Best resources for first city (1x production)

[DaveV]

I think there was another thread on this topic, but I couldn't find it. These rankings are biased toward the early game, when you're in despotism, but some consideration is given to the later game. Anyway, here's the argument starter:

City site (goal is 1. food, 2. shields, 3. trade):
1. Rivered grassland
2. Rivered plains
3. Rivered buffalo
4. Rivered pheasant
5. Buffalo
6. Grassland
7. Plains
8. Wine
9. Spice
10. Furs
11. Wheat/Oaisis

1st worker square (goal is 1. food 2. shields 3. trade):
1. Whales
2. Rivered wheat/oasis
3. Rivered shield grassland
3. Rivered pheasant
4. Pheasant
5. Wheat/oasis
6. Shield grassland

2nd worker square (goal is 1. shields 2. trade 3. food):
1. Whales
2. Silk
3. Peat
4. Iron/Oil
5. Buffalo
4. Forest/Coal

After your city grows to size 2, switch both workers to a "second worker" square, if possible.

I rate special squares relatively low for the city square because it means you won't be able to work any other special squares. I won't put my first worker on a square that produces high food/trade but no shields (e.g. spice, fruit, fish). The AI loves these squares, so you need to rearrange your workers every time the city grows.

[Carolus Rex]

I have an excel spread sheet at home listing the resources produced by different city squares, depending on its terrain. Checked both under despo and monarchy.

I'll post it when I have the time (sometime this week end).

Carolus

[This message has been edited by Carolus Rex (edited June 16, 2000).]

[rah]

In mp, give me gold on a river and I'll pop my capital on it so quick your head will spin. You can use your second settler to take advantage of two (if it's a four pattern) other specials. Couple this with the build settler from capital trick, and you get off to a great start. First to monarchy, philo. Big in an MP game.

If you build on it, you get one food and can take advantage of it imediately. If it's on a river you can usually bet there is a grassland shield river square in reach.

Note: this is usually in a 2x1x game but will still work in a 1x1x game as long as you get the one food from it. You can use the second settler to irrigate a square while you do the settler from capital trick.

RAH
Never underestimate the power of big trade squares.

[This message has been edited by rah (edited June 16, 2000).]

[Ely McGreen]

And how often Rah do you get a gold on a river? Its like having four whales- very nice, but the odds are incredible.

Anyhow, I like to build on top of a corn terrain [if I can] with some special nearby, preferably pheasant or silk [or whales]. I have been known to build on top of spice [and yes, on rivered spice] but a rivered gold is something I have yet to see.

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Elizer R. McGreen

[rah]

Of course whales are my favorite, but when you play 4 man games on 36x42 maps you'd be surprised how much gold shows up. (since the whole damn world is mountains.)

RAH

[jpk]

I like to have as many specials as possible for my capitol. In general I try to get several specials for a city. When there is an isolated special I will build on top of it. Spice is really nice. In the early game buffalo are nice too. If you build a barracks in that city it will rapidly supply veteran phlanxes for your empire.

[The Mad Monk]

Founding a city on spice has at least one benefit down the road: if you build a supermarket in that city, it gets the farmland bonus, even though it's otherwise impossible to even irrigate a swamp!

[SCG]

actually, i don't think i've ever seen a river flowing on a mountain square. I've not really played around in the map editor, so i can't say whether it is possible or not.

As for founding cities early, i hope for an oasis or wheat nearby so i can get that city to a 2 quickly. They are the only specials i can think of that produce 3 food in despotism. I'm also rather surprised that wheat/oasis rate so low. It takes very little time to put down a road, and your settler can do it enroute to a new city. And a roaded, mined oasis is better than a pheasant any time except when you have near 100% corruption, in which case its equal.

I'm always on the lookout for a five special pattern, but haven't found one yet.

Baring that, my favourite site would be grassland for the city centre and 2 whales/2 wine. Oh, and rivers, lots of rivers...

(By the way, I just changed my username from Tom DeMille )

[DaveV]

Another great thing about whales for the early game is that they are custom-made for despotism. 2 food, 2 shields, 2 trade; no penalties!

[Adam Smith]

rah (or anybody else):
The "build settler from capital trick"? Please explain.

[SCG]

quote: rah (or anybody else): The "build settler from capital trick"? Please explain.

A concurrent Thread

Trying that thread address 1 more time :P

[This message has been edited by SCG (edited June 16, 2000).]

[Paul]

Dave, whales have 3 trade, so you lose 1 in despotism.

[DaveV]

Paul - you're right, of course. Oops.

[Scouse Gits]

We have never seen river and mountain either - are you sure, Rah

Tom': When you say 5 special start are you talking about dateline anomolies? (in which case our own research suggests it can't happen) or some other phenomenon?
________________
The SGs in concert

[Tom DeMille]

Since a 5 special city location is impossible, I was just joking that it would be neat to find.

p.s. As you might notice, my username is back to Tom DeMille. Woops.

Oh well, Tom' felt a bit weird, so I'm happy enough to stay as plain Tom.

[rah]

I've seen quite a few mountain river squares. play on small small worlds and you will gets lots of mountains. While rare you do improve the odds considerably of a river through one.

RAH
Quite Sure

[Jim W]

In my present game (SP) I have one city which includes two whales and a fish. It also has numerous hills, and a few plain/grassland squares. Needless to say, this city is doing quite well.

Jim W

[Smash]

Actually, its very rare, but it is possible to have 5 specials in 1 city's radius.

I saw it once in a MP game on some bizarre map size.My ally had a city near 0 meridian and there was crossover of specials that he found.3 whales and 2 "raised" silk forests.I tryed to re-create it with the map editor but havn't found the seed resource or map size again.I think it had odd numbers in the dimensions.

For a regular game where I intend to do some expanding I'd wish for whale,wine,coal and river wheat.

For small science based civ or OCC I'd wish for 2 whales,wine and gold.Preferable a manually created map where the gold and wine hills have rivers

[DaveV]

SCG - I rated wheat/oasis low because I rarely irrigate - I think I'm further ahead establishing another city instead. Once Monarchy rolls around, it is indeed nice to have the extra food.

I didn't mean to imply that these preferences are the last word in strategy. Like so many other things, it will depend on your playing style. I was hoping for some critcism and new ideas (like RAH's gold mountain - which would also give your capital very nice defense).

[The Mad Viking]

Whales are great cause they're ready to use.
I like wine best, cause you can mine them and get 3 shields plus the food and trade; add rail and I don't think any square can compete. Mined oasis is also nice, but weaker.

The people who aren't listing food specials almost certainly rely on WLT* for population growth.

[Ming]

I think another reason why many people aren't listing food specials is that many of us play 2x production in MP now. In single production, food is far more crucial for growing your cities. In double prodution, food becomes an after thought. Heck, you can build on a mountain gold sqaure and not even worry about food.
With 2x pro, trade squares become far more important, since you usually have enough food and production to survive.
But no matter what I'm playing, give me those whales... food, production, science, and once you have it, nobody can take the square away from you (unless you do something stupid)
There is nothing worse in a MP game then when somebody sneaks a settler up on you and drops a new city on a special one of your cities is using, or drops a couple of vet pikeman on your gold square!

[East Street Trader]

River gold, river wheat, five special cities!

Used to think I played this game too much. Starting to think I don't play it enough.

Course playing more (or even at all) is now kinda hard cause I keep reading all these fascinating posts - haven't started a new game since Monday.

Have to play on small maps more, too.

Rah. How do you get to found on a special and to have two more special squares inside the radius? Guess I don't understand the pattern too good. I thought they were always a knight's move away from a central square (always making the knight's sideways move anti-clockwise). Perhaps that's the four square pattern. What's this three square thing?

Guess explaining in words won't be easy. I'll try the scenario building tools (for the first time) and see if I can understand from that. Got to do that anyway to suss out Ming's post on hut pattern and some fearsome stuff on the subtleties of the special pattern.

Sorta sad that there is a hut pattern. But I suppose they worked out that an even distribution makes for more balanced play.
[This message has been edited by East Street Trader (edited June 22, 2000).]

[SCG]

quote: Course playing more (or even at all) is now kinda hard cause I keep reading all these fascinating posts - haven't started a new game since Monday.

heh, I haven't played a game this month. About all I've done since I found this site is load some of my older games to look for things mentioned in some of the posts

For example, I've seen a few 5-special layouts (too bad it was over the ocean) I always figured it was because of the wraparound maps, but never really tried to find out. Always knew there was some sort of pattern between the huts and specials - they always seemed to be nearly identical, but shifted by a couple tiles to be 1 tile away from perfect locations - kind of annoying when finding an advanced tribe - more than once considered tearing down that tribe and moving one tile over

[rah]

EST, if you read the post carefully you will note that I said the second settler takes advantange of of the other two specials in the pattern (by building a city). The only time you can build on a special and still be in reach of another one is along the 0 axis.

This is a good time to remind people of the old "using the same square for supporting two cities trick" If you have one city on the 0 coordinate and one on the highest coordinate, they can both use the same resourse squares. Great when you find a whale on the edge of the board.

RAH

[SCG]

quote: This is a good time to remind people of the old "using the same square for supporting two cities trick" If you have one city on the 0 coordinate and one on the highest coordinate, they can both use the same resourse squares. Great when you find a whale on the edge of the board.

I remember being rather surprised when I saw 2 AI cities each using the same 6 squares (it was the Germans) Of course when I conquered both cities, I found I could do the same thing And to follow up, you still can't place the cities adjacent to each other, even if they are on the opposite sides of the wraparound. They just can use each others squares.

[Steve Clark]

Since I only build 8-12 cities max, I do everything to control pop growth to minimize unhappiness and maximum trade/shields. I would rather have my settlers/engineers build roads in all of the squares than irrigate, which not only takes longer but only adds a food which I usually don't want. The exception of course is the SSC where all grassland squares are roaded and irrigated.

[kcbob]

DaveV, you rarely irrigate??? How many other folks follow that philosophy? I irrigate all the time. Should I rethink that?

BTW. Along the topic of this thread, I had my best OCC game last night. Still got clobbered around 1888 by the Minnesota Vikings but I had the science beakers cranking out like crazy. Started with two whales and two pheasants within the city limits. Speaking as a strict ICSer, this OCC thing just might catch on. Ya think?

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Frodo lives!

Better dead than "Red"... or green... or blue... or yellow... or orange... or purple... or white.

[geofelt]

I like to found a city on a grassland river. It allows an adequate defence with a phalanx. Another favorite is a wine hill, If I can get a settler to start mining it first.

[Smash]

I just talked to my "5 special" ally and that was on one of those oversized maps.If you ever played one these monsters then you know strange things happen with them.

I will still be watching 0 meridian though.