Founding the first city on a hill...

[joncnunn]

And playing a Fin civ coast >>> (non-river) land for commerce, especally early on.

Originally posted by wodan11
We're not talking Fin vs non-Fin. We're talking coast vs land.

Wodan

[Yosho]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Don't you have enough units to be able to go out and stop them? And roads of course? All it takes are two units in the early game in each city, an axe and a chariot, and you're fine... chariot takes care of axes and warriors/archers a distance away, axe the rest ...

Well, I usually have enough units to defeat the barbarians. What I often don't have is enough units to stop the barbs from sneaking in and pillaging stuff before I can kill them, especally when barbarians wander in from multiple sides at once.

I should also mention I play on marathon, so barbarians on some maps can be quite challanging.

[Yosho]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Don't you have enough units to be able to go out and stop them? And roads of course? All it takes are two units in the early game in each city, an axe and a chariot, and you're fine... chariot takes care of axes and warriors/archers a distance away, axe the rest ...

Well, I usually have enough units to defeat the barbarians. What I often don't have is enough units to stop the barbs from sneaking in and pillaging stuff before I can kill them, especally when barbarians wander in from multiple sides at once.

I should also mention I play on marathon, so barbarians on some maps can be quite challanging.

Edit: I usually don't have chariots. I don't often have horses, and even if I did, the uses of chariots are quite narrow most of the time; they're not good for defense, they're not good for taking cities. For that matter, they're not great attacking into axemen either.

[joncnunn]

What I try to avoid is cities one tile away from the coast where they can't sea improvements. By contrast, coastal cities make good commerce. (As a fin civ, especally so early on). Yes, River coastal cities are King. I often end up founding Oxford in such a city.

Early city founding for me though is more tied to getting resources, generally higher prefernces for unique and food ones. And, in any case I determine how much I can work before founding them. This results in realtively high priority for the coastal cities that have either resources around, but a somewhat lower priority for non-resource coast. So the non-resource coastal city will probably be founded between a non resource Great Plains on an irrigation chain and a non resource Great Plains city far from an irrigaton chain.

Originally posted by Starfarer

Personally I prefer to have at least a FEW cities on coasts, because if I'm going to settle across an ocean later, I need multiple trade routes to ensure that my "colony" gets necessary resources for expansion.

Also, I tend to find that cities on rivers that lead to oceans make the best trade cities.

I tend to start my expansions along ocean coasts, for easy early trade routes (my workers, the few that I have that early on, can do better than building roads), and expand inward once I've finished exploring the area with my early unit.

[joncnunn]

I agree with Unimatrix.
In one game I tried playing "Amobea". I started in the middle and ended up being assigned the Native Americans. I abandoed that one very quickly.

Originally posted by Unimatrix11
Land locked starts make me panic instantly - i dont like them at all. And i dont mind being on one end of a continent either... not at all... i rather work my way from one end to the other than being threatened on multiple sides...

[joncnunn]

Unless already at happy or health limit: So what??? Work the coasts and the city will grow. Evenually that pop will work cottages or become specalists. This is particularly the case with regards to seafood resource tiles themselves.

Originally posted by wodan11
If you're working coasts you aren't working cottages or specialists.

Wodan

[wodan11]

Originally posted by snoopy369


So? In the early game, 4/0/2 or 5/0/2 is much better than 2/0/1 or 2/0/2 that you get from a cottage; and you're probably not using it anyway, because a) you don't have pottery and b) you need to grow your city quickly. It's the choice between a 5/0/2 fish and a 5/0/0 grassland rice or whatever... I'll take the fish any day, especially when you inevitably have 3 of them, which is rather more than you get of non-seafood food resources usually.

I'm not talking about resource tiles. Generally a resource tile is better to work than a cottage, whether you have a coast or a land start.

Either way, the topic at hand is to discuss coast vs land start, and we should do apples to apples. If you want to compare coast vs land using resource tiles, fine; or if you want to compare coast tile to cottage tile, fine. But we shouldn't compare resource to non-resource.

Wodan

[Velociryx]

Good discussion here! I love plains hills. Playing Marathon, I don't mind giving up several turns to properly scout the area and pick out "just the right spot" (but then, on Marathon, you've got turns to burn). Half a dozen won't make me flinch, tho if I can settle more quickly than that, then so much the better.

I usually don't settle on resources, tho the calendar-based ones that a) don't provide a huge boon, and b) won't pay off for a while, are fair game now and again, but the plains hill, esp one that can encapsulate 2-3 good specials...that's a gimmie. It's the one way you can "improve" your core city tile, and as such, should be given a careful look. No matter what else you do, there's no tech you can research that will allow you to improve that particular tile, so if you can grab an extra resource from it without hurting yourself in some other way (denying yourself resources, etc), then count yourself ahead of the game!

-=Vel=-

[Yosho]

Originally posted by joncnunn
I agree with Unimatrix.
In one game I tried playing "Amobea". I started in the middle and ended up being assigned the Native Americans. I abandoed that one very quickly.

Oh, it's doable, definatly.

One problem with a land start is that you tend to end up with a long, skinny empire (or at least, I tend to) and have a lot harder time defending against barbs, or defending at all. But you also tend to have a lot more room to expand, as you can grab a city location in any direction at all, and so you tend to end up with better city cites, since there are just more city sites avalable to you without going too far away from your capital.

[The Priest]

The things you learn.

I almost never move my settler to found that first city, except to avoid settling on a plain hill!

I love plain hills - that four production - and so it seems a waste to build on them and only get a single production in bonus. But I know that early matters, and a single hammer so early could be great. I must try it.

As for moving, I always harbour a sneaky suspicion that in selecting the starting position for settlers, the AI has included calcuations of resources I can't see. Hence it knows that this is a great starting location, even if I can't see it yet. Its too much of a coincidence how often one of horses, iron or copper turn up close to my first city.

[Hauptman]

Coastal cities are FAR more preferable to land locked.

Harbors are teh ownzorz. A coastal city (especially a cap) can get 8+ commerce from a trade route. thats a goldmine, or late game town. by the late game i've got 4 or 5 trade routs in coastal cities giving a total of 40 RAW commerce, yet the land locked have trade routes yielding 2 - 4 (totaling 16!). Its a no brainer for a capital, wich with buerocracy (usually about when harbors come online) that extra commerce is HUGE.

Now I have played plenty of games landlocked, but I always miss those trade routes. seeing your capital have trade routes with YOUR OWN cities and not other civ cities is very very sad indeed.

[Yosho]

Well, harbor is an extra building you can build in some cities that gives you a few health and perhaps +3 or +4 commerce if you're lucky, if you've got the right civic, and if you're on good terms with several major AI's (that is, you might get +8 commerce instead of +5). That's pretty good, don't get me wrong, but it's nothing gamebreaking, and it's not usually my first priority to build even in costal cities.

[Velociryx]

The things you learn.

I almost never move my settler to found that first city, except to avoid settling on a plain hill!

I love plain hills - that four production - and so it seems a waste to build on them and only get a single production in bonus. But I know that early matters, and a single hammer so early could be great. I must try it.

As for moving, I always harbour a sneaky suspicion that in selecting the starting position for settlers, the AI has included calcuations of resources I can't see. Hence it knows that this is a great starting location, even if I can't see it yet. Its too much of a coincidence how often one of horses, iron or copper turn up close to my first city.

Well...to clarify...I would not recommend shorting yourself on hammers to build on a plains hill.

If doing so would rob you of the greater bulk of hammers for a particular city, then it's probably going to cost you more in the end, but where you can arrange it (horses/cows in the vicinity, and hopefully 2-3 other hills), then you can likely afford to lose the one and gain the perma bonuses for your city (which include not only the +1h, but also the perma defensive bonus that stacks with your other city defense bonuses (and it opens up some interesting new promotional possibilities as well, allowing you to take promotions you might otherwise pass on).

All in all...good stuff!



-=Vel=-

[Hauptman]

Originally posted by Yosho
Well, harbor is an extra building you can build in some cities that gives you a few health and perhaps +3 or +4 commerce if you're lucky, if you've got the right civic, and if you're on good terms with several major AI's (that is, you might get +8 commerce instead of +5). That's pretty good, don't get me wrong, but it's nothing gamebreaking, and it's not usually my first priority to build even in costal cities.

+5 from a non coastal is rare from what i can remeber.

Just recently I played a game as carthage. 5 coastal cities, I built the great lighthouse and temple of artemis. Before those wonders became obsolete, my capital had 7 trade routes generating 10 - 14 commerce. totaling OVER 70. thats more than 10 fully developed towns in that city, without having to grow those towns (trade routes do require growth, but cannot be pillaged or tornadoed). Not to mention its other squares generating commerce.

My 5 cities out teched the entire world on monarch at such a rate I got bored with the game....

[Yosho]

Oh, well, Carthage is an exception of course, it's unique harbor building is one of the best ub's in the game.

Don't get me wrong, I like coastal cities. I used to build almost all costal cities, but I stopped doing that, because I discovered that it's really hard to get a decent amount of hammers that way, and while you can do pretty good economically with just coastal cities, it's quite hard to create a decent army because you just don't have enough hammers. (Of course, there are some costal cities that have a decent number of hammers, but they're usually the ones without a lot of costal squares anyway).