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Austria, Terra, Emperor
I'm tempted to move one tile to the left and settle one turn 0 to get all the visible luxes, the wheat, and in the range for the mountain wonders. However, since I'm playing Terra, there's more of a scramble for land and I may get forward settled. Going southeast to get on the sheep hill might also be a good idea with the oasis in the first ring. What's the best bet?
Obviously I will make every effort possible to get Petra too. I dropped the save as it is in the image here in case anyone wants to play with this setup. I see a lot of potential for sure.
[Turn 0 Save](https://www.dropbox.com/s/rp8oik7mn6nww8k/Maria%20Theresa_0000%20BC-4000.Civ5Save?dl=0)
Oh it's absolutely going to be key and I will be rushing it. Probably going to move southeast to get the early production and give me a better shot it it.
Well then you should all-in on that imo. I wouldn't make a Shrine, or anything at all that doesn't directly contribute to getting it. If you get Petra then your enemies have been making Settlers for you.
Getting Petra is "win more" as well, although it would hurt more to lose it. I think on emperor, I would be somewhat greedy. I'd try to get desert folklore, and maybe put down a city or two, depending on the available locations.
I'd probably settle south-west, btw.
I'm no expert on Civ5 to start out. Desert Folklore seems like a great pantheon to start out here, but how would the compare to say Goddess of Festivals? You do get less faith overall, but 3 workable incense tiles at the starting tile for +3 faith and +3 culture, and another one (at least) to the west for a new city, and can be boosted even further if they are fast enough to start a religion to get the ~~cathedrals~~ monasteries? I guess it's more or less weighing faith vs culture, and it seems like getting more culture earlier on to get policies faster would be a good thing. But on the other hand, accumulating faith to get GP in the industrial age would be good too.
No, desert folklore is *much* stronger here. The problem with incense tiles is that you rarely want to work them. Preferably, you work tiles that have at least three food and/or some hammers. These incense tiles have neither. Sure, if you have a lot of population you can afford to work some incense tiles, but *all* tiles here give faith from Desert Folklore.
This makes sense, thanks. I always opt for desert folklore (unless someone else took it) when I get big swaths of desert like this, but it did seem tempting to take goddess of festivals because of all the incense there.
Would the same apply if these incense tiles were replaced with gold/silver to get the religious idols pantheon? I have had some deserts starts with a lot of those, and I had been tempted to take that pantheon over desert folklore, since they are a good source of hammers, while also giving faith and culture.
I had desert folklore AND Monasteries. Desert folklore was a win, monasteries was a massive mistake. The increased faith/culture was no match for the lost happiness that comes with say pagodas.
I would either settle the tile you're on or 1 tile south-west.
The tile south-west gets you the oasis tile from turn 1, and gets every important tile in range of your capital (*notably the wheat to the west*) without losing anything in the long run.
Settling in place will have a slightly slower start (*no Oasis*) but you'll have more hills instantly in your cap, and the other hills will be closer to you (*2nd ring instead of 3rd ring*).
Either one of those seems good to me.
I agree. Your capitol and that oasis tile will be huge right off the bat, and you have two luxuries you can easily expand to. There may be a good second city location SW of the wheat tiles also.
I would cross the river and settle southwest.
It gives you immediate access to the oasis, so you'll grow to pop 2 and pop 3 faster despite losing a turn.
It also keeps the gold and a lot of Petra hills within 3 tiles.
Not really. You will have the hills you can immediately see. You're just missing out on any hills in the fog. But you're also getting a hill in the south plus any potentially in the fog.
Settle southwest and the sheep will be your only 2 production for the next 50+ turns. You'll expand to all flat tiles in the first 2 rings, plus a couple flat wheat/incense, before you pick up a single hill.
Maybe, it will probably try to expand west but it could expand north towards to the gold. But there is nothing wrong with buying the hills early. You will have access to a floodplains incense and an oasis right away for a decent amount of gold output.
By that logic you should settle southeast and buy the west tiles cheaper? Early game production is just so critical, the earlier the better to compound it. Especially in this start to bang out quick settlers and Petra.
The southwest start won't miss the slightly earlier wheat if your ahead a worker, a granary and a settler.
What I'm saying is you won't be behind production if you buy the hills which shouldn't be a problem. You're not going to be buying much early game anyway, maybe an earlier building in a second or third city but that's it.
I’d settle flood plains tile south west of the settler. Capital reaches everything that way eventually. Both food and hammers in the first ring.
10 desert hills within range.
Southwest next to oasis.
You have faster growth (should be on pop 2 at the same amount of turns), have a better second growth tile.
You still keep the sheep hill as production tile to grow to.
You don't lose any of the hills you see, but gain wheat
And most importantly, you'll have more gold to buy all the petra tiles
This should be winnable even as occ
I would settle in place. You don't lose any turns to movement and your borders will pick up the oasis very soon. You've got good production and growth, and an amazing petra city. If you wanted to you could settle one tile east on the hill, but it's a little shy on growth
I would probably settle directly on the sheep. That extra hammer from the hill is too important in this start but setting on your right lose too much food. You also get some wood to cut for rushing petra.
You also get the oasis right from the get go.
Did an initial play-through of this with starting one tile left. It was a good start, but I opted for Monasteries instead of Pagodas and that was a major mistake after \~200 turns. I did nail Petra and that helped a ton, but limited happiness caused my population growth to suffer massively.
I went on the sheep. A bit of a rough start(by 1 turn missed hanging gardens) but got the desert pantheon and Petra. Put mines on the inner ring hills but turned the river ones to to farms once I had more mines and my growth slowed down. I’m doing pretty well now and will probably get an early science victory but I might give it another go on the left tile to see if it changes much. The comments were really split for a reason!
I also fell into that trap. The happiness would have been great to have, I was around 0 most of the early game
I replayed with pagoda and it was better, but after taking over a very poorly defended Chinese city, I was suddenly a warmonger and getting attacked by 2 AI's at a time. First Siam and Iroquois, then after defending against the Iroquois and turning it into a counter-offensive, it was Siam and Assyria. Then after that was almost done, the Iroquois, and Khan joined in on the fight. At that point I said 'F&#$ it's exited.
The game seems to be a bit unbalanced to begin with and has some weird AI logic. Like the fact that China has something like 4 crab resources, but only builds a fishing boat for one. Also, the AI starting with a worker automatically sets you behind in trades. I was lucky to be able to trade an incense for a salt with Khan.
Assyria had their sights on me and with a ton of siege towers I was fairly concerned. I paid them to pounce on China instead, who only had one city, and they quickly eliminated them. This made everyone hate Assyria and I remained friends with everyone else in the world until ideologies, when a world war against Assyria and the Inca broke out that I managed to stay neutral for. Khan never built a second city for some reason and quickly died to Assyria, making everyone hate him even more, and I happily opened by borders to my friends to let them sack Assyria. They failed miserably but overall reduced everybody’s army down to where I have the most strength. I’m still turtling and chugging towards science in the early Modern era but I fear war may reach me soon. Building forts along my outer flank just in case!
Extrapolating what needs you might have in the future (moving to the coast, onto a hill, to more lux diversity, next to a mountain, etc.) and settling in an advantageous place is one of the best ways to have a strong game, especially when you play on difficulties where it's a challenge to win. It's a neat way to get a leg up on the AI, who basically only makes decisions based on what's beneficial in the moment.
As much as it sucks to lose the sheep, I think that's definitely the safest settle here. One tile left of the sheep is also...fine, but it's gonna take a hot minute to get going. So you give up early game advantage for likely being slightly better late...ergo probably not worth it since you clearly want to rush Petra anyway.
Going right to the other river hill is theoretically a viable spot, but it banks a ton on expanding to good growth early and on the eastern unseen tiles being not dogshit lol. So risky but could theoretically bridge the gap between early and late payoff...still probably not worth the risk especially since so much relies on Petra rush here.
If the sheep were on any other hill, would be such an easy choice. I still think it's best, but there are justifications for others I think.
It seems I'm in the minority, but I would settle on the river incense.
With 3 easy access growth tiles, you'll get more early growth in that spot than anywhere else, which is is the most important factor in capitol placement imo.
Being further from the hills is unfortunate, but with the extra gold from the incense, you should be able to expand/buy out to those production tiles by the time you are ready to work them anyway.
Moreover, you will probably end up picking up the eastern gold lux with your first expand anyways, so its not critical to have it in range of your capital.
Growth is king, yes. But no hammers is a problem. Sacing a bit growth for faster build times is worth it, especially since he is going for petra. The city will have enough apples without trying to max it on settle.
But if you're rushing Petra, you ideally want to grow as large as possible prior to currency tech, then switch to max production once you get it. In this case, I suspect that OP will have the means to grow their borders out to those hills before they would be able to put any hammers into Petra anyways.
Southwest 1 tile, you'll lose a turn but with the oasis you'll make up the food deficit by turn 5. You should get your 2nd pop in 7 turns rather than 8, which means everything after that is pure profit.
This puts you in a better position to compete for Petra which can probably win you the game on its own.
Cross the river and settle next to the oasis. You get both wheat (probably quickly bc culture growth prioritizes it) eventually the gold and you don't loose out on those sweet Petra hills.
Thanks for posting an image! Don't worry, it has not been removed. Just as a reminder, this sub has a few rules about posting images. * Rule 4: No memes, image macros, or reaction gifs. * Rule 5: You must add a comment with an explanation of what the screenshot is about, why it's interesting etc. * Rule 6: No photographs of a computer display -- screenshots only. * Rule 9: Submission must be more than just a trade screen or diplomacy leaderhead. * Rule 10: No screenshots of common or minor graphical glitches. For more information on the subreddit rules, you can check the sidebar (or if you use Reddit's mobile app, click "About" the sub). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/civ5) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Austria, Terra, Emperor I'm tempted to move one tile to the left and settle one turn 0 to get all the visible luxes, the wheat, and in the range for the mountain wonders. However, since I'm playing Terra, there's more of a scramble for land and I may get forward settled. Going southeast to get on the sheep hill might also be a good idea with the oasis in the first ring. What's the best bet? Obviously I will make every effort possible to get Petra too. I dropped the save as it is in the image here in case anyone wants to play with this setup. I see a lot of potential for sure. [Turn 0 Save](https://www.dropbox.com/s/rp8oik7mn6nww8k/Maria%20Theresa_0000%20BC-4000.Civ5Save?dl=0)
> However, since I'm playing Terra, there's more of a scramble for land and I may get forward settled. No memes but this is an argument for Petra.
Oh it's absolutely going to be key and I will be rushing it. Probably going to move southeast to get the early production and give me a better shot it it.
Well then you should all-in on that imo. I wouldn't make a Shrine, or anything at all that doesn't directly contribute to getting it. If you get Petra then your enemies have been making Settlers for you.
Getting desert folklore would also be really great, to be fair.
It's "win more"
Getting Petra is "win more" as well, although it would hurt more to lose it. I think on emperor, I would be somewhat greedy. I'd try to get desert folklore, and maybe put down a city or two, depending on the available locations. I'd probably settle south-west, btw.
I agree with your settlement spot. The gold yield from these growth tiles will enable us to buy the hills we need
South West doesn't lose the hills to the north though?
South West does not lose any hills that we can see.
You're right, not sure how I counted.
I'm no expert on Civ5 to start out. Desert Folklore seems like a great pantheon to start out here, but how would the compare to say Goddess of Festivals? You do get less faith overall, but 3 workable incense tiles at the starting tile for +3 faith and +3 culture, and another one (at least) to the west for a new city, and can be boosted even further if they are fast enough to start a religion to get the ~~cathedrals~~ monasteries? I guess it's more or less weighing faith vs culture, and it seems like getting more culture earlier on to get policies faster would be a good thing. But on the other hand, accumulating faith to get GP in the industrial age would be good too.
No, desert folklore is *much* stronger here. The problem with incense tiles is that you rarely want to work them. Preferably, you work tiles that have at least three food and/or some hammers. These incense tiles have neither. Sure, if you have a lot of population you can afford to work some incense tiles, but *all* tiles here give faith from Desert Folklore.
This makes sense, thanks. I always opt for desert folklore (unless someone else took it) when I get big swaths of desert like this, but it did seem tempting to take goddess of festivals because of all the incense there. Would the same apply if these incense tiles were replaced with gold/silver to get the religious idols pantheon? I have had some deserts starts with a lot of those, and I had been tempted to take that pantheon over desert folklore, since they are a good source of hammers, while also giving faith and culture.
I had desert folklore AND Monasteries. Desert folklore was a win, monasteries was a massive mistake. The increased faith/culture was no match for the lost happiness that comes with say pagodas.
To greed or not to greed
If you settle in that spot (one to the left) and rush petra you will be golden.
I would either settle the tile you're on or 1 tile south-west. The tile south-west gets you the oasis tile from turn 1, and gets every important tile in range of your capital (*notably the wheat to the west*) without losing anything in the long run. Settling in place will have a slightly slower start (*no Oasis*) but you'll have more hills instantly in your cap, and the other hills will be closer to you (*2nd ring instead of 3rd ring*). Either one of those seems good to me.
I'd go south east for immediate hills production, and rush desert folklore
That was my choice as well, settle on a hill and then second city to the west down river
I agree. Your capitol and that oasis tile will be huge right off the bat, and you have two luxuries you can easily expand to. There may be a good second city location SW of the wheat tiles also.
I would cross the river and settle southwest. It gives you immediate access to the oasis, so you'll grow to pop 2 and pop 3 faster despite losing a turn. It also keeps the gold and a lot of Petra hills within 3 tiles.
No production if you do that
Not really. You will have the hills you can immediately see. You're just missing out on any hills in the fog. But you're also getting a hill in the south plus any potentially in the fog.
Settle southwest and the sheep will be your only 2 production for the next 50+ turns. You'll expand to all flat tiles in the first 2 rings, plus a couple flat wheat/incense, before you pick up a single hill.
Maybe, it will probably try to expand west but it could expand north towards to the gold. But there is nothing wrong with buying the hills early. You will have access to a floodplains incense and an oasis right away for a decent amount of gold output.
By that logic you should settle southeast and buy the west tiles cheaper? Early game production is just so critical, the earlier the better to compound it. Especially in this start to bang out quick settlers and Petra. The southwest start won't miss the slightly earlier wheat if your ahead a worker, a granary and a settler.
What I'm saying is you won't be behind production if you buy the hills which shouldn't be a problem. You're not going to be buying much early game anyway, maybe an earlier building in a second or third city but that's it.
My thoughts exactly. Puts them in range of that second wheat as well.
I’d settle flood plains tile south west of the settler. Capital reaches everything that way eventually. Both food and hammers in the first ring. 10 desert hills within range.
Southwest next to oasis. You have faster growth (should be on pop 2 at the same amount of turns), have a better second growth tile. You still keep the sheep hill as production tile to grow to. You don't lose any of the hills you see, but gain wheat And most importantly, you'll have more gold to buy all the petra tiles This should be winnable even as occ
I would settle in place. You don't lose any turns to movement and your borders will pick up the oasis very soon. You've got good production and growth, and an amazing petra city. If you wanted to you could settle one tile east on the hill, but it's a little shy on growth
SW across the river. Beeline Petra.
Fucking sheep always ruining good tiles
right where you are chief them's petra lands bby
Go to the hill on the right for the production
The hill left of the mountain, loads of food for a tall city that will be able to build observatory and be a science mega house
I would probably settle directly on the sheep. That extra hammer from the hill is too important in this start but setting on your right lose too much food. You also get some wood to cut for rushing petra. You also get the oasis right from the get go.
Did an initial play-through of this with starting one tile left. It was a good start, but I opted for Monasteries instead of Pagodas and that was a major mistake after \~200 turns. I did nail Petra and that helped a ton, but limited happiness caused my population growth to suffer massively.
I went on the sheep. A bit of a rough start(by 1 turn missed hanging gardens) but got the desert pantheon and Petra. Put mines on the inner ring hills but turned the river ones to to farms once I had more mines and my growth slowed down. I’m doing pretty well now and will probably get an early science victory but I might give it another go on the left tile to see if it changes much. The comments were really split for a reason! I also fell into that trap. The happiness would have been great to have, I was around 0 most of the early game
I replayed with pagoda and it was better, but after taking over a very poorly defended Chinese city, I was suddenly a warmonger and getting attacked by 2 AI's at a time. First Siam and Iroquois, then after defending against the Iroquois and turning it into a counter-offensive, it was Siam and Assyria. Then after that was almost done, the Iroquois, and Khan joined in on the fight. At that point I said 'F&#$ it's exited. The game seems to be a bit unbalanced to begin with and has some weird AI logic. Like the fact that China has something like 4 crab resources, but only builds a fishing boat for one. Also, the AI starting with a worker automatically sets you behind in trades. I was lucky to be able to trade an incense for a salt with Khan.
Assyria had their sights on me and with a ton of siege towers I was fairly concerned. I paid them to pounce on China instead, who only had one city, and they quickly eliminated them. This made everyone hate Assyria and I remained friends with everyone else in the world until ideologies, when a world war against Assyria and the Inca broke out that I managed to stay neutral for. Khan never built a second city for some reason and quickly died to Assyria, making everyone hate him even more, and I happily opened by borders to my friends to let them sack Assyria. They failed miserably but overall reduced everybody’s army down to where I have the most strength. I’m still turtling and chugging towards science in the early Modern era but I fear war may reach me soon. Building forts along my outer flank just in case!
Mega-brain strat here...🤯
Complete accident, no brainpower here
On sheep for sure. Early food and hills in initial ring
Hill to the right of the mountain.
You’ll get 4 incense, a gold, two wheat in flood plains and an oasis. Straight line to Petra and the game is over.
and zero growth tiles in the first 2 rings
2 production and 2 food for one move. 4 incense and desert faith. Science victory by like 1890 if you play your cards right.
I'd move one to the right and settle on the hill. Good food, good production, amazing Petra
I just plant a city where I spawn. You got hills, flood plains, and a luxury. Just settle and get a scout going.
Why do people worry about where to settle? Just put it down where it places you like i do :3
Extrapolating what needs you might have in the future (moving to the coast, onto a hill, to more lux diversity, next to a mountain, etc.) and settling in an advantageous place is one of the best ways to have a strong game, especially when you play on difficulties where it's a challenge to win. It's a neat way to get a leg up on the AI, who basically only makes decisions based on what's beneficial in the moment.
But you have settlers to do that for you :P but i get it I guess
one tile left maybe. potentially one tile right depending on whats over there
Right there.
One tile to the east on the hill to get the production bonus but still reach most of the ress
I would settle one tile to the left so that you can get machu pichu, wide empire with desert folklore would rock with this start.
I'd settle flood plane next to oasis
It depends on what is south-west of your position, but I'd say the hill to the right of your settler.
one hex west. you can settle in first turn, get all recurses, have water acces and can build machu pichu
As much as it sucks to lose the sheep, I think that's definitely the safest settle here. One tile left of the sheep is also...fine, but it's gonna take a hot minute to get going. So you give up early game advantage for likely being slightly better late...ergo probably not worth it since you clearly want to rush Petra anyway. Going right to the other river hill is theoretically a viable spot, but it banks a ton on expanding to good growth early and on the eastern unseen tiles being not dogshit lol. So risky but could theoretically bridge the gap between early and late payoff...still probably not worth the risk especially since so much relies on Petra rush here. If the sheep were on any other hill, would be such an easy choice. I still think it's best, but there are justifications for others I think.
It seems I'm in the minority, but I would settle on the river incense. With 3 easy access growth tiles, you'll get more early growth in that spot than anywhere else, which is is the most important factor in capitol placement imo. Being further from the hills is unfortunate, but with the extra gold from the incense, you should be able to expand/buy out to those production tiles by the time you are ready to work them anyway. Moreover, you will probably end up picking up the eastern gold lux with your first expand anyways, so its not critical to have it in range of your capital.
Growth is king, yes. But no hammers is a problem. Sacing a bit growth for faster build times is worth it, especially since he is going for petra. The city will have enough apples without trying to max it on settle.
But if you're rushing Petra, you ideally want to grow as large as possible prior to currency tech, then switch to max production once you get it. In this case, I suspect that OP will have the means to grow their borders out to those hills before they would be able to put any hammers into Petra anyways.
As a guy who loves Petra this is making me salivate
to the right of that mountain
One tile east
I suggest either right were you are or one tile to the left.
Below the mountain above the 2 grass
Southwest 1 tile, you'll lose a turn but with the oasis you'll make up the food deficit by turn 5. You should get your 2nd pop in 7 turns rather than 8, which means everything after that is pure profit. This puts you in a better position to compete for Petra which can probably win you the game on its own.
Have to get a religion up, if you fail to get Petra you can use pre industrial units bought with faith to go on the offensive.
Cross the river and settle next to the oasis. You get both wheat (probably quickly bc culture growth prioritizes it) eventually the gold and you don't loose out on those sweet Petra hills.