Can you envision a city when you found it?

[Angoth]

I've been playing a while, but, one thing seems to escape me. Planning cities based upon the land layout they are on. Let me put forth a few things before I begin. I never move my first settler, I plop him down where he starts. Anything else I find nearby that would have been better is compensated for by the fact that I get started earlier.

You can only work the following tiles.

_***_
***** C= City
**C** *= workable tile
***** _= place holder (space didn't line up right)
_***_


It's obvious that when the borders expand, you'll be working those tiles when you have enough citizens and happiness (yada, yada, yada).

What should I be looking for to plan cities 500 or 1000 years in advance? Good food, of course. Hammers...got it. I can plan a production city based upon hammers nearby or not (but, that seems so basic to me....). A commerce city? Dunno. Maybe that's what's left if you don't have much else there. GP farm? I REALLY don't know. Seems to me that's based upon what you build, not where you build. I could be wrong.

Basic question: When you found a city, what are you looking for to plan the city's role? Let's ignore neighbors, tundra and desert for now, although they matter, I'm asking about the generic city planning based upon what terrain is available in the workable area or if it even matters.

Thanks in advance

 

[Yzen Danek]

That's a pretty broad question.

As you say, production cities are pretty obvious, because they typcally won't be good at anything else.

Commerce and GPP cities are more or less the same layout with different improvements applied to them, though a good GPP city ideally needs to have 3 or more food resources to be able to carry all those non-working citizens. Commerce cities more ideally have access to at least one huge money making tile (gold, gems, incense, and to a lesser extent dye) and lots of river squares that will produce at least two food with a cottage, and more ideally three (flood plains).

Some city locales can easily do either. In my last game, I founded two cities that were entirely grassland squares (jungle when I started), each with 2 food resources (bananas), and made one into a GPP farm and the other into a commerce city.

 

[DaveMcW]

It's pretty simple.

Grassland = cottage
Plains = farm
Hills = mine (and farm some grassland)
Forest = chop

If you have a lot of cottages, build science improvements.
If you have a lot of hammers, build units.
If you have a sick amount of food bonuses and farmland, bulldoze the cottages and build specialists.

 

[Angoth]

It's pretty simple.

Grassland = cottage
Plains = farm
Hills = mine (and farm some grassland)
Forest = chop

If you have a lot of cottages, build science improvements.
If you have a lot of hammers, build units.
If you have a sick amount of food bonuses and farmland, bulldoze the cottages and build specialists.

Did you even RTFQ?

 

[aviator99_uk]

No.

Probably why I suck playing land based maps, and find it easy to play water based maps.

Aviator

 

[Aldor]

You certainly should consider the terrain when planning the general course for the city. Is there a lot of grassland? Eventually with a river or luxury resources? This will most likely become a commerce oriented city. Many hills around? Go more for a production city route. Flood plains? Usually commerce or GP city. I don't think you can be more specific than that.

BUT: do not plan too far ahead. Seriously, when you found a city, it will take quite some time for it to grow to a size where it can fill a real specialized role. IMO it is better for a city to start off as generalist, and later on specialize (of course, if you see that a city WILL be a commerce place, don't hesitate to build all the cottages as early as possible). So, don't feel pressed to fully improve the land around a city before it can work all those tiles...build as the population grows, you may even find that in some cases its better to take another specialisation route than you originally envisioned.

As to building improvements: I usually do the "obvious" things first. Then I take a closer look at the tiles I ignored first, and often find they can fill one role best. Only annyoing thing is if I don't have the tech yet for the "best" improvement (like watermills or lumbermills), and in that case I'm uncertain what to build on that tile...don't want to build a cottage just to destroy it later for a watermill

 

[DaveMcW]

Did you even RTFQ?

Basic question: When you found a city, what are you looking for to plan the city's role? Let's ignore neighbors, tundra and desert for now, although they matter, I'm asking about the generic city planning based upon what terrain is available in the workable area or if it even matters.

Is that the FQ you are referring to? I thought I answered it pretty well.

Terrain does matter, in fact it's pretty much all that matters.

 

[Angoth]

Is that the FQ you are referring to? I thought I answered it pretty well.

Terrain does matter, in fact it's pretty much all that matters.

I hate that the thread might degenerate into this, but, I'll indulge it for a second because maybe there's something that I missed.

How does terrain matter? Your answer:

Grassland = cottage
Plains = farm
Hills = mine (and farm some grassland)
Forest = chop

If you have a lot of cottages, build science improvements.
If you have a lot of hammers, build units.
If you have a sick amount of food bonuses and farmland, bulldoze the cottages and build specialists.

Here's what I heard:

On plains, build farms. On hills, build mines. Chop forests. If you have alot of cottages (improved) generating alot of commerce for you, concentrate on the science in the city. If you have alot hammers, concentrate on building units. Lots of food? Bulldoze the cottages and build specialists.

Ok.

What I wanted to know was when you founded the city, could you (based on the terrain available) already tell what the specialized role the city would be? What I heard was what to build on which tile. And based upon what you built, I heard only a few tidbits on focusing the city's output. Hammers=production, commerce=science. Isn't that Civilization 101 stuff?

I've played enough to realize the importance of city specialization. For example, it's far easier to focus a GP farm and throw GP's to cities that need them than it is to wait for a spread out unfocused civ to generate them with any regularity. The same applies for a production city (although hammers seem to be a little easier to grasp).

My question was a forward looking one. At around 3800-3700 BC, can you already tell from the exploration you've done what will be focused and where? All you can see is terrain and you have a good idea where settlers will land. But, can I get some input toward recognizing situations of favorable terrain early to focus a city as soon as possible to prevent wasting time and resources building unnecessary buildings. The earlier you can recognize a city's potiential, the earlier you can exploit it to your advantage without wastage.

Sorry about my earlier knee jerk reaction. I just didn't hear an answer to my question in your post.

Peace out

 

[WineShark]

The inherent “can this city grow” question is first, but I also place a lot of stock in the strategic placement. Does this placement allow for quick “domino” shifting of troops during various stages of technology? Is this placement vulnerable to cultural shifts, denying resources to my opponent or myself? Does this placement allow for easy access to an opponent’s resources in the event of an armed conflict.?

I admit that I sometimes rush to get a city in the critical strategic spot, only to find out later that I’ve not planned for the later millennia and will have an overall runty town that is really just a glorified military outpost.

How about our higher-difficulty players? What’s the ratio of “kickass specialized cities” to “I have this city to influence the region, despite its lackluster performance”?

Note: I’m still pretty new to Civ4, but have been playing since Civ2. I am still leery of Civ4 vs. Civ3 OCN issues, and haven’t really gotten to a comfortable place with the combination of developed cities vs. resource-draining cities in far flung locations.

 

[DaveMcW]

For all my cities, I try to get:

• 1 food bonus (or 2 floodplains)
• 2 hills or hammer bonuses
• 3 grassland cottages (to pay maintenence)

After that, I calculate how many tiles I can work with positive food before Biology. Non-food resources count as 2 tiles. The location with the most tiles wins.

 

[Mathemagician13]

I hate that the thread might degenerate into this, but, I'll indulge it for a second because maybe there's something that I missed.

How does terrain matter? Your answer:


Here's what I heard:

On plains, build farms. On hills, build mines. Chop forests. If you have alot of cottages (improved) generating alot of commerce for you, concentrate on the science in the city. If you have alot hammers, concentrate on building units. Lots of food? Bulldoze the cottages and build specialists.

Ok.
I've played enough to realize the importance of city specialization. For example, it's far easier to focus a GP farm and throw GP's to cities that need them than it is to wait for a spread out unfocused civ to generate them with any regularity. The same applies for a production city (although hammers seem to be a little easier to grasp).

My question was a forward looking one. At around 3800-3700 BC, can you already tell from the exploration you've done what will be focused and where? All you can see is terrain and you have a good idea where settlers will land. But, can I get some input toward recognizing situations of favorable terrain early to focus a city as soon as possible to prevent wasting time and resources building unnecessary buildings. The earlier you can recognize a city's potiential, the earlier you can exploit it to your advantage without wastage.

Peace out

The answer here is, "yes." Once you know the terrain, you could actually write down almost precisely what the city will become. There are only 2 things that will change your city:
1) New resources appearing from technology. You may have to destroy a town (say) because it was founded on oil, and you don't have access to other oil.
2) Enemy culture. If another civ places a city close to your city, and begins to win the culture war, you lose tiles you may have needed for your city to meet your vision.

Of course, there are other changes, like, if you are at war a lot, and built a commerce city on your border (and so, it gets pillaged a lot), you may have to convert it to workshops (if it is pillaged late game), just to make it worth anything.

So now, how did Dave answer your question? Well, here's the deal:
If you see a lot of grasslands/floodplains in your new spot for a city, then it will became a strong commerce city if you build a cottage on each grassland/floodplain. Since they provide 2/3 food respectively, your city will continue to grow (I ask you to recall that each population point consumes 2 food).
On the other hand, if you transformed all those grasslands/floodplains into farms instead, suddenly you have a great person city capable of feeding its unworking citizens.
But you know all this, and so, you should know the answer to your question.
The city is determined by its terrain. So as soon as you look at the terrain, knowing the other cities of your empire, you could say almost every improvement on every tile, and every building to be built, based on how the terrain is.

 

[Yzen Danek]

I guess I can answer your question more precisely by saying:

When I'm deciding between founding the city on two different city squares next to each other, I do calculate exactly in my head what the differences in output will be for each of the two options, both in the short term and the long, e.g. 'moving from this square to this one, I would net lose two grasslands but net pick up two hills.' Then, I decide whether or not this city would be a worthy production city and whether or not I need production right now, or whether I'd rather have another Science city, and if the latter, I'd rather have the grasslands.

Does that answer you better?

 

[Artanis]

Basic question: When you found a city, what are you looking for to plan the city's role? Let's ignore neighbors, tundra and desert for now, although they matter, I'm asking about the generic city planning based upon what terrain is available in the workable area or if it even matters.

Thanks in advance

Yeah, I plan out what the more heavily-specialized cities will be. Sites with lots of self-sustaining flatlands and some big commerce tiles (i.e. Gold) will end up as Commerce cities. If I see a patch of a half-dozen or more hills with a river and/or food resource nearby to feed the citizens working them, then it'll usually be a Hammer city. Multiple food resources and not a lot of non-self-sustaining tiles means a GP farm.

The cities that end up more hybridized (usually captured from the AI ) can surprise me though. I've had designated "Commerce Cities" that I haven't gotten around to terraforming yet show up near the top of the Hammer-output list (at which point I build a few Mines over there), and Production cities that have all of their food concentrated into very few tiles can sometimes pop out a GP.


This planning-ahead tends to make my empire sprawl a little more than usual though, since I'm willing to leave a tile or two - or even several tiles - outside of any city's "fat cross" if it means the cities I do found are in the best possible spots

 

[PieceOfMind]

Basic question: When you found a city, what are you looking for to plan the city's role? Let's ignore neighbors, tundra and desert for now, although they matter, I'm asking about the generic city planning based upon what terrain is available in the workable area or if it even matters.

Firstly, almost without exception I place cities where they will have access to at least one decent food resource. Cows on plains wouldn't count. If the map is food-resource-poor, locate cities near rivers or lakes or flood plains.

Commerce cities:
I don't find commerce resources overly important for commerce cities (although they are handy). Towns seem to be better than properly worked commerce resources anyway. Main thing is to have enough flat land or coast squares (preferably no sea). I'd try to get at least two or so hills so that the city can have enough hammers to build what it needs. Just plains as your source of hammers isn't enough, as you'd need to farm those plains and so waste potential cottage squares.

Production cities:
Get as many hills as possible while still being able to work them. ie. have enough farmable tiles so that each hill can be mined and worked. One of the metals is fantastic to have in the radius.
Don't be afraid to put a production city on a river. Farming some grassland beside rivers or lakes lets your production city get up and running very early.

GP farms:
You need at least 2 or 3 food resources (or similar amount from flood plains). Still make sure the city has some hills for hammers. At least 2 hills if possible. Try not to have any/many coast squares inside radius - these sqares are better for commerce cities and no surplus food can be collected from them. The exception of course is seafood resources which can also be handy for GP farms.

Now to answer the original question, look for sites that would be ideal for one of these types of cities.

Most importantly, don't found cities and then let the terrain inside you radius dictate what your city will become. Quite the opposite. Decide what type of city your empire is in need of most, and then find a suitable site for that city.

I once built on top of a gold resource (even to lose the potential commerce from mining it) because I saw it would be the best production city for my empire and it was for the rest of my game.