Build OCP into Dense Build strategy.

[Barker]

I was trying to figure out how best to use the dense build strategy in the early portions of the game, while working towards an optimal city placement for the hospital era. I developed this grid format to try and help for planning purposes.

The placement of all (y) cities should allow for all terrain to be exposed and workable without the necessity of cultural expansion.

Legend:

X - city placement for OCP
Y - city placement for Dense build

The purpose here would be to crank out as many cities as possible in a dense build, and then abandon the cities identified as the dense builders when OCP is desired. I would put something in the name of the city to identify this city as a future ghost town.

These cities would not build any key cultural buildings etc, but would serve only as settler, worker and unit factories. Couple this strategy with the Pyramids and Sun Tzu's, and you can't go wrong.

Edit: Wrong picture attached

 

[Panth]

Sounds interesting. Have you actually used this?
How do you abandon a city? I've tried this before and the best I could do was get it down to size 1 and set that person as an entertainer for zero growth. Is there a way to actually get rid of the city?, or town rather I guess.

 

[Barker]

Panth;

If you right-click on the city, you have a menu option which will allow you to "Abandon City"

 

[poprawkz]

So give us some more details on how this works. I too have thought about building cities I plan to later abandon but felt guilty about rezoning heh.

 

[VenomLord]

it's definatly got potential, i will make a note to try it in meh next game....

 

[Panth]

Barker:

Nope, no [Abandon City] option.

I've also read of people selling improvements off, which I haven't managed to figure out how to do yet either. (Tried the Zoom To screen but clicking on the little icons on the left only open the civlopedia entries.)

Are these things only available through a patch? I've got 1.07 (I think) but can't seem to patch with any success so it looks like I'm stuck there.

This does sound interesting though if I can work it. It might even work okay just leaving them at size 1 . . . or would that really screw the corruption rate?

 

[Panzer Armee]

I find i like to stay on the defensive until i am ready to fight a full fledged war.

i like to get maybe twenty or so of my seventy worker ( i am a polluted empire) and make fortress's. And just make tons of fortress with artillery and tanks and whatever else i have. Then i blitz them.

 

[VenomLord]

hrm.... not sure what that has to do with OCP but anyway...

 

[Barker]

Are you right-clicking on the city in the world map view?
I am using V1.21F. I believe this was avilable in earlier versions.

The option is right at the bottom after "Contact Governor"

 

[Tiamat]

You would probably also want to not just abandon the cities, because you don't get any settlers/workers doing it that way. If you just build workers/settlers and make sure the city is not growing (or shrinking), then when you are at size 2 and have a settler built or size 1 and a worker, you will be asked if you want to abandon the city and you will still get the settler/worker. These can then be added to your OCP cities to get faster growth in those cities.

 

[KDan]

To sell improvements right-click on them in the city view and click on "sell" (..)

Daniel

 

[Thrawn]

Originally posted by Barker
Are you right-clicking on the city in the world map view?
I am using V1.21F. I believe this was avilable in earlier versions.

The option is right at the bottom after "Contact Governor"

1.21f? I thought they added the Abandon City option in 1.29f? I certainly don't remember it in 1.21f. But maybe thats cos I never really use it.

 

[VenomLord]

i tried the strategy and it works fairly well, just got annoyed when a damn ocean got in the way

*longs for the terraforming days of SMAC* then I'd teach that ocean a thing or 2!!

 

[Barker]

Posted by Thrawn

1.21f? I thought they added the Abandon City option in 1.29f? I certainly don't remember it in 1.21f. But maybe thats cos I never really use it.

Oops, I got my version mixed up. I am using V 1.29f

 

[ABnormsol]

Barker,

Great work.

I use some thing similiar all the time.

Only for a couple itterrations though.

I name my "sub-cities" things like "Garrison" and "Fortress"

Can be a micro-management nightmare with over lapping city squares though.

Some the "Y" towns "horde" some squares you really need for "X" towns to flourish.

You also need to keep track of you cities that are up for abandonment by producing workers. Each time the population shifts the city does the production squares. You "to be" abandonded city might start growing again!

Thanks for the chart. It will come in handy for late night bleary eyed city placment!

 

[Bamspeedy]

Ok, the Xs on that picture are good placement for OCP. Where you put the Ys doesn't really matter and should be placed more by the terrain. For worker/settler factories the most important thing is food. So you want to build on a hill if it is surrounded by grassland/plains for example. A size 1 or 2 city trying to build a settler would not want to be using up alot of hills, thus building the settler faster than it can grow. I actually don't abandon cities. I build my cities just a little farther apart and combined with mining every grassland square (irrigate plains obviously) and pyramids the AI will never make it to the industrial age. 15 size 6 towns are better than 8 size 10 towns.

Panth - About selling improvements. Yes, you just need to right-click on the improvement in the city view screen and you should get an option to sell it. You can't sell aqueducts, hospitals, or anything you got for free (granaries from pyramids, barracks from Sun Tzu's, etc).

 

[JuicyCivNewbie]

Irritatingly, you also can't sell improvements you built before you got pyramids/suns etc after you get the wonder. So don't forget to sell them off before building or capturing the wonder, for the extra gold (and sheilds, if you have recycling).