10-11-2000 16:04									#1
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Playing OCC has made me more than before aware of the importance of the special squares.
My favorite is the whale. Food, production and trade in the same package (with more food and more production with harbor/platform).
It looks unbeatable to me, do you agree ?
(BTW, my second one would be silk)

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	10-11-2000 16:06									#2
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whale with gold in second

	10-11-2000 17:48									#3
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I have to agree with whales. Second place is a little less clear-cut: I like spice, peat, buffalo, or silk on a river, but gold, iron, and wine are good too.

	10-11-2000 18:40									#4
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Just for the moment, rivered silk has (temporarily I am sure) displaced my long term love of the whale.

As I posted elsewhere, you can found a capital on a rivered forest square with access to rivered silk and then build a settler (even two) while the capital is at size one - without falling behind on early research.

You are invulnerable to barb attack until you found the second city and, while you are building the settlers, your exploring units can get themselves a long way from your solitary city thereby maximising the chance of non units from huts and, later, maximising the chance to occupy good choke points in time to pen in the AI.

When you manage two quick settlers the timing just rocks! The capital goes to size two and thereafter, being shield rich but relatively slow growing, it is ideal for building the first wonder or two. You can pretty well guarrantee the Gardens and then the slow growth keeps the city celebrating with hardly an ounce on micromanagement required. Add the Collosus and you have one hell of a trade arrow powerhouse! Meanwhile the two settlers found just as the capital goes to size two and your exponential expansion starts at two with (if you're a perfectionist) the non settler still busy improving the land.

Try a game set on wet and 5 million years old and you've a fair chance of finding the necessary terrain near the equator.

All this having been said, on those occasions when I catch sight of a three whale site (only ever happened three or four times in my games as far as I can recall - not having tried the 4 whale OCC I've never seen seen a four whaler) then I can't rest til I've got a settler to the site and founded. My best cities of all time are all early river delta cities but "Three Whale Island" cities occupy a particular place in my affections whether it proves to be their fate to get to be mighty metropoli or not.

	10-11-2000 19:12									#5
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EST - is this scheme for double production? Otherwise the numbers don't add up. Working two forest squares gives you two food at 1x, so you'd have to switch from the silk to a better food square to support your first settler. At that point, you'd be better with your capital on the silk square so you don't lose its trade. And I don't see how you can support a second settler until you have Monarchy...

	10-11-2000 19:24									#6
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My favourite special is Wheat. Early on, it helps the city to grow, and soon enough you can turn it into Silk

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	10-11-2000 19:32									#7
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I thirst for production at all times. Mountains rich with Iron and desert (or glacial) oil are always the specials that I covet.

Specials make all the difference in the world. I try not to found a city that has less than two specials, and would definetly not found a city that had none.

I am currently playing a game in which a city has four specials in it's zone.....is it possible to get more than this?

	11-11-2000 10:43									#8
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I fall out of my chair when I see the grapes/hill; whale/ocean and grain/plains. Good production, plenty of food (but not too much if only a few plains squares)

The Silk is real good on the river square! I would agree with that!

	10-11-2000 23:09									#9
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DaveV

Single production. Yes, you are likely to switch to work a grassland square for the turn or two it takes the settler to go off and found - so as to keep the capital growing towards size two. But as soon as the settler founds, and assuming you want to continue the shield/trade rich, slow capital growth approach, then you switch back to working the rivered silk again.

I'm at work and can't remember if there is any essential subtlety of timing involved when you get to make a second settler. From recollection there isn't. I think I've simply rushed the second settler when the food box has been one wheatsheaf short of being full, and then switched to working a grassland square to keep the two settlers supported until they found.

Yes, you could perfectly well build on the silk. As far as I can remember, my thinking has been that I would expect to deafforest the capital's home square at some stage and I usually like to keep the trade benefits of silk. But you might be happy to convert the silk, or be happy to leave the home square untouched. I should have mentioned that what started me down this path was a discussion of whether the defensive bonus for river and for forest are cumulative. The conclusion was that they are and I can confirm that matches my experience. So this tactic has extra merit for those who like all their cities to have good defences.

I did have one minor accident. In a fit of over exuberance in one game where I tried this out I let my initial warrior continue exploring and sent no-one back to defend the capital saying to myself that even the first settler would be sufficient defence, if needed, while no other city had been built. Of course I was forgetting the need for martial law when the capital goes to size two. So I went into disorder. I don't think, even then, that I lost a settler. But it took a while to bring a unit back to establish martial law which cost a chunk of the flying start. Also I realised that this gives up the chances (quite good maybe as it's happened in two separate games played this way) of capturing a barb chief. If you have built a road in the square next to the capital, after the barbs immolate themselves against your humble but invulnerable warrior, when the chief retreats he may well hit a two movement square whereupon the warrior sallies out on the road and picks him off. Once, the barb chief [i]elected[i/] to try to move into the two movement square - so they are no brighter than other A1 creatures.

Once I get home I'll see if there is some trick of timing involved and post again if there is. But I'm afraid that will be after the week-end as I've changed modems and can't yet get the thing to work properly (keeps telling me the modem's already in use by another programme when it ain't).

	10-11-2000 23:16									#10
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i get confused about this issue. If i build a settler with the shields as my city goes from size one-two, i wont' disband the city? seems to me that my timing is off sometimes and there is nothing worse than mismanaging your civ, at least thats what my people tell me. However if i finish production and the city is full but not flowing over i disband right?

DRAKE show me a graph please

	10-11-2000 23:30									#11
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Mercantile - yes, building a settler before your city has grown will disband the city, except when it is your first and only city. So EST is right, you can build a bunch of settlers and run a food deficit. If the food box empties, though, settlers will start to be disbanded...

	11-11-2000 00:59									#12
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Love to if I followed Merc........I am as clueless to this strategy as you....thats why it would be great if people could visually describe such things.....Military based strategies would be great to see in a pic especially.....

No one answered my question: Is it possible, by rules of the game/map, to have more than 4 specials in a cities zone?

??
[This message has been edited by drake (edited November 10, 2000).]

	11-11-2000 01:13									#13
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drake rumour has it that 5 specials have been reported on rare occasions. I have seen specials not in a traditional pattern and received four but i don't think i have seen the coveted 5 special. A couple of weeks ago, i believe this topic was brought up and one or two civers reported this bizarre incident.

Should i spend the time changing terrain looking for that fourth special? and its only on grasslands right?

	11-11-2000 01:20									#14
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. I have heard that is is posiible to have 5 specials at the Colunm 0 seam in the map becuase of an incomplete pattern.

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	11-11-2000 01:59									#15
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OK, here's a nice place for a picture. I don't think it's possible. What happens at the seam is that you can combine two special patterns that have been cut vertically. The problem is that you need at least four columns for three specials, and two columns for the other two. This leaves you a pattern too wide to be used by a city.

	11-11-2000 04:34									#16
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The cut is diagonal, not vertical.

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	11-11-2000 06:31									#17
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For my OCC leanings, it's got to be rivered-silk as well. But I definitely prefer gold for the second special - just wish you could squeeze some food from it though.

	11-11-2000 16:07									#18
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I just LOVE wine. Combines food, production and trade. Its directly my second favourite special after whale. Whale is only good for a nice start. For bigger cities I prefer wine, gold and iron/coal.

	11-11-2000 23:44									#20
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da smokes favourites are
1>whales-benefits allaround growth and since its in the ocean, enemiy can't block access to it
2>fishes-food boost= in the ocean

	12-11-2000 01:57									#21
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I like whales and fish in 1x1x games, and whales in other games best for overall development. After that, I like to find silk, peat, wine, and gold.

I don't mind imbalance; I go for total number of assets on the idea that I will gain from them in the long-run if not the short-term.. I'll do the managing to get what I need from them. The more total numbers I can get pay off eventually. And I have been enjoying building *ON* resources, lately.

I don't do too much terrain-changing, but I will certainly consider creating a river-silk square, etc, when I have a surplus of engineers.

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[This message has been edited by cavebear (edited November 11, 2000).]

	12-11-2000 06:52									#23
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Whales are always my favourite. Food, trade and shields - the essentials for the game. Great early on as in despotism only one trade icon is lost.
I like mining coal, wine, gold, iron or coal and then building with a second settler before the mine is complete. Small ICS cities really pull their weight!
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SG (2)

	12-11-2000 11:58									#24
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I actually think that the specials on forest and plains squares (Buffalo, Wheat, Silk, Pheasant) are quite underrated (bar silk, of course!). As they can be changed from one to the other to meet your cities needs(i.e Buffalo-Pheasant, Wheat-Silk and vice versa)
they are the most useful in that regard.

But whales are still my favourite!

BTW, does anyone know what you get when you transform or reforest grassland w/shield?

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STEALTH FIGHTERS RULE!!!

	13-11-2000 10:22									#26
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Whales and Silk are the most balanced, for sure.
Wine is fine, too.

	13-11-2000 10:28									#27
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Re: Using 4 specials
If you use 4 specials in one city for long, you show foolish gluttony.
Two, at the most, should suffice.
You're giving away potential cities if you use all specials for one city.
IMO.

	13-11-2000 00:19									#28
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SPICE!! When built on you get a resourse, extra defense, + excellant growth & trade.
Gold is awesome too, and I allways love to have whales, but spice is my favorite.

	13-11-2000 11:47									#29
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I think(THINK!!) that the pattern DaveV mentioned and showed us keeps on continuing like this pretty much throughout the whole map, except every now and then there will be a gap.

I also think that if you are going to be a perfectionist, you should DEFINITELY have 4 specials in one city radius. This is how I lay out my cities (with a square grid, you can't do iso in ASCII)so that they don't overlap...(S=Special, R=Radius, C=City)

|Srr
|rrrrS
|rrCrr
|Srrrr
r|rrS|rrr
rr | rrrSr
rr | rrCrr
rr | rrrrr
r | rSr

...Or something like that!(Damn ASCII art :mad

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STEALTH FIGHTERS RULE!!!

	13-11-2000 11:56									#30
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OOPS!!!!!!!!!!!!! It looked OK when I was typing it in!! (Ditto about the ASCII art :mad Hopefully you can decode that somehow, if not just email or ICQ me and I'll show you.

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STEALTH FIGHTERS RULE!!!