It really can grind an AI to a halt.

Yet in my game I stole *two* workers off Egypt. One almost right away - built a warrior first of all and marched him straight to where my scout was watching the the worker. Then a second in I think ~ 2000-1500BC, when Egypt appeared to have two cities (at least: that I could see, I don't think I ever checked the diplomacy screen to see if there were others). And Egypt still ran away in the pre-500BC period as the major local power. (I think it was those flood plains). Cyrus may have been more badly effected by the one worker I stole from him - he remained smallish for most of the game, though it's hard to tell what the precise causes were.

I agree that in Warlords, capturing a worker does take a fair bit more care.

 

[Gnejs]

Having played up to the 1100s I now think I have a good shot at actually winning this game. The details will be saved to the next spoiler thread, but I think one of the reasons for successfully climbing out of the hole that had been dug for us was that I pressed the attack against the AIs despite being way behind in both tech and production. This is something I learned from my one-city challenge in WOTM2 - you don't need to have more or better troops than the enemy, what you do need is enough strength to bring down the defences of and capture one single city and enough production to replace eventual losses. Then it is just a matter of capturing city after city and slowly eroding the AIs military strength. The latest patch seems to have further emphasized the AIs tendency stay inside the cities and hence divide its strength, while I as the attacker can focus on one city at a time.

 

[Airny]

I played till what is above this threads limitation, but I have to say I am really annoyed about this damn vassal-****.
Everytime I wanted to beat someone down, he got a vassal of "someone else" and I had to stop war or even had war with a stronger AI.
Without vassals I would have had no problem to get half the continent, but now I'm in big trouble.
Any hints on how to avoid others to take influence by making the weak a vassal?

 

[Harok]

Well I just exited the game (without saving) frustrated only to come here and realize I should have saved and kept going as I guess I was doing better than most and may have been able to win an award finally.

I had planned for a domination win using pretty much the same strategy as the last GOTM and get an early alphabet, Feudalism from Oracle, and use Horse Archers and Knights for conquering instead of our UU swords as I hate going to IW early unless it is for the dominant Roman UU. This led me to racing for the closest horse which was by all the elephants. I quickly started falling behind on techs and the Oracle was built before I could even start researching Priesthood. I switched my strategy to head for Cats and Elephants as fast as I could, when I saw Ramses's Longbows in something like 800BC. Apparently he did the Feudalism slingshot I wanted.

When he started building a wonder every 5 turns or so I decided (stupidly) that I had to do something about him before he ran away with the game so I positioned my stack of around 5 elephants and 5 cats near his capital and declared. I tried cultivating some friends to join me but had zero luck as everyone hates me. Shaka was calling me his worst enemy basically as soon as I met him and he was +1 with me.

I bombarded Ramses capital down to 0% culture bonus and then suicided all my cats and attacked with my elephants. I managed to take it and now owned all (perhaps 1 was in another city but most were there) his wonders. I then created a new stack and headed towards his other monster city. I bombarded it down again and suicided all my cats again and then attacked only to lose heavily favored attack after attack. I only managed to kill a couple of his LBs and then I noticed he upgraded a couple of his units to maces.

He would give me all his gold for peace but none of his 5 techs that he was up on me. I was fairly close to the other AIs in tech however.

I was lightly defended everywhere, my entire attacking force was wiped out and I gave up at this point, I think it was just a few turns after 500AD.

I think if I had gone for Cyrus first I could have taken his land with my cats and elephants which might have given me enough of a production base to try Egypt later although at the rate he was teching it might not have mattered anyway.

EDITED to add the fun fact that I lost my initial scout to a panther while in a jungle on like turn 5 before it met anyone.

 

[sukadi]

This is my first time at a GOTM.
I settled in place and built a worker first. Tried to found Hindu, got it . Next research was Mining à BW à Priesthood à Writing. My first worker poped out at the same turn I had mining, so his only job is to build mines. After the 3rd mines had been built, BW was finished, and my worker started chopping. By working on 2 mines and a clear-cut around Bibracte, I managed to build 1 settler, Stonehenge and Oracle.
While my settler was still under production, Cyrus founded a city near that copper(Grrr). When I finally got my settler, I decided to settle towards Ramses and sat on the stone. With the help of religion and a free monument granted by Stonehenge, Vienne maintained its inner circle. Since there are no food resource around and I can’t build a farm(I don’t even have the technology), the only thing that city built were workers and settlers. In fact, my original plan was to build the Great Pyramid there, but it’s too late when I had masonry, so I just gave up that plan.
Oracle finished at the same turn when I researched writing, and Alphabet was my choice for free tech. After 2 rounds of tech exchange, I got most of the tech I need. But no one is willing to give IW now, and I don’t want to give out alphabet too early. Since I can build archers now, I decided to take a chance not to research IW by myself, and started researching Literature and Drama.
Since there are two wonders in Bibracte, it didn’t take too long to pop my first Great Prophet. Of course, spent him to build a shrine. Very soon, all civs on this continent except Spanish, founder of Judaism, were brothers and sisters in the faith of Hindu, helping me push my research slider back to 100%. But I didn’t claim Hindu as my state religion until Hannibal asked me to do so.
My scout revealed most areaes on this continent and contacted 5 other civs. He found 2 goodie huts. The fist one gave me a warrior and the second granted my scout 5xp, making him a lvl 4 unit.
My 3rd city is 1W of the corn. 2 food resources and 6 mines make this coastal city a great military power house. And later, iron poped out in its fat cross, making the city even better. My 4th city settled 1W of the river mouth and 5th NE of the gem.
When I finished researching Literature and Drama, I give out Alphabet, in exchange of Mathematics, IW and all other early techs that I missed. And then I started researching Music and cutting jungles like crazy.
I was the first one finishing Music and I also built GL in Bibracte My 2nd GP poped out during that time and I lightbulbed Theology. And then, I got Cal, CoL, Horseback Riding and Monarchy by tech exchange.
Now it’s AD 20, the most advanced AI is Ramses, the only one who has Feudalism. But I have 2 unique techs: Theology and Music, and Construction is only 10 turns away.
The biggest problem now is that I don’t have enough defense forces. I didn’t even build 1 single warrior, the only military unit I have at hand is the warrior poped from a hut. I wish Izzy won’t declare war against me at my weakest time. Maybe it’s time to whip some GWs now.

 

[MikeH]

Readung this thread, three things occur to me.

1. Y din't feel too baad aboit my owm poor performance.

2. This probably wasn't the best map for my first attempt at Momarch

3. We're probaly in for the shortest final spoler thread in GoTM history

 

[Dill]

This was tough - glad I'm not the only one to suffer!

Some of yuo may recall my dismal effort last time round - as a result I decided that I'd need to take a more warlike stance and make use of the Gallic Warrior

So, I built on site, and researched mining then BW in the hope I could find some copper asap.

I also figured that I need to rush cities as last time round I was stuck with 1 for a major part of the game - so I took a risk with a warrior/settler production with the hope that I could defend with one warrior until I got going...

Sent the scout around - found the coast and headed south/east

Lose the scout to a panther - wtf!

Mmm, copper down south - must get it!

Cyrus gets close to the copper - but not in his city range...

Use my settler to build Vienne on the coast at the mouth of the river - figure once I develop IW (which is next) I can chop away.. Get Vienne on the path to a warrior/monument to get the copper into my range. That means the wheel is after IW.

Iron on the land to the west - mmmm boats going to be needed - but that will have to wait... meantime, a city on the west coast will keep the iron in my hands.... nope Ragnar has found it and put a city on top... doh!

Copper is now mine, and Gallic warriors begin... hope it not too late to protect myself...

Tech trading nets a nice bounty... gotta keep that up.

Ok. Now that I'm hemmed in, is there a target for these warriors... Ragnar has my iron, is small, and poorly defended... time to put together those galleys and a few forces...

At 500AD i'm still last by a fair margin, but I seem to be fairly safe in my little pocket of the world...

 

[ToxicBones]

1810 BC: Egypt completed stonehenge :/

 

[starbolt]

That was me and re-reading it, I do kinda regret saying that now, it came across as more suspicious than I intended. I think partly I was picking up on the general theme at that point in the thread where IIRC there had been a couple of throwaway comments about 'cheaters' and partly some of the discussion of the map was leading me to idly ponder in my own head the relationship between what a map might normally lead people to do and how you might do things differently if you had foreknowledge and whether that's something that could be used (in a statistical sense, not in a singling-out-individuals sense) to estimate whether reloads are going on etc.

It's all good. No harm, no foul. I don't submit games anyway because my computer seems to crash on the HOF Mod with some regularity, so the issue would be moot in my case.

After I've played a game all the way through, I love to replay it ad nauseum to figure out if there was any way I could have divined the winning decisions from the information at hand at the time. So, in a few days, I'll probably be posting replays with the rest of y'all

 

[Don Vito]

Someone posted in the pre-game that they were going to settle in place unless they found features to the south that convinced them otherwise. I thought this prudent and I prefer settling on rivers over lakes since this can connect up resources before you get Wheel (had no idea when this would happen), so I moved the scout S and discovered the banana and move NE onto the hill out found the other spice.

Since I had no plans for researching Fishing or AH, I decided that settling 2 S of the start on the river was a decent option, so to be efficient with my settler moves I scouted SW with my settler and S to find more jungle. On turn 2, I moved the scout SW and SE and spotted the coast and saw that there was a ton of jungle so maybe Plan B wasn't going to be so good. However, this exposed the forested hill on the river and I got to thinking that moving to the isthmus and backfilling to my original start square (or conquering a barbarian city that popped up) might be my best expansionist policy; especially if there were good sea resources. So, resigned to having messed this thing up I boldly explored S & SE with my settler and found the fish, plains square and probable usable terrain E. On turn 3, scouting the forested hill SE exposed the Gems, so I opted to settle 1 square E on the coast.

sounds fishy. why on earth did someone want to move AWAY from the Cow reource ?
Well if you honestly did not know forehand that copper was there and Cyrus will beat you to it no matter what, then youre extreme lucky man.
But, to my nose these smell bit like "Ribannah tactics" from Civ3 Celts game.

 

[ngraner42]

My starting plan was to get AH and BW complete before getting my first Settler out, then found the second city near Copper or Horses. So I went Agriculture > AH > Mining > BW. Settler came out one turn before BW. Saw the Copper, moved toward it, and then saw Cyrus's culture near the city. Clearly they settled on the hill two squares away. No problem, I will just settle next to it. Then I had the horrible , but fortunate realization that there was jungle on the Copper. I sat back and thought it over and decided to found by the Horses, Rice and Elephants which is a great city site and would stake out some territory. The downside is of course the maintenance costs. I then bit the bullet and went forward with the 35 turns to IW.

I just built Warriors for defense. I had an idea that I could build Chariots with the Horses, but of course you need the Wheel . I figured that with cities on hills, I may get pillaged but warriors should hold the cities for a while. It worked out fine, IW in 1330BC and my third city next to the Copper in 1150BC. Started cranking out Axemen, Spearmen and Gaelic Warriors.

Declared war on Cyrus in 250BC. Captured 2 cities and would have made peace to wait for Catapults, but Cyrus still would not talk, so I pushed on to Persepolis and took the city at the expense of 4 units. Took one more city and made peace.

At this point I am way behind in tech, and the Egyptians are dominating the game. It was a scary sight when my Scout discovered Thebes:



But I have 7 cities, Cyrus is crippled, and in 40BC I have Catapults, so I figure I have a fighting chance.

At this point everyone is Hindu. Cyrus did go to Judaism for a while at one point. I think before the war and then flipped back after. I assume that I need to hit the Egyptians, but Shaka flips to Christianity and he has a city just to my East with a pile of Gems, so he draws the short straw. I get the Great Library in 125AD, my only wonder, and declare war just after that in 215AD. I capture 3 cities and raze 1, then capture his capitol in 500AD. I am still behind in tech, but have the manufacturing lead and hope to win. The one unknown is that there are 2 more civs out there that I don't know how well they are doing.

If you don't run into misfortune before IW, the start seems winable. With deference to Godotnut, who is a first tier player, I expect some of the top players to do their usual crushing of the AI. I also expect Godotnut to win. If you think your chances are 50%, thy are probably 90%.

 

[A'AbarachAmadan]

why on earth did someone want to move AWAY from the Cow reource?

From pre-game discussion: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4750165&postcount=34

I really like 2S as it then brings 6 hills into my capital, which would just be a ridiculous amount of construction capability

I think his move was the absolute best move from looking at the starting screen and if I'd moved my scout SE instead of SW it would have been a no brainer for me. I never even thought about settling in place since we were on a grass/hill. It would have to have far more in the crosshair for me to consider wasting the shields (though I love plains/hills for the extra hammers to start). My gut instinct was the best site by luck, though I didn't move there after moving my scout the wrong way and having a dumb idea. Long term effects often outway short term ones.

 

[starbolt]

why on earth did someone want to move AWAY from the Cow reource ?

I think I covered this pretty well in a subsequent post.

Neither AH nor Wheel were in my tech plan. Even moving just one S and settling on the spice gives you resource connections with other river resources and cities (it was possible that I'd settle another city further down the river) and given I was not going to develop the cow, the banana was just as good since I was going to develop IW to clear it. An undeveloped cow is worth only 2 more food than a plains and the extra 2 hammers from mining (in my tech plan) our start space compensates this. Even if copper shows up in your starting fat plus, I *still* think moving 2S is better to make that area less attractive for Cyrus to compete and settle that area.

Had I settled 2 S, I suspect I could have backfilled a city for the cow without competition and I'm still interested to hear if anyone else tried that strategy.

For what it's worth, you'll note that I settled the Iron city on the western island before I put that copper to use. Remove the copper resource entirely and perhaps I lose a few turns but nothing else really changes. Getting to the coast turned out to be far more valuable than the copper resource.

Lastly, I think a lot of top tier players got themselves in trouble by stealing the worker with this patch and both Cyrus and Ramses are equipped to punish you in the early game.

 

[Pudd'nhead]

sounds fishy. why on earth did someone want to move AWAY from the Cow reource ?
Well if you honestly did not know forehand that copper was there and Cyrus will beat you to it no matter what, then youre extreme lucky man.

He explained in his original post that he chose one plan to move south 2 squares, he decided he didn't like it, so he came up with a new plan for settling & moved south again, decided he didn't like that either, then changed plans a third time. He ddin't give a rational explanation for this last move except apparently that he felt he'd messed up so badly that it wouldn't hurt to mess up more?:

I moved the scout S and discovered the banana and move NE onto the hill out found the other spice. Since I had no plans for researching Fishing or AH, I decided that settling 2 S of the start on the river was a decent option, so to be efficient with my settler moves I scouted SW with my settler and S to find more jungle. On turn 2, I moved the scout SW and SE and spotted the coast and saw that there was a ton of jungle so maybe Plan B wasn't going to be so good. However, this exposed the forested hill on the river and I got to thinking that moving to the isthmus and backfilling to my original start square (or conquering a barbarian city that popped up) might be my best expansionist policy; especially if there were good sea resources. So, resigned to having messed this thing up I boldly explored S & SE with my settler and found the fish, plains square and probable usable terrain E. On turn 3, scouting the forested hill SE exposed the Gems, so I opted to settle 1 square E on the coast.

Yeah, it was serendipitous the copper turned up, since the reason he gave to settle there (gems) were buried under jungle (as well as the banana & most of the land, period) & not usable until he got M, BW, and then IW (and he said he had no interest in researching fishing). Even leaving that aside, giving away 3 turns on an overcrowded map (two extra civs) with aggressive AI on the improved patch would be a recipe for disaster 999,999 out of a million games IMO. He apparently just accidentally stumbled on the series of moves that got him to what only in hindsight can be seen as the optimal location location. I don't think there is any rational explanation for making that third move & settling amid all that useless, unhealthy jungle, & not just move back up (especially to use the cows, which I consider the el primo, so-obvious-its-brain-dead choice to settle a first city near if your civ already has hunting ...) except the one that he gave, that he just resigned himself to losing and out of some total lack of concern settled in a place that looked terrible at the time. I made the inital south scouting moves (with my scout), got into the jungle the first turn, & what I saw didn't make me hesitate about settling in place for even a millisecond. And if I did mvoe south for some reason, I don't see any reason I'd have stopped where he did, why not move one more time and settle on the other side of the jungle near the pigs & river plains. But then of course the copper would not have been in the fat cross.

FYI I am replaying now without using this gambit, settling in place & losing the copper to cyrus, but grabbing it from him later (going without iron/copper for over 3000 years), and in general not exploiting map knowledge much (though 100&#37; is impossible). I think it may be possible to win that way, I am just refining my original strategy slightly, played the first hundred or so turns almost the same, first two cities in same squares even, except I more tightly beelined to alphabet this time (got there before most civs even had writing) & then trading techs like a madman. But not making dumb mistakes this time liek the first. I think it may yet be POSSIBLE to win even if you stick to the choices that don't just make sense in hindsight. But that may be just my optimistic nature speaking again I'll post it to final spoiler if it works. My firtst try is not that interesting, I got piled on by even the civs I thought were (the advisor scree told me were) friends after 500 AD, but I'll detail that too ...

I'm actually enjoying this quite a bit, I think this was a successful GOTM, even if it is nigh impossilbe to win the first time. A real mix-it-up from the norm. Just want to say, no hard feelings at all for torturing us all like this!

 

[starbolt]

Well, this is pretty silly. If you can't concede that 2S is viable from the starting screenshot then you're not going to get it and you're simply not going to improve. Remove the copper and nothing in my game changes...

He explained in his original post that he chose one plan to move south 2 squares, he decided he didn't like it, so he came up with a new plan for settling & moved south again, decided he didn't like that either, then changed plans a third time. He ddin't give a rational explanation for this last move except apparently that he felt he'd messed up so badly that it wouldn't hurt to mess up more?:

Frankly, I didn't think anyone cared enough to want a play-by-play

the reason he gave to settle there (gems) were buried under jungle (as well as the banana & most of the land, period) & not usable until he got M, BW, and then IW (and he said he had no interest in researching fishing).

Re: Fishing - I adapted? Fish for a jungle city provide a health bonus and food to counter subsequent health. Under slavery, you're just whipping for production, anyway, including the workers to clear and the settler to backfill your vacated territory.

I thought settling the river for the fresh water bonus and trade connection possibility was self-evident. However, there was a jungle directly in the way, so I went around by way S/SE in order to facilitate my scouting since I was committed to 2 moves anyway. The scout move revealed that the gems and fish were in the fat plus and happy resources are invaluable in Monarch+ games. IW was always in the plan and the health penalty was going to give way to cottage spam. River cities in jungles invariably become science powerhouses.

And if I did *CHEAT* for some reason, I don't see any reason I'd have stopped where he did, why not move one more time and settle on the other side of the jungle near the pigs & river plains. But then of course the copper would not have been in the fat cross.

FYP.

FWIW - the pigs weren't visible and Cyrus was.

 

[Pudd'nhead]

starbolt, first: please don't quote me but then change one or two words so it looks like I said something I didn't. Not cool ...

Well, this is pretty silly. If you can't concede that 2S is viable from the starting screenshot then you're not going to get it and you're simply not going to improve. Remove the copper and nothing in my game changes...Frankly, I didn't think anyone cared enough to want a play-by-play

No I don't get it. But you didn't even respond to what I didn't get. It wasn't that you went 2S. It's that you kept on moving south for another two turns beyond that, & settled there. You say in your first post that you only made those 2nd & 3rd moves south because you were "resigned to having messed this thing up" anyway (meaning apparently you were already writing off the game?). But now apparently according to you there is a larger strategic wisdom in doing that & since I can't perceive it I can't "improve my game" & be as good as you?!?

Regarding a "play by play," ironically you already gave us one in your first post, detailing every keystroke you made those first 4 turns. That plus the screenshot you gave with the control-tab window open I think lets anyone reproduce all the relevant decisions you made in the first dozen turns at least. I sincerely want to improve my game, so I accepted that there was something to learn, and I took your game out to turn 39 -- here's what your city looked like if I'm right (corrrect me if not):

Spoiler :

I took my own in-place starting position out to the same turn to compare strategies, making some choices (e.g. building monument) to to make it easier to compare:

Spoiler :

Played to the same turn, I've built everything you have except the fishing boat, have done more research than you, have a worker that you are still 9 turns away from getting,, he has already improved two resource squares, and will finish a warrior as well & grow my city larger than yours within a couple turns, and will have much better options of how to put that next pop to work. I also have a lot more forest squares that I can chop -- and probably start chopping BEFORE you can even though I research BW later. When you get BW you won't even have a worker yet. Finally keep in mind I built a monument already so it couuld compare with what you did -- that was not the optimal choice IMO for my positon so my starting position can be (was) even better. In short you moved 3 turns on a crowded map with aggressive AI, only to plop your first city down in a fat cross where 10 of the 15 land squares are jungle/mountain, so much jungle that it couldn't grow past size 3 without becoming unhealthy, even with the fish, & with only one other unimproved square (forest) able to produce more than 2 food+shield in the entire fat cross.

You said "remove the copper and nothing in my game changes." But no, I just don't see it. I still perceive that the rare confluence of three unpredictable/unplannable things -- the serendipitous appearance of copper, the fact it's the only source of it securable on the mainland, and the reality that the only to grab it away from cyrus early is to found your first city close to it -- the completely unforseeable (and therefor irrelevant strategically) combination of these three things is the only thing that makes your choice superior, otherwise I see nothing that will "improve my game." Without a doubt that was a good location for a city, but IMO only a second one (what I and many others might have done if Cyrus hadn't beaten us to it, another unforseeable thing), to fond when you already have the tech to clear out jungle & the workers to implment it. Not IMO a first city, based upon what was known at the time. Explain to me what I'm missing.