Dealing with Tundra?

[agisfox]

I'm looking for some advice on how I should be expanding here - the Tundra isn't very useful but it'd leave a large gap leading straight to my capital, of the kind the AI tends to settle in and would be a general pain.

Since the map is pretty large I was thinking first 2-3 cities on more fertile land, then sink a couple in to prevent the AI from moving in, and creating a better buffer in general. A bit of a maintaince sink, but probably necessary as waiting for the culture from cities would be a bit much.

(Prince difficulty, huge continents map type).

[Verrucosus]

Oh, dear! This is an awful start. Beyond your capital's radius, the tundra isn't even forested. Early expansion into such poor territory would probably see you fall far behind your opponents. I agree that at least the next few cities should be founded on more fertile land. After that has been accomplished, you'll need to reassess the situation, but I wouldn't make it a high priority to claim the land between the new cities and the capital until you need the silver. This may well be one of those rare games where you are better off to relocate the capital. The original site can still be used as a settler/worker factory because it is blessed by sea food, but it doesn't look like the proper center of an empire. I just hope you'll find some good land in the south.

[Blake]

Well that's just a crappy start. Luckily you are Organized so founding marginal cities isn't much of a problem. You should probably grow straight to size 4 while building work boats, then working all 4 crabs pump out settlers.

I'd found one city 3 tiles over from the current border of Kyoto, where it can steal a crab. Then expand along the coast in both directions and otherwise mostly just trek the settlers down to greener pastures. The large expanse of tundra is not worth founding in, except perhaps one city founded along the river just to claim the area. That would be 5th city at earliest though. 2nd is crab thief, 3rd and 4th along the western coast (or perhaps north coast, if you find nice seafood along there).

Btw you should be working the plains hill to get the workboat completed ASAP.

[Dis]

restart.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Dis
restart.

I agree. No point flogging a dead horse.

[Yosho]

Eh, on Prince, you might be able to win from that start. Give it a shot.

I'd suggest founding a lot of costal cities, and trying to build the great lighthouse early, and perhaps the colossus as well if you can manage it. You can do a lot with fishing villages, given time and a little space.

And yeah, see if you can get at least a little of that better land to the south.

[Mutineer]

Nax, start is ok, so mach food in capital radius!!
I can win every game on Monarch level, no matter what start. Just need to addapt.
I notised silver. Early silver/gold city is good, even if it is size 1. It will give you bunch of commerce and will pay for itself.

River on tundra made it into ok after biology. You can farm fresh worter tundra, but farms do not spread irrigation with tundra.

Farmed tundra near river will give you 2 food 1 commerce. Not mach. But after biology it is 3 food 1 commerce. Good enogth to make a resonable city out of it. You can build wartermills for hummers on tundra river.

So, build city near silver, mine silver and keep it size 1 with population working silver and forget about this city untill biology. I advice to find a good city side down south and eventially make it you capital and respecialise you current capital as GP farm.

[Urban Ranger]

Restart. This doesn't look fun.

[MadDjinn]

It looks like a reasonably ok start, really...

4 water food tiles means fast pop growth and lots of room for specialists.

under all those forests are grasslands and plains, so you know what to do there.

pick up fishing, masonry and BronzeWorking and chop yourself a Great Lighthouse or giant Statue. Who knows, you may find copper or iron in that tundra, so it's not entirely horrible yet.

if you manage to settle strategic positions on the other side of the tundra region, your cultural borders (once you get culture points growing) may block paths to that area...

play it just to see what you can do with it, you may be suprised and learn something.

[darrelljs]

I had a start very similar to that with Ghengis on one of my first Monarch games, except I had a 5th crab in my fat cross, and a smaller swath of tundra with more forrests. I ended up having a monopoly on fur (two extra) and deer (one extra), plus silver and horses. My first reaction was to restart, but I decided to tough it out. It turned out to be failry playable...between the seafood resources and forrests I built a large number of Keshiks and took out Elizabeth. Unfortunately I was pretty far behind in tech and commerce by that point, and I lacked the skills to come back. I lost to I think Frederick in a not very close space race.

Play it out, you probably will have a lot of fun. At the least reveal more of the map and see if you have any other goodies besides the 4 crab, 2 fur and silver. Blake's suggestions are the cat's meow, especially the one on the first city location...you don't need all four crab in one city!

Darrell

[bongo]

A strategically placed culture bomb inside a crap city should cover enough land to protect your capital