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

[chuckiferd]

srry for double posting

How does it have access to fewer BGs? If you take a 8x8 tiles piece of land from CxxxxC and CxxC the CxxC area will be producing more shields. For a given piece of land CxxC out-performs CxxxxC.

Do you think that because xCxxCx has more cities in a smaller area means you have more cities? No xxCxxxxCxx will have just as much (if not more) spread out meaning xxCxxxxCxx ultimatly have access to about 3x the amount of sheilds/food/gold than xCxxCx

xCxxCx = 1 of 9 spaces a city

xxCxxxxCxx = 1 of 25 spaces a city

 

[chuckiferd]

Also Pyrrhos, you can't argue that before sanitation CxxxxC has more production than CxxC. CxxC will be taking advantage of 100% of the tiles in your empire before the industrial age, CxxxxC has to wait until sanitation, and then has to grow to size 20, which takes even more time.

CxxC has to wait for sanitation also it will only be able to have 8 workers at a time in the core and coastal cities

And I am sorry but what is OCP

I will guess it is Ocean-City-_____________

 

[Lord Emsworth]

CxxC has to wait for sanitation also it will only be able to have 8 workers at a time in the core and coastal cities

And I am sorry but what is OCP

I will guess it is Ocean-City-_____________

OCP stand for Optimal City Placement. (A misnomer in my, and probably many other people's opinion). Each city gets as many tiles as possible, with the least amout of overlap of tiles between city radiuses, and the least amount of unworkable tiles.

How exactly it works is described in an article by Bamspeedy in the War Academy titled "An Empire of Metropolises" or something like that.

ETA: IIRC looks like this, with the bold Xs indicating overlap:

C X X X X C X X X X C X X
X X X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X X X
X X C X X X X C X X X X C

 

[Pyrrhos]

Also Pyrrhos, you can't argue that before sanitation CxxxxC has more production than CxxC. CxxC will be taking advantage of 100% of the tiles in your empire before the industrial age, CxxxxC has to wait until sanitation, and then has to grow to size 20, which takes even more time.

I don't argue, I have run the tests that prove it is so. If you read thru my report, you'll see that OCP produces quite a few more raw shields - 226 to 194 - in spite of having only 31 against 42 towns at the end. This is because they have access to more BGs. Quite a few of the CXXC shields come from mts & hills.

If you still doubt, I can go back and count the exact number of BGs inside each territory.

 

[Gosnork]

srry for double posting


Do you think that because xCxxCx has more cities in a smaller area means you have more cities? No xxCxxxxCxx will have just as much (if not more) spread out meaning xxCxxxxCxx ultimatly have access to about 3x the amount of sheilds/food/gold than xCxxCx

xCxxCx = 1 of 9 spaces a city

xxCxxxxCxx = 1 of 25 spaces a city

You are totally missing the point. CxxxxC doesn't mean you have 3x the amount of land. Land stays constant, tiles worked is the variable. 1 city in CxxxxC requires 25 tiles, of which only 12 will be worked up until sanitation. That means that 50% of your empire is useless for half of the game. 4 of those 21 tiles aren't inside any city limits and will never be used.

However if you used CxxC cities only have to grow to size 8 to work all tiles. Less irrigation is needed due to the fact that city centers produce 2 food, 3 if agri, which is food that can be used to allow you to mine more tiles. More unit support means more money, and the extra mines produce more shields. CxxC never needs sanitation because the cities only need 8 citizens. Also less has to be spent to keep your citizens happy, meaning even more money.

 

[Pyrrhos]

Gosnork,

The count at 1475BC when the test ended was:
* OCP (or CXXXXC) 83 bonus grassland
* CXXC 55 bonus grassland

This does not include tiles still covered by forest, jungle or swamps, nor - for obvious reasons - tiles which has a town on them.

QED, the greater territory covered by OCP will inevitably mean that there are more tiles of every type.

 

[Gosnork]

Pyrrhos, as I have stated many times, I'm not discussing the amount of land, but what to do with a given piece of land. If you have 1000 tiles, CxxxxC is not as effecient as CxxC.

 

[Aabraxan]

Wow, Looks like I've got a lot of catching up to do.

chuckiferd, welcome to CFC!

however you did not include spaces on ALL sides of the cities like I did

Well, I didn't include extra spaces around the perimeter of the diagram. That's what I meant when I said, "Admittedly, the diagram above does not take into account all of the tiles needed by the cities on the edges." Otherwise, yes, I did.

Also # of cities doesn't matter . . . .

It does for unit support.

. . . . all a city is is a base that can havest resources and produce using those resources. If a field has lets say 50 shields, lets leave improvments out for simplification, it doesn't matter how many cities are sucking up those shields as long as all the shields are getting picked up. Ok now lets compare civ A and B

Civ A has 50 shields divided up between 5 cities, thats 10 shields a city and that can pump out most ancient units in 2 turns

So that is 5 units in 2 turns=2.5 units/turn

Civ B has 50 shields divided up between 25 cities, that would be 2 shields a city, that take you 10 turns to build an ancient unit/city

So that is 25 units in 10 turns=2.5 units/turn

So there the same in units a turn but lets say the two civs go to war starting with 0 units:

turns|1|2|3|04|05|06|07|08|09|10|
Civ A:0|5|5|10|10|15|15|20|20|25|
Civ B:0|0|0|00|00|00|00|00|00|25|

well look again there equal but notice the 9 turns where civ A is prepared already, by turn 10 Civ B would have all its land gone

There is no question about whether a metro can harvest more shields than a town. However, in your example, these civs appear start with zero units, but grown cities. That growth time is important. In the early game, when your cities are smaller, a denser layout allows you to harvest more of the available resources in a given area by working more tiles. The example you gave above (that I monkeyed with) was, what

In your example, Civ A, with 10 shields/town has to have enough citizens to harvest its 10 shields/town. Civ B only has to harvest 2 shields/town. Neither of these is particularly hard to come up with, but 10 shields clearly takes more citizens laboring than 2 does.

At any rate, the higher density pattern does reduce distance corruption, as well as increases the number of worked tiles in a given area. Until the more widely-spaced cities grow enough to work all those tiles, there's just a lot of wasted space.

Move away from your monitor and Zzark's message should be clear.

Thanks, Gosnork! Now I see it.

but CxxC will eventually lead to fights over workable teritory and ultimatly limits the growth of your city

My cities don't fight. They work exactly those tiles that I tell them to. As far as city growth, yes, I eventually run out of tiles to work, but rarely before my cities hit size 9-10. And as I very rarely build hospitals (or even research Sanitation), that's not a problem.

. . . . Secondly building in a small tight pattern doesn't allow you to get as many bonus and strategic resources. I mostly build on the coastline, or on a river not in a block pattern no matter how far into the game I stick to the sea with a few resouce cities.

I don't build in a perfect block pattern, either. But CxxC does not limit the number of bonus or strategic resources that you get. You still get all of them. You just might need more settlers to do it.

Added on top of all that do you truely think that by building more concentrated areas of cities you have more settlers? Absolutely not, for every settler you have another more spread out nation could produce 2 because it doesn't need to fight over mines and mountains

But, again, until its cities grow enough to make use of the tiles, and until it gets them improved, that's just a lot of wasted space.

No, CXXC has less raw production power because it does not have access to as many BGs as OCP. However, distance corruption means that so many are lost that the advantage is almost neutralised. Where CXXC shines is economy and people production, at least that is what I found in my rather elaborate and extensive test.

Saw the test, Pyrrhos. Haven't read it in-depth yet, but I'm looking forward to doing so.

but under a republic corruption is almost negated

Well, under republic, it's almost as good as it gets, but it's still a factor.

Do you think that because xCxxCx has more cities in a smaller area means you have more cities? No xxCxxxxCxx will have just as much (if not more) spread out meaning xxCxxxxCxx ultimatly have access to about 3x the amount of sheilds/food/gold than xCxxCx

xCxxCx = 1 of 9 spaces a city

xxCxxxxCxx = 1 of 25 spaces a city

Actually, given that the number of tiles on the map is finite and fixed at the beginning of the game, a tighter city layout does mean that I'll have more cities. As far as having access to more food/shields/gold, larger, more spread out cities may have access to more tiles. That doesn't necessarily translate into more production. This is largely the same argument that I made earlier in the thread about worked tiles vs. workable tiles. Workable tiles aren't any good to the empire unless you've got a citizen to work them. And if corruption eats the extra shields and gold, they're still no good to the empire.

CxxC has to wait for sanitation also it will only be able to have 8 workers at a time in the core and coastal cities

No, not really. CxxC makes use of the tiles without the need for metros and without the need for hospitals.

I''m afraid I don't understand what you mean by "it will only be able to have 8 workers at a time in the core and coastal cities." How so?

 

[Pyrrhos]

You are totally missing the point. CxxxxC doesn't mean you have 3x the amount of land. Land stays constant, tiles worked is the variable. 1 city in CxxxxC requires 25 tiles, of which only 12 will be worked up until sanitation. That means that 50% of your empire is useless for half of the game. 4 of those 21 tiles aren't inside any city limits and will never be used.

However if you used CxxC cities only have to grow to size 8 to work all tiles. Less irrigation is needed due to the fact that city centers produce 2 food, 3 if agri, which is food that can be used to allow you to mine more tiles. More unit support means more money, and the extra mines produce more shields. CxxC never needs sanitation because the cities only need 8 citizens. Also less has to be spent to keep your citizens happy, meaning even more money.

Those rolleyes aren't necessary.

The real advantages of CXXC are not those you claim. (Read my test report!) In fact, what you say is simply not true:

1. To be able to work any tile, it must be a) within your cultural borders & b) within two tiles of a town

2. Because OCP uses culture, every town once it reaches CV 10 will have 20 tiles to choose from (minus overlap, ie 18-20 tiles per town)

3. Because of the tight spacing of CXXC, each town will have only the immediately adjacent tiles available plus the closest, unused tiles of its neighbours. Mathematically, it works out at eight (8) tiles per town

4. As the OCP towns have more tiles to choose from, they can work the best tiles and ignore the worst tiles until the advent of Medicine and hospitals. Rarely do you have to irrigate bonus grassland or mine grassland. That only 12 of the 18-20 available tiles can be worked is not a disadvantage, it is an advantage!

5. With CXXC you have little choice but to improve and work every tile, even if it is "only" grassland or mountains. Some towns may have no other option but to irrigate BG just to get enough food so the mountains can be mined and worked. Other towns will have no choice but to mine grassland to get more than one shield. For science or worker farms, this matters little. For everything else, it is bad news

6. Given the same number of towns, OCP will cover more than twice the territory

7. Given the same number of towns, OCP will have access to a larger number of resources, luxes, hills and bonus grassland - as well as marginally useful tiles such as desert, jungle or swamps.

8. The two food of the town has zilch to do with the need for irrigation. Think of it as a domino brick! It allows the town to work one more tile even if it is a foodless mountain. As long as that tile produces at least one food, it will grow to work one more tile and if that too yields at least one food, these two tiles can be worked indefinitely. If the first worked tile yields two food, and the next, and the following ones too, the town will eventually grow to size 12. It is if you need to work mountains or several hills that you have need of irrigation in order to allow the town to work those tiles, even more so if you want it to grow!

 

[Pyrrhos]

Pyrrhos, as I have stated many times, I'm not discussing the amount of land, but what to do with a given piece of land. If you have 1000 tiles, CxxxxC is not as effecient as CxxC.

Yes, but then you are comparing apples and pears as with CXXC you have (roughly) twice the amount of towns in such a territory. Just because you choose CXXC you do not start with two settlers and two workers!
Therefore, you have to look at it from the point of view that you are grabbing land and expanding because this is the period when most, if not all, games are won and lost.

 

[chuckiferd]

wait, hold it a sec, what is the advantages of having closer togther cities (minus amount of extra road work and corruption)? Civilization is not some
6*6 map, you fight over thousands of tiles. The only point of CxxC I see as true is the point of corruption and waste. Eventually it all comes back to bite you once you only have 8 squares to work in later. What is the point of fitting more cities in a smaller area (unless for resources or choice land). Spreading cities out in a 6*6 may give you a ton of less cities however in a true map you would have just as many cities, plus aprroximatly 3x more cultural influence if the # of cities is exactly the same

 

[ZzarkLinux]

You see why I posted the "palmface".
Because if I decide to actually respond, you get essays like this

Chuckiferd, this should help clarify.
Take only what you need.
I've divided my reasoning into sections
Each section is independent, and gives a slight spin on the same idea.

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The biggest assumption of "wide-spacing" is:
My cities are large
While perfect in theory, the game doesn't work out that way...

Planning for your cities to be size 15+ means:
- For the first 1/4th of the game, your cities are size 1-6
- For the second 1/4th of the game, your cities are size 7-12
That's a bad plan... in fact, it's a harmful plan...

Wide spacing is a risk that has late-game "pay-off".
But if you plan your game for the "late-game"... well... that's a harmful plan...
Because a lot of things happen in the early game...
The late game depends on the early game, not the other way around.

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Unfortunately for Civ3, there are so many downward pressures that keep your cities small
- Huge Despotic food penalties
- Happiness penalties
- Settlers and workers reduce population
- No aqueduct ?? No size 15 city
- No Hospital ?? No size 15 city
- Got both ?? Your city needs to grow... A LOT...
- Buildings in Civ3 are nearly worthless early game...
a) Their maintenance and shield cost are risks you need to take...
b) The dang payoff is so small (granaries in every city is not needed, temples hardly needed...)
- Only like your top 7 cities should even worry about buildings. The rest... they just will never "give payback"...

The end result is that by using wide spacing:
- your empire is designed for a goal it will never reach.
- "Maximum productivity" is not possible
- "Maximum productivity" is actually hindered by the bad planning.
This is due to game design that restricts / limits the time it takes to get larger cities...

If your capitol started at size 20, then yes, wide spacing would be more efficient
But your captiol starts at size 1.
In fact, considering the list above, cities need to bend over backwards just to get above size 3...

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Optimal City Spacing (aka wide spacing) is great if your cities are large.
But there are so many strings attached to getting to that point, that it is dramatically more efficient to plan around small cities.

This is what every single test has shown. Those tests were based on the actual game, not just in theory.
The reason CXXXXC sux is because all the cities in the test stay size 5 or less...
The game doesn't let you get larger cities...

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EDIT:
But I'm not trying to dis-credit you, so here's some info that supports your claim

I have looked at many "one city challenge" games. This is simple: You only build 1 city
I've heard a lot of people say something along the lines:
- If you only build one city, then for the first like 100 turns of the game
- you have an advantage over "expanding" civs cause of your huge city

Can anyone verify this? Can anyone explain why this happens??
I guess it's because there are fewer "strings attached" to your capitol...

 

[Pyrrhos]

I have looked at many "one city challenge" games. This is simple: You only build 1 city
I've heard a lot of people say something along the lines:
- If you only build one city, then for the first like 100 turns of the game
- you have an advantage over "expanding" civs cause of your huge city

Can anyone verify this? Can anyone explain why this happens??
I guess it's because there are fewer "strings attached" to your capitol...

You just did yourself, more or less:
* The pop wont go down in order to build settlers, in effect losing the production of two worked tiles.
* It won't be until the new city reaches pop 2 that you will "reclaim" the production of those two tiles, ie the one-three turns it takes to walk the settler to the new location, build the town plus ten turns. At the very least you lose two turns to reclaim the first tile and a further ten the second. If those tiles were mined and roaded BGs on rivers or coast, you'd lose 24 food, 24 shields and 24 commerce - every time you build a settler!
* The above is for your civ as a whole. The One-city wonder has permanently lost the working of that tile as without building the settler, it would have been a further two pop/worked tiles up. Now, isn't your capital usually your settler pump?
* Corruption! The production of your One-city wonder is absolutely corrution and waste free!
* Happiness. Eventually there comes a point when your One-city wonder cannot grow any more because of the need for clowns. If you use the lux slider, there will come a point when happiness eats up your science. But until that point is reached and multi-city civs have made up the ground lost, the One-city wonder should enjoy a long period of supremacy.

 

[Nergal]

It doesnt work like that in practice though. By the end of the game my CXXC towns are size 16-20 .... Maybe if it was a perfect CXXC they wouldnt be, but coastal towns end up with a lot of uncontested tiles. Thats where your testing falls down. And growth time is a huge factor. What about tundra towns? THey only grow if they have coast or game. So CXXC, or even CXC is the most efficient use of that kind of territory.

 

[MAS]

planting a settler immediately claims 2 tiles, the center and a citizen worked tile. It may cost 3 turns to get the settler to become a city, but after that, your empire grows twice as fast, because both cities are now producing a food surplus.

OK, thought experiment:
Lets say, you build an empire OCP, all cities work the best 12 tiles, all bonus grassland. 8 non bonus grass are not worked, and an other 4 are never worked.
Now you place extra cities in between, they work the 8+4=12 "wasted" tiles.
Now you've gained 12 tiles, while the 12 bonus grass your initial citeis where using are not lost!

About the 8 tiles per city at CxxC:
Even if you make a flat map of all grass, the cities at some distance from the capital will be so corrupt that it isn't a big loss if they stay smaller than size 8, in fact, you'd make them size 5. This provides room for the cities next to it to use some of those tiles instead of the tiles even closer to the capital. And thus, it is possible to make room for your entire core to be size 12 even at a strict CxxC pattern.
On top of that, in a real game, you'll never get the patter strictly CxxC square. So you'll have even more room to play with.

 

[chuckiferd]

But, again, until its cities grow enough to make use of the tiles, and until it gets them improved, that's just a lot of wasted space.

This is largely the same argument that I made earlier in the thread about worked tiles vs. workable tiles.

Ok basicly this is the largest argument aganst wide spacing, but what I see is that Aabraxan answered the question himself.

In a 6*6 map smaller spacing will always win, actually CCC wouldn't do so bad.

Unfortunly civilazation has more tiles that you will ever build on or even has under your cultural influence. So aside from curruption (which is your CxxC's best point yet least argued one) CxxC has only detriments

-All cities except your border-most cities will not be able to have more than 8 worked tiles

-If mountains, grassland, hills, forests, and bonus resource terrain tiles are few and far between than you will be forced to spread to reap the benifits, staying to a rigid pattern (even somewhat true with CxxxxC) will have less production.

-You will have much less land using CxxC under your cultural influence

here is the math:

xXxxXx
xCxxCx = 2 cities in 18 tiles = 1 city/9 tiles
xXxxXx

xxXxxxxXxx
xxXxxxxXxx
xxCxxxxCxx = 2 cities in 50 tiles = 1 city/25 tiles
xxXxxxxXxx
xxXxxxxXxx

that means that if you have the same amount of cities the proportion for the amount of cultural influence if they were both cultural level would be 9/25=2 7/9. That means for total world domination and cultural overload CxxxxC if superior.

Fianally next time you argue against CxxxxC remember to give CxxxxC the same amount of cities as CxxC. In the actuall game fiting as many cities in a 6*6 square doesn't improve production

 

[Chamnix]

Understand that a lot of people are just using the shorthand "CxxC" to mean a tighter build than OCP. The ideal build pattern is not a strict CxxC but is to leave 12 workable tiles per core city - it actually falls somewhere between CxxC and CxxxC.

 

[Mursi lives]

Originally Posted by chuckiferd
In a 6*6 map smaller spacing will always win, actually CCC wouldn't do so bad.

Unfortunly civilazation has more tiles that you will ever build on or even has under your cultural influence. So aside from curruption (which is your CxxC's best point yet least argued one) CxxC has only detriments

That's totally wrong!
Unless you are playing chieftain, civilization has a limited number of tiles you can get before AI civs. OCP will use some of those tiles, CxxC will use all tiles.

Originally Posted by chuckiferd
Fianally next time you argue against CxxxxC remember to give CxxxxC the same amount of cities as CxxC. In the actuall game fiting as many cities in a 6*6 square doesn't improve production

Next time you argue against CxxC, remember to give CxxC the same amount of territory as OCP. And yes, getting 3 times more cities does somewhat improve production.

 

[Pyrrhos]

Next time you argue against CxxC, remember to give CxxC the same amount of territory as OCP. And yes, getting 3 times more cities does somewhat improve production.

Could you please explain just HOW CXXC manages to produce TWICE the number of settlers during the expansion phaze? Do you only need ten food and fifteen shields per settler...

Not even the best civ players would manage to produce twice the number of settlers in the same number of turns using CXXC than they would using OCP! Any player will manage to produce a similar number of settlers under OCP as they do under CXXC and thus OCP will result in, roughly, twice the territory as measured in tiles.

To claim that you cannot compare the two unless you give CXXC the same size territory, ie twice the number of settlers, is (to speak plainly) either the result of the stupidity of the claimant or his/her belief that others are so stupid they will fall for such a blatant lie!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

 

[Hasdrubal Barca]

Chop forests for earlier granaries and instead of CxxC make it CxC in rivers and CxxC outside riverline, pop goody huts with settlers/workers and have granies being made at the time of the hut popping to maximaxe changes of getting a free settler...

You chances of dobling the ammount of settlers/cities compared with the OCP system will increase.