C-X-X-C or C-X-X-X-X-C?

[timerover51]

Meisen, you are spending an enormous amount of time trying to convince a group who mindset is frozen in liquid helium to change. They are not going to change. According to ZzarkLinux, every game I play of Civ3 it totally and irretrievably wrong, as I do not follow his ONLY CORRECT STRATEGY TO WIN. For the rest of those arguing over correct city spacing, after the first six lines, I get bored,check the rest of the length of the post, and move on.

What I do find abominable is the attitude that unless you play this way, you are a very poor player, and had better change immediately. Brace yourself for a shock, guys. I WILL NEVER PLAY THE WAY THAT YOU ARE SAYING THAT I SHOULD PLAY. You want to play that way, go ahead. I enjoy playing the way that I play, and find your style of play TOTALLY UNAPPEALING. I would sooner have a root canal down without anesthetic than play that way. I will space my cities and develop them in total disregard to all of the immense verbage here, and have fun doing so. Hopefully, most of the rest of the forum readers will do the same.

 

[Pyrrhos]

That attitude coupled with the inflexible relativism in arguing their case is what I too find so unpalatable. This is why I find Doug so refreshing - an advanced player by all appearances that admits to achieving success by using a different strategy than conventional wisdom would have it (and hinting that other icons to the "HoF/GOTM-fame is everything"-brigade do so too).

 

[Spoonwood]

Chamnix,

[fully improved as it is with no excess happiness (change entertainers to scientists wherever possible)]

Yea... good point. I had two instances of "mass riots" which happened totally unexpectedly... as in I checked the town screen and it gave more happy faces than unhappy faces AND mapstat told me basically the same... yet I still got riots in the next turn in like 10 or so metros... so I started using more entertainers than I needed to prevent that. I think India and someone else couldn't maintain the luxury trade agreements they gave me... although I also wonder... could propaganda from an AI cause this?

"Total – 980 shields + 14 gpt."

I cash rushed some of those improvements... so it doesn't work out to 980 shield in terms of production time. And actually if I had successfully played this on Deity... I probably would have cash-rushed even more.

"Each citizen should be gained back in 3 turns after the settler is built"

How do you figure that... from adding in a worker?

"What am I missing?"

In terms of the game played... *the raging barbarians*... and in general lost production time in your settler-factory city where it could build other things (such as population workers... which I DO think usually work well overall having read your analysis for your empire... even for metro players... though perhaps not for dealing with raging barbarians on a Demi-God game where you have no AI around for a good long while). For the raging barbarians in that game it would have seemed rather stupid to send out more settlers around the time I founded Iconium and Vidin to found specialist farms. Covering more territory with my cultural borders and having more warriors around as "look-outs" made more sense. If I remember correctly, I almost LOST one of the settlers for those pre-metros... I found it with a barbie directly next to it (the one NOT on the coast). I still hadn't covered the southern tip by this point and a barbarian army lay up at the tundra region.

Also, if I remember correctly, I founded these two pre-metros shortly after the ancient-to-medieval change over... in other words... right after the "massive uprisings." I had a "settler corridor" with "warrior-lookouts" so camps wouldn't pop up along the river and I could hopefully get settlers in there. If I wanted some specialist farms there (didn't think of it at the time), such would almost surely have made more sense to found in the middle ages. I had already built the Great Library and had used a fair amount of workers and time and production doing that. Losing time that I needed to train units or settlers to cover territory by building specialist farm settlers, I think, would have REALLY lead to problems.

Also, around then the AIs started to claim territory on that island/continent. From what I've read of the write-ups most players had plenty of trouble clearing the AIs out. Specialist farms could have worked well, I think... but they would have had to wait, until one covered the territory as much as possible with at least warrior lookouts for barbie camps or until a good number of fairly wide-spread cities got founded. Otherwise the AI started taking more territory on the island or the barbies would start coming after you even more. From the write-ups it seems clear enough to me that one starts to lose territory if one doesn't spread out one's cities at the beginning, even if no AIs lie around if you have raging barbarians and you have a rather large island without neighbors. This doesn't argue against tighter spacing... but it does imply that when taking territory from the AI becomes a problem for various reasons CxxxxC as a starting plan and then later filling in to CxCxxC or CxxCxC seems to make more sense. Of course, one can then disband the middle C at some point and have full-blown metros if one likes.

Othniel,

"It sounds to me like you've swapped definitions of "core town" now. "You're right."

Since you've admitted this now, I hope you don't mind me less politely pointing out that you equivocated. That certainly doesn't help your argument.

meisen,

"The missing factory is another anomaly." Yeah... I suppose. I didn't build it though, since it seemed rather late to reap the benefits of a factory... one has to estimate how many turns one saves by building it vs. how much time it takes to build it, in my opinion. It didn't seem worth it for the time I built it.

"But no metro should be without a factory if you're planning to do any production there (and what would be the point of a metro if production was not at least one of the goals)."

Science. I didn't need more production and I rarely do in a spaceship game. I want faster research... my building of the spaceship parts with pre-builds and such basically "out-paces" 4 turn discoveries in the modern era.

"Loosing 2 pop sets back the growth of the city."

Chamnix, I think, builds mass of workers from pre-7 worker factories and adds them into basically all his towns at his leisure. I can see how such can offset population loses empire wide and *over time* actually increases production even though one has a few cities just building workers instead of improvements or units.

"What I do find abominable is the attitude that unless you play this way, you are a very poor player, and had better change immediately."

I give Othniel, Lord Emsworth (maybe in another post where we talked about the Great Library a bit), Chamnix, and TheOverseer for NOT having this attitude. At least you guys have some idea of why tonight I decided to play a no-barbie one-city 20k game on Monarch with the Mongols (*the* scout turned out more useful than I anticipated actually). But rather cleary... even though it only took something like 4 and a half hours (long for a OCC game actually) to play... since I had a finish date somewhere in the 1800s and had made it to the modern era tech-wise I clearly didn't play the game "the right way".

 

[Spoonwood]

[This is why I find Doug so refreshing - an advanced player by all appearances that admits to achieving success by using a different strategy than conventional wisdom would have it (and hinting that other icons to the "HoF/GOTM-fame is everything"-brigade do so too).]

Thanks... I don't know if I would go that far... and to speak fairly I do see some more of the possible advantages to "conventional wisdom" that I didn't before. For example, Lord Emsworth mentioned how he hadn't found the Great Library all that useful for even his Deity-level games. I don't know about that for me... and I use to think I would trail in tech on an Emperor-level game if I didn't have it... or would trail at least until education. But, last night I played a little game with the Ottomans on Emperor and didn't build it, sent out warrior contact scouts, and basically traded my way and selectively researched techs using DaveMcW's guide to "favorite techs", did the full republic slingshot (as in researched CoL, then philosophy, took The Republic... I never really saw how poweful that can work out), and ended up in the middle ages saying (wow... those emperor guys really seem slow now). So, I can see how the "conventional wisdom" for foregoing the Great Library and getting techs other ways has its advantages. But, if I moved up to demi-god how would I fair with this? I don't know... but I know it would work out as harder since the AIs have more units to contact each other faster, they research faster, and they have a better trading rate. So, the "conventional wisdom" of foregoing the Great Library in general, might not work out so well for a player moving up a level, even if one thinks one knows how to trade rather well. Real wisdom has to fit the player and his/her playing style and desired victory condition.

 

[Pyrrhos]

But we are digressing. The post was initially about city spacing and with it comes the question of the merits and otherwise of farms/towns/cities/metros. A summary of the debate this far:

CXXC
+ Every tile gets used
- Leads to sub-optimised towns, usually with 8-9 tiles per town, where improvements and wonders take a long time to build
- Requires careful micro-management

+ You do not need to build hospitals (or the MTS) and can get away without temples and caths provided you have enough lux
+ You can use those shields to build units
- You're more vulnerable to war weariness

+ For the same number of towns, you have lower distance corruption
- Your territory will be smaller with less resources

+ The short distances between towns means you can move troops from town to town
- So too can an enemy

+ The advantages kick in early, the disadvantages late

+ Great for AW, conquest, domination
+ Many other VC can be played as AW, conquest, domination
- Next to useless for a wonder game unless you plan on capturing the wonders or razing those not your own.

CXXXXC
+ You grab a lot of land and with it a greater chance of resources
- Distance corruption is automatically higher (for the same number of towns/cities)
- You need to build temples or libraries to fill the gaps which intitially may be a drawback

- Units take longer to move from town to town
+ As the do for an enemy, no domino effect here!

+ Each town gets on average 19 tiles
- Seven out of 19 tiles are not worked until Sanitation
+ Every town has a choice of which tiles to work = every town can be optimised
- As metros aren't available until Sanitation, the full advantage comes late

+ Great for Wonder, Culture, Spaceship, domination and diplomatic VC
- Not so good for AW and conquest

What have I missed?

 

[Pyrrhos]

One point about the GL (off-topic really):

Even if it is of little use to you directly, indirectly it's of great use in order to to prevent the AI from catching up easily without having to spend a lot of resources on research and in trade. It is well worth the investment in shields (esp if you get an SGL )

 

[Rodent]

Why not take the best of both worlds? build CxxC Early and when the time comes, Disband the cities and switch to CxxxxC?

 

[Pyrrhos]

Rodent, I think you'll find that if you do, you end up with a lot of tiles no town can use. Furthermore, to make full use of CXXC, you don't build that many improvements. By the time you disband those in-between towns, you'll spend the rest of the game building those improvements.

But you do have a point! If you build for CXXXXC and then plunk down worker factories in between that use no more than two tiles and produce nothing but workers, then it might work very well.

What I do and what i find works very well is CXXXXC around the capital, CXXXC counting utwards from the first "ring" to where corruption becomes too great and from that point CXXC. When I conquer AI lands with its CXX?XXC, I usually put down a few town to use the unworkable tiles in between. Sometimes I raze (A pop 8-12 town takes a lot of cash-rushed culture & marketplace to even get out of riot. If you do nothing but clowns, it usually starves down to pop 4 or 5 anyway, so the slaves are of more use) A pop 5-7 can be made useful by cash-rushing a settler asap)

 

[Othniel]

I think both "sides" in this debate would claim the other side won't listen at all.

That said, I'm still interested in trying my proposed test. I am under no illusion that the results of this test will persuade anyone or constitute as proof that one style is better than another. I expect and welcome people challenging my in-game decisions, and probably there will be claims that I favor one style or another in those decisions. I will try my best to do justice to both styles when I play them. My ultimate hope is that the games will provide interesting, even compelling, info on the CxxC vs Metro discussion.

With that in mind, would some of you pro-Metro people be willing to suggest how such a test might be best set up and conducted. Pyrrhos? meisen? timerover51? I welcome your input.

I say no metros at all on the farmer game, don't even research Sanitation. Other factors might be same territory, i.e. take a continent only, leave the rest for your AI opponents. Also, no suicide ships, no scientific civs, no barbs(no goody huts), and no overseas contact until magnetism. Standard number of opponents, pre chosen. A neutral party could provide the save. I would say launch date and score be the primary criteria, with population being secondary.

Good suggestions.

I agree with minimizing the luck elements of the game, especially concerning tech pace. No SCI opponents, no barbs, no suicide runs sounds good.

My thoughts so far on a test setup, in a nutshell:

Map and Setup Rules:

• Standard continents, 70% water, temperate, normal, and 5 billion years. all the most standard settings
• No barbs
• Monarch or Emperor Difficulty again, median difficulty so the AI provides some challenge but I can easily impose my will on the AI civs
• Preselected AIs, no Science opponents
• Preserve Random Seed OFF so if others play the save after me, they can see how a different RNG result may have affected the outcome
• Culture Flips ON? I will still probably try to keep captured cities, no razes, at least in the metro game because meisen says keeping such cities helps make the metro case stronger
• SGLs off
• All VC's enabled except wonder this is standard
  
  Since I'll be knowing the map ahead of time, I want a 4-turn settler factory possible in the capital. I also want Iron in the near vicinity. For both my CxxC and Metro starts, unless this is disagreeable to folks, I intend to conquer my starting continent as fast as possible.
  
  The continent should be generally good terrain with lots of grass. This is favorable to both styles.

My Civ:
My goal is to pick a Civ that doesn't favor one settling style over another, if Civ choice matters. I'm considering:

• China
• Netherlands
• America
• France
• Maya
  
  I chose these civs first off all because none are SCI. Secondly, except for Maya, none have Ancient Age UUs. Thirdly, they have one or more of the all-around good traits: Industrious or Agriculture.
  
  I'm trying to avoid Ancient Age UUs because I wonder if getting an early Golden Age might skew results toward the fast start of CxxC style. If I chose Maya, I might forgo building Javelin Throwers. I might eliminate Golden Ages entirely from any civ I choose, just a thought.
  
  I really think France is the most median choice: Middle Ages UU, good all around traits. I'm just not sure if the Commercial trait would skew things at all. Thoughts?

Builds:
The only wonders I intend to build are the UN, the ToE, and Hoovers.

I intend to build the FP early somewhere in the starting core. I will start the Prebuild at the same time for both games, probably around 1200-1000BC.

I'm not sure what I should do about temples and cathedrals. I think I will build them at some point in my metros, but probably not early on. My goal is to play the Metro style in the most "efficient" manner I know, so I will use the happy slider to keep the peace for the first part of the game.


Other Thoughts:
What should I do with any hopelessly corrupt areas in my metro game?

My tech order for both games will be the same, I think, trade opportunities modifying this of course. I will be going for the Republic sling both times and stay Republic the rest of the game.

Should there be any restrictions on when/how much I get to war?

_______________________________________________

These thoughts are just preliminary and I welcome input.

 

[Pyrrhos]

Easier would be to select huge archi and give the test civ a large-ish landmass alone with no possible contact with other civs, build no wonders and see at which dates a) The whole landmass is culturally controlled, b) 0.AD total pop, score, culture score, shpt, gpt and bpt (at 50% science, lux as required) are recorded, c) 500AD as b, d) 1000AD as b

 

[Othniel]

I give Othniel, Lord Emsworth (maybe in another post where we talked about the Great Library a bit), Chamnix, and TheOverseer for NOT having this attitude. At least you guys have some idea of why tonight I decided to play a no-barbie one-city 20k game on Monarch with the Mongols (*the* scout turned out more useful than I anticipated actually). But rather cleary... even though it only took something like 4 and a half hours (long for a OCC game actually) to play... since I had a finish date somewhere in the 1800s and had made it to the modern era tech-wise I clearly didn't play the game "the right way".

I do think I understand why you would play a 4 1/2 hour OCC. The mental heavy-lifting from trying to play a highly efficient game of Civ can be wearisome and unfun. More often than not these days when I'm not in the mood for intense Civving, I play other games or just do other things. But sometimes, playing a quick, low micro-ing game of civ can be really relaxing.

What I appreciate about what you said (or inferred) is that you played a quick OCC and didn't claim this was the "best" way to play OCC. It just was what it was: a fun, quick Civ game. I can dig that.

 

[Pyrrhos]

I think both "sides" in this debate would claim the other side won't listen at all.

This is because we do not share common ground:

To one side, call it "Agent X", the strategy believed proven to lead to prominent placings in the HoF or GOTM is "ex cathedra". Arguments to the contrary and other strategies are dismissed out of hand as they do not follow "conventional wisdom".

The other side, call it "Agent Y", refuses to believe that this one strategy is a God-given only way of playing civ and want to explore the nuts and bolts in order to find other avenues and possibly better strategies.

Agent X feels Agent Y won't listen as Agent Y refuses to accept that Strategy X is the ultimate strategy to play Civ and impossible to improve upon

Agent Y feels that Agent X won't listen as Agent X refuses to accept the possible existance of Strategies Y, Z or AX which could be just as good as or even better than the "canonised" Strategy X.

 

[Othniel]

Easier would be to select huge archi and give the test civ a large-ish landmass alone with no possible contact with other civs, build no wonders and see at which dates a) The whole landmass is culturally controlled, b) 0.AD total pop, score, culture score, shpt, gpt and bpt (at 50% science, lux as required) are recorded, c) 500AD as b, d) 1000AD as b

Thanks for the feedback.

I need to think about your suggestions, especially once I have had a good night sleep. My preliminary reaction, though, is that I'm trying to play a game in a real scenario as opposed to a vacuum. I'm not sure that isolating my civ on an island will provide much insight. But I'll think about, I could be wrong.

edit: Pyrrhos, we're crossposting like mad, here.

 

[timerover51]

Commercial reduces corruption, which will affect the results. I am not sure if it would favor one type of spacing over the other. Also, to get a map mainly of grass will either take some customizing work or a lot of map generation.

My view is that you take a non-favorable map and have to work with it. Continents, standard size, 70% water, temperate, normal moisture, 4 billions years.

Seafaring civs start on the coast.

No settler factory, as the average map would not have that. Iron is where you find it. No preset resources.

All wonders turned off, since most of the guys posting seem to despise Wonder-building.

No UU for Golden Age, and with Wonders turned off, no Golden Age from them either.

I could not care less as to when you start a war, or try to grab your continent.

Max number of civilizations for map size, same number of starting positions on each continent. Starting positions for the AI same for both games, so preset.

No barbarians, no goody huts.

You asked for my thoughts. You now have them.

 

[Chamnix]

You quote 5 spt for the farm exploits and compare it to 6 spt for the metro like this 1spt per farm exploit has any sort of use. It does not. Those farm exploits can not use their production, it's a total waste. The metro can.

I agree that the 5 spt is not worth much – they can each build a worker in 10 turns, a settler in 30 turns, or be converted to 1 gpt via building wealth. It can save 4 gold on rushing something. Not great. However, I don’t see 6 spt in the Industrial or Modern Era as particularly useful either.

Furthermore, at 6 spt, that is awfully low, even for a pre-factory metro at 50% corruption. I didn't check out the victory save, but surely a rearrangement of the citizens could provide more shields.

Probably not a rearrangement of the citizens, but certainly more tiles could be mined instead of irrigated for more production. Of course, then you get fewer specialists and not as many beakers per turn . I used the setup in the save provided.

The missing factory is another anomaly. I realize you are using the details of the metro as in the save, or I trust that is what you are doing there. But no metro should be without a factory if you're planning to do any production there (and what would be the point of a metro if production was not at least one of the goals). With the hydro, that should at least double the uncorrupted spt. But the exact gains here? Who knows?

The exact gains based on the save are 6 spt – it’s no secret that a factory plus hydro plant doubles your uncorrupted shields. You can certainly spend another 240 shields plus 3 gpt to gain 6 spt, but that doesn’t make the metro more appealing to me.

You also assume you can fit 5 workable farm exploits into the same space as a metro fits. That's not a given. Terrain types can, and will, reduce the amount of workable farm exploits you will be able to squeeze in. But you will always be able to fit that metro in there. So how many farm exploits per metro? Who knows?

True. However, just as I assume you do with metros, I will build my farms on the best farmland first. Maybe eventually my farms are on less than ideal terrain, but eventually some of your metros will be on worse terrain as well.

Then there is the losses which occur from pop loss when making the settlers. You only mentioned theoretical beaker losses. Each pop produces gold, food and shields.

I build settlers for specialist farms from other specialist farms. I still get the one spt at the smaller size.

The loss of two pop cuts those as well. You claim only 3 turns per pop to make up the loss of pop. Where is that guaranteed?

It’s not guaranteed, but it is not difficult to get a city to +7 fpt when all the territory around it is irrigated and railroaded – remember these new settlers are coming from other specialist farms.

Plus you assume the city was at a fixed population level to begin with. Loosing 2 pop sets back the growth of the city. Those pop and their food, gold and shield production are lost for good. That will be 2 pop longer the city will take to grow. It's not just immediate losses you have to take into account, but future ones as well. In the time it takes the city to make up those 2 pop it lost building a settler, it could have increased 2 pop (roughly) over what it was before the settle was built. That's 2 more productive tiles and their goodies you have sacrificed in addition. By setting back the city 2 pop, you have postponed the gains the city could be making with 2 more pop. What are those gains? Who knows?

It was at a fixed population – size 5 with 2 citizens working the land and 3 scientists. It still produces the 1 spt after the settler is built. The only loss is the temporary loss of beakers until you grow back to the stable population of size 5.

Taking the city(s) out of production to make the settlers costs those city(s) time when they could be producing other things. How will this set back a player's game in concrete terms? Who knows?

As we agreed above, those cities weren’t building anything useful anyway.

Then there is all that time producing the settlers and getting them out to the farm exploit location. How much time will be lost? Who knows?

By the time you have hospitals and police stations, I think it is fair to assume that I have at least a workable rail net to move the settlers to where they need to be very quickly.

The time factor affects the metro in a different way. Most of these 90% corrupt metros will be captures (in my games the map usually got filled in completely before I reached the 90% city threshold, so no virgin space to build from scratch) since it makes more sense to to keep existing cities rather than raze and rebuild from scratch for these high corruption cities. It saves a great amount of time, too, since you are not building up the pop base from scratch and are able to use the existing pop as a starting point. The buildings you put in a metro, you are going to be putting into the metro, anyway, as the normal play of the game. Since the metro will be considered part of your normal productive cities. It's not something special and separate. With most captures, I stabilize the pop, expand the border, reduce the corruption then rush in a factory within the first 10 turns or so of capture. After that, the city pretty much takes care of it's own improvements without a lot of injected cash. It becomes a productive, multi-use city like any other of my cities. So that is another thing you missed. Farms exploits are only good for science and taxes, regular cities, even at half corruption are good for every use in the game.

Well, let’s break civ down to its basics. What does a “productive multi-use city” build? It can build improvements that increase income/science – that is, it can provide the same type of benefits a specialist farm does (so that we only have to compare level of benefits and not type). However, the city can build improvements that increase happiness so that you can fit more citizens in the city. What are the extra citizens going to do? Well, they produce more income/science. They also produce more shields, and your productive multi-use city can produce buildings that improve shields, too. What are those extra shields going to be used for? Well, they can be used for improvements that increase income/science or improvements that increase happiness. The only thing a city can build that doesn’t lead down the same path is military, and I don’t think you are arguing that wide spacing is better for its increased military . Other than the enjoyment of having lots of improvements (which is a perfectly valid reason for building them), the metros don’t add new possibilities to the game.

But I'm still mostly dealing in abstracts above that are variable. The shields lost, the time lost, all the "who knows" above. These are not fixed and they are not known.

Indeed. This save is only 1 example, but we can still discuss generalities to determine which is better most of the time. Isn’t that the point of this thread?

Now what about the improvement costs? They are known, but so what. You are going to put those into a metro, anyway. Do you refuse to put those improvements into your core cities because of their cost and it takes time to build them? Of course not. They are a necessary part of the game.

They are not “necessary” – you build them if you want to. If I feel military gives me a better rate of return on the shields used, I will build military and not put every possible structure in my cities, even my core ones. Sometimes I have almost no structures at all.

If you are going to build metros, you will need the improvements, just like if you want fighters, you will have to get hold of the Flight advance. So comparing the costs of these improvements in a metro with the no costs the farm exploits incur because they have no improvements is comparing apples and oranges.

No, we are comparing the costs and benefits of a fully-improved metro with the costs and benefit of developed science farms. Both the costs and benefits are quantifiable in gold.

These theoretical comparisons really don't mean much. It's just people picking and choosing what "funny numbers" they think will best promote their case on paper.

I didn’t pick any of these numbers – I’ll be happy to look at whatever save you want.

BTW, chamnix, when I asked about your multi-player farm exploit game, I was looking for a bit more detailed info than what you provided. What you said says nothing really. From your description, it seems your opponents lost more because they were less creative in their attack strategies than your team was in your defense strategies.

I’m afraid I don’t really know how to answer – we used tight city spacing, lots of science farms, and no metros. We ended up with the strongest economy and strongest military. I’m not sure how to be more specific on the direct correlation any more than I have been comparing general costs and benefits in this thread.

Meisen, you are spending an enormous amount of time trying to convince a group who mindset is frozen in liquid helium to change. They are not going to change.

Don’t worry – I feel the same about you . This doesn't exactly demonstrate open-mindedness:

I WILL NEVER PLAY THE WAY THAT YOU ARE SAYING THAT I SHOULD PLAY.

...

Now if I felt I needed to make all these calculations, run these tests just to play a game "correctly", that's one game I would pass on. I don't think all this "creative accounting" can change the fact that metros can be used for just about anything with a minimum of fuss and that farm exploits are limited to 2 uses only. You can have 100 cities, but with 50 of them the exploits, you really only have 50 cities that you can really use. The exploits are very much like large resource colonies if you think about it. Even the claim that they support themselves is bogus. They do not, and can not build their own defensive forces, nor can they contribute to this. Other cities have to provide their defense for them. Metros can take care of themselves.

According to ZzarkLinux, every game I play of Civ3 it totally and irretrievably wrong, as I do not follow his ONLY CORRECT STRATEGY TO WIN. For the rest of those arguing over correct city spacing, after the first six lines, I get bored,check the rest of the length of the post, and move on.

What I do find abominable is the attitude that unless you play this way, you are a very poor player, and had better change immediately. Brace yourself for a shock, guys. I WILL NEVER PLAY THE WAY THAT YOU ARE SAYING THAT I SHOULD PLAY. You want to play that way, go ahead. I enjoy playing the way that I play, and find your style of play TOTALLY UNAPPEALING. I would sooner have a root canal down without anesthetic than play that way. I will space my cities and develop them in total disregard to all of the immense verbage here, and have fun doing so. Hopefully, most of the rest of the forum readers will do the same.

Now that is a post I can very heartedly relate to and agree with. I salute you, Sir!

Edit: not to quibble, but I'm not really trying to change the "one size fits all" crowd here. They're not worth the time. I'm just giving the other side so those looking in can realize there are other options. With the volume of this crowds' narrow minded spamming on this site, most people looking in here wouldn't be likely to realize that. You can see how they swarm any new thread asking advice about the game. Back when I first signed on here, those kids were not in evidence and the site was much more open minded and varied and the discussions were much less antagonistic. Well, they were if you didn't blaspheme against the sacred rng god.

That attitude coupled with the inflexible relativism in arguing their case is what I too find so unpalatable.

Here we go again – nobody is telling you that you must play a certain way or must like playing a certain way. Most advice threads and discussion threads are about how to play “better”. I don’t think we are arguing about which is more “fun”. Everyone has his own opinion on fun, and nobody is going to convince anyone else his way is “more fun” than anybody else’s way. Play however you find enjoyable, and I am not trying to convince anyone to play a style he hates. However, if we are talking about which strategy is “better”, I define “better” in this context as:

• Reaching a victory condition in fewer turns, or
• Getting a higher score, or
• Winning a higher percentage of games on whatever level you happen to play at.

Granted, this is just my definition of “better”. There may be alternative definitions, but I have yet to hear one advanced. If you tell me what “better” means to you, then I may completely agree that metros are better based on your definition, but based on my definition (which is the only definition I’ve seen), it is my opinion that scientist farms are better than metros in corrupt territory.

By all means, convince me otherwise! I wasn’t born saying this is the best way to play civ. I used to build metros. I also used to have less than 1 worker per city, revolt every time I got a new government, and struggle beating Regent. My method of playing has evolved and will continue to evolve, but the numbers and my experiences do not support the claim that metros are better.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

What have I missed?

Some of the points are actually right on the money or at least very close, while others aren't.

But we are digressing. The post was initially about city spacing and with it comes the question of the merits and otherwise of farms/towns/cities/metros. A summary of the debate this far:

CXXC
+ Every tile gets used
- Leads to sub-optimised towns, usually with 8-9 tiles per town, where improvements and wonders take a long time to build

Well, this strikes me as a bit of a strawman. Or, at least, when _I_ think about town placement I never really picture proper CxxC. Rather, I'd think about something like CxxxCxxC. And, I suppose for other people it is hardly any different, that when they say CxxC what they mean is actually thirteen tiles per core city.

Sure, the name CxxC implies that every city would get only 9 tiles to work with, however I think you should cut it some slack. At least so much as you are doing with CxxxxC:

CXXXXC

[...]

+ Each town gets on average 19 tiles​

If you did the same for CxxxxC what you did for CxxC, then that would mean that every town gets 25 tiles 4 of which are unusable even with a hospital. However, you are right , when people say CxxxxC they don't mean proper CxxxxC, but rather "on average 19 tiles" per town.


Secondly, about the wonders and improvements. For the biggest part of the game you are stuck at size twelve anyway. For the whole AA and MA CxxxxC will have absolutely no advantage (exept maybe better tile selection) over CxxC(xxxC) when it comes to building all those AA and MA wonders and improvements. And it is exactly these improvements and wonders that IMHO are the most important. Libs, Markets, Unis, 'Ducts, Rax and you have about 90% of the bang for the buck improvement wise. Similar for the wonders. Of my favorite wonders only the ToE and the UN are late and could profit from being build in a metro, building-time-wise. The others, Pyramids, GLib, JSBach and Leo's, (if they are going to be build) would have to go up at size 12 one way or the other.

- Requires careful micro-management

Hey, MM is fun at times. Sometimes it is just a necessary evil though.

+ You do not need to build hospitals (or the MTS) and can get away without temples and caths provided you have enough lux

That is absolutely correct with the minor caveat that luxes do not only affect cities, but metros as well.

+ You can use those shields to build units
- You're more vulnerable to war weariness

I am not quite sure I follow the point about the WW here. WW works and strikes your city as a percentage of your population. So, 25% of WW means you get 3 unhappy faces at size 12, while at size 20 you get 5. The same, the other way 'round goes for War Happyness.

If anything at all, I would say, that a city profits/suffers less from WH/WW.

+ For the same number of towns, you have lower distance corruption
- Your territory will be smaller with less resources

Only true with a major caveat. Space is not an unlimited resource. If for example you start on an island, you are stuck with that island until you can get to another landmass. Likewise, even if you are not on an island, you still are boxed in between Ocean, AI territories and/or simply yucky terrain (jungle, desert ...).

+ The short distances between towns means you can move troops from town to town
- So too can an enemy

+ The advantages kick in early, the disadvantages late

No argument here, just a comment. That last point is the major upside of tighter town placement. It should be bolded, underlined, placed top of the list, a be repeated at least three times.


At the end of going through your list, I think you missed the higher rank corruption though.

+ Great for AW, conquest, domination
+ Many other VC can be played as AW, conquest, domination
- Next to useless for a wonder game unless you plan on capturing the wonders or razing those not your own.

I'll get back to that.

CXXXXC
+ You grab a lot of land and with it a greater chance of resources
- Distance corruption is automatically higher (for the same number of towns/cities)
- You need to build temples or libraries to fill the gaps which intitially may be a drawback

- Units take longer to move from town to town
+ As the do for an enemy, no domino effect here!

+ Each town gets on average 19 tiles
- Seven out of 19 tiles are not worked until Sanitation
+ Every town has a choice of which tiles to work = every town can be optimised
- As metros aren't available until Sanitation, the full advantage comes late

The main comment and disagreements are already named above.

CXXC

[...]

+ Great for AW, conquest, domination
+ Many other VC can be played as AW, conquest, domination
- Next to useless for a wonder game unless you plan on capturing the wonders or razing those not your own.

CXXXXC

[...]

+ Great for Wonder, Culture, Spaceship, domination and diplomatic VC
- Not so good for AW and conquest

CxxxxC placement isn't so good at any of the cultural victory conditions at all.

For a 20K game, the way I see people play it in C3C, what is needed is one super city while the rest of the empire is delegated to mere helper status that supplies troops, workers, settlers etc. That one super city will be a metro (thanks to Shakes) and work 20 tiles as soon as possible, while the rest doesn't matter all that much. And not to forget that the most rewarding and juicy culutural builds all come way before Hopitals are even available.
--> So, it is mostly something like CxxxxC for the wonder city while the rest is place tightly.

In a 100K game, it is not enough to place towns CxxC. No, people in C3C even go and spam as many tiny little hellholes as possible (ICS, AKA CxC) in order to pop-rush the most juicy cultural builds (temples, libs) by the hundreds while in Feudalism. (Absolutely ugly, if you ask me)
--> Maybe some half-hearted CxxC for the core and CxC for the rest.

In a Diplo game what matters is only how fast you research your self through the Ancient, the Middle and the Industrial Age. The tech that enables the UN, Fission, is generally not researched, but simply aquired by playing the tech trick with the (other) scientific Civs. So, all that matters for this type of game really are the first three ages. And the only way Hopitals could even help you would be in researching yourself through the last 2/3 of the IA. You will have to dearly pay for that though in terms of beakers/turns lost with CxxxxC before your metros are running.
--> In my opinion you are definitely better served in this VC by completely ignoring (the optional tech) Sanitation all together and, instead, go the the best size 12 placement that you can come up with.

A Space launch is similar to a Diplo win. There are two differences though. Firstly, the game lasts longer and you'll need to research about 1/3 of the MA techs. Secondly, you can play the game far more ruthless since you don't need anybody's opinion anymore. Overall this means, whatever may cause you problems research-wise late in the game, you can simply solve by playing more ruthless early on.
--> I think that here too you are definitely better served by completely ignoring Sanitation all together and, instead, go the the best size 12 placement that you can come up with. You will need to be a little bit bigger though than when going for the Vote.


The only victory condition where I would see CxxxxC at some advantage is the Histographic win. A territory that is settled and worked by, say, 100 Metroes, as opposed to 150 size 12 towns simply yields a higher score. However, I think that starting out CxxC, and then later on by and by switching to CxxxxC would be the via regia. The best of both worlds, so to speak.

 

[Pyrrhos]

Hey, MM is fun at times.

Be my guest! Micro-manage to your heart's delight!

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Why not take the best of both worlds? build CxxC Early and when the time comes, Disband the cities and switch to CxxxxC?

In a Histographic game that would even make a lot of sense. As I said above, a territory where every tile is worked by OCPed metros simply score a little bit higher than the same territory worked by towns/cities/cities in CxxCxxxC fashion. This has mainly got something to do with the city centers which have a less scoring potential than normal tiles.

A City Center will score you:
1 point for territory
1 point for a specialist supported by the 2 food the CC makes (1,5 for agri, I think)

A normal tile on average should yield 4 food and thusly score:
1 point for territory
2 points for the happy laborer (eats two food)
1 point for a specialist (eats the other two food)

So, overall it would be desirable to work as many tiles empirewide with as few as possible City Centers. However, this is more something for hardcore milking junkies, who no doubt will find means and ways to overcome the difficulty of replacing the size 12 settling pattern for OCP.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Be my guest! Micro-manage to your heart's delight!

If that is Conquests, then I can't play it. Rest assured though that I have plenty of MMing to do in the game that I am currently playing. (100K, Deity, standard; played my (Vanilla) style, with a remote palace exploit; and not the ugly pop-rushing hell-hole style, that I described above )

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Maybe I've missed something, but why is CxxC bad for building wonders?

there is something else to think about here, btw, which is that CxxC can turn into something similar to Cxxxxc by removing some of the smaller cities