You are looking at the correct site for founding a city intended to compete for Largest City points.

There are zero hills or peaks, zero water plots, three plains tiles (marked in orange), SEVENTEEN grassland plots, a Rice (marked in green), and a Banana (marked in yellow). Once the forests are cleared and all plots farmed, that will be 82 food units available. That's a size 41 city, if 41 units of Health can be accumulated.

Environmentalism will add six health. Resources and buildings will add some. Hanging Gardens would add one, but I may not get that. Genetics will add three. That will still require researching numerous Future Techs for additional Health bonus. Plus, Merchants can be settled in to the city to add one more food apiece. Potentially, someone who bends their everything to Merchant production can beat me out here. Yet that means avoiding Stonehenge and the Oracle, as well as other early wonders, and that could get sticky. It will be interesting to see if anybody tries a Mass Merchant Move and how it works out for them.

Now you see (shown above) why I chose not to settle in immediate range of that Copper: avoiding overlap with THE big city. The second Copper, unfortunately, has fallen under French influence, and they are sending a Worker to connect it!

So far so good on the "box in" strategy, though. Louis has not sent settlers through my lands to nab sites in the west. (This ain't the Civ3 AI, that's for darned sure!)

My sixth city is not founded until 500AD. This is in part not to tank my economy too early (need techs like Guilds and Currency, Compass and Drama -- and Calendar -- to compete for the 1502AD points!) ... and in part to chase the "box in" strategy to its fullest. Since I have so many of my cities so far away from the capital, the total number of cities I can fund at any given point is fewer. This is and always has been a long term investment in to 1502AD, which a competitor will have to pry from my cold, dead hands if they want to take that one away from me!

Well, there it is. My baby factory. White dots show sites of future cities (or at least plans for them -- only Louis can mess with the plans, though, as Barbarian cities cannot appear here.) None of those will be my seventh city, though. This continent has only one source of Iron, deep in the south, along the coast. I must secure it!

An ausipicious omen:

Faith in Yahweh has spread immediately to the new city, at first opportunity. Surely they are blessed of the Lord. (That news line is pretty cool, too.)

Holy Guacamole, Batman!

That's early for the Gardens to fall. This with only four civs in the game, too!

Due to flip pressures from the French city across the bay, I decided not to settle the second Bronze.

Red Dot would have been an ideal fit but is already off limits. Orange Dot would be OK but would come under intense flip pressure once that French city pops its border again. I decided not to settle there at all, but to leave a hole. I'm going with the pattern shown in white. It will be an interesting experiment to see if and when the French eventually plug this gap (or if my borders can enclose it first).

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