City Placement and Chop?

[maxcavsm]

Okay, I just started a new game, and have decided that I'd chop rush some early wonders. It worked, but now my capital only has one mine, and about 10 farms around it (going for a CS slingshot, so I don't have pottery/masonry yet). My captial went from a powerhouse to now crawling along at a snail pace for production.

So, while the spot looked good at first, did I chop too much? Is it better during initial city placement to look for 1) bodies of water, 2)hills with trees for production after chops, 3) a special within fat cross distance?

Any links to posts about city placement would be appreciated. I already looked at the AU 101 about crappy starts and early BC beginnings, but it looked more like people's war stories, and not "here is what you need to do to have a successful start".

Thanks.

[couerdelion]

Here’s a quick response.

It’s rare that you can chop too much although you might lose a few health bonuses if you are short of food resources. Also, chopping and pop-chopping combined are often a far more effective way of getting early production.

Perhaps the problem is also that you’ve been farming those empty tiles. I tend to feel that cottages are a far better investment. If production in your capital is low, I could not worry too much. You can always get production other cities and leave the capital to bring the money in.

[xxFlukexx]

Sounds like you chopped too much. You have to check how many hills are in your cities fat cross. If you only have one hill in your fat cross like in you game, then your city is going to be production poor for most of the game. In that case it is a good idea to save some plains trees squares because that will give you 1 food + 2 hammers and that is better than clearcutting.

Of course you could just clear cut and cottage every tile in your capital instead and just forget about it every having good production, but then you must make sure your next city or two will become production powerhouses.