[SPOILERS] Pindicator digs up the past with Kongo

[Erasmas]

I will be lurking you. I am unspoiled, I find it more exciting than following all the threads and it allows me to give advice without knowing what the others do. Dedlurking but less active than the RB definition.

My first advice would be to squeeze in some monuments. Monuments are the worst building in Civ 4, but the best in Civ 6 IMO. I usually start with scout - monument, and either rush-buy or start a monument in every new city. This is because:
- Civic tree. At the start of the game it is far more important than the science tree. You want those civic cards like +1 prod in every city or +50% to settlers. And a government for more cards.
- City tiles. Cities will hardly grow into new tiles just on base culture. And unlike SP where you can sell your resources to the AI you will quickly run out of money to buy them.

Nothing starts the snowball like early culture. The science tree is far less important. You need the basic improvements but they will come with natural science. Also the cost of new districts and new tiles is usually determined by the advancement of the science tree, not the culture (it uses the bigger one which is usually science even with monuments everywhere). So I would not hurry for a good campus if there are other things to build.

All that also means that yes, settle towards the culture / gold national wonder ASAP.

Disclaimer: I only play SP, so at the strategic level your own judgement is probably far better. The AI is a bad teacher. Also, I play with random tech tree so I no longer know what is needed for what .

[pindicator]

Thanks Erasmus. I was conflicted between the slinger and a monument for my 2nd city and I think my bad neighbor luck last game influenced me here with a military build. Plan on getting that next though, and a builder at the capital

[Jabah]

I would seriously consider moving the citées around partition to get culture in the city centre. The one on the sea could be NE (on coffee?) For fast culture and have access to better tiles first ring (and with more passive culture fauter access to better tiles).

[Erasmas]

I agree with Jabah, settle on the coffee. Plantations are not very good, while early culture is. And you get the resource without improving it. Alternative is move the top city to the left so it gets the culture in the city center. Is that a plains hill?

[pindicator]

No plains hills for the culture tiles, only grassland.

Pity there isn't room to settle more than 1 city on a culture tile - but I suppose this now means the next city should be the coffee city on the coast.

[Jabah]

With the coffee city culture and working another culture tile, it should pick up quickly the culture cow in the 2nd row and get crazy from here.

[pindicator]

031

Found both neighbors this turn.

First, in the south, is jvanhey's Russia




That is the settler for jvanhey's 2nd city; I sure hope I'm not blocking him

Then in the east I found Yuri as Gran Columbia




Yuri already has his 2nd city down.

Our settler for city #3 finishes after this turn and will be heading to the coastal coffee.

[pindicator]

035

Jasper has a nice 2nd city spot for Moscow. Honestly don't know how to judge it from a yield perspective, it just aesthetically looks nice.




I put down a potential location for a frontline city. I just feel like I don't have any great options for expansion either south or east here and most of it is because of Geneva being in the way and the way the rivers break out. Also, I hate the distance. Should I hate the distance? 9 tiles away seems a huge distance; that's 4-5 turns to move units.

Yuri doesn't seem to think that's a huge distance:




Found his capital and it looks like it's about 9 tiles between these 2 cities as well. So yeah, I've already laid out that I prefer a tighter spread (if the map allows- obv location quality matters the most), but what do you all say?

[Erasmas]

Distance maintenance is not an issue, so maybe it is the civ4 player in you that dislikes it. It looks like there is no straight route from Moscow so that is not an issue either. Personally I would not be able to resist that campus location with 6 science out of the box. Maybe you can plant a city in between later on, with your UB lack of fresh water is solvable.

[pindicator]

036

Third city is down




One change that BBG has made that I'm not sure I enjoy is that settlers get to avoid all terrain movement penalties. It makes sense from a balance perspective where you have uneven terrain - but perhaps its also something that should have been left in. Forested starts are better than non-forested, so why do something to widen that gap?

In any case, Surfcaster is my third city and it's making 4 culture/turn already. I thought about buying the cow but it's just trading 1 production for 1 food so i let it be.

Going to send one of my units to explore the area between Geneva and Hattusa; that's a bit too important to leave uncovered.