City placement - interlocking grid

[johncross21]

Can someone point me to the advice on how to place cities so they don't overlap I've got confused


I put my cities

-111-
11111
11111
11111
-111-
-000-
00000
00000
00000
-000-

but they dont interlock well with a third city

I've tried this

-111-
11111
11111333
1111X33333
-111333333
-000333333
00000333
00000
00000
-000

sorry about the confusing diagram

on another point are their any advantages in wider spacing - do you infact interlock your cities using the 21 production squares or do you prefer a looser spacing

a loooser spacing deprives the enemy of land at relatively low cost - what do you think ?

 

[Tennyson]

I use a very wide spacing for the first cities settled around the capital, then I fill in with cities that share squares with the capital and the outer layer.

In general, it's better to found cities in places that have the most bonuses, and then fill in gaps afterward.

 

[slobberinbear]

There are a lot of ways to try for Optimal City Placement (OCP). This issue has been around since Civ I.

Due to the shape of the Big Fat Cross (BFC), you can't get OCP without either missing tiles or having a little overlap. However, as some tiles are unworkable or undesireable (mountains, desert, ice, tundra, etc.), you can try to fit those terrains in the overlap/wasted tiles.

The game implicitly discourages OCP thinking, though, by the placement of resources, water features, and those pesky neighbors. Also, due to specialists or the lack of food resources (less of an issue in some prior versions of the game, as you could send surplus food to a low-food city), you may never reach size 20+.

If you are dead set on OCP, though, try this: Have your capital be the hub of a wheel. Put six cities around the capital in a hexagonal formation. Every city will be within 4-5 tiles of the capital and will have 19 or 20 usable squares with no wasted tiles.

 

[xanadux]

Yes, fitting the cities in to optimally use all tiles is not the way to go. You can't go far wrong by just founding cities with as much food as possible. Try to have at least 2 food resources for each city. There are other considerations, but before anything else, food is king. A few very strong cities is much better than twice as many average cities. Having gaps between cities is fine if the cities you found are better for it. Also, overlap is fine if that is where the city needs to go. I've founded cities with 6 tile overlap with capital for my second city because that would make my empire strongest in the short run. This should always be considered if the capital has extreme amounts of food that it won't use for a while. you may be able to get an extra high production city for quite a while by borrowing that food from the capital. Once the capital needs the food, let the city shrink ... it has done its job. Worst case it will support itself through wealth or a couple specialists.

I'm also willing to have rather large gaps between cities if that makes the cities better. A great city with a little more maintenance is way better than an average city that saves you 1 or 2 gold.

 

[Tennyson]

Note that if you go into each city screen you can override which city works the overlapped tiles. That's a big reason why you don't have to sweat overlapped cities.

 

[Spiceweasel]

It took me a long time to get over my fear of overlapping cities. For some reason, it's always been acceptable to have a couple useless mountain or desert tiles, but useless tiles due to city overlap was unthinkable.

Now I'm more relaxed about it. It's okay if a city can only grow to a population of 14, as long as there was a good reason to settle there.

I worry far more about my borders and keeping the AI from settling where I don't want him to than optimizing every tile's potential. <shrug>

 

[TravellingHat]

You can use overlapping high food/hammer tiles to your advantage by shifting this resource between the cities, and so give a city a quick burst of population (maybe to establish a new city or recover from a whipping) or temporary boost production (to get a building out in another wise low-production city).

Just beware you don't grow both cities sharing a food resource so that both become dependent on it, because one of them is going to go hungry.