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

[vmxa]

I was not going to add anything more to this topic, but I kind of dislike CxxxC or greater.

I would concede that if you play Emp or lower, it is not important how you space. I should amend that to those that have a good understanding of the game.

Now I do claim that above emperor, you will pay for that CxxxC spacing on most maps. I am talking about std maps as larger maps will tend to give you more time to prepare.

It is at those levels that the defense comes into play and of course any AW games. The main thing is you do not need more than 12 tiles, even if you want to play into modern age.

You do benefit from the reduce dead tiles in terms of worker task and movement for all things.

 

[Sweetchuck]

I saw this thread title and thought yinz were discussing roman numerals.

 

[Pyrrhos]

Part of your argument seems to be that you only want to improve the easily improved tiles. I detest marsh as much as the next player, but having my cities spaced further apart won't keep me from having to clear it. It may only delay it. Besides, if a citizen is going to use it, I need it cleared regardless of my city spacing. If no citizen is going to use it, it doesn't matter if it's cleared.

Quote: Originally Posted by Pyrrhos
With OCP, the chances are that you have enough grassland, plains and hills within the 20 workable tiles to ignore those worker-intensive tiles and set up a viable town.

Only if you're willing to put up with lots of unworked tiles for a long time. I contend that unworked tiles are more wasteful than worked ones. Until you've got the citizens to work the tiles, they're no good to you.

Why is it that you will not see or cannot understand what I am saying, Aabraxan? Am I not making clear and coherent statements? If so, I will try again:

1. With OCP, each town has somewhere in the region of 19+ workable tiles

2. With C-X-X-C, each town has no more than ten workable tiles

3. With OCP, the chances are that each town can work only the best and easily improved tiles - mined bonus grassland, irrigated grassland/plains and mined hill, all roaded of course. Thus each town will be more productive in all and every respect. Eventually, the other tiles will have to be improved if the city is to grow into a metro

4. With C-X-X-C, the chances are that you have to mine ordinary grassland, work lakes or coast (ie few or no shields) and irrigate desert, mine mountains (little or no food) in addition to have to clear jungle or wetlands to make the tiles productive

5. With C-X-X-C, you work all the tiles, granted, but you need twice the number of settlers/towns to cover the same area/territory! If you make do with the same number of settlers/towns, you end up with only half the territory!

6. As you need twice the number of towns to cover the same territory, you will have to build twice as many granaries - unless you build the Pyramids or capture them early enough to aid you during the expansion phase

7. As you need twice the number of towns to cover the same territory, you will have to build twice as many barracks - unless you build the Sun Tzu's or capture it. Anyhoo, you have to build the barracks to build the troops who are to carry the town holding Sun Tzu's

8. As you need twice the number of towns to cover the same territory, you will have to build twice as many libraries and universities to enhance, not twice the number of beakers, but the same!

9. As you need twice the number of towns to cover the same territory, you will have to build twice as many marketplaces, banks and stock markets to enhnce the commerce of the same tiles

10. As you need twice the number of towns to cover the same territory, you will have to build twice as many factories and power stations to enhance the same number of shields.

11. As you need twice the number of towns to cover the same territory, you will have to build twice as many MTS & RCs. Make no mistake, just because your cities can only reach pop 12 does not make you immune from pollution, oh no!

12. The only thing that you can build in a greater number with twice the number of towns that is beneficial is troops. However, you will not build twice the number of troops in a set space of time as the metros of OCP will churn out Modern Armour, Mech Inf and Radar Art in one to two turns whereas the cities of the C-X-X-C core will only turn them out once every three to four turns.

Give over! The only arguments in favour of C-X-X-C are the military ones; ease of defence and ability to move troops from town to town in one move. The way CIV III works with its emphasis on warmongering means that at higher levels of difficulty, the military advantage is so great as to make any other strategy non-viable. That does not make C-X-X-C better at economy or culture or any other aspect of CIV but the military one.

The "real" Civ players, as someone called them, may be great generals. They might, like an Alexander, Genghis Khan or Napoleon, capture the world. But just like Alexander, Genghis Khan or Napoleon, they suck at building empires to stand the test of time. Unfortunately, CIV III calls "time" as soon as they have captured the world which makes us think of them as great empire-builders, something they are not.

 

[eldar]

The "real" Civ players, as someone called them, may be great generals. They might, like an Alexander, Genghis Khan or Napoleon, capture the world. But just like Alexander, Genghis Khan or Napoleon, they suck at building empires to stand the test of time. Unfortunately, CIV III calls "time" as soon as they have captured the world which makes us think of them as great empire-builders, something they are not.

I would certainly class a player such as Moonsinger as a "real" Civ player. Go to the HoF and check out a few Deity- and Sid-level Historographic wins. If that isn't "standing the test of time", I don't know what is. And I'll bet you that in the early stages of those games, especially on smaller maps, CxxC was used prior to reaching the domination limit and all the AIs subdued. Only after that would things have started to "spread out".

CxxC is a means to an end. It is the most efficient way of making use of the land available to you in your core. After you've taken out the opposition, then you can do what you want. And that includes making cities as big as you want, as far apart as you want, for as long as you want.

 

[ignas]

If you want just to enjoy the game use OCP. If you want to win fast, beat higher levels and enjoy the game use tight city spacing

 

[brennan]

It seems to me that there is very little being given up in making your first ring or two more widely spaced. With your later settlers going a few tiles further afield it strikes me that you'll be grabbing land further afield and so although you may have a few unused tiles at the core you will be gaining tiles further out as well - and denying these to the AI.

With fewer cities in your first few rings you are also reducing the rate at which corruption builds up proportionally to distance from your capital, resulting in more productivity when you do eventually gain access to these tiles.

I guess the deciding factor is going to be whether or not close placement results in more cities. If it does not, then you are gaining nothing and losing productivity later in the game.

 

[Hasdrubal Barca]

I would certainly class a player such as Moonsinger as a "real" Civ player. Go to the HoF and check out a few Deity- and Sid-level Historographic wins. If that isn't "standing the test of time", I don't know what is. And I'll bet you that in the early stages of those games, especially on smaller maps, CxxC was used prior to reaching the domination limit and all the AIs subdued. Only after that would things have started to "spread out".

CxxC is a means to an end. It is the most efficient way of making use of the land available to you in your core. After you've taken out the opposition, then you can do what you want. And that includes making cities as big as you want, as far apart as you want, for as long as you want.

I think this comment sums it up, with CxxC your AI neighbours will just get eaten up and then you´ll do whatever you want.

Pyrrhos - go play some silmultaneous games online, you´ll take a lot of beatings and then come to the conclusions...

 

[Chamnix]

Normally I stop posting in Pyrrhos' threads once he doesn't respond to my points in a previous post, but since my other post was on the bottom of page 1, he may just have missed it. The upshot:

The "obvious" military advantages are a smokescreen. There is no significant military advantage in moving a unit from city to city in the core. Cities in the core do not need defense. The supposed “ability to get troops from the core and into battle the turn they were built” is possible with any city placement. If you have a unit placed every 3 tiles along your roads, you can do the same thing whether there are cities every 3 tiles or not.

 

[ZzarkLinux]

Pyrrhos, I found many flaws in your reasoning

1) With OCP, each town has somewhere in the region of 19+ workable tiles

False. See my test on Page 2. Second town only had 10 tiles to work.

3) With OCP, the chances are that each town can work only the best and easily improved tiles

False. Your first worker cannot improve both towns. See my test.
False. You grossly overestimate "chances of having better tiles". See my test. Both towns had 1 forest dyes and 1 bonus grassland.
Yes if second town could have 2 cows, you are correct CXXC sux. But in general every town won't have 2 cows...

you need twice the number of settlers/towns to cover the same area/territory

Irrelevant. Early game is all about citizens working food, hammers, commerce. What else builds your empire? Early game shields / population / commerce have an exponential effect on your empire in following turns. Again, you assume middle-ages turns are as tough as starting turns... My test demonstrates that in starting turns CXXC wins unless there's like 20 cows everywhere... Even then, settling the cows closest to the capitol wins out on extra pop-turns and extra-worker turns...

6) 7) 8)

These all go on the assumption that CXXXXC gives you better tiles. See test on P2.

My Conclusions:
This debate isn't about how many tiles between cities.
It's about settling the best workable tiles, which makes your civ progress faster.

So in-game, founding your second / 3rd city comes to:
a) founding close to your worker and already improved tiles
b) founding next to cows
c) blocking a strategic chokepoint.

This has nothing to do with "workable" tiles, and everything to do with "worked" tiles and blocking.

Okay, I've fed the troll enough I gotta get back to my story-game

 

[Aabraxan]

I really, really should know better than to feed the troll. Nonetheless, here goes:

Why is it that you will not see or cannot understand what I am saying, Aabraxan?

I understand it just fine, Pyrrhos. It's still wrong.

1. With OCP, each town has somewhere in the region of 19+ workable tiles

Incorrect and irrelevant. Either you've got to expand borders or "sweep tiles in" to have access to them. Until that happens, each city has 9 tiles. And we get back to workable tiles vs. worked tiles.

2. With C-X-X-C, each town has no more than ten workable tiles

Irrelevant. Until a town hits size 10, it doesn't need more. Some cities get a few crappy tiles. Others get better tiles. Until they grow enough that all the choice tiles are taken, it doesn't matter how many "workable" tiles they've got.

3. With OCP, the chances are that each town can work only the best and easily improved tiles - mined bonus grassland, irrigated grassland/plains and mined hill, all roaded of course. Thus each town will be more productive in all and every respect. Eventually, the other tiles will have to be improved if the city is to grow into a metro

"If the city is to grow into a metro." Until hospitals (or Shakespeare's, for one lucky town), they won't grow into metros. There's a lot of time between the expansion phase (when I'm planting most of my towns) and getting hospitals built (if I build any). Why let tiles stay unproductive for all that time?

4. With C-X-X-C, the chances are that you have to mine ordinary grassland, work lakes or coast (ie few or no shields) and irrigate desert, mine mountains (little or no food) in addition to have to clear jungle or wetlands to make the tiles productive

Irrelevant. If City A doesn't have access to a BG, that's because City B is already using it. My empire still gets the shield. It's not about what a city needs. It's about what my empire needs for my city to have.

5. With C-X-X-C, you work all the tiles, granted, but you need twice the number of settlers/towns to cover the same area/territory! If you make do with the same number of settlers/towns, you end up with only half the territory!

Until you approach the domination limit, total territory doesn't matter, except to the extent that resources are within my cultural boundaries. Worked tiles do. What is the value of denying the AI territory if I can't work the tiles myself? Not nonexistant, but small. As for needing twice as many settlers, so? Each of those settlers turns into a town. It goes from eating my unit support to providing more, not only of unit support, but gold, shields and beakers.

6. As you need twice the number of towns to cover the same territory, you will have to build twice as many granaries - unless you build the Pyramids or capture them early enough to aid you during the expansion phase

Only if you assume that you'll get twice as many cities in which a granary is a worthwhile investment. For that to happen, you'd have to be working twice as many food- & shield-rich tiles, not just have them be "workable."

7. As you need twice the number of towns to cover the same territory, you will have to build twice as many barracks - unless you build the Sun Tzu's or capture it. Anyhoo, you have to build the barracks to build the troops who are to carry the town holding Sun Tzu's

I'll grant you that I probably build more than I would if I used looser city spacing. But, still, that only holds true for core, and some semi-core areas, depending on shield output. Low-shield semi-core areas tend to produce artillery. My specialist farms certainly don't get raxes.

Frankly, while I don't really use ring city placement, I usually try to put my first ring of cities CxxxC from the capitol. I do like having a nice, big capitol.

8. As you need twice the number of towns to cover the same territory, you will have to build twice as many libraries and universities to enhance, not twice the number of beakers, but the same!

There may be more merit here than in your other arguments, but generally, see above, on raxes. I probably do wind up building more libraries than I would if I used C-X-X-X-X-C, but I generally only build a couple of unis, so that's not a real issue for me.

OTOH, if I were going for a culture win, I'd think more libraries, universities and, yes, even temples would be an advantage.

9. As you need twice the number of towns to cover the same territory, you will have to build twice as many marketplaces, banks and stock markets to enhnce the commerce of the same tiles

Markets, yes. Banks, maybe a few extra. But until you can actually build stock markets, irrelevant.

10. As you need twice the number of towns to cover the same territory, you will have to build twice as many factories and power stations to enhance the same number of shields.

Until you can actually build factories and power stations, irrelevant.

11. As you need twice the number of towns to cover the same territory, you will have to build twice as many MTS & RCs. Make no mistake, just because your cities can only reach pop 12 does not make you immune from pollution, oh no!

I don't believe I've ever said it made them immune from pollution. But why build MTSs and RCs if you don't have to? Besides, until you can actually build an MTS or RC (you know what's coming), irrelevant.

12. The only thing that you can build in a greater number with twice the number of towns that is beneficial is troops. However, you will not build twice the number of troops in a set space of time as the metros of OCP will churn out Modern Armour, Mech Inf and Radar Art in one to two turns whereas the cities of the C-X-X-C core will only turn them out once every three to four turns.

Not true. Reduced corruption results in more uncorrupted commerce. More uncorrupted commerce results in faster research or more gold in my bank. Take a look at ZzarkLinux's test. In 35 turns, the more compact empire winds up 3 turns ahead of the looser one in terms of research (Masonry in 3 vs. Masonry in 6), with more gpt. That's pretty significant for a test that only lasted 35 turns.

I'll grant that if the game goes to Modern Armor, Mech Infantry and the like, a C-X-X-C setup probably won't fully produce them twice as fast as a C-X-X-X-X-C setup full of metros. The problem for the latter comes long before that. Until you get to hospitals (and, again, Shakepeare's for one lucky city), all you've got is higher corruption and more unworked tiles in your territory. So up until at least the end of the Middle Ages, C-X-X-C may very well outproduce the looser formation. IOW, the game can be decided before a C-X-X-X-X-C empire "hits its stride." This is certainly true of military victories. In the case of SS victories, building lots of aques and hospitals, along with markets to help happiness in all of these hypothetical metros, cuts into the research budget.

Give over! The only arguments in favour of C-X-X-C are the military ones; ease of defence and ability to move troops from town to town in one move. The way CIV III works with its emphasis on warmongering means that at higher levels of difficulty, the military advantage is so great as to make any other strategy non-viable. That does not make C-X-X-C better at economy or culture or any other aspect of CIV but the military one.

Not true. Reduced corruption (economic). More worked tiles, not merely workable ones (economic). More places to put libraries, universities, temples and other culture buildings (cultural). More troop support (economic).

And yes, military advantages. And it's a mistake to attempt to take that out of the equation.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

6. As you need twice the number of towns to cover the same territory, you will have to build twice as many granaries - unless you build the Pyramids or capture them early enough to aid you during the expansion phase

7. As you need twice the number of towns to cover the same territory, you will have to build twice as many barracks - unless you build the Sun Tzu's or capture it. Anyhoo, you have to build the barracks to build the troops who are to carry the town holding Sun Tzu's

8. As you need twice the number of towns to cover the same territory, you will have to build twice as many libraries and universities to enhance, not twice the number of beakers, but the same!

9. As you need twice the number of towns to cover the same territory, you will have to build twice as many marketplaces, banks and stock markets to enhnce the commerce of the same tiles

10. As you need twice the number of towns to cover the same territory, you will have to build twice as many factories and power stations to enhance the same number of shields.

Some of that simply is not true. Some is simply a little myopic. Let me try to explain.

When it comes to building improvements in my towns, there are only some which I will build everywhere. In most games these would be Marketplaces, Libraries and Unis.
Total upkeep: 1 + 1 + 2 = 4
(Market, Lib, Uni)

A whole stock of other improvements may either not even be available to some cities, or simply are not needed everywhere. Harbors and Aqueducts are such improvements which are only available to some cities. Barracks, Granaries, Banks, and again, Harbors are improvements which are not needed everywhere even if available. It does not make sense for example to burden a coastal town that needs both an aquaduct and a harbor to live with either troop or food unit production. So, they will get neither barracks nor granaries, and for a very, very long time - if at all - no bank. Conversely, an inland city on a river, with great shields needs neither Aqueduct nor harbor while a barracks makes a lot of sense.
Overall I think on average less than half of these secondary improvements are needed for my towns. But as I am generous, I'll simply add them up and cut the upkeep in half.
Total upkeep: (1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 2)/2 = 3.5
(Duct, Harbor, Rax, Gran, Bank)

The next step is to have a look at a metro. It will, of course, need a hospital to even grow. Then there is the happyness issue. A pop of 20 is by far harder to be kept happy than a pop of 12. So, in all likelyhood you will have to provide happy and content faces in addition to those that the market and/or lux slider provides. That means, you'll either have to up the slider and/or build happyness improvements such as temples and cathedrals. As the lux slider behaves a little dynamic and at the same rate provides more happyness if more tiles are worked, I am going to count the additional upkeep for temples and cathedrals in addition to the upkeep for hospitals themselves.
Total upkeep: 2 + 1 + 2 = 5
(Hospital, Temple, Cath)

Enter factories, power plants etc. Me, I am simply very, very lazy in building these anyway. In my past few games I only build between 2 and 4 factories per empire and even less power plants. I am not even sure whether or not to even count them at all. But anyway, to round off the 3.5 I am going to count them:
Total ukeep: 0.5

'Scoreline':
Upkeep needed for a town: 8
Upkeep needed for a metro: 13

It is very interesting to note that the metro costs actually costs 3/2 of the upkeep of the town while you (appox.) only need 2/3 of the number of metros to cover the same amount of territory as with town.

What this means is, that even if I am somewhat forgiving towards the metro (reality is a little harsher) the empirewide upkeep costs are the same.

11. As you need twice the number of towns to cover the same territory, you will have to build twice as many MTS & RCs. Make no mistake, just because your cities can only reach pop 12 does not make you immune from pollution, oh no!

Above I said that reality is a little harsher, and here is exactly why. Pollution. You are absolutely wrong in the statement that town are not immune to pollution.

Towns will never get population generated pollution, an inherent 'feature' of a metro. And as such they simply will not need a useless Mass Transit to combat this kind of pollution, and obviously won't get one.

And they will only get improvement generated pollution if you place certain impovements. But see above - I am very, very lazy in building factories and power plants.

So, as long as I don't build a factory my towns are immune to pollution. And make no mistake, that is the rule and not the exception.



(And all this does not even factor in that towns can be had right off the bat, while a metro comes sometime in the Industrial Age. And sorry, the game begins in 4000 BC, spans the Ancient Age, very often the Middle Age, sometimes the Industrial and only rarely lasts into the Modern Age. A game does NOT start with Sanitation (an optional tech, to add injury to insult).)

 

[Macezek]

WOW. And I thought I was knew what I was doing when it came to expansion. I've never looked so deeply into the intracacies of city building. So far, I've been playing CxxxxC and CxxxC, and I have fun with it since I can conquer all my enemies anyways, though I've never beat emperor difficulty yet.

 

[NickyH]

This is inefficient use of my gaming time!

This is definitely a valid argument. If you think it's boring to micro manage an infinite number of science farms, it's more rewarding to plan for metros. I'm not sure, but I believe a game with loose city placement, and eventually big cities with hospitals, can be won in much shorter time.

If you want to give yourself a decent chance of winning on emperor difficulty or above, tighter placement is no doubt better. (And still on emperor, a loose city placement might be good enough to win, if you have a good starting location.)

 

[ecuwins]

This is definitely a valid argument. If you think it's boring to micro manage an infinite number of science farms, it's more rewarding to plan for metros. I'm not sure, but I believe a game with loose city placement, and eventually big cities with hospitals, can be won in much shorter time.

If you want to give yourself a decent chance of winning on emperor difficulty or above, tighter placement is no doubt better. (And still on emperor, a loose city placement might be good enough to win, if you have a good starting location.)

The problem with that statement right there is that, the CxxC strategies that players here are talking about rarely get to the point that hospitals are even available. Maybe with diety or sid -- I have no clue about those.

 

[rysingsun]

6. As you need twice the number of towns to cover the same territory, you will have to build twice as many granaries ... barracks...libraries and universities ... marketplaces, banks and stock markets...factories and power stations... MTS & RCs.

This is true if you are a builder. However games are not won by building. They are won by conquering. Even a culture victory is won most quickly by conquering first and building only when you near the domination limit.

Try playing a game sometime where you build nothing but settlers, workers, and troops, and you will see that all those structures are a bit overrated.

Now I myself build markets and aquaducts to get my cities up to size 12. I wouldn't even need these if I used an ICS strategy. With my cities capped at size 6 I could keep the lux slider down low in the early game and at zero in the late game even with no markets built.

The point of what I'm saying is that the tighter the city placement the lest structures I need and therefore the faster I can build troops and conquer.

 

[Mursi lives]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pyrrhos
6. As you need twice the number of towns to cover the same territory, you will have to build twice as many granaries ... barracks...libraries and universities ... marketplaces, banks and stock markets...factories and power stations... MTS & RCs.

This is true if you are a builder. However games are not won by building. They are won by conquering. Even a culture victory is won most quickly by conquering first and building only when you near the domination limit.

What exactly do you call a builder? If you mean a peacemonger who wins by diplo or space, few structures are to be built: markets and libs in your core, maybe a few banks/universities are more than enough.
To be more precise, once you got the tech lead during MA or begining of IA, AI civs become nothing but puppets in your hands: They dont research anymore, they give you their gold to buy your techs, they fight each other when you want, and they love you
So, even for a "builder", factories, power plants, stock markets, labs ... are nothing! The world is already under control.

 

[ecuwins]

Try playing a game sometime where you build nothing but settlers, workers, and troops, and you will see that all those structures are a bit overrated.

Great advice! It's like "The Four Rules of Wonder Addiction" extended to other aspects of the game. I too tried something similar to this before just as an exercise(like running drills in a sport). I built nothing but settlers and workers out of my two granary cities. Cities with good prod got a rax and built nothing but troops. Cites with low production built arty units (workers and regulars pre-math). Granted this is not how to play the game but it is still a good exercise. It is important to understand all aspects of the game in order to "master" it, if that is even possible. "Master" i.e. -- be able to adapt to any circumstances and still prevail.

 

[vmxa]

"brennan"
"It seems to me that there is very little being given up in making your first ring or two more widely spaced. With your later settlers going a few tiles further afield it strikes me that you'll be grabbing land further afield and so although you may have a few unused tiles at the core you will be gaining tiles further out as well - and denying these to the AI."

Well as I said, if you play emperor, you can do as you wish. If you play even DG, you could find those towns in that second ring come under lots of pressure from either attacks or culture.

I have played many DG or Deity games where by the time I got 5 towns down I have towns near me or attacks or at least demands. If you play on larger maps or in island, that is not so big of an issue.

"With fewer cities in your first few rings you are also reducing the rate at which corruption builds up proportionally to distance from your capital, resulting in more productivity when you do eventually gain access to these tiles."

Forget corruption it is not a factor. I do not understand why people keep bringing it up? You have one corruption free city and a couple low corruption cities. The rest do the best they can.

"I guess the deciding factor is going to be whether or not close placement results in more cities. If it does not, then you are gaining nothing and losing productivity later in the game."

More cities is not a factor, you are going to take as many cities as you need, eventually. Getting the most from your workers is more important and having them drag butt over lots of dead tiles does you no good.

 

[Nergal]

Its a weird argument this. CXXC is an ideal, it rarely works out like that in practice. Grabbing checkpoints and resources or luxuries means cities dont always end up in a perfect CXXC config. So on average most towns end up with at least 12 workable tiles. Odd ones will end with fewer too. And whats the point of CXXXXC in tundra where a town will only grow to size 2.
I like building a nice civilization, harbours, temples the lot, throw them all in. Even my CXXC towns can hit size 20 with a hospital, and produce troops in a couple of turns. Thats the way I like playing. If I play at Emperor and above I have to play as a rules lawyer rather than a role player. Which means stripped down efficient troop producing factories rather than nice places to live. I dont like playing like that so I dont play much at Emperor and above.

 

[rysingsun]

What exactly do you call a builder? If you mean a peacemonger who wins by diplo or space, few structures are to be built

i was refering to the style played by many of having every structure in every city of the core starting early in the game. If you play in this way then having a core twice as dense means building twice as many total buildings. Therefore it follows that if you require yourself to build up everything to the hilt then a dense city placement would lead to a poorer game.

But do not misunderstand me. I do not advocate a "building" style.