I've been thinking about this start and with not much going on right now, this seems like a good moment to toss out some theorycrafting. For starters, I don't think that putting a second city to the west of the rice would be a good idea. Everything over there seems to be either desert or flatground, and flatground grassland and plains tiles are almost as useless in Civ6 as desert tiles. There's no way to improve production until planting forests comes online at Conservation civic and no cottages to be added as in Civ4. Flatground with no forest or jungle = useless.
In contrast, the more that I think about the non-river plains hill tile where the scout was standing on Turn 14, the more that I like the spot. Yes, it's crippled by a lack of housing but it has by far the best collection of tiles in this immediate area near the start. Those hills over by the Rocky Mountains and the potential to put Campus districts nearby for their adjacency bonuses are just way better than anywhere else that an early settler could go. So let's theorycraft this out, shall we? A city on the non-river plains hill tile would start with 2 housing, which would mean that it gets -50% growth at size 1. Ouch! There is a way to work around this, however: purchase a builder in the second city immediately, farm the local rice and then assign the horses tile northeast of the capital to the new city and pasture it. The farm + pasture combination grants another point of housing and that gets the new city to size 2 without penalty. Then the city hits the housing penalty again at size 2, but at size 2 it can work the horses pasture and the 1/3 forested plains hill tile for a total of 2 (horses) + 3 (hill) + 2 (center tile) + 1 (Urban Planning) = 8 production/turn. And that's honestly good enough to start the game! From there, the city has enough production to build a granary for +2 housing (enough to get to size 4) and that's enough for the second district and the rest of the early game. Later the city builds an aqueduct for +4 housing and that gets it to size 8, which is plenty for the rest of the game.
The non-river spot is significantly better in the long run, once it can solve the housing problem, because it has so much more production available. It also saves a lot of money on tile purchases by virtue of being closer to the mountain range. This is how I'd plan out the area with that city spot:
![[Image: PBEM18-1.jpg]](http://www.sullla.com/Civ6/PBEM18-1.jpg)
The crucial early advantage of this spot is the unlocking the double 1/3 plains hill tiles right away. With any luck, the cultural tile picker will choose the second 1/3 plains hill tile (the one with the "Cam" sign on it above) for the first tile culturally acquired, thereby saving the need to spend any gold on that tile at all. Then the only tiles needed to be purchased would be the Government Plaza (second ring for the new city) and the Campus district spot for the capital. Two total tile purchases; the horses will be grabbed by the capital and the Commercial district spot won't be needed for ages down the road. Under this plan, the capital builds the Government Plaza as its first district (skipping the State Workforce boost) and then grabs the Campus spot as its second district, as there won't be enough money to purchase over there until a little bit later. This setup is also heavily leaning on God of the Open Sky to provide a surge of early culture to power through State Workforce without the boost, and also relies on a builder purchase immediately in the second city upon founding. If going this route, do *NOT* improve the rice tile at the capital because the Irrigation boost would come from farming the rice at the second city. Instead, the initial builder improves horses, sheep, sheep and plans on leaning on God of the Open Sky along with the cultural city state for massive early game cultural output. The second builder would improve rice at the second city, horses, and then the wines tile at the capital for happiness. This provides exactly enough improved tiles for the two cities to make it through the early stages of the game, and the early Government Plaza plus huge cultural output from Cultural city state + God of the Open Sky on four plantations gets a fast triple-promoted Pingala to accelerate through the first techs/civics.
Note that there's a lot of "ifs" in there!
As I said, this setup really needs God of the Open Sky for maximum efficiency, plus the immediate builder purchase, plus some tight city micro. Still, I think it comes out ahead with a strong second city site that has a lot of production and a great long term setup where the two Campus districts get +3 and +4 beaker adjacencies. By contrast, here's how things might look by settling on the rice:
![[Image: PBEM18-2.jpg]](http://www.sullla.com/Civ6/PBEM18-2.jpg)
I mean, this certainly isn't terrible or anything like that. The Campus district spot is now out in the third ring and costs a bit more gold to purchase over there. More significantly, the city has traded two hill tiles in the first ring for two desert tiles in the first ring, and that's a bad trade indeed. If the cultural tile picker doesn't grab the 1/3 forested plains hill tile with the initial acquisition, this city is almost useless out of the gate. It can take the horses tile over from the capital and after that, uh... what does it do exactly? We don't really want to sink an early builder charge into mining a non-resource hill tile if we can avoid it. I dunno, am I crazy for thinking all of this? It just feels like housing is an issue we can work around whereas having bad local terrain is mostly unsolvable. What do the rest of you think?
![[Image: PBEM1-393.jpg]](http://www.sullla.com/Civ6/PBEM1/PBEM1-393.jpg)
One last note here: I remember all the way back to PBEM1 when TheArchduke founded this city which wasn't on fresh water. I thought initial that it was a total junk city for lack of housing but I was wrong - Arpinum was actually pretty darn good! The PBEM1 map was very low on production and this spot was a solid city contributor because it had actual hill tiles and a horse resource that could be improved, not just a bunch of flatground tiles. The lesson for me was that cities don't need to be particularly large to be useful in Civ6. If they can make size 7 before the end of the game and get the third district out, that seems to be plenty. Food for thought.
In contrast, the more that I think about the non-river plains hill tile where the scout was standing on Turn 14, the more that I like the spot. Yes, it's crippled by a lack of housing but it has by far the best collection of tiles in this immediate area near the start. Those hills over by the Rocky Mountains and the potential to put Campus districts nearby for their adjacency bonuses are just way better than anywhere else that an early settler could go. So let's theorycraft this out, shall we? A city on the non-river plains hill tile would start with 2 housing, which would mean that it gets -50% growth at size 1. Ouch! There is a way to work around this, however: purchase a builder in the second city immediately, farm the local rice and then assign the horses tile northeast of the capital to the new city and pasture it. The farm + pasture combination grants another point of housing and that gets the new city to size 2 without penalty. Then the city hits the housing penalty again at size 2, but at size 2 it can work the horses pasture and the 1/3 forested plains hill tile for a total of 2 (horses) + 3 (hill) + 2 (center tile) + 1 (Urban Planning) = 8 production/turn. And that's honestly good enough to start the game! From there, the city has enough production to build a granary for +2 housing (enough to get to size 4) and that's enough for the second district and the rest of the early game. Later the city builds an aqueduct for +4 housing and that gets it to size 8, which is plenty for the rest of the game.
The non-river spot is significantly better in the long run, once it can solve the housing problem, because it has so much more production available. It also saves a lot of money on tile purchases by virtue of being closer to the mountain range. This is how I'd plan out the area with that city spot:
The crucial early advantage of this spot is the unlocking the double 1/3 plains hill tiles right away. With any luck, the cultural tile picker will choose the second 1/3 plains hill tile (the one with the "Cam" sign on it above) for the first tile culturally acquired, thereby saving the need to spend any gold on that tile at all. Then the only tiles needed to be purchased would be the Government Plaza (second ring for the new city) and the Campus district spot for the capital. Two total tile purchases; the horses will be grabbed by the capital and the Commercial district spot won't be needed for ages down the road. Under this plan, the capital builds the Government Plaza as its first district (skipping the State Workforce boost) and then grabs the Campus spot as its second district, as there won't be enough money to purchase over there until a little bit later. This setup is also heavily leaning on God of the Open Sky to provide a surge of early culture to power through State Workforce without the boost, and also relies on a builder purchase immediately in the second city upon founding. If going this route, do *NOT* improve the rice tile at the capital because the Irrigation boost would come from farming the rice at the second city. Instead, the initial builder improves horses, sheep, sheep and plans on leaning on God of the Open Sky along with the cultural city state for massive early game cultural output. The second builder would improve rice at the second city, horses, and then the wines tile at the capital for happiness. This provides exactly enough improved tiles for the two cities to make it through the early stages of the game, and the early Government Plaza plus huge cultural output from Cultural city state + God of the Open Sky on four plantations gets a fast triple-promoted Pingala to accelerate through the first techs/civics.
Note that there's a lot of "ifs" in there!
As I said, this setup really needs God of the Open Sky for maximum efficiency, plus the immediate builder purchase, plus some tight city micro. Still, I think it comes out ahead with a strong second city site that has a lot of production and a great long term setup where the two Campus districts get +3 and +4 beaker adjacencies. By contrast, here's how things might look by settling on the rice:I mean, this certainly isn't terrible or anything like that. The Campus district spot is now out in the third ring and costs a bit more gold to purchase over there. More significantly, the city has traded two hill tiles in the first ring for two desert tiles in the first ring, and that's a bad trade indeed. If the cultural tile picker doesn't grab the 1/3 forested plains hill tile with the initial acquisition, this city is almost useless out of the gate. It can take the horses tile over from the capital and after that, uh... what does it do exactly? We don't really want to sink an early builder charge into mining a non-resource hill tile if we can avoid it. I dunno, am I crazy for thinking all of this? It just feels like housing is an issue we can work around whereas having bad local terrain is mostly unsolvable. What do the rest of you think?
One last note here: I remember all the way back to PBEM1 when TheArchduke founded this city which wasn't on fresh water. I thought initial that it was a total junk city for lack of housing but I was wrong - Arpinum was actually pretty darn good! The PBEM1 map was very low on production and this spot was a solid city contributor because it had actual hill tiles and a horse resource that could be improved, not just a bunch of flatground tiles. The lesson for me was that cities don't need to be particularly large to be useful in Civ6. If they can make size 7 before the end of the game and get the third district out, that seems to be plenty. Food for thought.
