3920 - Kgb

[Blake]

So it still seems to me most likely that AC or Sara are our Plains Hill suspects working 3/0/1 or 3/0/3 tiles. If that's the case, one of the initial civs has the Commerce special and/or Oases are being worked out there.

This sounds reasonable.

There is only one assumption of yours I feel is unreasonable - commerce special on plains hill on river. I know you assume that only the foolish would found a city on gold, but I have certainly done so (in fact I did a couple of games ago). This is primarly when there are at least two PH gold in radius so working both would put a serious damper on growth.
Founding on PH gold gives +1h +2c, add this to a FP cottage and you get 3-1-8, which is a fair (more than fair) tradeoff for the 0-3-9 goldmine. In the extremely long run the cottage option gets upgraded to 3-2-11.

Basically for founding on gold, it's positive in the short run via the significant bonus to the city tile. In the short-medium run it's negative because you can very quickly mine a gold mine. In the medium run it's positive again because a cottage will be reaching high commerce levels, in the very long run cottages get upgraded to be better than gold. I'm pretty sure the turn advantage for a single gold is best by mining and working it, but for multiple gold I suspect it's acceptable to found on one of them. Generally though founding on a garbage tile would be best, if such a tile is in a good location for founding on.

The numbers don't look so good for non-fin, since they only get +1 commerce by founding on the gold and a river cottage doesn't start out at 3 comm. I doubt it's ever worth it for non-fin.

It is also possible of course that a team founds on PH gold based on flawed reasoning (that looks good), or because for other reasons it simply looks like the best place to put a city.

I think your deductions are probably right, altough at the end of the day it's still a best-guess thing.

But do I think it's happened? No. No I don't, very unlikely. Maybe I just wanted to disagree with your assertion on the intelligence of those who would found on PH gold/silver , or at least assert that those dumb enough to do so actually exist .

If the Plains hill team was 5-2-9 working a 3/0/0, then the other two civs are 4-2-10 and 4-1-10, which strikes me as even more suspect given that the 4-2-10 only resolves on grassland Ivory, stone, marble or grassland Forest Commerce specials. Add that to someone without a 2-1-0 or a 3-0-0 and you've got a pretty unlikely scenario.

If the Plains hill team was 4-2-10, they're working a 2-0-1 and that strikes me as a poor move, although the other results start making more sense (5-1-10 and 4-2-9). And I'm not buying that the Plains Hill team was 4-2-9.

(little addition in bolditalic, i have seen these on grassland river a good number of times)

It is within the realm of possibility that a team decides to found in a location where all the good tiles require a border pop in order to work. Altough given the relative abundance of forest working a 2-0-1 would be suspect, unless they really want to race for religion (which is unlikely, I feel), not that I've never founded in a location which has nothing better than 2-0-1 or 0-2-1. It's at the expense of 5 hammers really (5 hammers for 5 commerce), and that wont break the bank if the post-pop situation is really nice.

I guess the border pops will tell us more.

[Aginor]

Originally posted by Blake
I know you assume that only the foolish would found a city on gold, but I have certainly done so (in fact I did a couple of games ago). This is primarly when there are at least two PH gold in radius so working both would put a serious damper on growth.

Yes, I saw one such start over the 50 or so starts I generated where there were, I think, 2 Silver and a Gold in an initial radius with a river but no food specials. I'd have founded on the Silver on the river, no questions asked there, since the terrain was so rugged there was no way other than Great Merchants to get enough of a food surplus to work all 3 tiles anyway.

Still, with something like 5 civs starting with Mining (including all the Financials) and both of the possible Financial 'founded on a river Gold tile' suspects having some way of working food specials (Fishing/Ag), I just don't see it. There's no way China founds on a Gold IMO, just no way, since they can Farm and Mine from turn 1, so they can power multiple Gold mines. And I consider it to be pretty low probability with Liz. (And we know for a fact that Cathy didn't found on a river Commerce special.)

But do I think it's happened? No. No I don't, very unlikely. Maybe I just wanted to disagree with your assertion on the intelligence of those who would found on PH gold/silver , or at least assert that those dumb enough to do so actually exist .

*laughs* I understand the reasoning, and I can see the cases where it happens - but as you say, realistically in this game I don't see it.

It is within the realm of possibility that a team decides to found in a location where all the good tiles require a border pop in order to work. Although given the relative abundance of forest working a 2-0-1 would be suspect, unless they really want to race for religion (which is unlikely, I feel), not that I've never founded in a location which has nothing better than 2-0-1 or 0-2-1.

I've done that as well, and it's a particularly easy call with a Creative civ that gets a fast border pop. But I'm still having a hard time buying the 2-0-1, even in a bad start. I consider a situation where there's nothing better than a 2-1-0 to work pre-border pop sub-par; about half the time there's at least a 3-0-0 to start, if you're so inclined.

I guess the border pops will tell us more.

Amen to that, which is why I've posted the dates for certain civ growth, possible civ growth and border pops in the OP. It appears that we're fortunate enough that we ought to be able to nail it down to specific civs (with Mercs/Banana and AC/Sara indistinguishable) on food, hammers and commerce by the time we have to make our decision on the second tech to be researched. Which is a really good thing, because it lets us make the right research call and be confident that we'll get the outcome we want.

[Cort Haus]

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