Noob Seeking Help

[snoopy369]

You must play nicer maps than me. I'd consider that a great city Wheat and several irrigable grassland. That's enough food to grow quickly (the wheat gives you a +5 for the first citizen, giving you size 2 after 6 turns, and size 3 comes after 5 turns, and size 4 and 5 the same roughly (after bureaucracy, or slightly slower before), meaning size 5 after around 20-25 turns depending on your tech level).

Certainly you could do faster - but not THAT much faster. You could either mine those hills, or windmill them, depending on what you intended for that city; either way it will be a great military building city. I'd consider that for my first city build certainly (it's near to the capital, and can produce military to defend my young cities).

[rah]

Yeah this is the kind of city i like for city number 2. Close to the cap, Copper and enough food to work the hills. It would be cranking out lots of units.

[Diadem]

Originally posted by snoopy369
You must play nicer maps than me. I'd consider that a great city

Really? I mean sure it's worth building a bit later in the game, but as a second city I usually hope for something better. I might build it there if I really need the copper, of course, but other then that.

The city has way too many plains, and no river at all. Sure it's a production city you'll say, but it's also gonna be a major drain on your economy during the early game, and it's production won't be very good either. It'll grow too slowly to slave, and it needs to be size 4-5 before it even starts producing at any rate at all.

Early game I want food resources, cows, horses, and resources in grassland hills. Preferably I want rivers as as little plains as possible. Such cities won't hurt you GNP, they might even have a positive effect, and their production will be just as good with slavery.

Placing it in the 7 direction would make it a better city by the way. Access to two river grasslands is great, even if one is shared with the capital.

[Krill]

Only reason it shouldn't be placed 7 of the marked position is if there is going to be a city next to the flood plains with food, and if that were the case, I'd prefer that city site to be the second city site. Though I'd like to see a overview picture before really commenting...

[DaveV]

OK, here's a "real world" example. I marked the map with the spots where I'd settle cities:



1. Blue dot. Got to hook up the bronze. This is kind of a hybrid city, which will be working two floodplain cottages, the bronze, and a mined hill until I get more happiness. Long term, it can be a decent commerce city.

2. Red dot. Military pump. Will be working cows, two mined grassland hills, one mined plains hill. With more happiness, can work some farmed grassland and pick another hill.

3. Black dot. Pure commerce city. Will work one floodplain, three river plains, all cottaged.

4. Purple dot. GPP (there's an unmarked second fish located 1 of purple dot).

5. Orange dot, if nothing better shows up in the blackness.

Other opinions are welcomed.

[Lord Avalon]

Doesn't the black dot have 3 floodplains?

[snoopy369]

He presumably prefers the hammers from the regular plains? I wouldn't of course...

I also wouldn't settle the purple dot for GPP. There isn' nearly enough food available there (only +4 food, enough for maybe 4 GPs at the most). You could build it as a lighthouse commerce city, but it's never going to do anything special.

Rather, I'd use a city settled 888 from blue dot - the plains in between the flood plains, east of the river. EIGHT flood plains, and the cow to start up (yes, it's inefficient, but it is enough to help build that first granary). Several hills once the city has grown a bit in order to build other multipliers/GP buildings (if no caste system), and plenty of GPP. I don't like the blue dot city in the long run - it doesn't provide that much in the way of hammers, and that much in the way of commerce - so i'd rather build it early and use it until the new city needs the floodplains.

That city would replace the so-so black dot city, and that city would be built a tile or two north probably (depending on other terrain up there, you cut it off). You can make a reasonable military production city (not a super production city, just a basic run of the mill make-units city).

Your red dot I build one tile south, so it can use the seas, as it's not going to have the food to use those plains hills anyway (until at least bureaucracy). There's more than likely plenty of stuff up north of it that you can build another city there to use those tiles. The red city would be a commerce city, cottages galore, and the coastal commerce.

I'd also build a city 8899 of the capital (two tiles E of the banana). Get both bananas, and plenty of forests/hills. Moderate production and commerce (windmills on the hills).

[DaveV]

My point with the black dot was that it will be stuck at size 4 until it gets extra happiness. It's +0 on food with the specified worker assignments; it will work floodplains while growing to that size.

Purple dot has two fish and cows, even though one fish and the cow aren't flagged as resources.

[snoopy369]

I forgot about the second fish, but still that's not enough for more than ~5 GP. A true GPP city will be more than that. The city 3 north of blue really is a great GPP city; even without a single food resource (if you give the cows to the capital), it allows you to produce quite a lot of food (at least 9 GPs pre-biology) and still maintains the flexibility to build the buildings it needs. (You probably want to build at least one wonder, possibly Ankor Wat, that permits a large number of specialists, if you don't run Caste System.)

This really is a great map for a mostly-specialist economy, to be honest. Run caste system and run the purple spot with 4-5 specialists, the 3N of blue with 9 specialists (globe theatre of course!), and the one near the cow can run several also (if you settle 1 of the cow, that city can probably run 4-5 as well.) The capital honestly is the worst city from that point of view; you could run it as a cottage city with some production, to give you early (pre-high happiness) commerce, plus hills for production. (Other production will have to happen to the north...)

[Burningbman]

Well, even though my brain hurts severely after trying to picture everyone's ideal cities and why they are ideal, I would like to think that I have a better understanding of what each city needs and what makes certain cities great. I plan on trying another game on noble to focus on city planning and construction. I'll probably try for a space win, so we'll see how that goes.

Thanks for your posts again! (especially snoopy, Dave, rjm) they are really helping me realize there is more to city construction than looking for the blue circle

[Theben]

Usually it's better to look next to the blue circle.

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by Diadem
Post-biology this site becomes very interesting. Pre-biology, and certainly pre civil service, it is pretty sucky.

If there's no better sites around, go for it, of course. But I hope there'll be better.

I also would have liked a better site, but since I didn't post the whole map you can't see whether there was anything better.

My feeling was that I needed to hook up the copper fairly quickly. I didn't think I could wait until my capital expanded, although that was an option. That would have meant going for hunting and archery rather than churning out the axemen.

I've now reached AD1, and the game is not looking at all good.

RJM

[Willem]

Originally posted by Diadem


Why do people always insist in building the heroic epic in their city with the most hammers? What a waste! I'd build West point there! Probably combined with Red Cross.

What a waste to use your best hammer city for heroic epic. It should already be producing pretty much anything in one turn (except perhaps on marathon).

I agree. I always combine my West Point with the Iron Works in my most productive city. That will provide far more production for units than Heroic Epic. I try to put the Epic near one of my borders so I can have that city build units a bit faster and I can also run a couple of Artists and get a multiple benefit from the GP points. And especially now that we have the Military Academy, Heroic Epic is not really a very good combo for West Point IMO.

[MoonWolf]

Now you guys have made up even more abbrevations (or what we can call it): How do you calculate directions when you use numbers here like 7, 888 and 8899? Is it something as the same as fighter pilots use, e.g. 12 is straight ahead?

[Diadem]

Originally posted by MoonWolf
Now you guys have made up even more abbrevations (or what we can call it): How do you calculate directions when you use numbers here like 7, 888 and 8899? Is it something as the same as fighter pilots use, e.g. 12 is straight ahead?

They are simply keypad directions (You can move your units with the keypad in civ). So straight up is 8, south-west is 1, etc.

So 8899 would be 2 tiles north and 2 north-east. Or 4 tiles north and 2 tiles east.