City Placement question

Over the last few months I've been working on improving my game; reading the strategy guides, asking questions. and experimenting with new styles of play. In a recent game, I tried the cXXc city placement (C3C, Monarch level, Japan). It worked great in the beginning. I had a large empire, but no strategic resources. To my north was France, with iron and horses, and better tech than me. I was able to make tons of catapults along with warriors and archers and actually succeeded in a few early wars with France (France was runaway, and had the whole northern 2/3 of the continent).

My problem came later in the game, where the tight city spacing slowed me down growth- and production-wise. I've heard about abandoning cites later in the game to make more room for growth, but all the core cities were pretty good even though they were small, and I was loathe to knock them down, though I did get rid of a couple. Also, it seems that when abandoning a city in cXXc would leave you with unworked tiles, cXXXXXc, which could be wasteful.

So my question is this: is cXXc only good for short, AW games, or are there better ways to utilise this? Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated.

Sandman,

I usually use something like the cXXc in all of my games, although I'm not one of the pro's here. Basically, with 12 people per city, you are at maximum size until the hospitals arrive.

I guess the key is that the game is often effectively won (if you win) by this point in the game. Playing a wider strategy (cXXXc) often have a lot of unworked tiles in the middle for most of the game -- this is your key advantage. You will have about 30% more cities in the same area and most of that is useful population. So, you just plain out-produce, research, and grow the opponent.

I rarely have aboandoned cities. If you get to the point whre you build hospitals and the game is still competitive, it may be a good idea to get a super producing city to build wonders like Theory of Evolution and Hoover Dam, or expensive items like ICBM's later.

Breunor

i always go for a intuitive feel when placing my cities,
will my peeps be happy here, are there enough tiles free/to share, access to the see, close to the capital... no real rules, but with a faily big overlap 50% of each city's zone can be used by other cities as well. and still you can get HUGE cities like lvl 20!

CxxC spacing is good enough for size 12 cities. Usually, it should not cause decrease in production. This quote from you had me puzzled:

My problem came later in the game, where the tight city spacing slowed me down growth- and production-wise.

Click to expand...

Why does tight city spacing slow down growth? It shouldn't.

I think the problem you're facing probably has little to do with city spacing, but more to do with how the cities are managed.

Are all of the cities size 12?

Are all of the tiles improved?

Are all of the citizens working (i.e. no specialists)?

What about railroads and factories?

Where did you put your Forbidden Palace?

Did you build courthouses in the semi-corruption cities?

@SJ Frank: I guess I'm accustomed to having much bigger cities because in the past I used a pretty wide spacing. Size 12 seems small to me. In this particular game, my roommate and I were playing a hotseat game, teaming up on the AI, and by the Modern Age his cities were huge and producing nearly twice as many shields per city than mine, whose growth was stunted by the fact that there were only so many tiles to work per city. Maybe if I did the math I had more shields overall; I don't know.

To answer your questions:

Are all of the cities size 12?
Yes.

Are all of the tiles improved?
Yes.

Are all of the citizens working (i.e. no specialists)?
Yes.

What about railroads and factories?
Got em.

Where did you put your Forbidden Palace?
It's in a good location, not too far from the Palace, but not too close either.

Did you build courthouses in the semi-corruption cities?
Yes.

How can you get size 12 cities in CxxC without irrigating a lot and having many specialists? CxxC only leaves 8 tiles per city.

What I like to do could probably be described as CxxCxxxC. Basically alternate 2 and 3 tiles between cities, and have a few cities that are 2 tiles away from 4 others. Well, see this textmap:

(Rotate 45 degrees)
A is the "center" city - but not necessarily the capital. A is where you'd keep a stockpile of defensive units to stronghold the B cities. What's not shown is the C cities are B cities in other rings, and there's other A cities too. In other words, your B and C cities have enough room to grow to size 12 without excessive irrigation/specialists, and still have more room to grow beyond - but are also always within range of an emergency garrison should you need it. The A cities are pretty much sacrificial if you want to let the B cities use as many tiles as possible (they're great for one-scientist-research).

The palace is almost always one of those C cities, and I usually settle the two nearest C cities and the nearest B city first. If there's room(i.e. non-coastal start) I'll build an A city near the capital and it'll become a B city. (Note that this configuration also is a good start on RCP.)

I'm not a math person either. I tend to try to see things conceptually. The way I look at this problem is:

production = number of tiles that's currently being used

Where "Being used" means a citizen from one of the cities has been assigned to that tile.

It basically says that given the same amount of territory, the more tiles that's being used, the production you have. And if the same number of tiles are being used, it does not matter if the citizen comes from big metros or small towns, the total amount of production is exactly the same.

So that's my answer to the question of "which city spacing results in more production?" After Hospitals, when every single tile is being used, dense and wide spacing has the exact same amount of total production. But before Hospitals, because dense spacing uses every tile and wide spacing leaves un-used tiles, dense spacing has more production.

The advantage of wide city spacing after Hospitals comes from savings in improvment costs. Every city is going to need commerce and shield multiplier builds in order to be effective. Less cities of course means less banks and factories that need to be built.

That's a pretty good definition of Production, but you leave out a few things:

1) Cities give unit support(depending on gov't).
2) Cities have improvements. More cities = more improvements to get something useful out of them. (Library in a size 12 city is going to be more cost-effective than in a size 6.) Which means more mantinence costs.
3) The city tiles themselves mean one less tile available for a citizen to work, and also one less tile that can be improved the way YOU want it improved, and you also lose food/shield bonuses.

Obviously size 12 cities are bad in the modern age. You really want hospitals if you get that far.

But if you use every tile before hospitals, you can often win before anyone gets to the modern age.

No need for metros at any level, they are best for scoring runs, not winning. I may come along and make one or three hospitals, if the game goes that long.

It is true that you get a cost break for metro Vs city, but again that comes so late as to not matter.

You also shave a bit off of corruption with 15 metro using the same land as say 20 cities. Not really a game breaker. To me the cost of all those idel tiles in the core for 3/4 of the game is more detrimental. Not to mention that it is eaier to cover those CxxC towns than CxxxC towns. It take a bitlonger to road out to the next town with those extra tiles (dead ones at that).

I make those metros with just a few tiles taken back from surrounding cities.

So my question is why are you feeling you are suffering from production issues, It sounds like you are ready and solid. Are you wsting lots of tiles with irrigation while the city as 12 pop, it only needs 24 food. As soon as I get over 24 food, I look to mine any irrigated tiles. This is often possible and more so after rails.

Do you have the right form of gov for what you are doing. IOW if you have a low or no unit support gov, but are lots of troops.

I think what he probably means, is that a size 12 city cannot build anything as fast as a size 20+. Simply because it has less tiles to work with. I've just put up Manufacturing plants and am churning out ICBMs in 4/5 turns, MA/MI in 2 and Stealth Bombers/Battleships in 3/4. In 40 cities. You psycho warmonger types should try it sometime, instead of finishing the game halfway through...

I think I have only built manufacturing plants twice. Stealth I can't remember the last time, but I do not foresee doing it again.

So yes, if you want to play out till the last tech in the game, then by all means make metros and have at it. If you do not even get to tanks all that much, no need for more than size 12.

I don't build battleships either, even in games played till the last tech. Destroyers will do just fine and are much cheaper.

vmxa said:

I don't build battleships either, even in games played till the last tech. Destroyers will do just fine and are much cheaper.

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Agreed (except when I'm playing out turns in a game that is already won). Sea warfare is all about bombard 'til they are red-lined and then sink with the remaining units. Quantity is more important than quality IMO when deciding between battleships and destroyers, plus the superior movement helps.

brennan said:

I think what he probably means, is that a size 12 city cannot build anything as fast as a size 20+. Simply because it has less tiles to work with. I've just put up Manufacturing plants and am churning out ICBMs in 4/5 turns, MA/MI in 2 and Stealth Bombers/Battleships in 3/4. In 40 cities. You psycho warmonger types should try it sometime, instead of finishing the game halfway through...

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's kinda what I'm getting at. I had a game just this last couple of days where I spread my cities out and by the modern age I was cranking out Modern Armor in two turns from many cities. In a game that gets to the Modern Age with cXXc layout, the cities seem cramped and stifled.

Since I've just started at Monarch level, it may be that I need to get used to needing the extra production early in the game that tight city spacing provides. I've got a game right now, Monarch level, where the tight city spacing is coming in way handy since I had no strategic resources to start with. I managed to take out a good part of Rome (they had no Iron), then got a city that had Iron away from the Egyptians, who were much more powerful and advanced than I.

I'm about to put the finishing touches on Rome once our 20 agreed upon turns of peace are over, and get Horses from them. I'll keepo a progress report here on how it turns out.

Well, if you want 2-turn unit production out of CxxC spacing, there are a few tricks you could use.

The first trick is short-rushing. Let’s say you have a city that produces 40spt, and you want to build a MA in 2 turns. What you do is letting it build for 1 turn to accumulate 40 shields in the bin, then switching production to cav, and rushing the cav. Now there are 80 shields in the bin. Last, switch production back to MA. The city will accumulate rest of the 40 shields on its own and finish the MA next turn.

The second trick is that you can let certain cities grow to metros at the expanse of other cities. You could build a hospital in your capital, and let it use some tiles from your first ring cities. Your first ring cities then have to borrow some tiles from your second ring cities, and second ring cities from the third, and so on. The same idea applies to building hospitals in the first ring cities as well. Just take even more tiles from second ring cities. This trick works because there is less corruption in the inner rings. By making the inner ring cities bigger and squeezing out the outer ring cities, you’re making your civ more productive.

The third thing to do is paying attention to shield breakpoints. MA’s require 60spt; Mech’s require 55spt; tanks and bombers 50spt; infantries 45spt; artilleries 40spt. Adjust size of cities so that they’re at the most efficient shield breakpoints. If one city is a few shields from 60spt for 2-turn MA, and another city can give up a few tiles and still make 2-turn artilleries at 40spt, then make the switch. Join a few workers into the first city and build a few turns of worker out of the second city.

Interesting strategies. I will have to try them as I progress with my new techniques. The short rush seems kinda like an exploit though.

IIRC didn't Civ 2 calculate the number of shields produced in a city and leave that many 'unrushed'?

The least corrupt/most productive civ is one with as few cities as possible covering as many tiles as possible; meaning one without overlap.

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