[BTS]need some tips on city placement...

[fid]

Hey guys
I've been playing civ4 for a while, currently Prince level, as on easier levels the game was like "press the red button for victory" Prince level is the first one that is a challange for me, and I don't win 95% of games - in fact I'm having an impression I win like 1 out of 5
Anyway, I could use some help about city placement. I've read those most popular articles like "A Guide to City Specialization and Land Improvements", "The Complete Guide to Terrain, Improvements, Resources, and City Placement", which of course helped me much, but, well, I still fell kind of unsure.

Each city has maintenance costs, depending on the distance from the capital, and the size of the city, right? Then my conclusion is - if something costs then try to use it as much as you can -> I'm trying to settle as close to the capital as possible, but in the way, that the city tiles dont overlap, and if that's not an option, then I try to keep the number of overlapping tiles as low as possible. On the other hand, in this thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=487858 I observed people talking about overlapping like HALF of the tiles - multiple times (the idea of sharing the food tiles belonging to the capital with new cities, doesn't really matter now). are those experienced players insane ? of course not, but I would like to know, whats the purpose of such development.
BTW: if a tile belongs to two cities: which one has the right to it? the one with higher culture? or the one that was first there?

I've got some SS from a game I played today. I started on a small continent with Washington, who I defeated quite early, and had the whole island for myslef. However, there is some uncolonized land left, as those territories were worthless for me for some reason. I'll explain it in a moment.
What I would really appreciate is an opinion - where and why/why not would you place a city in these places?

sorry for any term inaccuracy - I play on Polish translation
SS 1:



quite huge desert in the middle of my island. For a moment i thought of settling 1E of cows, but it would overlap 8 tiles, and get 5 useless tiles (desert/mountain).

SS 2:



east coast, better terrain, thought of settling 2S of wheat, between the hills but I thought I would have problem with food (only wheat and no other food source closely), and again 3 tiles overlapping + desert to the south, water to the east.
North would be bad because of poor tundra...

SS 3:


north of my island (in the right bottom corner you can see the wheat from SS 2)
whooooole lotta tundra and hills no food whatsoever. Only copper (which was the only copper source on my island, i gave up on it, as i had like 5 sources of iron and didn't want to spend on an useless city just to reach copper)

SS 4:


West coast, tundra in the north. much better here, some food (cows). Thought of settling in the suggested tile, but hmmm again overlapping.

SS 5:


South. No overlapping here possible! (but I feel some of you will suggest there's plenty of space for at least 2 cities ) minuses? no food, mostly hills, only horses in range. If i had to, I would settle 2W of the horses, but I have a gut feeling it's a bad idea.

and finally SS 6:


east-south, with a city of AI. If i had to settle here, it would be really hard to decide where. 2N of ivory would also get me cows, but 4 useless mountain tiles, 1 overlapping (acceptable). Other option is right on top of rice, which would be, lets call it, a sea city - not sure if that's a good idea at all - no seafood nearby.


Simply ANY piece of advice from helpful players would be appreciated (yes, even from those insane ones ).

two short questions at the end:
1)what kind of map do you guys choose? pangea? I like it, but it almost kills the navy units, and also very soon everybody knows one another and you can't profit from discovering an unknown civ I usually play continents or hemispheres.
2) if there's any city placement guide WITH screenshots, that I could not find, it would be really awesome of you, if you directed me there All those guides taught me much, but I think I need some pictures from the game as examples to fully understand the topic (yeah, I'm aware that city placement is too complex and sophisticated to be learnt in one attempt, but still, I'm trying to do my best )

Cheers!
fid

 

[FlyingSwan]

on your question about overlapping citys..you can choose which city works which tile in the city screen,just click on the greyed out tile and it will swop to the city your in.This is also usefull for chopping forests,if your going for a wonder for example,make sure the forest is higlighted with the white circle in the city your building it in to get the hammers from the chop.

Players may overlap citys to reduce maintainence cost and to try and work all the best tiles available constantly in the early game.Citys leeching off the capitol can usually stand on their own as you get techs like civil service and machinery to improve food production.

 

[FlyinJohnnyL]

If you want to win early, then you don't need even close to 20 tiles per city. You are going to be whipping away population for curs/cannons/rifles, whatever unit of choice you use.

 

[Ringo Kid]

I like the Earth2 maps, because you can easily place towns to block the AI, leaving you with land you can settle without competition. Sometimes I play other maps for variety. Archipelago maps are cool, because they remind me of the maps from the original game of Civilization.

I dont worry about overlaps, because by the time your cities get big enough for that to matter, you have already won. I try to place so that all resources in my territory can be worked.

 

[fid]

thank you guys for your response, although I'm not that good to be winning the game before my cities reach level 20

here's a game started just a while ago, 3000BC (turn 25) and my first settler is being produced. Where should I send him? And the second one later?

No AI, except for Pacal II far to the NW. I thought of:
1) 1N of the pigs in the north, right between the pigs and wheat. Considered as a future GP farm (lots of food)
2) 1SW of the pigs mentioned, to get some of the silk tiles, as well as marble in the west - considered as an alternative GP farm or a commerce city
3) as for the second (third?) settler I would consider the west - between the silk and pigs. propably 2E of the western pigs, willing to turn it into a production city.
4) quite no idea how to use the east, especially corn and pigs. 2E of the easter corn would also get me fish, but would leave pigs useless.
On the other hand, 1S of the corn would get the pigs, but not much production there.

another question: what is so bad in building a city one tile from a shore? I've read it's almost a crime, but I don't really feel what's so inappropriate in doing so.

Cheers, fid

 

[Tephros]

thank you guys for your response, although I'm not that good to be winning the game before my cities reach level 20

here's a game started just a while ago, 3000BC (turn 25) and my first settler is being produced. Where should I send him? And the second one later?

(IMG)

No AI, except for Pacal II far to the NW. I thought of:
1) 1N of the pigs in the north, right between the pigs and wheat. Considered as a future GP farm (lots of food)
2) 1SW of the pigs mentioned, to get some of the silk tiles, as well as marble in the west - considered as an alternative GP farm or a commerce city
3) as for the second (third?) settler I would consider the west - between the silk and pigs. propably 2E of the western pigs, willing to turn it into a production city.
4) quite no idea how to use the east, especially corn and pigs. 2E of the easter corn would also get me fish, but would leave pigs useless.
On the other hand, 1S of the corn would get the pigs, but not much production there.

another question: what is so bad in building a city one tile from a shore? I've read it's almost a crime, but I don't really feel what's so inappropriate in doing so.

Cheers, fid

Don't know if you'll ever read this but I was thinking about city placement and wanted to comment on it.

The way I see it there are 4 basic kinds of cities you can place. There's cottage cities, production cities, food cities (specialists and/or pop rush), and marginal resource cities. I have a fairly systematic way of figuring out where to place cities. First I need to consider what kind of city I want.

The initial city should be either a food city or a production city (food preferred unless I'm imperialistic or expansive), because it's going to be popping out settlers and workers while I periodically let it grow to push up against the happy cap.

Finding a good food city is the simplest. You find 3 or more food resources that are near enough to each other to fit into a single city, ideally with fresh water nearby so you can eventually farm the remaining tiles. For example, if Persepolis had been placed one tile east, it would have been a decent food city with 2 corn, 1 pig, 1 cow, and many tiles that can be irrigated for further farming. Coastal tiles are poor in general without resources on them, but at least it's on an isthmus which can be strategic for naval access.

Usually I establish a production city 2nd, ideally near horses/copper/iron, and have it crank out military units for most of the game, pausing to build things like barracks and granaries. I judge a location by how many hammers I can get per population, and max potential production, (high-yield food resources support more production tiles per population, so we're still following the food), and I mark it on the strategy layer (one of the icons when you zoom out) to keep track. I freeform the city radius. On each tile I write vertical lines for each positive point of food, horizontal lines for negative food (up to two), and numbers for production (I just put a P for 1 production, to not confuse it with growth), and then compare locations.

For example, one tile Northeast of the marble would peak at 19 production per 10 population, with classical technology. I generally consider a ratio of 2:1 to be good at 10 population, so it's an okay production spot.

The next 2-3 cities are cottage or food cities. A cottage city is primarily judged by how many cottages that can be supported, so food is less important than for production/food cities, but usually at least one resource is still needed. A perfect score would be 20 cottages, but there are usually other considerations such as having a little bit of production and food for buildings and growth. Usually I shoot for more than 12 cottages, especially if the remaining tiles give good food/production yields. On the strategy layer I write a C on each tile that a cottage can be placed, and the same vertical or horizontal lines based upon its food contribution. So a flood plains would look like Cl, and a plains would look like C-, and their food contributions would cancel each other out yielding two supported cottages.

For example, in your screenshot 1 tile east of the marble would have a cottage score of 15, with 1 food left over to support a little production. I'd call it an excellent location for that kind of city.

Marginal resource cities are those that don't have good yields in general, but are placed anyway because you need the resources for your other growing cities, for example. A classic example would be when you place a city in the arctic tundra in order to grab whales, fur, and silver.

As for establishing cities 1 tile from the coast. It's only bad in that it makes the coastal tiles in your city radius unusably poor. They're a step up from deserts/mountains but a step down from unirrigated plains (at least those can be improved). If there are sea-based resources on the tiles then they may be good enough to use, but will yield 1 food below their potential without a lighthouse. I will rarely put a city 1 tile from the coast, and will think of the coastal tiles as unusable gargage like a mountain or desert.

 

[UnholyMudcrab]

My thoughts for the picture you posted right up there:

1.) 1NW or 1SW of the hill pigs to the north
1SW gets you an extra FP and silk, but 1NW will get you the wheat, which is always nice, and the marble, which you might want if you want to go for the Oracle. 1W of the pigs is a possibility as well. I'll leave the choice to you.

2.) 3E, 1S of the capital, between the corn and the pigs
This will make a decent GP city, but not a spectacular one. The lack of production can be offset with liberal application of the whip. It'll grow back fast enough.

3.) 4W, 2S of the cap, on the plains tile.
Not much to say about this city, but it makes for some decent cottaging. The corn (that is corn, right?) definitely improves it, and it'll get auto-irrigation with CS because of the city's location.

4.) 1N of the pigs to the far west.
Again, not much to say. You could really do whatever with this city, depending on what there is off-screen to the west.

5.) 4N of the previous city, on the PH.
This, frankly, looks like a fantastic location for a production city. I count 4 hills that we can see, another that we put the city on, and possibly two or three more to the north and west that we can't quite see.

6.) 8E, 1N of the cap, right below the peak.
This looks like a good location as well. You have two food sources (a possibly wet corn and a fish), the gold to boost your happy cap, and a couple hills for production.

7.) 3S of the previous city.
This is another possible location for a GP farm, though I'm not certain of the surrounding terrain. There are crabs nearby and you can share both the fish and the corn with the above city. There are quite a few grassland tiles and at least one hill that we can see.


That's my opinion on the city locations. If anyone else sees anything to comment on, let me know. It's all for fid's benefit.

 

[Darth Revan]

Depends on how you would like to win. If your objective is the score, place a city where the population can rise a lot (resources, tiles types and so on), if your goal is to destroy all civ, put the city where you can have the maximal production speed to form big armies (try to eliminate the closer civilization asap before they develop too much). Btw this thread is very useful, even me I still have this problem and I don't win with an higher difficulty than prince. just play final frontier and the matter about city placement is removed LOL