Tips for beginners re cities?

City placement is all about the big cross. Within this big cross (which is a 5x5 square without the corner tiles, which makes 21 tiles including your city) you can work all tiles once your borders popped, and these are the tiles that give you bonuses for health. If placing a city, you should try to get as many resources as possible in the square, while still looking at the other squares. Some general rules:

1. Always look at how much food you can get in the BFC (big fat cross). Food resources give a food surplus, while plains, tundra, ice, peaks, desert and ocean costs you food. Grasslands without possible irrigation are neutral on food, just like coasts and lakes. Grassland with fresh water and flood plains give food surplus.
However, a city won't just be successful with only food, so also look for hills and rivers to place cottages next to.

2. Look how well a city can fullfill its purpose. This can either be production (lots of hills, and strategic resources), Commerce (riverside grassland/ flood plains and happiness resources), or food to run lots of specialists.

I think there's a guide perfect for explaining all of this though. It's in the war academy in the empire management guides. I think it's called a guide to terrain, improvements and city placements.

Cities should be 3 tiles apart (CxxxC) or further usually. It depends per city. You probably won't want more than 5 tiles overlap, because it's pretty easy for most cities to reach 15 population in the midgame.
Things you should (almost) never do are placing cities one tile off the coast (because the coast tiles wouldn't be worth it as you can't build a lighthouse), and preferably not put them on top of resources. However, if building it on top of a resource allows you to work an extra resource, do it by all means. Also building cities on top of strategic resources is a good way of defending them.

1. Get as much food as you can. Settle in places where you get food specials, Floodplains, Grassland and lakes in the BFC (big fat cross - the maximum tiles that can be worked by a city). Avoid sites that are mainly plains/desert/tundra unless the specials there warrant a city.

2. Where possible, minimize the useless tiles in the BFC. Desert, Ocean, non-riverside Tundra, Ice are all useless or practically useless.

3. Subject to (1) and (2), settle on a river if you can. +2 and potential Levees (BtS) in future.

4. Settle on a Hill if you can, for the defensive bonus. Plains Hills give an extra hammer to the city square.

Some overlap is fine if it means making a city that fits points 1-3 above.

Not all special tiles are created equal. You should try hard to ensure you get valuable tiles like Gold, Gems, Wheat, Pigs, Fish, and any strategic resources you don't already have, in your BFC. It's less crucial to get Sugar, Stone, Incense (since it is usually found in the middle of useless desert) and Whales in the BFC. These are nice, but not crucial - they don't grant the boost that other tiles do.

If you plan an early rush based on Copper/Iron/Horses, you should consider settling right next to the appropriate tile (maybe even ON the tile, although I've never been in that much of a hurry) so you don't have to wait for the border pop to build the Mine/Pasture and get access to the unit your rush needs.

For early production cities: lots of hills, enough food to support their food deficits.

For commerce: lots of grassland.

For GP farms, maximize food.

There is some very strange advice given so far and you would be best advised to take it with a pinch of salt.

City placement is an art that can only be mastered with practice. There are no general rules, each map is different, for example a city that has only 2 usable tiles might seem useless but if it gets you a resource that you didn't have before then it could be invaluable.

Some general guidelines

• Try to build on a river. Rivers get +2 health and allow easier trade routes and levees.
• Try not to build 1 tile from the coast. Sea tiles are less valuable unless you can build a lighthouse. However everything else says build there then do so.
• Try to get at least 1 4+ food tile in the BFC for quicker growth.
• Try to limit the number of tundra, snow, peak and desert tiles in the BFC. These tiles provide little or no workable tiles. I know the AI loves to settle those crappy tundra and snow cities, but you are smarter, right?
• Think about what the city will do when building it.

All these are just ideas to get you started, you can also look at some saved games here to see why the cities have been settles where they have. Remember any city, even a fill in with a few tiles and no special resource can be useful in a game.

Also the game will help you with a little blue circle to show where to build. Some people ignore these completely but I take them as a hint, if there is a circle near to where you were going to settle look at it to see if it is better then your site, or even if there is a reason why it is there. Sometimes I change my settling position and others I ignore it, but when learning I would use the AI advised sites until you have a better idea what you are doing.

spread out before spread in between, your cities should be far enough that they have enough land to share in between, maybe 5 tiles. theyll soon expand borders, getting rid of empty spaces in between

Overlap: Someone said to limit overlap. Don't. Overlap is awesome. If you have size 5-10 cities right now, then each city only needs 5-10 tiles worth working. If you have 2 cities with 15 good tiles each, plop another city in between them to take up the slack. Later, if you can support more people than you have tiles, well, that's why Sid invented specialists.

Water tiles: Ignore them. If you can, settle on the coast so you can build a harbor for health, and so you can make ships. And any city that works a water resource should settle on the coast (lighthouses). But you shouldn't work plain water tiles except for very special circumstances, since 2C is a really weak tile. So treat water like desert and try to minimize it, rather than trying to settle on the coast. (Exception: Financial gets 3C from coast, so they actually are worth working then).

Remember, you only need 5-10 good tiles to make a city. So don't worry about getting desert or water, just focus on getting some food and some tiles worth working. By the way, flat brown is generally not worth working, and grass hills are better than brown hills. And make cities that are good now, not good with some tech you won't have for 100 turns.

1st thing a city needs is enough food to get growing, so look for 1 good or 1 decent food ressources. Grassland Corn and Pigs are good, Fish is also, rest is decent (like plain wheat, grassland rice, bananas, clam, crab etc.). Also consider Floodplaines as a decent food ressource, if there are at least 2-3 of them.

Normally one would avoid settling on the ressources, though settling on the ressources is awesome in early game, as you get +1 hammer from settling on Marble, Stone or even Elephants and +1 food from many food ressources, fastening up the production or growth of your capital city significantly, so think about moving the settler if you see these kinds of ressources. Plain Hills also give +1 hammer, riverside luxury ressources give +3 commerce if being settled on, giving you a better shot at getting an early religion.

Best start to get is imho a plain hill with Marble next to a riverside gold giving you +2 hammers +3 commerce but that's so rare, I got it in 1 of 500 starts.

Followup cities should be placed besides river or any fresh water source if possible OR if needed AND besides strategic ressources like horses or copper. Levees apear so late, game is usually over by that time, but you still want to be able to build some farms if the city doesn't have enough food or if you want to speed up the growth of your Slavery shattered population.

Early production cities normally have lots of hills and ressources like Horses, Cows, Marlbe, Stone or Elephants, all of them giving + hamers. Commerce Cities usually have ressources like Gems, Gold, Silver, Fur, or later on the Calendar ressources like Silk, Dyes and so on. Aim for the early ressources first though, as it is a long way to calendar. Main thing again is food though.

One city needs more food than any city, so take the city with the most food to work specialists, thats your great Persons farm. 2 food is ok, 3 is decent, 4 is awesome for this kind of city. If it also has some hills and forrests, even more awesome, as you will be able to get wonders in that city giving you even more great person points.

Things you should never do:

Settle a City at a place where there is no food (exception to that is, if you wanna catch a strategic ressource with a city, but that's against the rule) .
As already mentioned: Settle a City 1 tile away from the coast (you won't be able to build a lighthouse then, making all coastal tiles worthless)
Wait for Border pop-up if you are not creative and don't have Stonehenge and play Marathon
Settle a city too close to a creative neighbour -.-

rhino correct

my idea of city placement:

1)Make a plan for the game (Example: Horse Archer rush -> settle available land while storing up great scientists and teching/stealing up to civil service+Nationalism -> snap-bulb your way to liberalism for Military Tradition -> tech gunpowder -> whip the bejeezus out of your cities -> win the game with curs).

2)Decide what cities you will need. (This example: 1-2 additional cities pre-rush, ideally the second city has a commerce special to help you reach HBR, both cities need some hills and several forests to chop, as well as a food special or two to grow (and get whipped), and obv one of them needs to claim horses. Post-rush, you need 1-3 commerce cities total, which 99% of the time will come from cottages or special tiles, and every other city should prioritize food via farms and specials, to produce your scientists and store population for the big whip. Optional is a single good production site to build the heroic epic for slowbuilding troops alongside whipping them).

3)Settle cities that will achieve your goals, and DO NOT SETTLE ANYTHING ELSE as it will only slow you down. (This example: Don't you dare settle a pure commerce city pre-rush unless it comes with a ton of forests to chop. You needn't bother with marble or stone, ever. If you have 3 commerce cities already, just ignore that juicy jungle site with gems and bananas and a river. No seriously, ignore it, the benefit doesn't outweigh the cost of the settler + worker turns + possible other city that you missed).

4)carry out your plan and win (This example: domination around 1400AD )

Keilah and OneLeggedRhino have the right of it, imho. One more thing to think about is blocking. If you claim land, obviously the AI can't claim it peacefully. But here's the kicker: it usually doesn't want to overextend itself by settling past your city if it's a lot of work to go around.

Also, if you're just getting started, you might look at some of the links in my signature below.

There has been extensive discussion about this. I'll highlight a few points I found worthwhile.

Evaluating tiles. Tundra, jungle (before Iron Working), deep ocean, coastal ocean (for non-FIN leaders), mountains, desert, and plains (without hills) aren't worth your trouble early in the game. Count them as non-tiles. Plains-hills and grass-hills are good for production cities; flat grassland is good for farms in GP farms, or cottages in commerce cities (or farms in production cities that need more food to work mines). Floodplains are excellent for cottaging up commerce cities, and also good for slavery-based production with farms.

Resources. If at all possible, you want every city to have at least 1 easily-accessible food resource with which to grow. Sometimes this means sharing a food resource between two cities (grow one city with it, then let that city work a cottage or something while the other city grows). A city which can add a gold, silver, or gems resource will always pay for itself, so you can safely settle those without worrying about overexpansion. Happy resources are generally more important (and scarcer) than health resources.

Overlap. Not really a problem. As long as both cities have good tiles to work, overlap isn't hurting; it's actually just saving time and money. On the other hand, if a city only has 4 good tiles, it's a little silly to settle another city that overlaps and has to steal those tiles. This is mostly dependent on happy cap. If your happy cap is 6, and a city has 10 good tiles, don't worry about stealing a few of those with another city. If your happy cap is 20, and a city has 10 good tiles, stealing some of those doesn't actually contribute anything to your empire (they would have been worked either way).

Prioritization. Worry about short-term gains over long-term possibilities. If you aren't a CRE leader, you usually want to try to get an excellent tile you can work while waiting for the necessary culture to pop your borders. Consider moving a city a little bit if you can block off a peninsula with it's culture at 0/10 culture instead of 100, even if this means giving up some good tiles.

Try not to kill resource tiles. When placing cities, you should be thinking about the whole of the land you have available and not just that individual city. If possible, try not to place cities in ways that leave a resource hanging where no city can ever productively use it - your resource tiles are the source of by far the bulk of your food, production, and commerce early in the game.

One thing I had to learn was the following:

Don't worry about useless tiles, it's the amount of good tiles that is important. A city with 5 awesome tiles and 15 junk is better than a city with 20 mediocre tiles.

A grass pig tile can give 6F in the early game, a regular grassland with farm just 3F. But since a citizen eats 2 of those food, the pig tile is worth +4F, while the grass tile is just +1F. Thus working a pig tile gives the same benefit as FOUR of those regular grassland tiles (and regular grassland is the prototypical mediocre tile). But your happy and health caps have to be 3 higher to be able to work all those grass farms, your city has to grow bigger before you can work 4 grass tiles than 1 pig tile, and your maintenance will be higher with a higher population in the case you work grass farms. Thus a single pig tile is worth significantly more than those 4 grass tiles.

(Later in the game the resource tiles don't benefit as much from technological improvements as regular tiles. Thus resource tiles become less important as mediocre tiles become better. In this case after biology a pig gives only as much benefit as 2 grass tiles, which is quite a lot less impressive.)

PS Riverside luxury gives only 2 commerce (which becomes 3 if financial). The complete guide to terrain... was performed using a financial leader, which has created this misconception.

I feel like water tiles are dragged down too much.
It sometimes helps to have a city that doesn't need workers for a while.
They are good enough for growing a bit, there isn't always a river to build the better farms.

Also, city overlap is fine. Good players tileswap improved tiles to help them REX quickly in the earlygame.

Mylene said:

I feel like water tiles are dragged down too much.
It sometimes helps to have a city that doesn't need workers for a while.
They are good enough for growing a bit, there isn't always a river to build the better farms.

Click to expand...

As I understand things, coastal tiles are fairly decent. It's the ocean tiles that are dead-weight. In fact, if you have the Colossus (sp?), coastal tiles are better than cottages for a long, long time. I tend to go for the Colossus when I am playing as a FIN leader and have copper.

Um the Muse said:

As I understand things, coastal tiles are fairly decent. It's the ocean tiles that are dead-weight. In fact, if you have the Colossus (sp?), coastal tiles are better than cottages for a long, long time. I tend to go for the Colossus when I am playing as a FIN leader and have copper.

Click to expand...

FIN coast is good(with a Lighthouse). Colossus coast is good(with a Lighthouse). FIN + Colossus is a beautiful thing(with a Lighthouse).

Normal coast(with a Lighthouse) is nice to grow on. Beats the hayul out of unimproved grass and holds its own vs forests. Why do you still have forests anyway? More often than not, coastal seafood = whip city.

ORG effin rocks on water rich maps

Darius - Archipelago. Yes.

Hi, I am a new player too and I was looking for help when I've read this thread.
I am currently playing a Nobel game with the chinese Qin Shi Huangdi, pangea, standard size and speed and I hoped it would be a good example to illustrate this thread...
My tech path: Animal Husbandry, Bronze Working, and as I am Protective and had not found horses back then, I decided to go Archery. (which now seems to me as a mistake...)
There is seafood down south, and the north is full of jungle.
Now,the one question I really struggle with is where precisely should I place my cities, and in which order.
The first 2 spots I was thinking about are Marble in the West, and Stone and Pigs in the East (precisely where the lion is.).
About Marble: Should I settle on the floodplain or on the desert next to it?
The third spot I was thinking about is Horses: should I grab it with cows and silk, with cows only (which would leave more room for a cottaged city next to the silk) or with ship (and forget about seafood)?
As Gold is really close to my capital I was thinking about settling there later, with the fourth settler.

You rolled a very food poor capital (I don't know: Is this is one of the dreaded "plains cows"locations?). I'd probably settle the 2nd city 1n of the corn to claim the gold. 1S of the horses is also good and there is a nice spot for a cottage/commerce city among the floodplains west of the capital. A possible pig/stone city to the east is probably to close to the yellow AI. So I would probably go for gold/corn, horses/sheep, floodplains

No, settle the gold 1st as Kall has mentioned - put city 1SE of gold in between corn (if possible, chop the forest first for the cap before settling and get a road to the city for insta trade route). If possible, try to settle cities closer to your cap unless you have to grab resources. Working a tile like gold pays off immensely in the early game.

You cap is indeed rather poor.

Horse/sheep I would settle 1SE of horses. No need to make it coastal without seafood. If you were creative, I'd actually say settle the blue circle 1E of Horses, but getting food up fast is better. However, if you can chop out a monument quickly then maybe 1E of horses is better - horse ain't a bad tile to work early and that sheep is on plains so it's not really a great food source.

In the west, 1N of that blue circle looks okay for a commerce city. I'd prefer it have at least 1food resource but with all those flood plains it should be okay and you might move your cap there later for Bureau. I city to the south E of the cows can help work some cottages for that city.

Then maybe something around wheat/wine in the SE. Later on there looks like a city 1SE of those cows to the NE. This is what I see based on your screenshot at least.

Make sure you get the fog busted around the coasts to reveal seafood.