Your Starting Position, and What to Do About It

[vmxa1]

I often will have the worker mine first, then road.

[justjake73]

I always try to start on a river square for bonus Commerce, then build roads on the shielded grasslands first before irrigating Plains

[steven8r]

Thanks for the info Arrian, all of it.

However, I do have 1 more question. In your first post you said,

T2 - settler founds Constantinople, WF to bonus grass, begin warrior.

What does the 'WF' mean?

Reguarding Move/Don't Move: I prefer to get coastal cities so that they have only 1 Coast tile (until they expand). This requires settlement so that the Coast is in the direction of 2,4,6,8 in relation to the city. You still get the benefits of being 'Coastal', plus you get more workable land around your city. Of course this WON'T become an issue until your city grows significantly. I'd vote for NO MOVE.

Thanks,

Steven

[vmxa1]

Maybe it is Work Finished?

[vmxa1]

Or Worker Forward

[Aeson]

Work Force (Laborer?)

---------------

The Gambler in me would move E to the river (69, maybe 66 if those are Furs. Center the Palace a bit better, get the free Aquaduct, and it's probably the fastest way to get Irrigation to that Wheat tile. As it's Monarch, the 2 wasted turns of research and slower time to your first exploring Warriors and Curraghs shouldn't hurt much. Finding any good tiles to work along the River would pay off very quickly, and otherwise it will eventually pay off, if not all that quickly.

Worker could either lead the Settler and see if 66 or 69 would be best, move 9 to improve that bonus Grassland, or head 86 and chop the Forest.

I normally don't work out build queues in advance so I tend to waste a shield or two early on due to going on hunches. Generally I'd say Warrior, Granary (with a chop 86, if any bonus food tiles), Settler. Else just get the Settler out ASAP (probably no chop), and build the second city to use the Wheat if nothing better has presented itself elsewhere. 8 of the start most likely. That would require Irrigation of 1 tile to get the water there.

A +3 food city isn't great, and it takes a bit of extra Worker turns to get to it, but it will pay off those Worker turns pretty quickly. When playing for fun, I like to build a Granary and Barracks in +3 food cities without a lot of tiles to work. Just leave them as 4 turn growth, 2 turn Warrior, 2 turn Worker. Get that city to 4 and 6 production floating at size 3 or 4.

[EnduringBlue]

I would have the worker move to check out the view from the hill, but the opening location is pretty sweet. I prefer to have my capital coastal, so it can work on great lighthouse or colossus once the fourth, sometimes the third, city is built.

and there may be iron in them thar hills, eventually, too.

I like that river to the east, but I think that location is going to be within the radius of the the second city and not the first, for me.

other than that, I'm in basic agreement on how to use the first 10 turns.

[Theseus]

Originally posted by Arrian
I'd probably move southwest (1) to the hill. The worker starts roading.

T1 - settler moves 1, worker begins road.
T2 - settler founds Constantinople, WF to bonus grass, begin warrior.
T3 - 2f, 2s.
T4 - 4f, 4s. Road complete, begin mine.
T5 - 6f, 6s.
T6 - 8f, 8s.
T7 - 10f, warrior complete. Another.
T8 - 12f, 2s.
T9 - 14f, 4s.
T10 - 16f, 7s. Mine complete. Worker moves to next bonus grass (3).
T11 - 18f, warrior complete. One more. Worker mines.
T12 - Size 2, 4s. Border expansion.
T13 - 2f, 8s.
T14 - 4f, warrior complete. Begin granary.

I hate wasting shields, though, so I might actually build a spearman instead of the 3rd warrior. Completes on T16.

Of course, when I play my own SP games, I don't jot this stuff down this way. I'd probably order the worker to mine first, forgetting that this would not help speed warrior building, and would cost me commerce.

HMM, looks like there is a river to the east. I can barely see it. Another possible opening move is to go east twice (66) and build on the hill. The worker moves 6, and begins chop.

T1 - move
T2 - move again, worker begins chop.
T3 - Constantinople founded.
T4 - dunno, depends on what tiles can be worked.
...
T6 - chop complete + 10 shields. So a warrior build from the start would be bad. Probably a spearman, then, eh?

Steven,

The smilies are part of a graphics mod that puts smilies on luxury tiles - which means he's got two luxuries inside the capitol radius. Good, because the only bonus food tile he's got is useless for a while (can't get irrigation to it, at least not w/o a lot of work).

-Arrian

Dear god, man, I wish I though like that!!

I built on the spot. Less from you later calculations, nor from other comments about the river, but rather for sea access... Byzantines, after all

[Kropotkin]

Dear god, man, I wish I though like that!!

Not even the AI thinks like that.

[Arrian]

I don't think like that in SP, T. Only in the demogames, when I got bored between turns.

Aeson's probably right about moving to the river. It's good not only for the extra trade (not from city tile, as this is a seafaring civ, but from the others) but also to better center the capital. The primary reason I dislike coastal starts (and hence am dubious about seafaring civs) is the off-center palace.

-Arrian

p.s. WF = "work force" I used to say "citizen" but being part of the American Imperialist (tm) team in the MZO C3C Demogame has exposed me to E_T and his use of WF.

[Kropotkin]

And besides, if you call them citiziens, they might get the idea that they have civil rights, as opposed to being means of production.

[Arrian]

Hah! They should just be happy I'm not whipping them to death!

-Arrian

[Dominae]

With Theseus' start, I would probably do Arrian's first queue, hoping to discover some better Food tiles for a pump city somewhere nearby. Moving toward the River is certainly good too, but it would require too much work (even for freaks like me!) to figure out if it's really worth it, and by how much.

By the way, if I did not know for a fact that those two Luxury resources were there (which normally you would not without a special graphics mod), I would probably move the Worker one tile South first, just to get a better view of the starting location. It's a gamble, but one with low cost (one lost Worker-turn) and potentially high gains (spotting of Bonus Food resource).


Dominae

[Theseus]

OK, someone else put up a starting position!

[Aeson]

Don't we get to see what's out there in your start first though?