City Placement Challenge - What would YOU do?

[Eowyn of Rohan]

Assume you just started a Monarch game as the Japanese on a Standard Medium-Continent map with everything else standard. The island or semi-island you start on is magically revealed to you. Where would you place your cities and why?

Note: you are saving your Forbidden Palace for the Russian Conquest [the Russians are right across the inlet on the lefthand side], so you can only put your Palace on this island.

You ARE allowed to move your capital before founding it if you want, however a limit of just one space away! You don't want the AI to get ahead of you.

The red dot shows the current location of your 1st settler. You can copy the image and draw your own city plan, and then write an explanation for why you chose it.

 

[Yzman]

I would keep it where it is. The wheat and river will help and all those bonus grassland too. The forest can be removed eventually especially if you are industious.

 

[Yzman]

Whoops I'm too lazt right now to put where I put all the rest.

 

[col]

ICS and cover the whole island with cities 2 squares apart!!

 

[XOVER]

I would leave the capitol city where it is for the following reasons: 1) No wasted turn. 2) On a river, so no aquaduct required, defensive bonus from the south (for whatever it's worth), etc. 3) 1 bonus resource before culture pop and with 2 more after the pop. 4) plenty of bonus grass grids.

If I had to move the capitol, I would move it diagonally due left for the following reasons: 1) The capitol, after culture expansion, would abut the ocean, yet have no 1-food ocean grid within its limits (thus "freeing" land to the east). 2) Points 2, 3, and 4 above still apply (though you'd initially get 2 bonus resources in this scenario).

I agree with Furry Spatula below about building a choke city. I would probably, however, build it on the Russian side of the landmass because of too much overlap on the other 2 squares.

I disagree with you, however, about ever building my Forbidden Palace so close to my capitol city. That would be a waste. NOTE: After rereading your parameters about map size, I might or might not build my FP so close to my capitol city. I usually play large or huge maps.

Question: What do "OCP" and "ICS" mean?

 

[Furry Spatula]

I'd keep the settler where he is, then I'd do OCP with a bit of overlap. Since you can see that the "island" is indeed not an island and connects up to the other land-mass make sure that you put one city on the thin strip of land to block off the choke point first so you have some more time to expand over the island. Then build your army up and move through your choke hold city to expand into Russian Territory.

 

[Perfection]

Originally posted by col
ICS and cover the whole island with cities 2 squares apart!!

I agree keep your core spread out but totaly ICS evrything else

 

[Bamspeedy]

First, here is how I would ICS this map:

And here is how I would place them for a more 'builder' type game:

On both maps, you'll probably notice I changed my mind and had to try and cover over a red dot with a green one. On the ICS map in the upper left I moved the city further out, so I could grab the fish without having to expand my borders. And down by the chokepoint I moved a city over so I could squeeze another city by the wines without having to build directly on one of them (more food once you get out of despot).

On the 'builder' map, I moved a town off of one hill and put it on the gold hill instead (more money, sooner in the game). On the builder map, I have some overlapping, and I see there is at least 1 plain tile being unused. In some places I had more overlapping than I usually like, only because I didn't want to see 3-4 grassland squares being unused.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Actually, now that I think of it, on the builder map, where I have a city on the desert, you should move that north 1 tile, so the other city would not be needed. I just have the habit of ALWAYS building on a bad tile like desert.

 

[Zur]

What is the advantage of the "builder" type placement if cities far away from the capital produce only 1 shield & 1 commerce per turn?
In my latest games, I had ICSed the "corrupt" land.

 

[Eowyn of Rohan]

Good suggestions from everybody.

I almost always use the plan shown in the bottom corner of the map. That works very well corruption-wise because it lets you slip in a second ring of cities at 7 spaces away from the capital, which are only 30% corrupted or so in Republic.

Yes, the chokepoint was the third city I built - also because then those Russian scouts couldn't see my land! Getting me more money for my WorldMap. And also it forms a shortcut canal between the Inlet and the Eastern Sea.

Here's my own city plan. To the west you'll see a blue dot: that's the theoretical location of a city, but I had to move it because it was on water...

 

[Eowyn of Rohan]

By the way, Bamspeedy, I think the new patches make each and every city produce 2 food 1 shield 1 gold on the citysquare, if I'm not mistaken. So settling on desert IS a good idea - and on gold a bad idea.

 

[Bamspeedy]

With a builder type style of play, you can have cities farther away from the capital that are more productive. Corruption isn't only affected by distance, but also by the # of cities. With fewer cities you don't experience massive corruption until you get alot farther away from the capital. Note: sometimes you don't notice the improved corruption until you put courthouses in the city, the city grows in size and you have a WLTK day. But even with a builder placement if you get far enough away from the capital, yes you will still get 95% corrupt cities, so ICS that area would be better. A builder type placement would probably not see much corruption at all for the cities that are placed on what I see of the map so far. (once they get out of despot, build courthouses,etc).

It's called a 'builder' placement, because building improvements in these cities will be more powerful, and more efficient than putting them in ICS cities.

Some people don't like building all those small cities and think it isn't in the spirit of the game. I don't necessarily agree with them, as to me it doesn't matter how someone plays. I have adapted to be able to play well either way. Sometimes I get bored building New Washington 5, New York 6, etc.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Eowyn - Yes, that is why I originally built on the desert. But by building on the desert, I left 3-4 grassland squares unused, and that is why I had to build that other city. If I moved that desert city north by 1 tile it would grab those grassland squares and that other city would not be needed.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Oops, didnt' see the second part of your post. The city square is only limited on food, not shields or gold. It sets 2 food, 1 shield, 1 gold as the MINIMUM, but 2 food is the maximum. If you build a city on iron that is on a hill you get extra shields from it, and on gold, you get extra gold. Without building on the gold, you have to wait until your city has the excess food to be able to have someone working on it.

 

[Eowyn of Rohan]

I have the reverse mentality When an area is too corrupt [too far from FP or Palace to be productive] I try and place as FEW cities as possible there and still control the territory. Because as you pointed out the number of cities really affects corruption, and on a Standard map I ALREADY have one city too many for optimal corruption [17 shown on the map]. Not to mention the future FP. Most of my army is coming from those cities anyway, so the "extras" are merely there to qualify for domination/conquest victory.

 

[da_greatest]

When you build a city on gold you get the commerce bonus.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Yep, you get the commerce bonus, the same reason for wanting to build on a river (besides getting the free aqueduct).

So I think your city placement would be a little different now that you know that. For one, you have the two cities in the west, neither of which are on the river. And you have that one city that is north of the cattle, is only 1 tile off of the coast and has potentially 5 water tiles that would only produce 1 food for it. Better to place it on the coast, so it can build a harbor. Same for that city by the wine that has potentially 2 coast squares that won't get you extra food because of no harbor being possible to add to the city.

Don't get me wrong, as I like having a pattern like you to ensure there are no wasted tiles, but I've come to learn that you can not have any set pattern because of problems like that.

 

[Eowyn of Rohan]

Well, the reason patterns are useful is because for the first four cities or so you have barely any idea of the lie of the land, so to speak. We never have the benefit of seeing the map revealed in the real game, unfortunately

I almost never change my city position to get on a river, actually. IMHO the unwasted squares all game more than compensate for the 15-turn aqueduct - especially since that is the perfect time to get rid of your unwanted regular warriors by disbanding for shields.

The coastal problem is trickier. If I were to play the game over again, I would probably move the city north of the desert SE one space to touch water. I'm not so sure I would move the grape city, because to move it West, the best move, is to place it 5 spaces away and just out of the corruption range to produce warrior5-settler15- warrior5-settler15 like the two southern cow cities. Instead it would lose one vital shield to corruption. That's why I like placing cities exactly 4 away...

 

[Bamspeedy]

Well, the reason patterns are useful is because for the first four cities or so you have barely any idea of the lie of the land, so to speak. We never have the benefit of seeing the map revealed in the real game, unfortunately

Yeah, but by having alot of cheap warriors that you built in between settler production out exploring helps reveal much of the map. And you should be able to get a very good idea of where to put the first city, and that city produces more warriors to go exploring and you should know where the other cities are going much sooner than by your 4th or 5th city. You can use your luxury slider to keep citizens happy, so you won't need the warriors held back on military police duty.

I almost never change my city position to get on a river, actually. IMHO the unwasted squares all game more than compensate for the 15-turn aqueduct - especially since that is the perfect time to get rid of your unwanted regular warriors by disbanding for shields.

Before hospitals you have alot of unused tiles anyways. Aqueducts cost upkeep, and building on a river gives you extra gold right from the start and throughout the rest of the game. I can see your point, if building on a river leaves several tiles unused, but not if it is only leaving 1 or 2 tiles unused. During the 15 turns it takes to build an aqueduct, you could have built something more important to your cause. I rarely disband warriors, they are cheap military police for my cities that are in no threat of attack.

The coastal problem is trickier. If I were to play the game over again, I would probably move the city north of the desert SE one space to touch water. I'm not so sure I would move the grape city, because to move it West, the best move, is to place it 5 spaces away and just out of the corruption range to produce warrior5-settler15- warrior5-settler15 like the two southern cow cities. Instead it would lose one vital shield to corruption. That's why I like placing cities exactly 4 away...

Wow, you actually tested it, that going from 4 tiles to 5 tiles away will ALWAYS cause you to lose a shield from production? If you are spacing your cities farther apart, you are planning for the long-term (your cities will be more productive as they get bigger than placing them ICS), so in the long run having the city on a coast would be better. As you build more cities, having them all 4 tiles away would cause you to build more cities, and consequently experiencing more corruption due to the # of cities. And having two coastal tiles only producing half the food they should pretty much should count as 1 wasted square anyways. Because you would have to irrigate other tiles to make up for the lack of food, when those other tiles could have been mined instead of irrigated.