City spacing - How do you all do it?

[CivilizedPlayer]

So right when I got Civ V (the day it came out!) I pretty much concluded that close cities = better cities. This was based on 3 things:

1) Closer cities are easier to defend, especially early on when I'm working with a small army
2) Road/railroad maintenance is much less when your cities are closer
3) My map looks so much prettier when my cities borders are connected!

But now I'm starting to question this mind set, since it seems people are favoring spread out starts. After all, early wars are much easier to defend against now, and trade routes keep you rolling in money that more than makes up for those road costs. And besides, harbors are always an option that eliminate a lot of road cost anyways. So what is you guys' technique? Do you have a minimum/maximum distance you settle from your other cities? And what will make you decide to move farther away (if anything)?

 

[FinsT]

I prefer 8...10 tiles distance between my cities. Still connects 'em (eventually) borders, and allows jets to get from one to another directly (with no carrier help) should i need. Max territory for max resources, too.

If i have space for it, that is. On huge maps, i do.

 

[ravenmagus]

Depends on how large you can grow the cities. If you can get them big, you want them spread out enough so that they can actually work their tiles. I once accidentally starved my capital because I went ICS style with 30-pop cities, and they all ate up my capital's tiles...

7 tiles is the closest you get without overlapping tiles. It's also a good distance because it allows you to move from one city to the other via railroad and still act at the other end (vaguely important when building space ship parts in a non-cap city).

 

[Plasmawolf55]

I don't really have a min/max distance, I just strategically place cities until I'm placing them with science in mind.

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[milk steak]

Yea, I'm the same way. I mean, I try to place them 7 apart but there's sometimes a strategic reason/luxury/wonder/canal city you need to get. Plus overlapping junk tiles your expos won't work anyway don't matter much.

 

[Erelich]

I like to keep my cities close together for a few reasons.

1. Easier to defend
2. Costs less gold and is quicker to connect them by road
3. It means that the AI can't randomly plop a city inbetween yours. This is the most important one. I hate it when the AI does this because it usually cuts off your roads which means you either have to find a way to go around their city to connect yours again or just remove all the roads that lead to it because it's a waste of gold.

 

[FinsT]

About p.3, Erelich: first, since it's never AI's capital, you can always DoW the owner (indirectly, if you don't want 'em have much warmongering on you - via defensive pact with another AI and then bribing the 1st to attack the 2nd, thus you DoW automatically). Capturing and burning one small - just created, - city does not create any much warmongering, in my experience; quite soon they'll forget it happened, at all. Second, if you play Shoshone (which is my favorite civilization), then your cities are substantially larger right at when you make 'em, thus reducing the problem. But, be careful about trying Shoshone and this particular feature of theirs, may be. Because, to be honest, i am now so used to those larger-than-usual-when-settled cities i hardly can force myself to play without them... So be warned, you may fall victim to this habit, just like i did!

 

[CivilizedPlayer]

Typically I find myself with only 4-5 spaces between each of my cities, but you're all raising some pretty good points about how that limits cities' ability to work tiles. Might have to try some wider spacing next game! When you settle 7+ tiles apart, do you still connect with roads/railrads?

 

[adwcta]

Nothing shares tiles with capital or 2nd city, so 7. My later cities I try to do 6, but 5 works too. The cities I make and don't expect to grow can be 3, but I still try for 4.

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[direblade99]

I keep them 4 or 5 tiles apart most of the time for defence reasons

 

[KmDubya]

My city sites are entirely based on access to resources and food. The distance is a secondary consideration. I consider what I can get in the third ring to get the most fish, riverside, strategics or luxury tiles as possible with coastal being a bonus. With harbors the city connection has no distance component. Now this does not mean settling on the other side of a neighbor unless you are planning on conquering the neighbor.

Defense should come from your army not from city attack. If you need additional defense make a citadel.

 

[ravenmagus]

Defense should come from your army not from city attack. If you need additional defense make a citadel.

The best defense is not from city attack or from your army, it is from terrain - build on a hill across a river, and in a choke point too if possible.

 

[azzaman333]

My spacing is dictated entirely by the surrounding land. If the better land is further out, I'll settle further out. If the better land is closer, I'll settle closer.

 

[Erneiz Hyde]

Though I mostly play tall and I understand the importance of workable tiles, I still can't make myself space my cities further than 6. Especially so when I'm in the middle of a Pangaea map. I'm still not confident in my unit micro skills to hold off AI attacks with my units split in two fronts.

 

[xxblackdog]

It just depends on where the luxury/strategic resources are. I try to build only where there would be a benefit to me in resources; sometimes far, sometimes close. Keep in mind, your cities borders grow quite a bit by the end of the game, so if you like seeing the mini-map swashed with your colour, it doesn't need to be so close together!

 

[direblade99]

My city sites are entirely based on access to resources and food. The distance is a secondary consideration. I consider what I can get in the third ring to get the most fish, riverside, strategics or luxury tiles as possible with coastal being a bonus. With harbors the city connection has no distance component. Now this does not mean settling on the other side of a neighbor unless you are planning on conquering the neighbor.

Defense should come from your army not from city attack. If you need additional defense make a citadel.

Easier to get your army around your territory with smaller gaps between cities and roads being more economical when it comes to troop movement

 

[darden]

6-7 tiles is generally my preferred, but like others said, it all depends on the nature of the land. I'll go further if it means being in a more defensible position, being next to a mountain, etc.

unless I'm playing pangea, all cities will also need to be on the coast so I can tend trade ships back to the capital, so that's a determining factor as well.

I'll only settle cities way far away if there's a strategic resource or world wonder that I realllly want/need (coal is the biggest offender for that. sometimes aluminum, but by that late in the game I'd rather just spend money bribing city states if it's an option)

 

[Cromagnus]

For Liberty Domination, the ideal configuration is to park your cities the minimum distance apart, assuming you can still park on hills and preferably mining lux hills. For Tradition Science, minimize overlap unless the overlap is on useless tiles. Also, minimize useless tiles. ;-)

A square/diamond pattern, if achievable, is easier to defend. A long thin line of cities is sometimes better for getting foreign trade routes, but forward-settling on an AI incurs a greater risk of angering them. It depends on the AI. Forward settle on Gandhi and he'll send you a trade route. Forward settle on Bismarck and he'll send you an army. ;-)


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[joncnunn]

For Tall Tradition; city spacing is whatever it worked out to be in that game such that your 4 self founded cities (including your capital) were in the best locations you knew about.

 

[TLHeart]

I space my cities to get the MOST resources within the 3 rings of production. Then defense of building on a hill, then overlap and distance from other cities. So 6 or 7 tiles apart, and at times 10, to grab those other resources I don't have. And if I see an AI sending a settler into that gap, declare war, take the settler, and I have a free worker.