Best City in the Game

[MrFeline]

What have y'all found to be (either mathematically or anecdotally) the best city in the game?

 

[Logoncal]

That's a hard one, because there is a lot of cities in this mod that are great.
For my experience, most of the East asian cities are great. Delhi, Luoyang and Kyoto, these are the ones that i find them quite great.
For the middle east, i'd say Babylon/Baghdad and Parsa. For east europe, Constantinople undeniably and Europe i dont know... all of them except Frankfurt and Rome feel underwhelming.
Africa there is Aksum, which as one guy did a while ago a super capital by exploiting Republic.
And America anything outside Brazil and USA is horsehocky.

 

[star15389]

Brno (1NE of Vienna), Luoyang (2E of Xi'an), Denver, Chicago (1SW of Lake Michigan), Kansas City, Tours, Minsk (1N of the Deer), Pyongyang, Chalkedon (much better production than Constantinople), and Arretium are all really good. After Biology Ayodhya 2E of the Dye is also great. the poorer regions of the map there's also Durban, Buenos Aires, Hanoi, Cairo, Mexico City (with Floating Gardens), and Melbourne

 

[Tigranes]

Nobody mentions Denver and Korinthos?

 

[CaptainKnuckleduster]

Nobody mentions Denver

That's a weird way to spell Oklahoma.

 

[Logoncal]

That's a weird way to spell Oklahoma.

That is not how you say Santa Fe

 

[Zaddy]

America is one of my favorite nations to play, and I usually end up settling (assuming 1700 AD start) Santa Fe. Until very recently I used to settle Denver, but I think Santa Fe (1S of oil) is superior to Denver, because Denver kills the oil yield, while there is no real disadvantage to settling Santa Fe instead. I usually settle Grand Rapids north of Santa Fe to work the tiles Denver otherwise would. In conjunction with Chicago, Duluth, and New Orleans, this provides near-perfect coverage of the American Midwest with minimal overlap.

Yeah, if you can't tell, I've played too much of America. I just love dotmapping to find the "perfect" setup. I think mine is more or less optimal (given the restrictions placed by the 1700 AD scenario).

Anyways, usual all-stars in my games outside of the aforementioned cities are Babylon/Baghdad, Kiev, Brasilia, Sao Paulo, Belem, and Buenos Aires. Mexico City is also excellent with the Floating Gardens.

 

[Logoncal]

Good to see i'm not only one who prefers Santa Fe. Seriously, that city had more production than all of my cities combined.

 

[mccp77]

Rome.

It's not the best late game city. That's definitely in America. But when you get Rome, it is so far much better than every other city in the Mediterranean that it gives you a monstrous advantage. And this becomes doubly true after you conquer Greece. I think a lot of this is time-sensitive in that way. "Good city" is relative to every other city in your vicinity.

 

[Logoncal]

Rome.

It's not the best late game city. That's definitely in America. But when you get Rome, it is so far much better than every other city in the Mediterranean that it gives you a monstrous advantage. And this becomes doubly true after you conquer Greece. I think a lot of this is time-sensitive in that way. "Good city" is relative to every other city in your vicinity.

Rome is a great city just because of the Basilica (600 AD starts) and if you're going on a Catholic religious victory, you will need to take it over anyway

 

[KeeperOT7Keys]

I think best cities exist in usually in China, India and America by judging their fat cross.
But if we start also considering how often we aim for a city because it's also an easy to grab city and strategically important, I would say Kiev and Rome. These two cities always determine the rest of the gameplay for me. Both are free to grab, Kiev is not a core city and they both have higher production compared to their vicinity which causes you to build wonders in these ones, and recursively these cities get better and better.
Also, after levees I really like Baghdad and Paris too.

 

[1SDANi]

I've been trying to play a game as the Mayans and survive the Spanish. My main theory so far has been to settle the Panama Canal and then the city SW of the copper. I haven't gotten things to work out with the Aztecs or Natives yet, but if my theory is correct, that single city may be the best city in the entirety of the Mayan game.

It has very little Food, it's only luxury is already provided by the Panama Canal city, but it is the only city that can give me access to Copper.

Long live the Heavy Swordsmen/Spearmen!

 

[star15389]

Rome.

It's not the best late game city. That's definitely in America. But when you get Rome, it is so far much better than every other city in the Mediterranean that it gives you a monstrous advantage. And this becomes doubly true after you conquer Greece. I think a lot of this is time-sensitive in that way. "Good city" is relative to every other city in your vicinity.

Arretium (1N) is better than Rome imo. Not an option unless you're Rome ofc

 

[1SDANi]

Arretium (1N) is better than Rome imo. Not an option unless you're Rome ofc

We should put a resource on that tile to make the decision less of a no brainer like I did for Maya. /s

But seriously, I see no reason why any mayan player would ever settle the NE tip of the Yucatan in the main mod. By settling the NW tip you trade off a later access to a luxury for access to a grassland tile. For a city that barely has any production, having that tile to build a Workshop on is amazing.

But yeah, Arretium is way better than Rome. I actually asked about it as one of my early posts on these forums and apparently most people who commented felt it didn't matter much either way. Saving 3 turns to sail a boat around Italy speaks otherwise.

 

[star15389]

Tbh I usually settle Rome anyway. Less overlap with Mediolanum. Wish barbs would raze that godawful city now and then, then Arretium really would be a no-brainer

 

[Logoncal]

Speaking of Mediolanum/Milan, there is a lack of it on later start maps.

 

[Orbii]

Speaking of Mediolanum/Milan, there is a lack of it on later start maps.

That is only true for the 600 AD map, which replaces it with Venice/Florence. The 1700 AD map has the city, and places it under Austrian control. If I recall correctly, it has Great Merchant(s) settled in it.

 

[Zaddy]

Ooooh, also, Pataliputra is also a fantastic city, especially with both of the Dharmic Shrines.

 

[Logoncal]

Ooooh, also, Pataliputra is also a fantastic city, especially with both of the Dharmic Shrines.

*Also you whip so much because of it's growth. Leoreth taught us the power of Grassland Flood Plains

(* = Except when you're doing India's UHV, which means that whipping is disencouraged.)

 

[Autumn Leaf]

, and Melbourne

Melbourne has been abominably nerfed in both RFC and DoC. The northern Victorian goldfields were some of the richest in the world, and what do they get in the RFC/DoC maps? Silver! Here's Wikipedia's opinion:

For a number of years the gold output from Victoria was greater than in any other country in the world with the exception of the more extensive fields of California. Victoria's greatest yield for one year was in 1856, when 3,053,744 troy ounces (94,982 kg) of gold were won from the diggings. From 1851 to 1896 the Victorian Mines Department reported that a total of 61,034,682 oz (1,898,391 kg) of gold was mined in Victoria.

In the 1850s gold discoveries in Victoria, in Beechworth, Castlemaine, Daylesford, Ballarat and Bendigo sparked gold rushes similar to the California Gold Rush. At its peak some two tonnes of gold per week flowed into the Treasury Building in Melbourne.

The gold exported to Britain in the 1850s paid all her foreign debts and helped lay the foundation of her enormous commercial expansion in the latter half of the century.

Whenever I'm playing a civ that might want to settle Melbourne, I always convert that Silver resource to Gold. I also add Wine at 112,12 (to represent Adelaide's winefields) and Coal on the eastern forest tile. I also add forested hills to Tasmania at 114/7 and 6. A well-developed Melbourne adds immeasurably to any English game.