Best place for our third city

Martin Gühmann · February 3, 2003, 12:55

In eight turns we have another settler finished in Pedrunn. So we can found our third city after Kartoffelpuffer (potato fritter according to my dictionary in English). So what is the best location for our third city we could go the North and found there the city Northern the palm tree or we can still go to the coal loaction and found there our third city. Or we can go to the South and found our third city in the hill region.

-Martin

MrBaggins · February 3, 2003, 13:44

Since we don't have the infrastructure to build roads yet, our only transportation aid is our river. The river aids in mutual defence: cities can build troops for one another, and get them there in a useful time frame, when we have our cities on or very close to the city.

The plains surrounded by hills and grape site isn't great... empire distance penalty (If you check distance, using a troop from Pedrunn, its distance 10 to it, so 1000*0.002=2 happiness penalty,) to start with, and even then, the lack of river square bonuses, and qualitive averageness of hills means that its not an ideal site.

The other prospective sites are ok in terms of distance penalty.

The palm tree has remarkably average terrain... one river and remarkably little growth.

The 'SouthWest Potato' is ok... but difficult to get to and garrison. Its a balanced growth/production/commerce site, but doesn't have outstanding numbers by any means, mainly due to lack of a river.

The 'On the mountains coal' site is remarkably low in growth: 12 by my numbers. It will be tough to grow the site... and farmers will make the production bonus of the surrounding mountains moot.

The 'Due North of the coal' site has the less production than the 'on the mountain' site, but is much... much easier to grow.

The 'Due North of the coal' site is the best balanced yet high production site. Its my choice for our 3rd city.

MrBaggins

child of Thor · February 3, 2003, 14:02

Or we could try to take Dusseldorf(i gather from the transcript that the germans hate us?) and see how that changes our site options?

MrBaggins · February 3, 2003, 14:19

We are building another settler... which i'm all in favor for; provided we have space to spread into.

Its not a question of if we are building a 3rd city... only where.

I'm undecided as to whom we should be fighting.

Perhaps the Austrians, since the land of theirs that we can see is river rich, fertile and productive.

Thoughts?

Martin Gühmann · February 3, 2003, 14:37

Well I examined the save game and the attitude of the Germans twowards us is a smile face instead of the unlucky face of the Austrians so I would go for the Austrians from this aspect. On the other hand we have a river connection to the Austrian cities, therefore our invation force would arrive earlier and the empire distance penalties would be much less. Also the invaion possibilities for the Austrians are much better than the ones of the Germans, because of the rivers. But on the other hand if I remember correctly the Austrians have a more peaceful leader personality. So the Germans would be the better option, then but the Austrians are closer. And that should be the main argument.

Back on topic I think the Northern tile of the coal tile is a good place, too. I think I already gave enough reasons for it. What about the other places?

-Martin

child of Thor · February 3, 2003, 14:41

I think in the last 'game chat'(i'll work out how to join in one day) there was some kind of problem with our diplomatic offers to germany. They don't like us very much and at the momment austria is i think atleast neutral towards us. This is important if a war is voted for, as in our weak state we can only think of war on one front.
But the territory is an important issue - we don't want to spill the blood of our sons for a desert(hmmm...interesting way that came out

). But i think we hardly know the german territory at all, and are unlikely too as any encroachment by us will probably lead to war with the germans.
It's just very finally poised - i think we need a clear cut poll on wether we are going to go to war or not(with either germany or austria). At the momment i think the game is being played(and directed) away from this option. The people should get a chance to let their President know exactly how they feel. If we don't act soon(very soon - like now maybe) then the window of opportunity will pass and we will have non-war forced on us by that inaction or lack of choice.
On the mountain coal might be slow, but our potato site should grow very quick so that might balance it out?

MrBaggins · February 3, 2003, 15:03

Quote:

Originally posted by child of Thor
*snip*
On the mountain coal might be slow, but our potato site should grow very quick so that might balance it out?

Not really... the growth is important to steadily increase the usage of the resources. A city which has great resources but can't utilized them is no advantage; higher potential that you get to see only far later. The on the moutain site has a sub +200 growth, vs a nearly +1000 growth for the north of the coal site. The site gets built one turn later... meaning it has a +50 head start on production, anyway... and any productive advantage will quickly be annexed by the extra city size advantage of the north of the potato site.

The growth of the potato site is irrelevant to the growth of the 3rd city.

J Bytheway · February 3, 2003, 15:04

Quote:

Originally posted by child of Thor
I think in the last 'game chat'(i'll work out how to join in one day)

What aspect of the joining gives you trouble?

child of Thor · February 3, 2003, 15:21

OT well i haven't got an IRC contact(and don't want one!) and the Java option i can never work out, i'll have a look through the files on help just now. Do i have to fill out all the info(spyware?!) forms to join in a chat?

EDIT: Jbytheway it actually worked this time and i joined something as guest so that's cool. OT

Mr baggins, you are probably right - i don't play my games by precentages though, i use 'the force'

And in the options available the 'force' said coal on mountains!

MrBaggins · February 3, 2003, 15:27

Ahh.. but the game is all percentages... and its short sighted to look at a single first turn production value, as opposed to culmulative production (and science) due to differing growth rates. Perhaps you don't have enough midiclorians (sp?) in your blood.

MrBaggins

MrBaggins · February 3, 2003, 15:31

We should formulate a different method for polling settling sites... especially when there are a number of choices... perhaps an unofficial poll to determine a final two... to decide between in an official poll.

child of Thor · February 3, 2003, 15:36

(I really didn't get on with the 'new' movies)
But even so i've only lost one game to an AI(ie been destroyed) in two years of playing and that was on Dales WAW mod.

MrBaggins · February 3, 2003, 15:38

there is good... and there is better...

plus... our situation... here... really sucks... its embarrasing almost.

Pedrunn · February 3, 2003, 21:06

I say in the south-west potato site:

Check the plan to do so here

MrBaggins · February 3, 2003, 21:09

Quote:

Originally posted by Pedrunn
I say in the south-west potato site:

Check the plan to do so here

yep... read it... i'll work on the mathematical advantages of this site too...

how much time before the next chat?

Pedrunn · February 3, 2003, 21:15

Probably thursday at 20:00 or later

MrBaggins · February 3, 2003, 21:16

I'll sort the comparitive math by tommorow or the day after.

mapfi · February 4, 2003, 06:46

Growth is always the most important thing for a city because if it doesn't grow we never get anything out of the surrounding squares. Farmers can't make that up because once you grow you also need to sustain your people. For me this completely rules out settling on the coal tile. It won't grow and if we use farmers to get it to a decent size we loose the production from the mountains.

So it's Pedrunn's idea vs. the tile north of the coal.

grassland tile to settle on 15 Food, 5 Production, 5 Gold
8 tiles around it: Total 110 Food, 60 Production, 40 Gold

river tile to settle on: 20 Food, 5 Production, 10 Gold
8 tiles around north of the coal: Total 45 Food, 105 Production, 50 Gold

now Mr. Baggins do the capital distance math...

With a first look I'd prefer the coal spot produce unit after unit there and in (soon to be) Locutus, produce antoher settler in Pedrunn and have a 4 city settle at this new site when we have enough units to start the Austrian war.

child of Thor · February 4, 2003, 09:31

Yeah coal spot so we can get some production going, we can always grow through other sites/taken cities. But at the mo we need faster production, and then we can grow this coal city at a later date.

Locutus · February 4, 2003, 11:35

I did some math and posted the results below. Hopefully others can double-check this to make sure I didn't overlook anything.

Assuming an average crime rate of 30, Tyranny government (0.85 govt modifier) and maxed out rations (12-2*3=6 food per pop), here are some stats:

Edit: for the sake of those with small screen resolutions, I've cut the table in two

Code:

       | Resource Potential    |  Total Resources Collected at 
Site   | City Tile |  Radius   |  Size 1  |  Size 2  |  Size 3 
---------------------------------------------------------------
Coal   | 30/20/25  | 45/120/55 | 38/40/34 | 45/60/43 | 53/80/53
Potato | 25/20/20  | 110/60/40 | 43/30/27 | 62/40/33 | 80/50/40

       | Turns to Grow to  | After 20 Turns | After 30 Turns
Site   |  2 |  3 |  4 |  5 | Size | Shields | Size | Shields
------------------------------------------------------------
Coal   | 12 | 21 | 31 | 43 |   3  |   571   |   3  |  1035
Potato |  7 | 13 | 18 | 23 |   4  |   488   |   6  |   875

Most of the numbers speak pretty much for itself, I hope. Resource Potential is the total number of resources (F/P/C) available at the site. Total Resources Collected is the total number of resources that can actually be collected at a certain city size (no modifiers applied). Turns to Grow is how long it the city needs to grow to a certain size (accumulative). After 20/30 turns shows the city size and how many shields it collected after 20/30 turns, as an illustration of how these numbers work out in practice. In the short run, the Coal site will produce about 20% more but the Potato site will grow more than twice as fast. In the long run, too many factors weigh in to be able to say anything sensible about it (after size 4 overcrowding starts to kick in (and I have no clue on how it works), crime could change dramatically, government might change, etc).

Growth was calculated by taking the food collected, multiplying it with the government modifier and crime, deducting rations * city size and multiplying that by 75 (pop per food ratio in const.txt). 10,000 divided by this number gives the growth number listed. Production was simply turns to grow * shields collection at that size and adding those numbers for each city size (modified for government and crime modifier).

Right now I believe that if we need an extra city at all, it should be a high-production city, so I favour the Coal site myself.

(I also investigated some neighbouring tiles but they all soon turned out to be inferior)

Tamerlin · February 4, 2003, 22:09

I think we should settle the tile north of the coal site, the production boost would allow us to build settlers quickly and colonize quickly the remaining land.

medio · February 5, 2003, 12:04

the north of coal site gives us a good city with access to other possibly good sites without resorting to a war for territory before we are forced to.
Pedrunns military adventure to the west is exercising the war option prematurely

Martin Gühmann · February 5, 2003, 13:30

DP

-Martin

Martin Gühmann · February 5, 2003, 13:37

I think we need a good production base and the tile North of the coal tile is a good site for it it has production and growth, also the river reduces the empire distance penalties. Therefore this site is better then everything else. Considering that we still need some turns to go to war with the Austrians we can postpone the founding of the outpost a little bit, but I thing this place will be the place for our next city. I don't think that the Austrians will settle there, probably they have right now 10 cities like the Germans, so they are at the city cap that will make it a little bit unlikley that tehy will fill this litte gap there. From the Austran's leader personality we now that the Austrians use a wide city spacing, so probably the Austrians won't fill the line of free land with a city.

-Martin

MrBaggins · February 5, 2003, 14:35

We only start getting actual distance penalities after 5 'travel time' from the capitol.

The distance penalty isn't relevant... it only becomes so when we consider sites far in the distance... or away from rivers, or over hills or mountains.

medio · February 5, 2003, 16:12

Quote:

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
DP

-Martin

why do you think so?

Martin Gühmann · February 5, 2003, 17:21

DP means double post and something like that shouldn't happen. Apolyton needed 7 minutes to post the duplicated version of the post.

-Martin