How do you know where to settle your cities?

[AlphaBeta]

I'm having trouble knowing where to place my cities. Usually, I just look for the closest resource that I don't have and try to settle there, but I think that probably isn't the best. I hear people talking about specializing cities and "cottage farms" and "GP farms." I understand what they are but I don't really understand what places I should put new cities and what they should become. Is it just building lots of cottages, or is there probably some kind of special terrain placement you need? I've been trying to play Prince lately instead of Noble and it's really hard, and I find that the hardest thing for me to do in the first hundred or so turns is to place my cities. Any help?

[Poppis]

Settling for resources isn't a bad idea. Food is usually a very important factor in cities. Say you're planing a production city, you are looking for lots of hills in the BFC. But hills don't give much food so you need tiles with either food resource(s) or riverside floodplanes/grasslands in order to feed all the miners.

For cottage cities, you are usually looking for grasslands as they feed themselves or if your lucky, floodplanes.

GP farms is of course just interested in food, so riverside grassland/floodplanes and food resources are what you're looking for. Although a good production city works pretty well as a gp farm as well in my mind(good production=fast wonders=lots of gp points).

You should post a screenshot of some early game of yours so people can give some more specific advice.

[Htadus]

Everything in civ is about food. large cities are more productive than small cities when health and happiness are not a problem.

So for all those types of cities you need good food sites.

Sites with many green river tiles/Flood plains are best cottage sites. Since FP's are unhealthy. they are even better with, say a corn or pig nearby to counter the loss of food due to FP's. Also need a few hills to build some needed infrastructure.

For a GP farm, a riverside tile is not very importants, lakes and oasis will do for farming needs untill Civil Service. Could use a couple of hills to get some infrastructure going. Could use the whip in its place. However it need at least 2 good food tiles to be really effective.

All others are production cities. Again need food and many hills and hammer resources.

[goldys_lackey]

I read about specializing when I was new to civ and I feel it set my game back. City specialization is something to keep in mind when you pick your sites and make your tile improvements, but you probably shouldn't start actually specializing their build queues until you settle or cordone enough land to claim some resources to trade around and bring your production up to snuff. In most cases you shouldn't build anything but settlers, workers, barb-killers, or wonders in all your cities until you at least get border contact with another civ. At that point, if you have enough good land settled / to settle, then you can build libraries and monasteries in research cities, and settlers, workers, barracks&Stables in production cities. If you get early border tension because you don't have much land to settle, then the libraries and monastaries should be pushed back in the queue in favor of barracks and units to conquer more land. There's a feel for a threshold of land that you will need to win and I think focusing too early on specialization can distract from that.

[AlphaBeta]

Ok, so here's a few pictures.

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

In the game I founded the city where the game suggested on the flood plains blue circle because the other blue circle looked a bit too close even though it grabbed the pig and copper. It's on Prince difficulty and I think it's Continents. All my neighbors are really far away even though it's already 50 turns in I haven't found anyone. I wonder if I was too slow in expanding. Pericles is really close up north i think. (I also lost this game, so that's why I'm sort of restarting.

[Pangaea]

The most obvious to me from the first picture is at the riverbend, 1 SE of the cow, to grab both food and gold and some floodplains you can either cottage or farm, depending on how to use the city.

In the second picture you can go for example 1W of the rise, to be coastal, grab gem and rise. If the capital can't work the copper, you may put it 1N of copper, to grab copper and cow in the first ring (before border pop) and rise in the 2nd, and can share corn from the capital. The sites up there aren't great due to all the jungle, but getting resources could still be important before the AI does. Further east there are many potential sites by the gold, dyes, rise and bananas. A possible GP farm here, at least when you get calender and get rid of some jungle.

Little difficult to say a great deal because the pictures don't reveal a lot of land. Would be a bit easier if you zoomed out more.

I'm more or less a noble player myself, though, so you'll want to wait for more experienced advice.

[lymond]

Pretty simple rule, OP - settle with food resources in the first ring. The Creative trait gives you a bit more flexibility

Cow/Gold is an obvious spot. Since cow is in your culture settle next to gold. Gold is very powerful early, but you still want food. Plains cow is not great food, but all the FPs in the area give you plenty. In fact, this city could be your Bureau cap.

Settle on the Plains hill to the south to get cow first. Not a bad city with 2 ivories and it can share production with the cap. Later chain irrigate the green tiles for more growth. Very good early production city.

Avoid jungle as much as possible until you trade for Iron Working unless there is sufficient food and production tiles without jungle so you can work it. Jungles areas are tricky early since workable tiles are limited and sometimes jungle spreads before you can improve the tile, so be wary.

Bottom line though is that FOOD is key in this game. You want cities to grow fast so that you can work more tiles or convert that food to hammers via the whip. If you settle away from food then it can be 20 or so turns before you get a border pop, which makes that city virtually useless. The exception would be settling next to a strat resource to get an advanced unit online asap for a rush, but only do that if you are going to rush or expect serious barb issues. Another exception might be settling next to gold to just work that gold tile asap for the extreme tech boost early. City can build a work or settler with the gold and some chops until it border pops later.

You want your first 2 or 3 new cities to be immediate productive via food and hammers. High commerce tiles like gold are also...well..."golden" early game. Just make sure you have food nearby so the city can grow later.

[AlphaBeta]

Okay, here are some better pics. I just have awful eyesight. It's like borderline between needing glasses and not, and I figure that since I'm playing on my computer I can stick my head really close and leave my glasses off since they're uncomfortable.

Anyways, still the same city, same time, just zoomed out.

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

[AlphaBeta]

Originally Posted by lymond

Pretty simple rule, OP - settle with food resources in the first ring. The Creative trait gives you a bit more flexibility

Cow/Gold is an obvious spot. Since cow is in your culture settle next to gold. Gold is very powerful early, but you still want food. Plains cow is not great food, but all the FPs in the area give you plenty. In fact, this city could be your Bureau cap.

Settle on the Plains hill to the south to get cow first. Not a bad city with 2 ivories and it can share production with the cap. Later chain irrigate the green tiles for more growth. Very good early production city.

Avoid jungle as much as possible until you trade for Iron Working unless there is sufficient food and production tiles without jungle so you can work it. Jungles areas are tricky early since workable tiles are limited and sometimes jungle spreads before you can improve the tile, so be wary.

Bottom line though is that FOOD is key in this game. You want cities to grow fast so that you can work more tiles or convert that food to hammers via the whip. If you settle away from food then it can be 20 or so turns before you get a border pop, which makes that city virtually useless. The exception would be settling next to a strat resource to get an advanced unit online asap for a rush, but only do that if you are going to rush or expect serious barb issues. Another exception might be settling next to gold to just work that gold tile asap for the extreme tech boost early. City can build a work or settler with the gold and some chops until it border pops later.

You want your first 2 or 3 new cities to be immediate productive via food and hammers. High commerce tiles like gold are also...well..."golden" early game. Just make sure you have food nearby so the city can grow later.

Last time I played this game I settled on the blue circle the game suggested, is that a huge difference from settling on the gold itself? Also, I notice that settling two tiles to the right of the cows let's me get both gold, so is that better?

[goldys_lackey]

Originally Posted by AlphaBeta

I notice that settling two tiles to the right of the cows let's me get both gold, so is that better?

I think you could do that, if your intention is to make it a bureau capital. What is your intention? You've founded Hinduism, you have stone. Do you want to go for a culture win? There seems to be plenty of land around you. What map is it?

[TheWilltoAct]

One fun site would be 1 South and 4 West of your capital, to grab the fish, pig, and stone.

[plasmacannon]

Since, Flood Plains are better than Grasslands, I try not to settle on FP, unless there are just so many , that I can't find a better location.
I can see several good places for Cities.
The 1 SE of the Cow and getting a Gold, has been mentioned already.
Another city 4N of that one to get the Banana and a 2nd Gold.
Another city 3SE of that Cow city on the Desert Hill to get the Wheat and 3rd Gold.

You will have to decide on which city will get that Pig.
Either a City 2N of the pig (on the blue circle) to hook up your Copper and Rice, or a City near that Fish to become a GP City. It depends on what else is out in the Darkness on the coast. If there is more seafood, then a City on the Desert 2S of the Fish might get a seafood tile. In which case, the Pig would go to the Northern city.
I would go for the Pig/Rice/Copper city. You will need axemen for Barb defense at some point.

EDIT: Also, since it doesn't look like you are running any mods, You can use the Alt-s, then left click a spot and labe it "City". This way you can plan out where you will send your settlers and make sure resourses will be in the Big Fat Cross of each of them. Try not to leave a resourse out, otherwise you won't be able to get the full benefit of it.

[King Flevance]

I would settle on the grassland between the two mountains to your east, then 2 tiles east of the bananas, a good military city to the south on the unforested plains hill to your south 1 tile east of the peak.

(Sorry, posting on breaks at work)
Splitting up the gold is your best bet here. It's rare that is the case but here it offers you 2 good rich food/commerce cities as opposed to 1. Doing so also helps you avoid the worthless desert mostly.

[AlphaBeta]

Ok, I did as lymond suggested and settled on the plains hills. I built a monument there so I could hopefully get another ivory within a few turns. I also whipped out another worker since last post, and built the Great Wall. Then, I got a quest or something, it told me to build 8 chariots because my military commanders wanted me to. Should I try for it? The closest horse is three tiles southeast of my new city, so I think I would have to build another settler, is it too risky?

Spoiler:

I was hoping to settle on the flood plains two tiles east of the cow for my next city.

Also, difficulty is Prince, I have continents map. I think there's three more civs on the other continent (I know because I already played this map and lost).

[goldys_lackey]

Originally Posted by AlphaBeta

Then, I got a quest or something, it told me to build 8 chariots because my military commanders wanted me to

You are the only military commander that counts, my friend. What do you need 8 chariots for? You built the Great Wall, so barbs are virtually a non-factor.

[King Flevance]

The reward for that quest sucks anyways. Don't worry about it.

[Te_Wheki]

As plasmacannon alluded too, try not to settle on resources as you get a biger bonus from improving the tile and working it. So don't settle on the gold itself, you'll get the luxury bonus but not the full bonus a mine would give you.

[midget_roxx]

I can only echo the 'settle near food' sentiment. I was like you and not too sure about where to settle. I used to try and go for the best possible BFC which wasn't the best because I couldn't capatalist quick enough with what I had. When I started to aim for food as a priority I found my games easier

[plasmacannon]

Originally Posted by AlphaBeta

Ok, I did as lymond suggested and settled on the plains hills. I built a monument there so I could hopefully get another ivory within a few turns. I also whipped out another worker since last post, and built the Great Wall. Then, I got a quest or something, it told me to build 8 chariots because my military commanders wanted me to. Should I try for it? The closest horse is three tiles southeast of my new city, so I think I would have to build another settler, is it too risky?

Spoiler:

I was hoping to settle on the flood plains two tiles east of the cow for my next city.

Also, difficulty is Prince, I have continents map. I think there's three more civs on the other continent (I know because I already played this map and lost).

That might be a good spot, but it shouldn't have been your first choice.
(lymond's quote)

Originally Posted by lymond

Pretty simple rule, OP - settle with food resources in the first ring. The Creative trait gives you a bit more flexibility

Cow/Gold is an obvious spot. Since cow is in your culture settle next to gold. Gold is very powerful early, but you still want food. Plains cow is not great food, but all the FPs in the area give you plenty. In fact, this city could be your Bureau cap.

Settle on the Plains hill to the south to get cow first. Not a bad city with 2 ivories and it can share production with the cap. Later chain irrigate the green tiles for more growth. Very good early production city.
...
Bottom line though is that FOOD is key in this game. You want cities to grow fast so that you can work more tiles ...

You want your first 2 or 3 new cities to be immediate productive via food and hammers. High commerce tiles like gold are also...well..."golden" early game. Just make sure you have food nearby so the city can grow later.

Notice the parts about Food and that "Cow/Gold" was suggested first.
The city on that hill may need it's grasslands "Chain-irrigated" to pop up and you won't get that for a while (Civil Service?).
The Cow/Gold first, the one to 4N of it both have a food resourse and Flood Plains, plus Gold to pay for maintenance. These are Great qualities for a city to have.

[Blue_Lime]

You should consider making a city 1 west of the wheat (on hill). You would have plenty of flood plains and a wheat within your culture. Then, upon border pop, two golds easily mine-able considering the amount of food you would have.