Hi all,

I'm just starting to get into spending more time thinking ahead as to where the best palces to put my cities are. Could you look a the below map and suggest my next few cities and why they are the best palces please?

You can see I already have my capital palced and my 2nd city set up by stone which I think will make a decent production city for now as it has stone & 4 hills.

http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/1171/civiv1bsx9.th.jpg (http://img81.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civiv1bsx9.jpg)

Thanks for the suggestions. :goodjob:
Steve

Well Steve, you forgot to mention what civ are you. It may influence the city placement somewhat.

I certainly did...oops! I am American Indian. Thanks guys.

You can (almost) see on this map that Shaka is to my west but I have harrased him with Dog soldiers so he is severly limited in his growth now, but not destroyed as he has Archers protecting. Pacal is to my immediate south with Tocugawra (cant spell!) further sounth & Bennus to my s.west.

What kind of map is this that you have forested gems? Am I seeing that correctly?

You've got some good land you can REX into. You can defend it well being protective + your UB. Just prioritize locations that have food, especially W of your capital there. I would probably settle 4 tiles W of your capital after you hook up the stone city and churn out some wonders, especially GW and Pyramids.

Don't delay too long getting to those gem locations. If I was playing this, I would go hard on wonders, especially stone wonders in the capital, run SE settling specialists in the capital under representation. Settle the land as I could afford it. Once the land runs out, I should have rifling. At that point I would go to war with protective rifles. Putting a dog collar on Shaka would be very important, so gift him things, give in to all his demands, fake war with him, share a religion. You don't want him DoWing on you before you're at rifles imho. Once you hit rifles you should be able to conquer your entire continent.

What kind of map is this that you have forested gems? Am I seeing that correctly?

Just the map that BTS Next War Modthrew up!

I have actually settled my next city already and planned another - take a look at my updated dotmap here:

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/1673/civiv1dyg1.th.jpg (http://img87.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civiv1dyg1.jpg)

The city to the west gets horses/food but I think will be a good commerce city, and the one above it to the north I think will make a great GP farm with all that food around the river. What do you think?

i would proberly have placed your city at the horses and corn otherwise ... a city 3E1N, a city 2E3S and a city 3W2N ...

thanks for the advice but not understanding this:

a city 3E1N, a city 2E3S and a city 3W2N ...

3E1N - do you mean 3 squares east 1 north of what?

Cheers :-)

Well first of you have to choose if you want to go for a CE or SE. Sitting bull are Philosophical. A SE is werry temting when stone is nearby for the mids, you could always run a hybrid economy or a strict CC. the map I have made is for a strict CC though. I'm not an experianced SE player, I have tried it but am better at CC. Form my point of view this map is awsom for a CC when theres not mutch food resources around. however an experianced SE player may say outherwise. so lets hear what they say before you make up your mind about the economy.


If you folow my map there are alot of commerce citys around the nearest is four titles left of capital. It will have some overlap but could be a powerfull Commerce city. If you run a SE this could be a good SE city aswhell by making farms instead if cottages. The corn by it self will make you able to hire two scientists and by making more grasland farms it will be able to hire moore.

when you already have started to haras shaka I sugest you continue, build more doggs and plant them around the city or preferbly attack and race it as it is werry far away.

I have made citys, area for potential GP farm, squares that say CC, C or P and C. The citys is where I whold settle first. and city 2 is a hard choise, red, blue and brown all are commerce citys the brown city is where I whold like to settle but now when Wang is near I belive it's not possible. The main reason to settle this city is to get the silk or silk and gems for higher happy cap. The squares that say CC, C or P and C is good citys that will fit in most if Wang is destroyed by settle brown city two.

Obvius Prod citys are the city you made and city 3, consider city 3 to be your ironwork city and your city the heroic epic city. the outher citys shold be commerce citys and settled in number order. remember that your city could be city three instead of the three on the map but settle map city three soner than later.

So to the map:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/69073/SB.JPG

My plan Whold be to settle city 1, reserch pottery and cottage spam it so you can afford to settle more city's. the F stands for farm by making that post beurucratcy you will be able to cottage the rest, post biology you will be able to run a scientist. the shared capital squares shold be worked first so the capital can work those when beurucratcy civic is avible.

reserch IW directly after pottery then settle city 2 of you choise. remember that brown city 2 is optimal the red one is worst in the long run. brown will make outher citys better espeshally city C that could work the corn and be costal. clear the jungle and cottage spam city 2.

after this settle city 3. this will be stone city or city 3 on the map. make mines and start to produce military units non stop.
now its time to settle city 4 and city 5 in a rapid pace reserch shold be thowards currency and code of law. build alot of workers an cottage spam them. settle the outher prod city, produce military and turtle with totempole archers then longbows.

If this plan work can promis you that you will win the game

wow thanks for that - will read & digest now ;-).

As this is my first real game looking at city placement properly and trying to learn I may go back to the start of the game and follow your advice and compare it to where I am now, following my my own (poor!) advice.

Cheers!

@Above poster:
Tundras can only be farmed if they are riverside.

What kind of map is this that you have forested gems? Am I seeing that correctly?

You aren't. Those are jungles.

He's using the blue marble graphics pack, which is why everything looks so odd, but if you look a bit north of the gems you'll see the difference between the junlges and the forests.

thanks for the advice but not understanding this:



3E1N - do you mean 3 squares east 1 north of what?

Cheers :-)

... of the city you placed with Insence, corn and Horses in BFC

thanks...and which tile would you start to count on? Surely not from the city center as this would overlap them too much?

Land tiles are valuable, don't skip any if you can help it. A fully upgraded cottage, workshop, watermill, etc will give you just as much benefit as a the best special resource tiles (pigs, cows, horses, etc), and MORE benefit than some of the weaker ones. If you skip large sections of land, like was suggested in a previous map, you trade short term benefit for long term loss.

Here's a pattern that covers every tile with a minimum of overlap. Plant any cities with bonus food resources first. If you have pottery already, plant the floodplains city and put cottages everywhere. Don't be too concerned if a city has 3 or 4 unusable tiles. You have to be size 16+ before that affects you.

thanks for that it looks great. If you see my updated dotmap on post 5 it does show there is some coast near the horses north/east.

Just given up on the game doing it my way as I've botched city placement and Shaka is heading my way with a stack o' doom......doh!

Now to load again from the start and try some of these great city placements. Thanks guys.

Maybe I'm a little late here, but FWIW here's my suggestion for city sites (shown by pink dots).

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/7427/civiv1bsx9jrayzj5.th.jpg (http://img231.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civiv1bsx9jrayzj5.jpg)

My motivation in general is the following:
secure as many nearby resources as possible
settle on riverside tiles whenever possible (for fresh water and later levees)
minimize overlap but don't be afraid to overlap a bit or share a resource such as corn to help two cities get up and running quickly sequentially
try to get at least one hill per city for early production
don't spread out so much that you waste a lot of landI'd probably start to the south first to pick up the copper, horses, marble, and gems, then head west to block Shaka and grab the incense and more gems. Then backfill to make use of intervening land.

Maybe I'm a little late here, but FWIW here's my suggestion for city sites (shown by pink dots).

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/7427/civiv1bsx9jrayzj5.th.jpg (http://img231.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civiv1bsx9jrayzj5.jpg)

My motivation in general is the following:
secure as many nearby resources as possible
settle on riverside tiles whenever possible (for fresh water and later levees)
minimize overlap but don't be afraid to overlap a bit or share a resource such as corn to help two cities get up and running quickly sequentially
try to get at least one hill per city for early production
don't spread out so much that you waste a lot of landI'd probably start to the south first to pick up the copper, horses, marble, and gems, then head west to block Shaka and grab the incense and more gems. Then backfill to make use of intervening land.


It looks like he have copper in capital. 1W of city square, could you confirm this Biffa001?

To ad on Jrays list. What to look for when deciding citysite.
1. Food. Food is the most importent recours in the game (Floodplain is food). if there is no food; collect as many grasland as possible.
2. Resources. strategic and bonus resources.
3. The titles. 1st grasland, 2nd plain, 3rd tundra, 4th desert and 4th snow. the first two are the most flexible titles. the outher is mediocer or bad. try to collect as many grasland as posible. citys can be good with many plains as long they have mutch food they will be ok.
4. fresh water, rivers are the best fresh water when you can build levees later. lakes only gives the fresh water bonus.

Here's the basis for the pattern I always use. From your starting city, count every 5 tiles in a straight line east-west and north-south. Those are potenial city placements. Decide whether north-south or east-west looks better for your map. Things that would help determine your choice... is there a mountain on a 5th, 10th etc tile; would you be forced to plant on top of a high yield bonus resource like cattle, pigs, or horses; does one direction or the other naturally give you some coastal cities?

Once you've determined whether you're going with a horizontal or vertical axis, compare against the attached pic (attached pic is a horizontal axis. for vertical, rotate 90 degrees). On each row,you need to decide to plant either all green cities or all red cities. You should look a couple rows ahead. Where you plan row +1 determines where you can plant row +2.

Just to be clear, each row should be all red or all green, but you can change from one row to the next. Row 1 red, row 2 green, row 3 green, row 4 red, etc. Sometimes you may want to vary 1 tile away from the pattern... maybe the last city in a row or column is 1 tile away from coast, or maybe there's a mountain or water tile where the pattern says to plant and you have no choice... just try to get back into the pattern as quickly as possible

With this patter, each city will have 18-20 tiles with no interior gaps in coverage.

Here's the basis for the pattern I always use. From your starting city, count every 5 tiles in a straight line east-west and north-south. Those are potenial city placements. Decide whether north-south or east-west looks better for your map. Things that would help determine your choice... is there a mountain on a 5th, 10th etc tile; would you be forced to plant on top of a high yield bonus resource like cattle, pigs, or horses; does one direction or the other naturally give you some coastal cities?

Once you've determined whether you're going with a horizontal or vertical axis, compare against the attached pic (attached pic is a horizontal axis. for vertical, rotate 90 degrees). On each row,you need to decide to plant either all green cities or all red cities. You should look a couple rows ahead. Where you plan row +1 determines where you can plant row +2.

Just to be clear, each row should be all red or all green, but you can change from one row to the next. Row 1 red, row 2 green, row 3 green, row 4 red, etc. Sometimes you may want to vary 1 tile away from the pattern... maybe the last city in a row or column is 1 tile away from coast, or maybe there's a mountain or water tile where the pattern says to plant and you have no choice... just try to get back into the pattern as quickly as possible

With this patter, each city will have 18-20 tiles with no interior gaps in coverage.

From my experience, I don't think overlaps and gaps are that bad. I think trying to adhere to conventions like "every 5th tile," even adding a little wiggle room, will likely cause you to miss out on more optimal city placement. Sometimes the best city location is just outside another city's fat cross, and you can even benefit from doing things like sharing a high-food resource between cities. Let the first city use it to ramp up its population to work a bunch of cottages, and then hand it over to a new city. It's more work, but if you're willing to micromanage, it can pay off.

i used to use a pattern (which though ran NE-SW or NW-SE) but i've started to go away from it because while it gives you the 'security' not losing anything it also gives you the problem that you have to live with a lot of sucky terrain ... such as deserts ...

Here's the basis for the pattern I always use. From your starting city, count every 5 tiles in a straight line east-west and north-south. Those are potenial city placements. Decide whether north-south or east-west looks better for your map. Things that would help determine your choice... is there a mountain on a 5th, 10th etc tile; would you be forced to plant on top of a high yield bonus resource like cattle, pigs, or horses; does one direction or the other naturally give you some coastal cities?

Once you've determined whether you're going with a horizontal or vertical axis, compare against the attached pic (attached pic is a horizontal axis. for vertical, rotate 90 degrees). On each row,you need to decide to plant either all green cities or all red cities. You should look a couple rows ahead. Where you plan row +1 determines where you can plant row +2.

Just to be clear, each row should be all red or all green, but you can change from one row to the next. Row 1 red, row 2 green, row 3 green, row 4 red, etc. Sometimes you may want to vary 1 tile away from the pattern... maybe the last city in a row or column is 1 tile away from coast, or maybe there's a mountain or water tile where the pattern says to plant and you have no choice... just try to get back into the pattern as quickly as possible

With this patter, each city will have 18-20 tiles with no interior gaps in coverage.

What does green and red mean in this context?

What does green and red mean in this context?

nothing, just two arbitrary colors I picked to mark potential city placement spots. Look at the pic I attached in post 18.

Wow, thanks for all the help, just reading through all the replies:

Maybe I'm a little late here, but FWIW here's my suggestion for city sites (shown by pink dots).

thanks jray - looks good. Studying now.

It looks like he have copper in capital. 1W of city square, could you confirm this Biffa001?

Yep sure is :goodjob:

With this pattern, each city will have 18-20 tiles with no interior gaps in coverage.

thanks for this gilfan - this reminds me of the way I used to site my cities in Civ 2/3. Basically making sure that as much space as possible was used up and covered in your cities. But I am getting the picture from the other guys suggestions that maybe a slight tweak taking into consideration resources etc may be useful so you can specialize your cities for production or commerce or GP farm ETC? By moving away from your potential pre-mapped city sites by sometimes a square or two can greatly increase a cities chance of being a very good specialist city (resources dependant of course). Just a thought.

I think trying to adhere to conventions like "every 5th tile," even adding a little wiggle room, will likely cause you to miss out on more optimal city placement.

jray - yep, that's what I was trying to say in the paragraph I just wrote above, but in about 50 words less...!!! Like the wiggle room, may try that out :blush:

As mentioned before, I have now restarted the game and am trying my best to play with out the prior knowledge I have of the map but will place the cities along the lines of the suggestions made here - which are 100 times better than what I used last time. BTW - on my last game Shaka declared war on me with a stack o doom around 1070 AD.....!!

Will post back my progress later on this evening. Thanks for all the suggestions tho guys, it all helps and is really increasing my knowledge of Civ IV and hopefuly my gameplay too. :mischief:

I did say in my own post that I'll sometimes vary by a tile or two, and certainly I'll make (sometimes radical) adjustments if there's a big desert/mountain area, or if the coastline requires it. Maybe you're in a vertical pattern, then hit a narrow stretch of land and switch to a horizontal pattern afterwards because it fits the new land better.


For the most part, though, if you scout thoroughly before you build your first settler, you can look ahead and see all of your potential city locations in advance. There's enough variables in the pattern that you can choose the pattern that gives you good specialist cities.


The important part is planning ahead. I build 3 or 4 exploring units before I build my first settler. Once my settler is done, I have the terrain within 15 tiles of my capital completely explored. Then I go to the world map and draw all my city locations and city radius borders... if something doesn't work, I erase it and try a different variation of the pattern. In the end, I have 10+ city locations planned out before I found my first city

The important part is planning ahead. I build 3 or 4 exploring units before I build my first settler. Once my settler is done, I have the terrain within 15 tiles of my capital completely explored. Then I go to the world map and draw all my city locations and city radius borders... if something doesn't work, I erase it and try a different variation of the pattern. In the end, I have 10+ city locations planned out before I found my first city

This is exactly what is missing from my game. As soon as I get my problem with the strategy layer working (it only shows the strat button at a zoom level that makes the land indeciferable. I've turned off clouds etc but as soon as I zoom in a bit to make the land come into focus the strat button dissapears...!), I will also plan out this way.

This is exactly what is missing from my game. As soon as I get my problem with the strategy layer working (it only shows the strat button at a zoom level that makes the land indeciferable. I've turned off clouds etc but as soon as I zoom in a bit to make the land come into focus the strat button dissapears...!), I will also plan out this way.

On the Graphics Options screen (ctrl-O), make sure Globe Quality is set to HIGH.
It also helps light up the map a bit if you toggle the bare map before zooming out. Enabling the grid helps to delineate the map as well.

BTW, how did you turn off the clouds? Is that done in the XML or is there a way to do it in-game?

On the Graphics Options screen (ctrl-O), make sure Globe Quality is set to HIGH.

Flippin heck I never did think to check that out - what a bonehead I am...and thanks that's the problem solved AT LAST!!!

BTW, how did you turn off the clouds? Is that done in the XML or is there a way to do it in-game?

Use a tool called CivScale - available on this forum from the same chap who does Bluemarble. Speeds up the zooming somewhat.

Thanks for the help :-) :-)

Although Gilfan's map with 18-20 tiles per city is nice, consider creating small overlaps so that you can have more cities, it pays off! Each city can do with 15 tiles easily. That way you get more cities for the GT/OU and Cathedral req, and happy cap means less, providing more production/commercial power earlygame, where happiness is a serious issue.