First City Strategy

[DrSpike]

I'm a wanderer generally......the chance of a non unit is nice. However I will quite happily plonk down in 4000BC on a river, especially since playing rookie deity I have another settler to explore with first to help rule out settling one square away from the perfect spot.

Worse is wandering 4 turns, then realising the best spot was where you started..........sometimes civ is cruel.

[War4ever]

yes Spike.....realizing the opening was as good as its going to get for awhile makes for a painfull night....

always explore the river, odds are you will find a hut or a special...if not, the rivers a nice start

[Frank Johnson]

Clearly the strategy is different in 1x1x.....but the "specials" you look for in 2x just aren't that great for a newly founded city.

Just about the only immediately usable resources for a starting capital I'd consider useful in 1x1x are a whale, and maybe phesent and wheat/buffalo, with a little work.

Of course we look for all these other resources knowing they'll be extremely useful once the city can grow a bit, but untill then its grassland sheilds all the way. Rivers are a nice addition, but mainly to found a city on......I seem to always prep 2 grassland sheilds for a new city if I can already. The river would just shorten that time to founding and nothing else unless its built directly on the river.

[War4ever]

Rivers are key in any game....the extra trade early means better beakers, means a better govt....

Frank Johonson points out clearly the benefits of whales....they are killer in x1

[deity]

I don't think anything is a killer. None of it is that important. We all know the game well enough now to do well from any start.

[rah]

Whales rule in either 1x or 2x.
I think that caused a lot of my dislike for CIVIII. The whale isn't king in that game. Just like everything else that I liked about II, they took out of III.

RAH

[SlowwHand]

Ideally I'm a "Bill Nye the Science Guy" myself.
I might wait a turn or two to put down first city, but I'm through doing a Moses act.

[rah]

I still do the moses act sometimes. As stated, nothing worse than wandering 8 turns just to realize theat your opening spot was the best location you're going to find.

[SlowwHand]

Which is what generally happens to me.
If there's a wrong way to go, map clicking or not, I go that way.

[War4ever]

there is nothing worse than hitting a dead end

[rah]

especially one square short/or within range of where the next special should be.

[War4ever]

early map making can be huge.....one should avoid coastal settlement until you have it if possible, unless ou can see the damm whale lol

[rah]

hahaha, I remember one game where I was pinned in and figured I should go for MAPMAKING early. Maxed every city in terms of science ignoring food and production. When I got it, it was time to switch to tiremes and rush them, only to discover that I didn't have any coastal cities. hahahahaha so it took me a few extra turns to crank a settler and make one. I felt quite foolish.

Rich

[Flatlander Fox]

Usually it's a warrior who hits the dead end too, which then takes him 1500 years to get back to home base...

[SlowwHand]

That's funny RAH. But I've done the same, as I have few cities right on coast. I like them to "lurK'.