2nd city location?

[Lepton]

I'm playing huge great plains map at monarch difficulty. My capital has -2 unhealth (+2 difficulty +2 fresh water -4 population -2 flood plains), but looks great place for poprushing.

I'm at south edge of map. To west is mostly mountains, hills, and desert. I really want silver and/or gems and/or stone, but there isn't much food. What tile is best for my 2nd city?

Cow at far east can make my capital more healthy, but is it too far? All rivers are connected, so no need to build roads. Good place for 3rd city?

[The keeper]

I would suggest 4N and 3E of your first city for your second city.

1. Unless I am seeing it wrong, that look like 1 tile of floodplain at the bend in the river that you would get in your first expansion.

2. After the first expansion, you would have stone in your fat cross as well as the only grassland tile in the area.

3. You would be on a river so you could get the +2 health

4. You have some plains hills so you could get some production there by farming the grasslands and the floodplains.

[Arrian]

I have zero experience on great plains maps, and little on Monarch (I've played mostly on Prince), but my gut response is the cow is waaaay too far for your #2 city, and with those floodplains it seems to me your capital can afford to simply ignore the unhealthiness for quite some time.

You could grab the corn/insense site to the north, and once you have the wheel for roads that will help out with health. There is also the stone (and silver, if you found on the plains hill) site to the northeast.

-Arrian

[Martin the Dane]

I'm no expert, but the hill where you have the warrior sitting, is an ok but not great location for a city, I think that is where I would place it. Alternatively you can place it on the plains/hill north of the mountain, the only benefit from that is that you will have the silver and gems faster, but the city will be seriousely short of food.

[samspock]

I would put it on the plains square just south of the gems. The reason is you will end up with a lot of commerce from the gems and the silver plus access to the stone. At 2N 1E is a flood plains that you could use for food as well as the grassland to the south. The pop on this city probably won't be much so expect to use it as a production city and add some windmills to un-mined hills. I usually don't go out of my way to put cities on hills if the best choice is something else.

Further down the line I would look to add cities along both rivers. The plains squre 1N 1W from the cow would make a good third or forth city.

I have never played greatplains. Does that mean you don't get any forrests?

[Arrian]

It certainly seems so. Rough. I'd think the EXP trait is pretty attractive on such maps...

-Arrian

[PaganPaulwhisky]

I would also go with the hill/warrior site. You will have lots of river tiles for commerce (health from river), plus stone, plus the oasis special. Looks like a pretty poor start to me.

[Aeson]

I'd build 666 or 669 (depending on what the tiles to the S are). Gets the city founded ASAP, no worries about animal barbs. Allows swapping the FP Corn(?) between the two cities. Oasis for the best tile available to work otherwise and the fresh water.

Not much (normal) production there, but if you're going to be running slavery anyways, another high Food site will work well.

[spammurabi]

It looks like the main problem that most cities you build in the area is a lack of food. This gives the site 5 squares north of your capital an advantage with its proximity to the corn, and it can pick up silver and incence. It also allows for a 3rd city one square below the warrior to pick up the stone without much overlap.

Of course, since it's a huge map, maybe spreading out more may be okay. The cows are still way too far off, I think, but maybe expanding towards the northern flood plains would be best.

[Swiss Pauli]

I'd be tempted for the corn/silver site. Will need roads to the river, but you can access them without needing to build culture for a border expansion.

For city 3, I'd wait til bronze and/or husbandry are researched and see how the land looks then.

[uberfish]

Why is the corn (?) just east of Athens unimproved?

I'd take the wheat/silver site. (5N) This city doesn't have much long term growth potential, but it will be able to work wheat (4/1/0) silver (0/3/5) and another mine for a solid 10 hammers early game while more than paying for itself, and the wheat will help Athens with its health problems once it has a granary up.

I wouldn't settle anything near the close oasis until where the bronze and horses are is known. Often when there's a large void in resources like that, a hidden resource will pop up. With no hills around that area it's going to be very annoying if horses appear 1 square outside the city radius.

[cynyck]

All good suggestions so far.

I think I would choose two squares north of the stone. The downside is you lose the health benefit of being adjacent to a river. The upside is you will eventually have two food plains, gems, stone, and a grasslands tile within your fat cross. You will also have six tiles bordering one of the two rivers for extra commerce. You get the defensive benefit of having a city on a hill (and I cannot remember, but I think you get a total output - f/h/c - benefit too).

The two flood plains and the grasslands tile will support quite a few mines and even more windmills later on. Finally, as a possible added bonus, you will have silver within your boundaries eventually, if another civ doesn't grab it first. But I would not make that a determining factor.

The health issues on great plains maps looks like it can be oppressive to deal with.