Early vs. Late first city placement

[Alexander's Horse]

I suppose its a tribute to this game that addicts like me are still experimenting with it.

My latest research involved early city placement vs. late city placement. This was initially forced on me by a bad start in an MP game. I'm usually a settle ASAP player. But I found after I had explored for a while I had an army of 4 NONE units from huts and found a site for my capital with 3 specials. My second city got a site with 4 specials. After not settling until some time after 3500AD I'm leading game at about 1 BC with 16 cities Nearest competitor has 9 cities.

I've done it also in some SP games with good results - only thing is, barbs were set to villlages. I'm going to try it with them set to raging hoardes.

So what do you think is better? Early or late?

[ColdWizard]

imvvho, its generally better to drop down cities early, though it depends on the start location. if it's a crappy starting spot or there's a hut nearby, i'll wander first.

[Deity Dude]

I've had good (and bad) results doing it both ways. I usually try and get them down as soon as possible. This has led to many a game though where I missed the prime location by 1 or 2 tiles or could have had those coveted non-units.

[-Jrabbit]

Uh, shouldn't the choices be "early" and "late" instead of "yes" and "no" ??
This poll makes no linguistic sense as written.

Another fine excuse to vote "banana" I guess...

(Edited for spelling in fear of AH wrath)

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

I usually plop down my first city ASAP, unless I can see a special within my view radius or the terrain is very bad. I'll make probably no more than 3 moves before settling.

I confess to restarting if the terrain is really miserable... I'm not good enough to overcome that, even in SP

STYOM

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by -Jrabbit

This poll makes no linguistic sense as written.

I'm glad someone noticed.

[ColdWizard]

i noticed but i don't expect horsie to make sense, especially since he calls shopping carts "trolleys"

[Ming]

It all depends for me. If the orginal land doesn't have any trade specials, I'll wander for a while. Starting on wine or gold in 3700 will make it VERY easy to catch up on science. However, if it looks like the land isn't going to get much better, I'll just get the cities down asap and crank settlers forever.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Well, I'm not nearly the Civver some are here, but for me the answer is always "early" (except in OCC). In general, I find I have four cities down before I start my first wonder (Colossus), and one of those four cities will have a trade special or rivers and thus become the SSC.

[Lars-E]

The manual and strategy books tend to say that early placement is important. I agree, but I think that sometimes one can deviate from this strategy successfully.

Once I playedTwenty-third fortnight OCC comparison game and didnt start a city before 3000 BC. I was able to keep pace with Ribannah and Smash up till Darwin.

[-=Vagrant=-]

Only if the first place is ideal, will I found the first city. It's pretty much always worth the wandering to find a better place. Not too much wandering...

[rah]

In SP, I'll wander a bit to cash some huts. Catching the AI isn't hard.

In MP, it's a harder decision. If you wander and don't find much better land, you're in trouble. If I see a trade special on the opening move, my capital will be built as soon as my settler is there. (unless delaying it one turn will allow me to open a hut up safely. For a two turn delay, I won't wait)
So, in MP, I'll look to see what the pattern is and if I have to move 5 turns before revealing something else, I may just plop down and ics it. With a river, I may be a bit more patient.


RAH

[Smash]

wandering in mp is always a calculated risk.Well,maybe not always calculated,but a risk for sure.Keep an eye on demographics and top 5 cities at this point.The reward is a better site,non units,gold and tech.The risk is walking around and finding notta..then settle right where you started ..done that a few times

[War4ever]

The key when exploring is to watch the top five cities ! Some players love building right away....... this of course doesnt' mean jack if they dont' have specials.... getting to size 2 in 3 or 4 turns means jack if you don't have production as well..

if you get the NON unit early, one should beeline to find a city spot....let the units do the exploring for you. Your first city can use all four specials, but to be honest i see two cities there to max out your specials....when the cities grow later, you can always make one city use all the specials....

besides i prefer my first five cites to be close together to pump caravans....cities that don't overlap must be connected by roads early or your advantage of closer cities is moot.

i build on gold, iron , and wine after my first couple of cities are down.......the rest of the specials i tend to build close to , but not on top of

it also depends on how many cities i choose to play with....obviously the lesser city total requires "better" cities...whereas mass production of cities requires city placement which benefits road building and caravan pumping....

[geofelt]

I vote for some exploration first. The first objective is to get to monarchy ASAP. Some sort of trade bonus really helps to do this early. My second objective is to start four cities(on a normal map) before monarchy. I try to found the first two on grassland to get them to size two and produce a settler early. I will always tip a hut and delay the first city. A unit takes more than the one turn to build, and the NON suport is a bonus. My first city almost always becomes a science city and a wonder city. My favorite start is on the coast with whales.

[Alexander's Horse]

One thing I hate is when you establish your first city on turn 1 and then find a special one space away - I really hate that, especially if its a whale.

[Lars-E]

geofelt, sometimes it pays to skip monarchy and go for republic/library before (monarchy)/colossus. This can give you 43% more science.

If you start off with CB it might be better to choose the monarchy-path. I suppose this also depends on the circumstances your in, in combination with your strategy: bloodlust or AC.

[geofelt]

At deity, I find monarchy is better. I like to build many wonders, and the biggest problem is shield production, not science. The three unit free support is big early on. Also, my first wonder is Hanging gardens. This gives me republic level science without luxuries up to size six in my capitol. Eventually, I switch to democracy when I get SOL.

[Marquis de Sodaq]

As a general rule, I will settle immediately if the city radius is green. Too much desert, plains, or mountains, and I will wander for a few turns. That said, I will always tip a hut in my view before settling unless I'm standing in the middle of a 3 or 4 special spot.

As it is not optimal to have the capitol be the SSC (at least for those like me who don't want to micromanage too intensely), I don't mind finding a prime site for my 2nd, 3rd, or 4th city. Let the units explore while the capitol city pumps out settlers.

[rah]

A corruption free capital is usually benificial for a SSC.
My second city is usually the settler spitting city. Depending on the game circumstances, my capital will only spit out 1-3 settlers.

And unless I start on a coast, it's more likely that my capital will be surrounded by my cities making it less likely to be taken, and be a more central location for delivering caravans.

RAH

[Lars-E]

At deity, I find monarchy is better. I like to build many wonders, and the biggest problem is shield production, not science. The three unit free support is big early on. Also, my first wonder is Hanging gardens. This gives me republic level science without luxuries up to size six in my capitol. Eventually, I switch to democracy when I get SOL.

I always play deity, but mostly OCC where science plays an essential part..

In a lot of games played by Ribannah and the likes you'll find they use the republic/library-strategy.

http://members.home.nl/paulvdb/occ.htm#downloads

http://members.home.nl/paulvdb/occ.htm#fortnight

Click the comparison tables.

Haven't played much civ2 the last 1/2 year. And no civ3 isn't my game. I'm more into half-life sp mods these days..

[ramses II.]

A good city site is one key for winning the game. Some early NONE-units for exploring can be the second key. Nobody can take away the benefits from the huts you've already opened.
When you found your first city, the NONE-units will continue exploring your continent. With that army in my back, other civs will become allies or pay tribute much easier.

In one of my lower-level-games I've had a site with two coal, one banana and one fish, and i was able to build nearly all wonders in that city.
In another game I had a site with 4 wine ... guess what that city became in my game.

[Campo]

I tend to settle early but not immediately. It's so nice to tip a few huts and get a couple NON units for exploring that I almost always have my settlers look for huts the first few turns. The exception is when I start in a 3 or 4 special area, then I settle right away.

A variation on this issue is timing the founding of the SCC (if you use one). In my current game I settled early but couldn't find a good spot for my SSC. I had about 5 cities down when a horseman located a 4-special city location -- whale, gems, pheasant, and wheat (eventually to be silk). The city spot was swampland, so I started a settler irrigating, with another on the way. Then barbs appeared and I had to evacuate my settlers and send a defender. By the time the barbs were dead, my settlers back in place, the square irrigated, and the city founded, it was the latest I ever started a science city. (Sorry, I can't remember the exact game year.) I built HG in the science city with caravans from other cities, set up 3 trade routes, am building caravans for Colossus (surprised the AI hasn't gone after it yet) and am researching mathematics. However I'm wondering if it's too late for the SCC to be worthwhile. An AI civ just beat me to Philosphy, which hasn't happened in a long time.

Should I carry on with the SCC strategy, or should I give it up and resort to libraries, universities, etc. in all my cities?

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Campo, if you can get Copernicus' Observatory and then SIN's College, it's very much worth it. Even tho you've lost 50 turns of SSC production, it will still serve you for many more turns to come. It can speed your research for the rest of the game. One benefit of building it late is that you already know what its trade demands are, and can maybe meet them with your own cities. Have your other cities build caravans to meet the demands while you build the SSC.

[Shaka Naldur]

if i ask yes i´m saying that...

the poll is a little confusing