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.
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.
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.
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.
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