Does it real matter

[Addled Platypus]

First off let me say...I am the only civ to get stuck up in the hills..so I am digging in
and of course I am getting pinned into the lower left corner

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MOD-BTS-Next War by jkp1187



As you can see I marked how I worked tiles in what order
I went for growth first to get all the other goodies


does it really matter ??




work tiles before connecting cites ?

does it reall matter ?

thank you in advance

[Crossfire]

In that I usually build workers and settlers to start, and given that you have only researched a limited number of techs by the time you are improving your first few tiles, I would probably concentrate on food until I had a least 3 food tiles working and then start building improvements to gain some hammers.

At the same time I don't think I would have built New York where you did. I probably would have put it up higher and on the river. Also I never have a size one 2nd city and a size 7 1st city. My second city is usually only one or two in population behind my capitol. If you are that slow to settle you are going to have a really hard time competing later.

[Hauptman]

Now it looks like your silver tiles are covered with woods so this may not have worked for you...

On gold starts, I build a worker first, and research mining at the same time. I then get that mine build first, as I build a second worker. A gold tile DOUBLES science output. So yes that matters.

[Diadem]

Gold is always in desert or plains hills though. Which means no food. Your city won't grow when working gold. So working gold first doesn't seem to be a good idea, since your city will forever be size one.

I'd say gold is a definite second, after your food resource.

As to the TS questions: It depends a bit on what techs you have available, but in general I work food tiles first, and after some good food tiles I go for hammers and commerce.

I definitely work resources before connecting cities, unless I need to connect copper / iron in a hurry.

Some general advice: Build more workers earlier, and expand earlier. New York is in a terrible place, not a single resource, and not even any farmable grassland. Its highest food tiles is +1. That's horrible, it can't grow.

Same story for Boston, to a lesser extend. Did you found on a floodplains? Would moving 6 not have been better, to get the stone as well?

And i know, you clearly don't have to room for good expansions. But that's why you need to expand earlier, more aggressively.

And you need much more workers. In that first picture you're researching writing and building monasteries, but you're entire city is unworked. Something is very wrong there.

[Theben]

Your real prolem is that Monty is #1 in power and your next-door neighbor. I think you won't last too long.

[rah]

Yeah, same religion usually doesn't help.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Diadem
Gold is always in desert or plains hills though. Which means no food. Your city won't grow when working gold. So working gold first doesn't seem to be a good idea, since your city will forever be size one.

I'd say gold is a definite second, after your food resource.

As to the TS questions: It depends a bit on what techs you have available, but in general I work food tiles first, and after some good food tiles I go for hammers and commerce.

Pretty sound advice. Although it does depend on the magnitude of the improvements you are making. Gold plains hill vs Floodplains is a tricky one because of the relatively low improvement that the farm gives (+1f for 7 turns work) relative to a gold mine (+1h+6c for 4 turns work). Without working through the sums, I’d expect the food route to be a little better with the lower commerce being more than offset by higher production. Given that food and production are more important than early commerce the trade off would seem to favour the food route.

For a comparison, I had a recent start with corn, gems(x2), gold and ivory - jungle was threatening both gems and corn. Although gems were easier to improve it turned out that it was better to improve the corn first (improved tile worth 5/0/0) then the two gems (2/1/7) and finally the gold (0/3/7). It did mean that I was sometimes working unimproved tiles but since the gems were each 2/0/2 before improvements, I was still turning a reasonable commerce with the tile until the mine was in place. By contrast, the gems first approach simply meant that I was left with improved tiles that I could not work.

Note: you might forego a stronger tile to work commerce in the short term for a very specific objective such as early religion. But in general, commerce can wait a little longer than food or production

[Hauptman]

A city doesnt grow while building sttlers/workers anyways, that's why I work the gold first, taking advantage of double commerce with a city size 1 doesnt hurt in the long run...

[jbp26]

the order in which you work tiles can make a huge difference, even in one city. working commerce tiles first can greatly increase the speed at which you get early techs, which effects your build order, which effects everything.

[Supr49er]

Originally posted by jbp26
the order in which you work tiles can make a huge difference, even in one city. working commerce tiles first can greatly increase the speed at which you get early techs, which effects your build order, which effects everything.

This has also been my experience.

[couerdelion]

Setting the worker on a farm first will not lose you too much commerce even in the shorter term because you will grow and get extra commerce from being a larger city. Shortly after that you will still have the gold mine to work which can be used for workers and settlers.

But these can also be cheaper to build even with a 4/0/1 farmed flood-plains and 0/3/7 gold because 22 of the 24 food generated from the farm in 6 turns can be turned into 30 hammers by means of the whip which means the settlers and workers get turned out more quickly.

With a standard 2/1/1 city tile, you get

a) working just gold (0/3/7)

Worker in 15 turns with 120 commerce

b) working floodplains then gold then whip

Grow in 6 turns (ie 6 production to a warrior) – 24 food, 12 commerce
Build worker for 5 turns (30 production on worker, 0 food, 45 commerce)
Whip worker (work gold with unwhipped pop – 4 production, 0 food, 8 commerce)
Next 3 turns growing (3 production to warrior,12 food, 6 commerce)

So apart from getting the worker 3 turns earlier – which is a big bonus – you get an extra 14 food, 14 production for the cost of 49 commerce. Longer term, that early food and production is likely to be more valuable to you than the lost commerce which you will anyway recover once the city grows again to size 2 and 3 and you work other commerce tiles.

One thing to recognise is that a size 1 city working a gold mine effectively means that any further techs or units provide very little benefit since you have little use for the improved resource until you are size 2.

My own experience is that using high commerce tiles early on can be very enticing but it is generally safer to work in the initial growth, expansion, security before accelerating the commerce output.

[Addled Platypus]

thanks for the input

[Blaupanzer]

Definitely road up your cities early with a neighbor like Monty. Build lots of troops and keep a eye on the power graph! Otherwise, the order in which you work your tiles will be meaningless as you will get crushed.