City Placement

[Goonie]

In my games, I try to make sure that there aren't any overlapping tiles, but I see all these screen shots of people who have cities SO close toghther. Why do you do that? What is the advantage? I am currently playing an MP game with DaveMcW and CivGeneral and I am about 80 points ahead of both at about 400AD. My strat cant be all that bad can it? Pro's and con's of both would be nice.

Thanks.

PS. Dave you going down!

 

[Arutha]

Two things: corruption and timeframe.

Corruption means that wasting low-corruption tiles near your palace or FP is something you definitely do NOT want. Better have some overlap than wasted tiles.
Timeframe: your cities are stuck at size 12 until hospitals. Especially at higher difficulties, a lot has happened before that. A lot of games are actually decided by that time. Overlap means getting more tiles into play early in the game. Sure, it will hurt you in the late game. But who cares if it allowed you to get into a winnable position by then?

Overlapping cities can actually be so strong that it's an exploit: the infamous "ICS" gives you such an early production advantage that it's not funny.

 

[curtisch]

There are few things I can think of. First, it seems like a lot of people like to place cities really close to each other. The closest I place cities is 2 squares in one direction and 1 square in the other. The ideal is a two square diagonal separation.

Here are the advantages that I can think of:
1. On harder levels, the computer is looking for any little piece of land to place a city. Since you can't build Temples right away in all of your cities, placing cities closer together helps maintain a more congruous Zone of Influence

2. Most defensive units have one movement point so with roads and cities this close, you can move units between cities in one turn in case of attack or disorder.

 

[amirsan]

I hate placing my cities too close together. It prevents you from getting max. food and shield in the long run. I also prevents from higher pop. levels. I don't think building cities that close is a very good idea, though many people do it.

 

[Goonie]

amirsan, clear your PM box...

 

[amirsan]

Already did... i think

 

[Goonie]

Its still full.

 

[Strider]

Building close together suits many people's playing styles, but it may not work to your playing style... I like to have a large amount of terrority.... Building close together does not help that at all... So my cities tend to be alittle bit more spaced.

 

[the toBin jOnes]

Does pollution come into play later (industrial) if your cities are really crowded, or is it mostly related to terrain (deforestation)...

mahalo

 

[elpadrino87]

Pollution is caused by improvements within your cities that produce pollution, as well as nukes, which also contribute to global warming.

Something that I've realized about building close together, that hasn't been mentioned yet, is that in the higher levels of the game, it's necessary to build cities closer to one another because it takes less time for settlers to get to where they will build. This is a big advantage for the beginning strategy, since one of my main goals is expansion, expansion, expansion! With more cities in a shorter time frame, you'll be able to support more units that are produced by many cities that are somewhat close to your capital, and since it's not till the industrial ages that you can build hospitals, you might as well build closer together. If you feel that in the future this will hurt you too much, try disbanding some of your less productive cities, or just have them produce workers and settlers until those cities have only a few civilians to work the city radius, allowing neighboring cities to use those squares to their benefit. Don't forget to sell all the improvements of cities that you will be disbanding!

 

[ltcoljt]

If you want to have cities at the maximum tiles after sanitation and still have a fairly dense build early you can do two things. One, space your towns at four between to the NE, NW, SE, SW of your capital and continue that as you expand, but first, build towns in the areas that this leaves uncovered all within a few squares of your capital and located due N, S, E, W.

This closely packed towns are best used for troops, settlers, and workers and will not need much in the way of improvements.

The other way is to build temporary camps wherever you please and build them out in the later game. Use them in the same manner as the towns mentioned above.

Adjust all for terrain and evil neighbors of course.

 

[BillChin]

Pros of dense city placement:
1) Faster production as settlers become productive faster because they walk fewer tiles.
2) Faster production and more gold because early cities can use improved tiles near the capital.
3) More gold and happiness because it is faster to hook up closely spaced cities to luxuries.
4) Easier defense if cities are one turn apart (three tiles with a road). This is important against earlier rushes in MP or barb attacks in SP.
5) Lower corruption in the key early game.

Cons to a dense build:
1) Less territory claimed. Sometimes it is better to grab as many tiles as possible early.
2) More corruption later in the game if there are a lot of small cities near the capital. This can be solved by disbanding some of the cities later.
3) It is not as pretty. This is the one that gets most players. It just does not look as nice to have overlapping tiles.
+ Bill
P. S. I believe you are fortunate to be leading in MP at 400 AD with far spaced cities. All things (terrain and bonus tiles) being equal a dense build will be far more productive than far spaced cities.

 

[Goonie]

I posted an update of the game. Check it out!