[Spoilers] RFS-81 and haphazard1 don't know RtR, but won't let that stop them

[haphazard1]

Scouts tend to be pretty fragile.

Have you decided on a spot for your second city? What are your worker plans? Will the worker be able to help road to/improve the second city? Escort for the settler, or maybe have the warrior clear the way/lead to the site? Always so many variables to juggle for the second city.

[RFS-81]

Scouts are not any more fragile than warriors as long as they have to fight animals...

I just noticed that I'm getting unhappiness from lack of protection, so I can grow one size more. (2nd warrior finishes next turn) Do you think I should get a settler out next, or should I grow to the happy cap?

I pinned some interesting locatins. Getting a road to my chosen spot before the settler completes should be doable, I just need to finally make a decision.

   

The one simply marked "City?" seems like a pretty good generalist city to me. Two hills in the first ring, three two more in the second. The lake tiles get a bonus from my financial trait. It can use pigs for growth. Settling on the other side of the river would allow it to borrow the rice, but it would lose out on the 2nd ring hills. Both alternatives would block the city location near the stone ("Unit Pump"). To work the stone, I could settle a city east of the stone instead.

"Luxury City" (marker should be 1 to the north, but I can't put it on unexplored tiles). The elephants I just discovered would give me 1 more happy at Animal Husbandry. Two hills in the second ring. Placing it east of the pigs and elephants would grab a bunch of hills, but it's desert. Can make a lot of money when I have Calendar, but doesn't seem too good as a 2nd city. I still might grab it before researching Calendar for the 1 happy, but that's more worthwile when I already have a couple of big cities.

"Unit Pump": Lots of production, can plant a city on an otherwise useless desert tile, but that would block "City?". The location east of the stone has also good production (and a couple of luxuries that will only be useful when Calendar comes along).

"Corn City?": A weaker version of "City?", will have to wait for later.


"City?" seems like the right choice to me. What do you think?

Oh, another thing: My Land score jumped from 20 to 49, what's up with that?

[haphazard1]

On the land score, 20 turns ago would be turn 5 which should have been when your capital's borders popped the first time. So you went from controlling 8 land tiles (water tiles do not count towards land score, I believe) to controlling 19 tiles. Hmmm, 11 tiles = 28 score? There should be a fraction in the score listing, for something like N/Z where N is the tiles you control and Z is total land tiles in the world; you can also look at the victory screen for your percentage of land controlled to get an idea of how many total land tiles exist.

For cities, one thing to consider is that a city which is coastal (on ocean) can build a lighthouse which also affects lake tiles. So your Corn City location would be able to get three food from those lake tiles once it has a lighthouse. (Note to self: recheck RtR change log to see if it did anything to lighthouses.) This could also affect your "City?" location if it was one south to be on the coast. It could have both pigs and fish, plus the three food lake tiles with a lighthouse. Moving it would prevent your fishing town, plus it would need a border pop to reach the food resources, so you may not want to move it. But the lighthouse lake effect is something to consider.

On growing the capital further before starting a settler, what would be the additional tile worked? Would it add enough food+hammers to be worth the delay to starting the settler before growing?

And for roading ahead of the settler, while this is desirable it might not be the best thing for your worker to do if you have better options. Would mining a hill for the capital be more useful? Maybe, not sure how the hammers stack up. But a road would be useful to speed the settler, and to get a trade route between the two cities for +1 commerce in each. So do not delay the road too long, even if you do not build it ahead of time.

[RFS-81]

My 4th citizen is working a grassland-forest-hill, and the 5th could work another such tile. When I have Fishing (which I plan to research next), one of them can work the crab tile.

The downside of moving 1 south from "City?" is that it will only aquire a food source when it pops borders, so I pretty much have to chop out a monument first (and research Mysticism). It would also block Fishing Town. It has two seafood resources, and 6 coastal tiles, so I thought that it would be a good location for the Maoi Statues later on. It doesn't look like it has enough hammers for a 2nd city, though I might be wrong about that. Also, settling inward seems a better choice at the start.

Good point about "Corn City", luckily I have some more time to think while Coeurva's reload gets sorted out!

About mining hills instead of roading: I have enough forested hills at the moment. I might want to chop a forest to get the settler out faster, though.

EDIT: Lighthouses function as normal in RtR.

[haphazard1]

The need for a border pop to reach its food would make moving City? south a problem.

Thinking ahead for Moai is a good idea, especially since you do have stone near. Corn city might also be a candidate; with the lake tiles it would have seven water tiles it would likely want to work. Fishing town will have more total water tiles, although some of them would be ocean rather than coast. Both would make nice Moai cities.

[RFS-81]

I decided to grow the city one more size, which may be a mistake. It grows in two turns and I thought that another grassland-forest-hill will shave off 2 turns from the settler. I didn't take the food eaten by the additional citizen into account. Together with the farm in construction, it'll fall just short of the goal.

From a perspective of claiming territory, settling towards the center of the map would be good. That would mean Unit Pump or Luxury City. Unit Pump still has some flatland for cottages, so it could also get some commerce in the long run. But I think the goal for the second city should be to give us production and more science right now.

I'm leaning towards the Corn City now. I'm moving my warrior to unveil some more black spots near there.

[haphazard1]

Growing the capital another size can be tough to judge whether it will help the settler. This is why improved tiles are so important: even a forest hill does not produce enough total food+hammers after supporting the pop point working it to make a big difference. But it is not a major error; that pop will be useful, and it sounds like it will only be a one or two turn difference.

Have you thought about the timing for switching to slavery? (Or did you already switch? You had mentioned possibly whipping the settler at one point.) A common tactic is to do so while the settler is in transit to founding the second city, so you do not delay the settler by a turn of anarchy and also do not lose a turn in the new city. After the switch you could whip another settler, or perhaps a second worker, if you felt it would be helpful and the whip anger/whipped pop would not cost you too much in lost production. Or just keep working tiles.

Corn city or Unit Pump would each have a strong food tile in the first ring. Each would need some research to get their second strong tile going. I would lean toward Corn city first, since Fishing would also benefit the capital with the crabs, but heading toward the middle of the map also has advantages.

Maybe your warrior will reveal something useful. Or perhaps some copper will show up somewhere and change your dotmap?

[RFS-81]

B&W was still in research when I wrote about whipping the settler. It's finished now, and I immediately swapped to slavery. My thinking was that I pay less opportunity cost while I have only one city, so better get it down right now. Doing it with the settler on the move would have been better, but I didn't think of that.

Bronze has been revealed near the capital and Unit Pump:

   

(btw, that's a plains hill with the copper, not a desert hill - they look almost the same to me, maybe it's different for expert players)

So I already have bronze no matter where I settle. But the copper at Unit Pump gives it even more production, and it doesn't need masonry.

[haphazard1]

Copper! Very nice. Not only to have the metal, but also for the hammers.

Desert hills are a bit lighter in color than plains hills; more white and a bit less yellow, like the flat versions of those tiles. It is kind of hard to see with the hill effect, but you can always check the tool tip for the tile. Or turn on tile yield, although I find that makes the map rather cluttered.

On the revolt to slavery, the main question is whether you are actually going to whip anything before the settler is finished and on the move. If not, then waiting and revolting once the settler is walking to its destination would be less costly as it would not delay the settler by a turn. If you actually whip something before the settler is done (or whip the settler itself), then revolting now makes sense.

Of course, another benefit of revolting immediately is that you will not find yourself trying to whip something 20 turns from now and realize you forgot to ever switch. Not that this has ever happened to me, of course.

[RFS-81]

Found another spot with corn + 2 seafood. This city would have fewer lake tiles, but would leave room for a filler city between itself and Golden Void. So many choices

   

Fishing is two turns from completion. My next candidates are Sailing (for lighthouse) or Pottery. I think I'm going with Pottery, since lighthouses give better yields when cities are larger.

EDIT: Oh yes, and I started working on a settler. I'll probably whip for 2 pop, so that my early civic swap doesn't go to waste. The worker is currently busy mining the copper.