City spacing

[paulfish]

One guestion I keep having is how close together should I have my cities I like to put them five tiles apart to let then work all the land as they grow. I am wondering what other people do. and how close you space you cites . I know land type has something to do with it also.

 

[Longasc]

Well, I could give an elaborate and long answer, but my advice is:

Read cracker's article on opening game play in the War Academy.


For spacing, you can use different tactics:

OCP, tight placement, ICS

OCP: 5 tiles apart, 4 tiles between the cities. NO OVERLAP or only a tiles at the edges of the "X" the city can work.

Tight: 3 tiles or 4 tiles, 3 tiles is good for things like moving 1 movement defenders within one turn in another city to defend it. It is said to be useful in Multiplayer.

4 tiles is in-between and I personally go for something like this...

BECAUSE YOU WILL ONLY USE 12 TILES most of the game! Till hospitals are available, in the Industrial Age, your cities can only grow to size 12 max.

So you will obviously only need 12 workable tiles for most of the game. So plan your placement according to that.

Sure, later one a bigger city would allow you to build cool things perhaps in one turn, but the most important phase is the start.

So my advice in short:

1.) Place taking the 12 tiles in account
2.) Place near resources, rivers, luxuries, good farmland, make use of the most powerful terrain squares first. You will grow faster, better and earlier. This is BY FAR superior to a strict pattern.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

Longsac gave you the best idea of it...

OCP: ~21 tiles per city (needs hospitals to utilize them all)
Loose Build: ~14-16 tiles per city (doesn't need a hopsital, but it helps)
Tight Build: ~9 tiles (no hospital required)
ICS: ~3-4 tiles

I tend to go with an OCP/Loose build combination. My games usually last until the Modern Age, so it also depends on how long your game will take.

 

[hIdDeN_eViL]

i always make sure city radius don't overlap...
should i be doing this?

 

[Cuivienen]

Quite simply, no. The extra cities that you can fit in with CxxxC (loose) and CxxC (tight) spacing rather than OCP spacing far outstrip the significance of extra tiles gained in OCP when Hospitals are finally built. Even ignoring the late-game aspect Hospitals 9and thus the wasting of 9 tiles per city in OCP spacing), two size-10 cities are more productive than one size-20 city.

 

[citizen001]

Also it's depending on situation. if there is a resource close to your borders but in enemy territory, mass cities around that area using CxC

 

[Masquerouge]

Even if I agree with the logic behind the Tight placement being more efficient than OCP, I still can't get over the feeling that I'm cramping my cities if I give them only 12 squares
I guess that's because I'm wayyy to far on the building spectrum. All my cities WILL get an hospital. Just because I can build it.
It's always a difficult decision for me when I'm forced to build a city too close to another one. I'm always thinking, "man, this city will never grow, its inhabitants will be sad and starving and unhappy, and I'm to blame !"

 

[tomart109]

Even if I agree with the logic behind the Tight placement being more efficient than OCP, I still can't get over the feeling that I'm cramping my cities if I give them only 12 squares
It's always a difficult decision for me when I'm forced to build a city too close to another one. I'm always thinking, "man, this city will never grow, its inhabitants will be sad and starving and unhappy, and I'm to blame !"

Well, there IS a compromise, where you arrange for the future OCP, AND build "temporary" cities between....
If you keep track which ones will be abandoned when hospitals come along, (like naming them Temp or Treb or whatever) you can have your cake and eat it too, so to speak. Don't waste any enhancements (temples, barracks, etc) on these "between" (temporary) cities, and just build things that don't need them - catapults, trebs, workers, settlers.
This way you're all set for the late game OCP, and not wasting the tiles in between.
What do you think? Workable?

 

[Padmewan]

Well, there IS a compromise, where you arrange for the future OCP, AND build "temporary" cities between....
If you keep track which ones will be abandoned when hospitals come along, (like naming them Temp or Treb or whatever) you can have your cake and eat it too, so to speak. Don't waste any enhancements (temples, barracks, etc) on these "between" (temporary) cities, and just build things that don't need them - catapults, trebs, workers, settlers.
This way you're all set for the late game OCP, and not wasting the tiles in between.
What do you think? Workable?

Not for a builder, no... can you imagine asking a builder to UNbuild?

In my next game, I'm gonna try an OCP for a wonder-builder, and tight the rest. I really have to break a lot of habits!

Does the AI suffer competitively for adopting an OCP strategy?

 

[CheekyRich]

When I started playing Civ3 I tried to place my cities so each one could optimize the 20 squares around it (I got quite fanatical about this drawing grids of how best to do this etc.). But after reading numerous articles I realised there this was not really optimizing the land at all (no hospitals early on). Now I try build new cities three spaces from each other, sometimes in very long lines/large grids (can't remember what it's termed, sorry). Only annoying thing is when a mountain gets in the way or the land is just one tile too small!

 

[joycem10]

Im way too anal about my city placement.

Ive been known to abandon a game after twenty or so turns if I discover that the placement of my capital is not optimal given the prospects for citys #2 & #3. Also in the past I would raze or abondon AI cities that I conquered unless they fit into my build pattern.

I usually win on emperer and know that if would just give up my insane insistance on never overlapping cities I could probably move up a level or two, but I just cant bring myself to place cities three tiles apart.

*edited for spelling errors

 

[Longasc]

I agree, I have this problem with building smaller cities, too.

All my cities get a hospital, even the ones that will never grow at all. This is the builder maxime: To make cities as perfect and complete as possible.

I could never found a city with the plan in mind to eventually raze them later. But if you stick to OCP, you will face severe problems - you will build the tighter, the harder it gets! Uh, this sounds pervert somehow, but this is probably only because of my dirty imagination.

Personally, I feel the 4 tile "loose" build is usually the first step to get away from the OCP addication.

 

[paulfish]

Thanks for the Ideas. One thing that I am going to start doing is keeping my cites closer together and always look to place a city in a choke point to keep other civs out of my area during expansion.

 

[Tatran]

Well, there IS a compromise, where you arrange for the future OCP, AND build "temporary" cities between....
If you keep track which ones will be abandoned when hospitals come along, (like naming them Temp or Treb or whatever) you can have your cake and eat it too, so to speak. Don't waste any enhancements (temples, barracks, etc) on these "between" (temporary) cities, and just build things that don't need them - catapults, trebs, workers, settlers.
This way you're all set for the late game OCP, and not wasting the tiles in between.
What do you think? Workable?

This way it works perfect for me.
I prefer quality above quantity.
Very large cities are a better investment
according to banks,universities etc.
Pollution is the only bad side having large cities.

See pic.Last turn situation.Next turn Amsterdam hits
the 20k culture victory.(At Monarch)

 

[rdomarat]

I was always against packing cities in close in the early game until one game where I was forced into it. I was playing a Small Pangea map at level 4 ( Monarch? ), maximized for land mass ( I forget the % ). I ended up on my own little island with about 40-50 tiles. I packed my cities in tight, sent out my suicide galeys and found nothing. I eventually made contact with the other civs around the time I was researching Chemistry, and figured I'd be eons behind the other civs in the Tech tree because I hadn't been trading. Nope. I was in first and kicking butt. I never traded my map, since I had nothing but a Warrior in each city, but let me tell you, packing my cities in tight and focussing on improvements made me a man among boys on this world.

I later tried packing it in tight in a game where I wasn't isolated and it worked just as well. The key is deciding at what point to stop packing and the spread out a little. I usually try and pack in two and half tight rings around my capital before I start spreading out a little more to increase my land area.

 

[tomart109]

if you stick to OCP, you will face severe problems
Personally, I feel the 4 tile "loose" build is usually the first step to get away from the OCP addiction.

That's well-put; it can be an addiction. I think that adjusting for terrain, rivers, resources etc is much smarter than blind rigidity. And when i read and realized all those good (low-corruption!) tiles in my core were being wasted until hospitals, that clinched it for me. Because I hardly ever make it to that age - most of my games are over before then. So that makes it a COMPLETE waste for me.
Tatran, that's an impressive picture - I'd almost forgotten what modernity looks like!

 

[DementedAvenger]

Having cities work 20 tiles doesn't make sense for the end game. Assume you want to build a 120-shield unit. No matter if you have 60 shields or 115 shield per turn, it will take two turns to get that unit. It's difficult to get a city above 120 for the one-turn unit, but pretty easy to get two 70-shield cities. Thus, having one city when you could have two may not cost you any net shield, but can significantly stunt the amount of units you can pump out?