I'm usually playing at Prince level, with some idea about what kind of a game I want to play, some theme, some variant. Every now and then I decide to step it up a bit, and play a "make use of what you're given" game at Monarch (not real monarch thou, I've modified it by taking out the AI starting worker so that I don't need to go into full micromanagement mode - that's just too tedious and not enough fun for me). Continents, large map, epic speed - my standard settings.
I've had my share of less than stellar starts, but for as long as there's food I can just adapt the capitol to the rest of the tiles in the fat cross. However, now I'm facing one of those starts that really makes me want to reroll.. But then again, I had decided to play the hand I'm dealt, so I guess I'll see this one out. At least for a while.
I got Augustus Caesar, which is fine. Creative is nice, Organized is nice. My only fear is that Praetorians will get the better out of me, and everything starts looking like a target when I get them online
But onto the start. I seem to have exactly one food-positive tile, the plains cow. When pastured - I start with Fishing and Mining so it's not going to pasture itself anyday soon. Six grasslands (three forested). One-tile lake. The rest is plains or hills - or plains hills. And the hill my settler is standing on is not plains hill, no. THAT hill is a grassland hill, thus not providing the extra hammer..
I haven't moved the warrior yet, but from what I see on the direction at the edge of the fog, there won't be much of interest. SW however might be interesting - maybe that's ocean? If I move the settler there (2 tiles SW, that takes the turn then) I can see better - but that's a turn spent not researching, growing, nor producing. I rarely move from the starting spot, hoping the map generator has given me a good big fat cross to settle into. And as I have exactly one resource here, I'm quite sure I have either horses, copper, or iron in the fat cross. None of the three would be just too cruel, and I don't remember ever having only one resource in the starting location.
Also note that should I move the settler 2 SW to the coast by the river, I will get at least two tundra tiles in the fat cross. Not exactly the tiles I want, but I doubt it could be much worse than my starting location..
So with all this considered, any advice? Settle in place? Move to coast and hope for the best? If settle in place, what can I expect of this capitol?
Not exactly the cottage heaven, and with lack of food I don't think I can run specialists - probably not even whip it (farming the grasses would give me a few more F+1 tiles, but the growth back from the whip would be too slow compared to stagnating working a plains hill mine for example).
Production? Can do, although a bit painful. 2x F+1 -> 1 plains hill, so working eg. plains cow, farmed grass, and two plains hills would stagnate me at size 4 with about a dozen hpt - quite good for the size though. Could stagnate at size 6 if I find happiness (probably furs and/or silver up north) to get there, working yet another farmed grass to cover for the grassland hill mine, but the hammers per citizen is going down fast - those two extra tiles would yield just three extra hammers here.
I've had my share of less than stellar starts, but for as long as there's food I can just adapt the capitol to the rest of the tiles in the fat cross. However, now I'm facing one of those starts that really makes me want to reroll.. But then again, I had decided to play the hand I'm dealt, so I guess I'll see this one out. At least for a while.
I got Augustus Caesar, which is fine. Creative is nice, Organized is nice. My only fear is that Praetorians will get the better out of me, and everything starts looking like a target when I get them online
But onto the start. I seem to have exactly one food-positive tile, the plains cow. When pastured - I start with Fishing and Mining so it's not going to pasture itself anyday soon. Six grasslands (three forested). One-tile lake. The rest is plains or hills - or plains hills. And the hill my settler is standing on is not plains hill, no. THAT hill is a grassland hill, thus not providing the extra hammer..
I haven't moved the warrior yet, but from what I see on the direction at the edge of the fog, there won't be much of interest. SW however might be interesting - maybe that's ocean? If I move the settler there (2 tiles SW, that takes the turn then) I can see better - but that's a turn spent not researching, growing, nor producing. I rarely move from the starting spot, hoping the map generator has given me a good big fat cross to settle into. And as I have exactly one resource here, I'm quite sure I have either horses, copper, or iron in the fat cross. None of the three would be just too cruel, and I don't remember ever having only one resource in the starting location.
Also note that should I move the settler 2 SW to the coast by the river, I will get at least two tundra tiles in the fat cross. Not exactly the tiles I want, but I doubt it could be much worse than my starting location..
So with all this considered, any advice? Settle in place? Move to coast and hope for the best? If settle in place, what can I expect of this capitol?
Not exactly the cottage heaven, and with lack of food I don't think I can run specialists - probably not even whip it (farming the grasses would give me a few more F+1 tiles, but the growth back from the whip would be too slow compared to stagnating working a plains hill mine for example).
Production? Can do, although a bit painful. 2x F+1 -> 1 plains hill, so working eg. plains cow, farmed grass, and two plains hills would stagnate me at size 4 with about a dozen hpt - quite good for the size though. Could stagnate at size 6 if I find happiness (probably furs and/or silver up north) to get there, working yet another farmed grass to cover for the grassland hill mine, but the hammers per citizen is going down fast - those two extra tiles would yield just three extra hammers here.
i'm more of a settle-in-place-or-one-step-away kinda guy.
)
