Best city position imo

[iambenben]

Is a bottleneck one square wide, you place a city there and no one can get to the rest of your cities unless they have ships. Make sure the bottleneck city is well defended though.

 

[Sharkbait]

It can also be very useful as a canal for ships to move through rather than around large islands.

For defence though, it doesn't have to be just where the terrain is one square wide - if you have a place 3 squares wide and put a city in the middle, the AI will attack that city rather than move past. So a mountain or hill city like this works well too. Although spies might slip by to steal stuff from other cities.

 

[iambenben]

Also gives me the chance to colonize the land my city blocks so the enemies dont grab a bit of the land

 

[Mercator]

Also gives me the chance to colonize the land my city blocks so the enemies dont grab a bit of the land

Except of course, it can happen that what you thought was the ocean, is actually a big in-land lake and your opponents are getting into your land anyway.

But then I suppose that depends on at what stage in the game you're building that city. That is, how much exploration you have done, or are willing to do, before building that city.

 

[iambenben]

i forgot to mention that i set up a bottleneck city on map editor

 

[ElephantU]

Bottlenecks are nice some times, but I much prefer a grassy site on a river that has four high-trade specials on the periphery. Ocean access would be icing on the cake. The AI can walk all over my land then - I'll be playing OCC and have favorable alliances with everyone nearby while I pray someone will settle close enough for a KeyRD/RR trade route.

 

[Nylan]

Also gives me the chance to colonize the land my city blocks so the enemies dont grab a bit of the land

I relish the challenge

 

[iambenben]

I relish the challenge

i know how a spearmen could defeat a tank in real life without killing the driver

they pierce the fuel tank, it leaks, they scrape the spear point on a rock to create a spark and the fuel tank explodes

 

[ElephantU]

Most tanks have the fuel under the armor; the T-34 had two external tanks on the rear, but they had some sort of one-way valves that kept damage to the tank from getting through. Plus they used diesel, which is harder to ignite than the Sherman's gasoline.

 

[iambenben]

or the spearmen just opens the hatch and pokes the driver

 

[Rayxes]

For the first city, I'll pick a river rich area over special resources.
The initial population and financial effects are quite handy.
Sea access is cool, but not necessary.
After that whales or fish are good city starters.
Later in the game i like a lot of hills.
I love a site with a gold and an iron mountain.
If I really get ahead i start terraforming Arctic and Antarctic sites.