Would this be an optimal starting location?

[InThane]

I just got my copy of Warlords, and figured I'd have a little fun. My first map was kind of unusual. Sadly, I don't have a screenshot of the start location, but I can tell you a bit about it.

Map is Medium continents, I'm playing Mansa Musa, and I think difficulty is set to Noble. Raging barbarians are turned on. From my fat cross starting square, my terrain is as follows:

2 forested plains
2 gold plains hills, one on a river
1 plains hill
1 stone quarry plain
14(!) flood plains, of which 8 are in the initial pre-culture expansion borders. The square I'm starting off on is also flood plains, but I'm not counting it. That's a whopping -7 to health.

There's a cow 4 squares north of my starting location that I can see thanks to warrior placement. Other than that, there are no known health-providing resources nearby. Also, I have no idea where the ocean is - no shoreline hints are available. To the north the terrain gets plains hilly, and I can see a hint of jungle to the south.

I've never played a starting position like this before. While I have come across terrain like this before, it was after I had a well-established empire and had the resources to deal with the health issues, at least until the city got to a reasonable size.

If you were handed a start like this, how would you run with it?

[Arrian]

Are either of the following on the river (fresh water access):

- the stone tile
- plains hill

?

You're gonna have health problems at that site, although if you're playing noble they won't be crippling.

You will want to cottage those floodplains and ultilize the power of the whip. You may want a farmed floodplain to allow you to grow at a good pace whilst working gold mines.

Commerce won't be a problem. Health and to a lesser extent production will be (production problems could be solved via the whip).

I might do this:

1) Worker first, research pottery (I'd probably go via animal husbandry, but I could see a case for agriculture so you could farm a floodplain or two to allow fast growth even using the 2 gold mines)

2) Worker builds gold mines and starts putting up cottages. Next research to archery and get some skirms to protect you from barbs.

3) Research bronzeworking. Switch to slavery. Your city should be large and probably unhealthy now. Whip a settler (not from scratch... one turn into the build).

4) Pick the best health resource spot you can find for your 2nd city, and get those resources hooked up.

-Arrian

[Quillan]

Mine those gold hills ASAP, as they'll cover your initial research. Do the one on the river first. You'll probably want to farm one or two of those flood plains so you'll have the food to work the gold mines once the city expands. You're financial, so that's an added bonus.

[Arrian]

In that starting spot, by the way, I'd trade one of the gold hills for some cows in a heartbeat. I'd trade both for cows + pigs or somesuch. PLENTY of commerce available (with cottages). Though the early boost from the gold mines is really nice, don't get me wrong...

-Arrian

[fed1943]

As Arrian said, and best health resources here are wheat, corn and

rice, as granary doubles its health power.

Best regards,

[InThane]

Only one gold hill has water, the rest is all flood plains around the river.

I'll try to post a screenshot of the starting location tonight.

[Arrian]

Hmm, ok then I guess found on floodplains.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Originally posted by fed1943
As Arrian said, and best health resources here are wheat, corn and

rice, as granary doubles its health power.

Best regards,

The point about the health bonus with a granary is valid, but I chose cows because that's typically a good production tile and that city could use some production. Then I added pigs b/c I figured it's better to only need AH than to need both AH and AGR to use your resources.

But from a strict (early) health standpoint, yeah, the best case would be wheat, corn or rice.

-Arrian

[InThane]

Here's the starting location. I was off on a couple things - there are three grassland forests and only thirteen floodplains. According to the page, I have 5 sickness being caused by floodplains, 1 sickness for population, and 6 health (3 for level, 2 for fresh water, 1 for forests), meaning that I start getting food subtracted at pop == 2. The cow is also closer by one square than I thought it was. Moving 1 square north brings the cow into the city, reduces the sickness by one point, and still gets both gold and the stone pile inside of the city radius, AND I get one more pop point before sickness starts taking its toll.

So, off the top with the gold I'll be able to grow to pop 7 without happiness issues.

Forgive me for talking outloud about this, I'm still learning the ropes and would appreciate people poking holes in what I'm thinking.

To support a pop 7 city, I'll need 14 food for population, plus 4 more to overcome the sickness bonus (the cows reduce it by one if I head for animal husbandry), or 18 food per turn. With farmed floodplains, I can do 16 with 4, then pick up #5 with the cow, and stick the remaining two pop points with the mines on the hills. Of course, by the time I hit pop 7, I'll probably have some happiness technologies, but not any health technologies, unless I get an aqueduct. And to quickly get up that high, I'll need to go for 6 farms...

And my production will suck in the meantime.

I'm concerned about that especially because of the imminent coming of the Barbarian Hordes. I may not go straight for pop seven, and instead try and start mass producing military around 3-4, but with a worker first start to leverage my location.

Any suggestions?

[binTravkin]

A very good site indeed.
Use those floodplains for food and commerce (cottages), build mines (at least 1 - that one near river as it will be connected to your city instantly) on gold once you're satisfied with food output and then hook up stone if you intend to build something from it.

[Blake]

The start itself is very good but the capital itself is quite badly placed - there's simply too much floodplain. Ideally all you want is 6-7 floodplains in the capital radius, when you have 14 floodplains you spread it over 2, 3 or even 4 cities.

The place where I would found is almost definitely on the river gold mine due to raging barbs, or on the plains forest next to the warrior, or even where the warrior is. Ignore the stone. What is it good for? Pyramids? WHAT specialist? You have financial cottages, you can research monarchy in like 5 turns. Stonehenge? Why bother? Each new city can work a bunch of floodplains without cultural expansion. The first wonder you REALLY want is hanging gardens, but by then the stone will easily be connected.

The city where placed is absolutely terrible, so bad you need to treat it as if it were pure grassland with no resources - in other words, settler first, get out of there! Get some health!

With the capital founded elsewhere (ie plains forest or river gold mine) so it actually has health, you should grow to size 3 and pop out a worker (to mine the gold) then grow to about size 5 and pop out settlers, settle a bunch of cities around the floodplains.

For the new cities you want to whip in granaries asap, altough the capital can be allowed to just work the gold mines (as a rule, killing off gold mine workers with whip is a bad idea). Barbs are going to be a bit of a problem but that's why you found your cities close together in a ring around the floodplains, so you have a safe interior to cottage up. Once you have those cities up start pumping out workers in earnest (preferably by whip) and put a cottage on every floodplain.

[Arrian]

I'd have moved 1 tile north, to get the Cow. Blake may be right, though (he usually is).

Is that where your warrior started? If so, I'd have moved him 3 onto the northern gold hill to get a better sense for what is to the NE. But I'm pretty sure I'd have settled 1 tile north (or maybe northeast) regardless...

-Arrian

[InThane]

I've kept the save to go back and hit it again if things don't work out. I had founded the city just so that the starting location was more clear in the screenshot. Before I saw Blake's post, I'd moved one square north and founded.

The main reason I was interested in the stone wasn't the pyramids but the Great Wall - something I got up just in the nick of time to stop the oncoming flood of barbarians. A few did get through, and were stopped by a small group of warriors. I'd like to think it saved me some resources, but I'm not entirely convinced yet.

[Krill]

Raging barbs? Who cares? Stone for GW and let the AI suffer.

I'd move the warrior 3, and unless I saw something special I'd move 99 with the settler (effectively founding one tile north of where Blake founds) and have cities at 47 and 21 of where Timbuktu is in the picture. 47 gets the stone for GW, which the capital builds asap.

Oh, and save please I would like to test so strats

[couerdelion]

Re: Would this be an optimal starting location?

Originally posted by InThane
2 forested plains
2 gold plains hills, one on a river
1 plains hill
1 stone quarry plain
14(!) flood plains, of which 8 are in the initial pre-culture expansion borders. The square I'm starting off on is also flood plains, but I'm not counting it. That's a whopping -7 to health.

Starting with quarried stone is very lucky.

But the comments about the excessive number of floodplains in one city are all very valid. This is not really a good site.

Founding on the gold hill will give you a 2/2/3 city site which is a nice start and definitely worth the one turn move. The question is really whether you wanted the +1h/+6g for the tile itself because that’s quite a lot to give up. However it is at least 20 turns away from you after founding so you have gained 40g in this time anyway. I would have moved the warrior onto the hill to check out the lay of the land first to see what was on the other side.

Is this worth the loss of the improved tile? I’d think long and hard before doing this but it would be a consideration. You still have lots of flood plains to worry about though but at least the cows are in range.

Even with the Expansive trait this city is hard to work with. Certainly not my idea of ideal