Assess my city placement skills

[Globex]

Look at my dotmap below.
The blue dots are where I am planning to build cities
The orange dots are where I think my cites are going to be but I am unsure because of my limited knowledge of the surrounding terrain.

Are my city placement abilities good, okay, below par?
Have any tips to help improve my city placement skills or any comments on the map?

Edit: For some reason, I can't upload the image.
I click upload and the window says that the uploading is done but the file isn't attached.

Edit: I got the image uploaded.
Thank you Tone for pointing me towards the announcement.
Thanks Overseer for pointing me to photobucket and imageshack (too lazy to make an account right now but will if I find the need to upload images more frequently)

 

[Tone]

See this announcement re uploads.

 

[TheOverseer714]

Go to Photobucket or Imageshack, set up an account, and upload the picture there. Using the IMG tags copied into a post, we can see your picture full size without opening a new window. I use that all the time, it preserves upload room for saves.

 

[Fugitive Sisyphus]

Look at my dotmap below.
The blue dots are where I am planning to build cities
The orange dots are where I think my cites are going to be but I am unsure because of my limited knowledge of the surrounding terrain.

Are my city placement abilities good, okay, below par?
Have any tips to help improve my city placement skills or any comments on the map?

Edit: For some reason, I can't upload the image.
I click upload and the window says that the uploading is done but the file isn't attached.

Edit: I got the image uploaded.
Thank you Tone for pointing me towards the announcement.
Thanks Overseer for pointing me to photobucket and imageshack (too lazy to make an account right now but will if I find the need to upload images more frequently)

The four blue dots to the east of Zimbabwe look exactly like where I would place my cities. I would move the dot due North of Zimbabwe west one tile to take advantage of the river and add another city to use up the tiles to the northeast. I don't think it matters too much where the orange-dotted cities are placed but I would rather place the cities on desert tiles to work plains tiles than settle on plains tiles and work desert tiles. At any rate, I would settle this area last and instead focus on the unexplored food/river rich land to the north.

That's how I would play it. I am sure others have varying opinions. All in all, I would say you have pretty good city placement.

 

[Mursi lives]

The city placement doesnt look bad (I may add a town between the capital and the northern blue dot), but I am surprised you didnt build more scouts. Early map knowledge is vital, especially with early war civ, like Zulus. Where are ressources? Where are ennemies? Are the green ones the closest? (btw are they greeks or persians?)

 

[Bartleby]

I may be wrong, but I think the northernmost blue dot is not on the river.

 

[Optional]

I may be wrong, but I think the northernmost blue dot is not on the river.

Then again; you may be right.
It's not on the river like it is planned now. I would move it 2 tiles; 1 West + 1 SW. Then I would move the dot that is 2 tiles to the NE of Zimbabwe to where the warrior is. But you'll rarely find two players that exactly agree with each other on the dots...
We can't really say much about the orange dots without seeing more of the landscape there. Some more scouting is required here.
After the first settler is built I would build a granary before building more settlers. Zimbabwe has got great settler factory potential.

 

[Chamnix]

Zimbabwe will never use the flood plains tile to its SW. I would make sure I had another city that could use that tile - probably on the desert SW-SW-SW of Zimbabwe.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

You are playing Vanilla, so using RCP is quite a good thing to do. RCP means Ring City Placement and the reason why it is done is that cities at the same distance from your Capital are treated the same wrt rank corruption. If you place 5 cities all at distance 3 all of those first 5 cities will be ranked 1, the next city say at distance 7 will be ranked 6 etc ...

OK, here is a dotmap that uses RCP with cities at distances 3 and 6. Normally, when I do RCP 3 I would place the second ring at distance 7, but that is not so easily possible here because of the coast. So, I went with distance 6 for the second ring instead.

Spoiler :

Explanation: The number denotes the distance from the capital. The color of the number denotes whether a city is on fresh water or not - blue means it is, while red means it either isn't or it is unknown.

One further note. Your capital and the cities in the first ring have absolute priority on the tiles within their city radiuses.

(Oh and yeah, it will get cramped. )

 

[Globex]

Thanks for all of the advice. I have uploaded the new map below.

The green civ is persia. (I will probably have to exterminate them soon to dodge the threat of immortals).

I didn't build more scouts because I was planning to make Zimbabwe a 6 turn settler factory and needed military police to keep the populace happy.

I'm planning to have my city rings at 4 and 8 instead of 3 and 6 so that my cities can have more room. However, I moved the cities that were going to be in my distance 4 ring closer to make use of the rivers. (Corruption might be a problem with having a city ring at distance 8 but it is a standard map. Would cities 8 tiles away from the capital be too corrupt to be useful?)

My plan is to build one more setter before constructing the granary so that I can build 2 more 6 turn settler factories in addition to Zimbabwe on sites 1 and 4.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

I'm planning to have my city rings at 4 and 8 instead of 3 and 6 so that my cities can have more room. However, I moved the cities that were going to be in my distance 4 ring closer to make use of the rivers.

I am not sure if you understand how the distances are calculated. I forgot to explain that in my first post. Anyway, in order to calculate the distance from the capital each tile counts
• 1 in NW-SE and NE-SW direction and
• 1.5 in N-S and E-W direction.
Now, wrt to rank corruption fractions are always rounded down, so that a distance of 3.5 is treated the same as a distance of 3.

In your second picture the distances are as follows:
No. 3, No. 6 are distance 3.5
No. 1., No. 4, No. 7 are distance 4.0
No. 8 is distance 5.5
No. 5 is distance 6, No. 2 is distance 6.5

With even only those first 8 cities you already occupy four rings which doesn't strike me as all that good wrt RCP. The most easy solution is to simply forget about placing any cities at distances 4 and 5. Move No. 1 and No. 7 closer so that they are dist 3 and move the others out so that they are distance 6 instead.

And then you have pretty much what I posted above.

(Corruption might be a problem with having a city ring at distance 8 but it is a standard map. Would cities 8 tiles away from the capital be too corrupt to be useful?)

How useful a ring distance 8 (as opposed to say 6) is, is mostly determined by rank corruption. Means, how may cities are there which are closer? In your second picture here, there aren't any dots at distance 8 at all. But if you went and placed all the cities as dotted and then placed one city in a spot at distance 8, it would be ranked 9 as there would be 8 cities closer.

If you went and placed the cities as I dotted them out above, all the cities at distance 6 would also be ranked 6 (just a coincident) because there are 5 cities which are closer. A putative city at distance 8 in this dotmap would be ranked 16, as there are 15 cities closer. IOW it would be hopeless. The other 15 would be quite strong though.

 

[Globex]

I am not sure if you understand how the distances are calculated. I forgot to explain that in my first post. Anyway, in order to calculate the distance from the capital each tile counts
• 1 in NW-SE and NE-SW direction and
• 1.5 in N-S and E-W direction.
Now, wrt to rank corruption fractions are always rounded down, so that a distance of 3.5 is treated the same as a distance of 3.

In your second picture the distances are as follows:
No. 3, No. 6 are distance 3.5
No. 1., No. 4, No. 7 are distance 4.0
No. 8 is distance 5.5
No. 5 is distance 6, No. 2 is distance 6.5

With even only those first 8 cities you already occupy four rings which doesn't strike me as all that good wrt RCP. The most easy solution is to simply forget about placing any cities at distances 4 and 5. Move No. 1 and No. 7 closer so that they are dist 3 and move the others out so that they are distance 6 instead.

And then you have pretty much what I posted above.



How useful a ring distance 8 (as opposed to say 6) is, is mostly determined by rank corruption. Means, how may cities are there which are closer? In your second picture here, there aren't any dots at distance 8 at all. But if you went and placed all the cities as dotted and then placed one city in a spot at distance 8, it would be ranked 9 as there would be 8 cities closer.

If you went and placed the cities as I dotted them out above, all the cities at distance 6 would also be ranked 6 (just a coincident) because there are 5 cities which are closer. A putative city at distance 8 in this dotmap would be ranked 16, as there are 15 cities closer. IOW it would be hopeless. The other 15 would be quite strong though.

I was calculating distance from my capital completely wrong.
Thanks for explaining.

 

[Mursi lives]

I didn't build more scouts because I was planning to make Zimbabwe a 6 turn settler factory and needed military police to keep the populace happy.

6 turns? Zimbabwe looks like a 4 turns factory: mined cow+irrigated cow+mined BG+irrigated plain+central tile = 5 surplus food and 7 shields per turn.. That also means you should build the granary immediately.

About military police: you should rather use the lux slider an send your units exploring. Contacts, map knowledge, huts are far more important than saving a couple of gpt/bpt.

 

[Globex]

I've explored the area around my capital further and I have made another dot map.

Are my cities placed in correct rings and will there be enough room for each city to have about 12 workable tiles?

Also, does the AI sell you techs for a reduced price if have already made significant progress into researching that tech? Xerxes has acquired alphabet and is willing to sell it to me for 50 gold (seems a little steep to me). Does the research I've already done into alphabet affect the price of techs? Should I accept Xerxes's offer or should I just finish researching it on my own?

 

[Tone]

Are my cities placed in correct rings and will there be enough room for each city to have about 12 workable tiles?

The rings are set correctly. The west looks a bit crowded but I haven't checked that there are 12 workable tiles per city. Some of the other areas looks quite spaced out so you should be OK.

Have you got CAII? This will show the rings on the map for you to help with your planning. CRpRings is even better for this in that it allows you to set your rings to any distance whereas CAII has them set as consective multiples. Post here if you want links to them.

Also, does the AI sell you techs for a reduced price if have already made significant progress into researching that tech?

Yes. However the cost is also affected by other factors such as having other contacts that know the tech, level, mapsize, etc. It is therefore impossible say whether 50 gold is expensive or not. It sounds pretty good to me though and I'd certainly buy it if I could then trade it to other civs for other techs.

 

[Globex]

Have you got CAII? This will show the rings on the map for you to help with your planning. CRpRings is even better for this in that it allows you to set your rings to any distance whereas CAII has them set as consective multiples. Post here if you want links to them.

I definitely need those. Taking a screenie and drawing the rings on paint takes way to long.

 

[Tone]

CAII is a wonder tool. It does so many things but you need to play around with it to find them all. I attach a screenshot to show how you can right-click on the map tab to select the rings option. Note that you can also Add Planned Town by right-clicking on the tile you want to place a town to try out different options. As I said before it is perfect except if you want rings at distances that are not consecutive multiples.

CRpRings is part of Dianthus' CRpSuite. As rings does just one thing it is easier to use. Also in the suite is Mapstat; a great tool IMO and I have it running in the background along with CAII to keep my trading options up to date.