Bug or not?

[rah]

Based on experience, I believe that is correct. It's a good way to take advantage of that river swamp hex.

[DrSpike]

You can mine hills under a city, but you have to pre-mine IIRC. The grassland - forest works, and I guess it's pretty useful in a 2x game.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by DrSpike
You can mine hills under a city, but you have to pre-mine IIRC.

Correct.

starting in 4 special location on a hill, and mining it with Settler#2 before founding

[rah]

I've done that in SP, but NEVER in MP. You'd fall too far behind.

[DrSpike]

Agreed. I haven't even done it in SP.......though I've considered it as a possibility a few times. It's very slow though, and there aren't many situation in 1x SP you would want to found on a hill.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Well... in defense of the mined first city, it's only viable if there are some decent trade/food specials nearby. Probably a good OCC tactic. (??) The advantages are that a) you can spit out a settler from the city, as you mine the hill with settler #2; b) the (capital) city is quite defensible; and c) you get a lot more production, which is handy for wonder and caravan building.

In the game I'm thinking of, whales/wine/wheat were in the radius, IIRC.

The disadvantages are obvious - you only have one city down at the start, and that city isn't collecting any trade from its home square (and never will). Not a MP strat, I agree, you can't have a slow start there. Still... I've had a couple of sweet 3- or 4- special starts which happened to centre on a hill, and I'd never build on an unmined hill. Or pass up a sweet spot like that.

edit: make that 'I'd never build on an unmined, non-special hill.'

[rah]

Yes, in a 1x game, founding on a non-special-mined hill doesn't sound very feasable. But in an MP 2x game, even a simple whale in reach can make it a desirable location. The extra defense helps. And as long as there are any forests around, production is not a problem.

RAH

[Cyrion]

Originally posted by DrSpike
You can mine hills under a city, but you have to pre-mine IIRC.

That's what I was (clumsily) trying to say :

unless you start before building the city

Never did it myself, though... Might be worth trying once

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Cyrion

That's what I was (clumsily) trying to say :

Hehe, didn't notice you pipped me there.

Tbh it has very limited applicability in 1x, which is why most people only have it in mind as a possibility just in case. But you never know when it might come in handy I guess.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by DrSpike

Tbh it has very limited applicability in 1x, which is why most people only have it in mind as a possibility just in case. But you never know when it might come in handy I guess.

Anything's possible. I don't do it a lot, but there are times when it just seems to work well. If there's a scarcity of good sites, other than the (mined) hill, it may be worth putting the second Settler to work mining it. And the extra production is nice if you plan on getting to Republic fast.

All we need now is someone like DaveV (resource square use) or solo to come along and illustrate the circumstances where it's a good idea, or a bad idea