25-03-2004 23:54									#1
	Our second city location Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

It will be many turns yet before we settle our second city, but I think we need to start thinking about this now so we're not caught with our Greek pants down. I am a big fan of having a second city be a military supply city. With the goal of our game being to simply survive to the next it becomes even more important to have a strong military. If we have a couple of veteran hoplites in each city everyone else is going to think twice about attacking us. I think we should start on the hoplite production as soon as we have the chance, i.e our second city. Luckily enough we have an area prime for quick unit production.

I've marked two tiles from the Turn 14 screenshot below. Both of them are within three tiles of Apolyton and have the ability to use several bonus grasslands (if we get enough of those mined and the city population high enough we can build 3 or even 2-turn veteran hoplites. Both of these sites also have the ability to chop a few forests to get our initial barracks up quickly and get on to the unit production.

The primary difference between the two sites is that the southerly site (3-3-6 of Apolyton) has more bonus grassland surrounding it and the tile itself is a regular grassland so we don't waste anything. The northerly site is a forest so we'd lose one forest chop in the area, but it is also closer to the ivory tile.

So then...thoughts, concerns, ideas? Please share.

	26-03-2004 00:47									#2
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Ya beat me to it. I was going to do an analysis tonight and post it. I have a couple other ideas, and was thinking of actually showing 4-5 of our first city sites, out to and including the choices for the Ivory City.

Guess I will just add them to this thread.

--GK

	26-03-2004 00:54									#3
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Great minds think alike.

I wanted to at least get the second city thought processes going so we can start working toward that, but I hadn't done any in-depth analysis beyond that.

I'd definitely like to see your analysis when you're finished.

	26-03-2004 01:06									#4
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Yes, if I can't talk you guys into having the second city be the Ivory City and back fill in the connections, I'd at least like to pick city spots in route that fit in well with the Ivory City.

	26-03-2004 01:15									#5
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Here's the spots I see so far.

Ivory City : NE Ivory
Forest Land : Northern pink spot.
Southern Port : 3-3-3-3-3 (regular grassland on coast between shield and forest)
Northern River : 9-9-9-9-9-8 (flood plains) ? (Subject to change depending upon unexplored territory nearby)
Sugar Plantation : Plains tile on river adjoining both sugar and two hills
Winery : 4-4-7-4 (Plains on coast west of hills with wine)

	26-03-2004 02:35									#6
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With just taking a quick look I would agree that if we do go with the forest tile as our next city site that the ivory site and the sugar plantation in the east would be good city sites. However I would move the southern port site to 2-3-3 of Apolyton and add two other cities, one of them 3-3-6-6-6 of Apolyton and the other on the coast 3-3-3-3-3-3-6 of Apolyton. This allows for greater use of the more useful bonus grassland tiles. Using just the southern port joncnunn had stated would leave us with a great many tiles, including several bonus grasslands, that would be unusable by any city for a while.

One thing I think we need to think about with city placement is not necessarily trying to go for optimal city placement, but rather go for a city layout that affords us the ability to use the most useful tiles when we need them (i.e. early on). Our goal isn't to create a big empire with grand cities, but to merely survive. For that we need more cities working good tiles producing military units for our defense and a possible attack on another civ.

	26-03-2004 02:38									#7
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Given that early warfare is probable, we should consider using our hills.

Hopilites, fortified in a city with walls on a hill

I'd choose Apolyton 9,9,6

	26-03-2004 02:51									#8
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quote: Originally posted by Hot_Enamel Given that early warfare is probable, we should consider using our hills. Hopilites, fortified in a city with walls on a hill I'd choose Apolyton 9,9,6

That's actually a good possibility too. It would provide the same amount of bonus tiles (and the sugar which is essentially a bonus grassland until government switch) as the forest tile I had dotted. It would require a slight reworking of what I laid out a few posts above for other cities afterward, but its definitely something to consider.

	26-03-2004 02:52									#9
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I like the northern one more.

I don't think hills are neccessary with hoplites so much, HE. If we just had spears, I'ld be inclined to agree.

	26-03-2004 03:02									#10
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Trust me...

Even with Mercs or Hoplites, when a stack of swords appear at your border, you will wish every city was built on a hill

	26-03-2004 03:02									#11
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The city placementwith regard to the river would mean that it would take two turn to reach them if they are not directly on the river. Sure it would take one tourn to reach the capitol, but two to reach the outliying cities. Seeing as our capitol is going to be surounded by cities, I would think that being able to get to the front in a single turn should take presence to being able to return to the center.

	26-03-2004 03:03									#12
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When it comes to interior cities, we don't need to use the hills. Our second city isn't likely to be the target of an attack, especially if we already have some Hoplites at the ready. To beat us, someone would have to find us very early, be very close, and very confident that their weak units can overpower our cheap Hoplites (not very likely). More likely, someone will attack us later on, when we are more spread out, at a point where they have a large #s advantage to overpower our superior defender.

Hills for fronteer cities. Let's save the hills in the interior for mines.

I really like the Ivory City (NE of Ivory) but it won't be a military town with that floodplain there. Our second city should be a military town, and I prefer the northernmost site. It should also be somewhat central in our expansion plans, and be able to quickly send vet Hoplites to our new cities.

--Togas

	26-03-2004 03:43									#13
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I have relabeled Roths proposal as R1 and R2 to better identify proposed city locations. I have also placed two proposal of my own, taking into consideration of movement across the River.

I am concernered of two things with Roths suggestions.
1) As I stated in my previous post, It would take two turns for units to reach these locations even with roads.

2) I am also concerned with over extending ourselves to early. The land we see now is ours. There is no need to jump out and grab all we can as soon as we can. We are not playing against the AI who consumes land. Against humans, they will expand more cautiously. Even if someone were to try to grab our Ivory, it would be too far for them to defend (just ask Lux Invicta). We also must remember that short length of this game. We won't need to worry about close city placement because none of our cities will be getting very large. Hell, close city placement is more advantageous because we will be able to use improved tiles more effeceintly.



Now in my two suggestions (D1 and D2), both locations are capable of getting to and from in a single turn and will be easily defendable. Both will also be productive military cities with some irrigation and mining (this is also true with R1 and R2) and both would be able to use the most amount of tiles in the shortest amount of time with the least amount of work. Additionally, if we so choose to take a "camp" mentality to our city placement, both D1 and D2 would be ideal locations.

	26-03-2004 04:12									#14
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My concern is that Apolyton doesn't have that many good tiles around it to use. It can use the cattle, sugar, wines, and then there's only 3 more bonus tiles to put to work. We stick two camps in there that have to, for the most part, share those 6 tiles, and we're really limiting ourselves and forcing ourselves to work less productive or wasteful tiles.

We have yet to discover how close our neighbors are, or if there's a scarcity of land and resources that will require us to focus our early city efforts on claming key areas.

I'll put forth my own proposal shortly.

--Togas

	26-03-2004 04:21									#15
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With Emperor difficulty level I wouldn't consider 2f, 1s, 1c a wasteful tile. Now consider the fact that most tiles worked in either D1 or D2 would be rivered as well. Plus it will be VERY easy to finish the tile improvements quickly.

Anywho... the more discussion the better. Let me have it!

	26-03-2004 04:28									#16
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I've taken Rhoth's 2nd city idea, made that the foundation, and places the next 3 cities around it to some degree. The southern port city is slightly further, but has better tiles in it's radius and won't interfere with Apolyton and 2nd city as much.

We could skip the port city and go straight to cities 3 and 4 on this diagram. I'd really like us to get some floodplain cities up early. They'll aid our expansion. But do note that we should build a solid military city FIRST, that being Rhoth's second city (my city 1)

--Togas

	26-03-2004 04:39									#17
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I too share some reservations about D1 and D2 though not quite for the same reasons Togas stated. Both of my suggestions would also use some of the tiles around Apolyton to begin with. The main differences are that both of my suggested sites would be able to more easily support further tile improvement so that Apolyton could use the bonus tiles if necessary. R1 site has several forests surrounding it, some of which will be chopped, while R2 has several other bonus grasslands already around it. Compare that to D1 which would have only the two bonus tiles that Apolyton already has within its radius, and D2 which would pick up another bonus tile only after border expansion or another city was settled on the far side of it. Neither D1 nor D2 has an immediate wealth of forest tiles surrounding it for quick chop shields either (and both could allocate to Apolyton unless we 'force' it to allocate to the other city).

I should probably say that I don't think either D1 or D2 are necessarily bad city sites, I just think that R1 followed by R2 are better city sites for long-haul military production. Also I don't really see it as necessary that we constrain ourselves to CxC city spacing when we do not have to do so. CxxC provides adequate defensive movement (though you are correct about the river preventing some of that) thoughout our core.

One more thing...R1 will likely be a more centralized city location than APolyton anyway on the basis that the west appears to be a moderately sized desert and won't be very productive.

	26-03-2004 04:44									#18
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quote: Originally posted by Togas I've taken Rhoth's 2nd city idea, made that the foundation, and places the next 3 cities around it to some degree. The southern port city is slightly further, but has better tiles in it's radius and won't interfere with Apolyton and 2nd city as much. We could skip the port city and go straight to cities 3 and 4 on this diagram. I'd really like us to get some floodplain cities up early. They'll aid our expansion. But do note that we should build a solid military city FIRST, that being Rhoth's second city (my city 1) --Togas

Actually the forest city is the one I'm leaning toward so I'd consider it my primary suggested site, not my second city.

As to the others, site 2 is one I discussed above so I like that one too. It will be a strong city as well, though I might consider it slightly later. I too would like to get some of the flood plain cities up. No later than city 4 though as it will be an immediate core city and would not suffer as much corruption as the others.

	26-03-2004 04:51									#19
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1 in togas' pic.

i'd like to have the ivory city ASAP.

	26-03-2004 05:15									#20
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First: Tobacco
Second: Apolyton 633 (R2 on Donegeal's map)
Third: North or West of Apolyton (Rivers or Wines)

IMO, the Tobacco site is clearly the best option for a second city. It's only 2 tiles from the capital, it's coastal, it's on a River, it accesses the Cattle and some Bonus Grasslands, it's easily defensible. The two priorities for the second site should be Food then Commerce (to rush for Philosohpy).

The Ivory is certainly important, but throwing a city over there right away is wasteful. The Statue of Zeus can be prebuilt with any other Wonder (like the Mausoleum...Philosophy again!); there's no need to hook up Ivory ASAP. Other than act as a guard for the Ivory, a city out there would be wholly unproductive for quite a while, due to Corruption and distance for Workers to travel. In the location suggested, a Temple would have to built to hook up the Ivory in the first place, quite an expense at this stage (especially considering the cost of research Ceremonial Burial).

If the worry is to lose the Ivory to some other team, the solution is more scouting in the eastern direction, and the posting of a lookout on the Mountains tile due North of the Ivory. With these two measures it's highly unlikely that any other team would claim the Ivory first.


Dominae

	26-03-2004 06:47									#21
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Well now. Our second city should have two primary characterizes IMHO. Being able to produce military units fairly quickly, and having a decent bit of commerce to help in our research priorities. Growth potential is not really a concern, so a limited growth site is acceptable.

The Tobacco fits the picture greatly. And, as it is on the river, it gains a free aqueduct. Bonus! I suggest a work build queue of warrior, curragh, warrior, worker, barrack, then switching between hoplites, curraghs, and workers (to keep our population size manageable) til the cows come home. This location also allows us to use the cow tile as the situation demands. Micromanagement at its best.

Second city would be near the woods. It is food high, has plenty of room to grow, and until the wood gets chopped, has a good production potential. I view this city as a temp worker producer, switching over into a general purpose city as the wood is chopped and it has a good infrastructure. I can see this as becoming a fill in the space city, as there is not much in terms of long term strength with any one thing (food, shield, or gold) but it is above average in all. A good, solid city location, if not exciting. Preliminary thoughts for production are Hoplite, Hoplite, Hoplite, settler, barracks, Hoplite, worker, and so forth. A market and or a temple would be welcome here as well. Also, we can start a pre-build for either the pyramids and/or Zeus here and not cause major disruption to our empire. Zeus would be most welcome as this city will be towards the center of our empire and will provide an excellent staging ground.

City #3 on my plan I am excited about. Look at it. It has hills and mountains for major production ability; flood plain to make the city grow. This city is IMHO our best site. This will be our major settler and worker pump. No doubt about it. And, once REX is over, this will become a power house production city. It is close to home, relatively speaking, so corruption should not play a major issue. However, it is far enough away that I would rather fill in closer to home first, thus city #2, and would rather get our defenses and exploration turning out, thus city #1. This city becomes a work horse. First build should be a granary. Pop rush it if it makes sense to do so. POP RUSH. Heck ya. This city will not get above size four for a while, as it will be popping out settlers and workers like mad. A temple or library to provide a border expansion (if another city doesn’t extend it outwards) to add it the two other flood plain tiles is also a good pop rush possibility. I suspect that this city may grow so fast, once all the flood plain is in and a granary up and running, that we may be pop rushing a lot here, including pop rushing workers and settlers. Although with all the production potential, we might not need to.

City #4 – Ivory city. Looking at the city from a long term perspective, it appears that the plain tile is best. It can use the hill for production purposes. I wouldn’t mind connecting the ivory earlier for just happiness purposes, but looking at things, the first three locations must take precedence. Also, as we will not be able to build Zeus for some time (60+ turns, as we need to research the tech) we have time. It is close enough to our homeland that I am not concerned about us getting it, only about keeping it once others know about it. This city will be much like #3 in that it has access to high growth potential and good production. Also, with the river and the ivory, this city will also have good commerce.

Cities #5 and #6 are interchangeable, and are meant to keep our empire balanced. We do not want to do too much growth in only one direction and suddenly find someone coming up behind us (although looking at the map, I would not be surprised to find that we are on a peninsula). Also, these city sites are not great in any one thing, but will do well as military production centers, making units to send out with our outlying communities.



Oops, saved as a bmp not a jpg. Changing it now....

Last edited by GodKing on 26-03-2004 at 06:57

	26-03-2004 07:23									#22
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to GK's dotmap. Leaves the plains tile 1-1-4 of Apolyton completely unused, but that's not much of a problem. (Better than wasting the food bonus of the hill grapes.)

Would building ON the Tobacco still get us the trade bonus from that resource?

	26-03-2004 07:29									#23
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We all seem to be in agreement that our first city should be set on military unit production (and a secondary emphasis on comerce). Lets take a look at what we want it to build and the best type of numbers is should have.

Our mainstay military unit is going to be the Hoplite. It cost 20 shields and requires no resource. Our main offensive unit will be Swords (if we have Iron), horsemen (if we have Horses) or Archers. Swords and Horse cost 30 shields and Archers cost 20. IMO, we will need two military cities. One for the high cost offensive units and one for the lost cost Hoplites and Archers.

Whatever city site we choose, we must make sure that it can be 8spt to produce 3-turn low cost units.

Anything more (ie trying to squeese 9 or 10 spt before corruption) will be a complete waste. This is a strategy that I actively employed very effectively in the SPDGII as the Domestic Minister (ie MoI) before that game was called because it got too big for turns to be completed in a timely manor.

	26-03-2004 07:29									#24
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Yes, although there is still the despotism penalty

	26-03-2004 07:45									#25
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From a production stand point, site D1 is far superior to the tobacco site. A single extra commerce right away (that might get lost to despotism penelties anyway) or an additional bonus grassland in the city radius?

	26-03-2004 07:51									#26
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I'm not quite sure what site in particular I favor, but I am strongly in favor of a site that can access the cattle. Apolyton only needs the cattle 2 out of 4 turns of its growth cycle now; we're wasting food so long as no other city can work the cattle. A cattle-accessible site we plan to build a second granary at so it too can grow every 4 turns would be even better.

quote: Originally posted by Dominae The Ivory is certainly important, but throwing a city over there right away is wasteful. The Statue of Zeus can be prebuilt with any other Wonder (like the Mausoleum...Philosophy again!); there's no need to hook up Ivory ASAP. Other than act as a guard for the Ivory, a city out there would be wholly unproductive for quite a while, due to Corruption and distance for Workers to travel. In the location suggested, a Temple would have to built to hook up the Ivory in the first place, quite an expense at this stage (especially considering the cost of research Ceremonial Burial).

We're a little too small to be starting even a 200 shield wonder, let alone finishing it. Let's not rush to the ivory and leave good tiles and/or low corruption sites behind. We'll need both of those things to prebuild SoZ in the first place.

	26-03-2004 08:00									#27
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Actually, I think there is a need to hook up the ivory early. To keep our people happy. Zeus is great, but the happieness is what I love.

	26-03-2004 08:11									#28
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quote: Originally posted by Hot_Enamel Trust me... Even with Mercs or Hoplites, when a stack of swords appear at your border, you will wish every city was built on a hill

Im not quite sure why but I kind of agree with H_E on this one

	26-03-2004 08:15									#29
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If we want to build a city close enough to use the cattle in Apolyton, I highly suggest that we go with the BLUE city in the following (very crude) diagram:



The red site in this map is the "tobacco" site. Why do I prefer the blue to the red?

Commerce: Tobacco city's tile will have only 2 commerce despite being on a river, roaded, and having tobacco, because of the despotism penalty. We waste the extra commerce by building on it.

Workable Tiles: Tobacco city has only 2 quality tiles to work, and one of them is Apolyton's cattle. Blue city has 5 (if you count the Tobacco) and still can use the cattle on turns when Apolyton doesn't need the extra food.

Tobacco city will not be useful as it grows larger and will stagnate, making it an unlikely city to need a free aquaduct. Blue City has plenty of good tiles and room for comfortable growth that will support far higher production than Tobacco City.

Corruption: Tobacco city is distance 3. Blue city is distance 3.5 For corruption purposes they are equal.

River/Aquaduct: While Tobacco city gets a free aquaduct, are we actually going to grow past 6 in this game? would it be useful to get that city much bigger with the subpar tiles around it and with it stealing tiles from Apolyton?

Distance from Apolyton: While Tobacco could get instant defenders from Apolyton, blue is 2 turns away, due to the river. However, blue can get instant defenders or MPs TO Apolyton by moving 8-8-4. Tobacco CANNOT get instant defenders or MPs to Apolyton, it'll take them 2 turns to move 2 tiles. :/

If we go south for our next city, it oughta be "Blue". However, I do echo my previous post in that I want us to have a strong military city as our 2nd city. This city site could be 3rd or 4th.

--Togas

	26-03-2004 10:10									#30
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I too like the idea of hills.

It has been stated many times that this first game would be a game of warfare.

If that be the case, we could find ourselves set upon quickly, by several teams, having our planned outer cities smashed, even dare I say, bypassed.