Bamspeedy's OCP (Optimal City Placement)

[André Alfenaar]

I don't value this OCP much. Civilization III is about conquering as much territory with as few cities possible. It is NOT about using every square possible. So when placing cities I look for strategic interesting locations (bonus squares/ luxuries/ rivers/ lakes/ harbors). Actually I am really happy when I can place my cities wide apart. I don't bother much about unused squares.

 

[TheNiceOne]

Originally posted by Zachriel
The two extremes, Optimal and Dense.

In between Optimal and Dense there is a special place, the Natural Build. The Natural Build places cities according to the natural contours of Rivers and Plains. The actual Density can be adjusted as well for game level and starting terrain. This makes for a competitive and enjoyable game.

I think this is spot on - although I don't think my suggested 3+2 spacing is the extreme dense tactic. I've seen players suggesting a lot denser build than that.

When I play I don't follow the 3+2 very closely. I do count 3+2 squares to find the area I want to place the next city, but I happily move it a square or three if that suits the terrain better.

What I'm trying to say is that for me, the 3+2 spacing is the base for my natural build.

 

[TheNiceOne]

Originally posted by André Alfenaar
I don't value this OCP much. Civilization III is about conquering as much territory with as few cities possible. It is NOT about using every square possible. So when placing cities I look for strategic interesting locations (bonus squares/ luxuries/ rivers/ lakes/ harbors). Actually I am really happy when I can place my cities wide apart. I don't bother much about unused squares.

I would say that CIV3 is about having as much fun as possible. If this means to conquer as much territory with as few cities as possible, to you, then that's fine, but I doubt most players see it the same way - I don't.

I don't mean that there is some right or wrong way to play civ3 - but there are some ways that is better strategically. And I'm quite sure that to improve your game play, then you should pack your cities denser than OCP.

 

[farting bob]

ya, niceone, that does seem a good basiclayout. andunlike OCP, you dont haveto keep it exact to make it effective. there was a screen sht somewhere from soemone saying he placed his cities 2 tiles away from each other (the min amount of space between 2 cities) and had hundreds of them. he was aiming for a culture victory, and by building as many cities as poss so close together, nhe did it by buidigs temples and librays in all cities, and a few other things, and he won early in the game.
this is a good laout for miliary civs as well, as you can very quickly respond to attacks, and if you have all cities producing 1 unit, with the low corruption, you could have a huge army with 20 turns.

 

[anarres]

farting bob,

The layout you mentioned for culture wins is called ICS (Infinite City Sprawl). The idea is not to use it for your core cities, but around the perimiter of your empire. If you build like that at the core you will have very poor production from your productive cities.

Building cities with 2 squares between them (so 3 squares away in total) allows units to move betwen them much easier, and is best for early warmongering games.

On the higher difficulties early expansion is often a problem, and this layout helps with that too.

TNO's layout is much more suited to games with more room to expand. I'm sure even TNO would agree that his placement can cause problems with early agressive neighbours.

Having said that, when I have room to manouver, I do go for something more akin to TNO's layout than anything else. I go for about 12 free tiles for each city if I can, and I deliberately overlap bonus squares so that you can micro-manage cities better, helping 2 cities to grow faster instead of just 1.

 

[Lord Borak]

I agree with the OCP core, dense build fringe strategy. I usually find myself avoiding war as much as possible, if for no other reason than to make the diplomatic victory more viable as a option. The three square placement is just as valuable for defending surprise attacks as it is for warmongering.

Also, while the ICS is an interesting tactic, I generally find myself with a potential cultural win with a medium density build (just a matter of whether I get my spaceship built first) due to the fact that the AI is pretty careless about leaving unworked squares between cities. I usually have about half again as many cities as any AI with the same amount of territory. Since I eventually rush build all cultural improvements, and the AI seems to be reluctant to do so, doubling their culture is not too difficult.

There are also two instances where my fringe starts to look like ICS, though. One is when I'm being peaceful, but two AI's are duking it out on the edges of my territory. There I often run in settlers between recently taken 9-square AI cities before they begin producing culture. The other is when I "nickel and dime" the AI as far as territory by plopping down cities at the edge our boarder. They usually don't get too annoyed if you don't steal a resource, and you can often produce "fingers" of ICS that reach deep into their territory, potentially splitting the AI's empire or at least providing an artillary corridor for the eventual coup de grace.

 

[Moulton]

I generally plan for OCP, and have even built an overlay to let me see the full spread. But a game rarely runs long enough to maximize the size of the city... Last game did for several cities, but that is rare for me. Mayb I'll take anothe look at placement...

 

[Park Ranger]

I'm a firm believer in tile sharing, especially for the early cities or in late discoverd islands. Helps me keep up with improving with fewer workers, and lines of defense are good. But I like to keep enough room for late game expansion with hospitals. 16-18 tiles per city is a nice number for cities to balance food with shields once railroads and hospitals are in the game. That's when the commerce in a democracy really starts to add up, and opens the door to the higher level improvements. Another reason to get PTW, or at least mod in the stock exchange and commercial dock!

Anyway I'd rather overlap tiles than miss some. Some exceptions like when terrrain is bad or when I play Babylonians.

 

[TheNiceOne]

Originally posted by anarres
Building cities with 2 squares between them (so 3 squares away in total) allows units to move betwen them much easier, and is best for early warmongering games.

On the higher difficulties early expansion is often a problem, and this layout helps with that too.

TNO's layout is much more suited to games with more room to expand. I'm sure even TNO would agree that his placement can cause problems with early agressive neighbours.

My placement gives 13 squares to each city, which will not be effectively used until the cities reach size 12. Before that an even denser build will of course be more effective. So yes, I agree. I think the 3+2 spacing is a good compromise for a normal game though.

BTW, with 3+2 spacing as I suggest, each city will have four other neighbours that have only two squares between them, and you can move from one city to the next in one turn with a warrior. So you get much of the early dense build benefit of an even denser 3+0 build.

Having said that, when I have room to manouver, I do go for something more akin to TNO's layout than anything else. I go for about 12 free tiles for each city if I can, and I deliberately overlap bonus squares so that you can micro-manage cities better, helping 2 cities to grow faster instead of just 1.

Yes this is a good tactic, in my current game there are two cattle squares in my capital area. I built my second city so close that it could benefit from one of the cattle when the capital is down to size 1.

 

[Wanderer]

Anyone care to post a map showing the dense-build strategy, vs the OCP build strategy. I'm trying to learn to play the game more strategically, since I'm having too many issues at monarch playing "willy-nilly - this looks good" style *grin*.

Is there an advantage to taking a settler of "into the distance, to seal what looks like a strategic point eg narrow stretch of land, in an attempt to ensure that you can settle and exploit the land at your leisure? Does this work (or whill the AI just march through your territory and build anyway? If it is useful, does the beenfit outway the corruption and build issues ?

 

[anarres]

@Wanderer:

Go here and check the map for turn 91.

http://www32.brinkster.com/dtw1976/Turns084-094.html

You can click on the map for a full-size one. I didn't put the pic here directly because it is over 1000 pixels wide.

It is a 'medium-dense' build of 7 cities. The cities are 4 squares away, instead of the usual 3 squares for a dense build. I would have made the distance 3 squares, but the AI is deity and was filling up space much more quickly than I could build settlers, so I pushed all the locations a bit further away to take some more room (and also because the squares I settled on have strategic value too, like resource capture, rivers, etc).

 

[Wanderer]

@Anarres:

Thanx. Looked at the map - interesting to note all seem to be 3 squares, then a diagonal of the line, except NANKING, which is 4 squares, no diagonal.

Reading your comments - wow, seems very warlike! What level is this game ? Obviously not a bulder game , as I understand it ...

What are your comments/thoughts about building stranded/far off cities in the hopes of "sealing" strategic areas ? Does it work, or is it counter-productive ?

cia, and thanx for the response & link

 

[anarres]

Originally posted by Wanderer
Thanx. Looked at the map - interesting to note all seem to be 3 squares, then a diagonal of the line, except NANKING, which is 4 squares, no diagonal.

Reading your comments - wow, seems very warlike! What level is this game ? Obviously not a bulder game , as I understand it ...

Follow the link at the top of the page to go to the game index. There are pages for all the moves so far, and an explanation of the game settings. It is a deity AI game, with 2 human players (ERIKK and myself).

I was boxed in very tight, with lots of AI's around me. I was unable to expand quickly enough to fill the space, and if I had made the gaps 3, the AI would have build more cities close to me.

I paid the civ nearest ERIKK to go to war with him. I was going to have to go to war anyway, and it seemed the easiest way of putting pressure on ERIKK too. Unfortunately it backfired as ERIKK paid my 2 nearest civs to go to war with me, the very next turn, and I was unprepared.

I fought a war on 2 fronts, with only 3 cities, and every time I paid for peace, ERIKK paid them to go to war with me again.

If I ever get out of this (and I think I will), my future city expansion will be similar spaceing to what I have now, it is pretty much my favoured spacing.

What are your comments/thoughts about building stranded/far off cities in the hopes of "sealing" strategic areas ? Does it work, or is it counter-productive ?

I nearly replied to this earlier, but it is a very complex issue, with no right and wrong answers.

If the AI is friendly enough, normally still within the land-grabbing phase, then you can generally walk a settler wherever you want and found a city without probem. The questions you need to ask are:
1) Are there other civs nearby that can throw several units at me with little or no warning
2) Can I defend myself against a couple of offensive units
3) Am I going to
a) capture a resource near a coast OR
b) capture a resource where I can road to my other cities (and ultimately fill in the gaps between with cities before the AI can) OR
c) fill a choke point completely with city radius

If 1) is true, reconsider straight away. If the civ declares war and decides to have your city, you will lose it. It may also be enough that you are near a resource to provoke a war.

If 2) is not true (because the AI has cav, and you only have pikes, for example) then consider not doing it. As a minimum, send several pike to defend it and discourage attackers.

If at least 1 of 3a, 3b or 3c is true, then you have a reason to do it in the first place. If 3a is true, rush-buy a harbour to connect to your other cities, the resource is well worth the money. If 3b is true, road to it asap, and also build a line of cities to it. Rush a temple in the city itself, it will help keep unwanted attantion away. If 3c is true, your 'blocking' is inneficient. Blocking is easily done with units on tiles, the AI can't force it's way through. With just your city radius to stop them, you will still get lots of trespassers. If you can road to the city though, you can effectivly block tiles that are in your radius, the benifit being that the AI can't come and build a city there and do the same, forcing you out.

There are many more factors, but for me the single most important questions are: What happens if the AI attacks, and can I back it up eventually with force if needed. Lone islands are often good for taking this way, but settling miles away from home next to the strongest AI is somewhat more doomed to failure.

On the corruption issue, all of this can be done on 1 shield, and often is. A new lux or strategic resouce is by far worth the effort.

HTH

 

[Wanderer]

thanx for the response. I review your game "logs" - good luck. Definitely looks like the AI is ready to give you the big "squeeze".

Ciao

 

[stachnie]

Originally posted by TheNiceOne
When I was a relative fresh civ3 player I tried to place my cities as explained above,
[...]
So as you see, I now build my citiez closer. My private OCP is 3+2 spacing:

Thanks for the tip. Up to now I followed the 4+3/4+2 spacing but this weekend I tried to apply the 3+2 one. The result is that up to now I could win only about 10-15% games at Regent, now I can do it much more often. At the beginning of my current game I was attacked by English (Elisabeth seems to love early attacks...). With previous OCP even if I could win the war (usually I did) at the end my civ was much behind in territory - I had to build military units and not settlers and the game was ruined, now I was able to contain English attacks, launch my own counter-attack, eliminate them (they respawned at a remote region of the continent) and take some other civ (India).

Now in fact the game is over: recently other civs got Military Tradition but next turn my civ got Replaceable Parts and I can go etther for the Diplomatic or Cultural Victory (I don't like conquest).


Best regards,

Slawomir Stachniewicz.

 

[Tassadar]

My way of playing is close to Zachriel one, natural built. It mean not too much overlapping ( 1-3 square max). I look for food and gold, so if i see 2 golden mountain i will built a city in a way i could reach bonus food tile, so i will be able to work out those very high income tile( golden hills).

If i can built a river-coastal city then i will built it unsteed of counting tile ( like 2 est or 3 west ). With some experience ( and of course a granery in your capital ) you will be able to grab, luxuries, gold, river with minimum amount of settler and then allow you to built city improvement to increase city size and income.

On regent level i got easily half an age tech advence close to industrial age.

My second core of city with forbiden palace is usualy a.i. city that i have conquiere with knight, so i got about # optimum city in medieval age, switch to democraty and your income is sky rocket.

 

[cavemanf16]

I'm a long-time Civ addict, and frequent reader of this site, although I don't get the chance to post much.

After having read about optimal city placement strategies, I decided to try a hybrid version of both strategies. As the Persians in a Monarch game, I was lucky/unlucky enough to get an entire continent to myself, while my 7 other enemies occupied the other, larger continent. First, I placed my capital, then surrounded it with 6 cities. That's right, 6 cities. I overlapped their extended city grids a bit, but not too much. As I grew larger, I built another radius of cities, but basically packed them no more than 3 squares apart from each other and the inner circle of the original 6 cities. I then again expanded from there, knowing I would eventually build my Forbidden Palace at one of the two ends of my continent (my capital was conveniently right in the middle).

Once I made contact with the other civs (very late in the game compared to what usually happens due to me being alone on my continent), I found myself pretty far behind in tech, military, population, etc. Having not played on Monarch level before, I thought I was a gonner.

However, due I think in large part to my city placement style, I continued to grow. Yes, having the continent to myself helped a lot, but remember, I was in the Stone Age while my enemies were closing in on end of the Middle Ages technologically.

Long story short: I managed to build the Forbidden Palace on one end of my continent about 100-150 turns after making 'first contact' with my enemies. Now I'm the most advanced, most powerful, and most feared nation on earth. It's 1870, and I'm in the process of developing more tanks and bombers to really beat the crap out of the Carthiginians (the 2nd most powerful civ). They're about 500 points behind me in the rankings though.

 

[Trev]

I often choose to build the forbidden palace relatively close to my capital as early as possible to minimize coruption early ( about 12 - 15 squares away ). At this distance it is possible to build it relatively quickly with no need for a great leader. However at the same time with its completion date set for a little later than the FP I will build another palace about the same distance in the opposite direction.

This to me reduces corruption over as wide a range of cities as possible relatively early in the game.

A second advantage is sometimes if a good wonder becomes available, I can switch from the palace to the wonder getting an unbeatable lead on my opponents. For this reason Sometimes I have several 'palaces' on the go at once

 

[MadScot]

Trev

You're not supposed to (since a couple of patches ago, at least) be able to have more than one Palace under construction. Are you playing an older patch than 1.29f or PTW 1.14f?

 

[Trev]

I use the original civ3 cd I purchased, and have never updated with patches, was unaware of significant changes like that ( one palace under construction only) being made to the game