I was wondering how far from each other do you build your cities? I'd have guessed it was 6-7 tiles away, to minimize overlap in the 3 tile radius, but the AI civs and some screenshots I've seen here have people building 4 tiles apart. Then again, some AI city placement seems nonsensical - building city #2 where there are no resources, for example.
City Spacing
- Thread starter Ex Mudder
- Start date
I love how civ 5 handles borders, you don't really have to obsess too much with placement, try to put cities so the max resources are within 3 tiles. 4 is a little close for my taste, but can be viable I guess.
You don't even have to be very close, in my last game I went quite a ways away with my 2nd and 3rd cities, and backfilled latter with specialized trading post cities. The only down side is road cost and defense, though a port could be an early alternative.
You don't even have to be very close, in my last game I went quite a ways away with my 2nd and 3rd cities, and backfilled latter with specialized trading post cities. The only down side is road cost and defense, though a port could be an early alternative.
Tomice
Passionate Smart-Ass
I totally agree with Cembandit. Now you don't have to care so much if it's 3 or 4 tiles away. Better think about ressources, rivers (!), coast, defense,...
WuphonsReach
Prince
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- Nov 6, 2005
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- 426
How close depends on:
- How big do you think the city will get?
- Is there enough food to work more then 12 tiles? more then 18? more then 24?
- Enough gold? Enough production?
- Are you trying to capture resources?
- Will moving it one tile closer/further change the math drastically?
- Is the enemy breathing on your doorstep?
Minimum distance is every 3rd hex. So [City]-[open]-[open]-[City]
A more relaxed spacing is every 4th or 5th hex with 3-4 tiles between.
Optimal spacing is every 7th hex with a full 6 tiles between:
[city]-[open]-[open]-[open]-[open]-[open]-[open]-[city]
I tend to go for 5 tiles between cities on average, even though they can work a radius of 3 tiles. So there's some planned overlap, but it lets me bring a city 1 tile closer or push it away by 1 tile to match the map. In a squeeze I'll do something where I only have 3 open tiles between the two cities, but it's not my favorite.
A big city for me in Medieval times is a measly 8-9 population (Large/Fractal/Prince). That means it's basically working its inner ring and a few tiles outside of that. And it takes a long time to reach out and pickup a 3rd ring tile unless you are rolling in gold (and can buy the hexagons). Anything in the 2nd ring is an easy single-tile purchase, but 3rd ring tiles require purchasing a tile in the 2nd ring first. And the price step is generally (X) for 2nd ring tiles and (2X or 3X) for 3rd ring tiles. Especially if they are juicy tiles.
So, where possible:
- Place your cities to get as many resources as possible within the inner 2 rings
- Keep all cities with no more then 6 blank tiles between them, or have a plan to backfill later
(There's no maintenance costs for distance - which is a big oversight - so other then the issues of mutual defense, you could put cities on the far ends of a big patch of land.)
- How big do you think the city will get?
- Is there enough food to work more then 12 tiles? more then 18? more then 24?
- Enough gold? Enough production?
- Are you trying to capture resources?
- Will moving it one tile closer/further change the math drastically?
- Is the enemy breathing on your doorstep?
Minimum distance is every 3rd hex. So [City]-[open]-[open]-[City]
A more relaxed spacing is every 4th or 5th hex with 3-4 tiles between.
Optimal spacing is every 7th hex with a full 6 tiles between:
[city]-[open]-[open]-[open]-[open]-[open]-[open]-[city]
I tend to go for 5 tiles between cities on average, even though they can work a radius of 3 tiles. So there's some planned overlap, but it lets me bring a city 1 tile closer or push it away by 1 tile to match the map. In a squeeze I'll do something where I only have 3 open tiles between the two cities, but it's not my favorite.
A big city for me in Medieval times is a measly 8-9 population (Large/Fractal/Prince). That means it's basically working its inner ring and a few tiles outside of that. And it takes a long time to reach out and pickup a 3rd ring tile unless you are rolling in gold (and can buy the hexagons). Anything in the 2nd ring is an easy single-tile purchase, but 3rd ring tiles require purchasing a tile in the 2nd ring first. And the price step is generally (X) for 2nd ring tiles and (2X or 3X) for 3rd ring tiles. Especially if they are juicy tiles.
So, where possible:
- Place your cities to get as many resources as possible within the inner 2 rings
- Keep all cities with no more then 6 blank tiles between them, or have a plan to backfill later
(There's no maintenance costs for distance - which is a big oversight - so other then the issues of mutual defense, you could put cities on the far ends of a big patch of land.)
UKScud
Warlord
I've just finished playing Game 2, as India...got the diplomatic win. I never even built a road to my capital during the whole game, just a bare minimum between the interior and a sea port until pretty much late renaissance times (by which time I had broken my own intention to build the neat 5-6 city empire, and taken down the Americans to my south who were being mean to my CS buddies) and I never even thought about rails.
Hmm...they give an industrial bonus don't they? How big? It might have been worth connecting some of my cities up after all...but I digress.
I just wanted to comment on the fact that you went quite a way with your second and third cities. I think its a good idea, without barb.animals wandering about settlers are much safer to make that journey, and it pays dividends later when you have the extra batch of resources that you went just that little bit further to get.
Having said that, I'm curious to find out if there are benefits to having a more compact empire, same number of cities but spaced say 4 apart, rather than 6. Defence, for one thing...you can get your troops to where they are needed much more quickly. Beyond that, I think I'll try it out to see if there is any benefit.
Tomice
Passionate Smart-Ass
Seeing how slow border growth is now, I think leaving the mathematical optimum of tiles between 2 cities is foolish in practical gameplay.
My strategy:
Try to use all really good tiles in your empire no later than midgame. Check out the best regions in your surrounding and make use of them ASAP (ressources, rivers,...). The less spectacular tiles inbetween can be used later.
Just avoid leaving 7 tiles between your cities, as your borders will never close, and you probably wont want to sqeeze another city between them.
Most of the time I believe 4 or 5 tiles distance will be reasonable.
WuphonsReach
Prince
- Joined
- Nov 6, 2005
- Messages
- 426
Agreed, in practical terms, I'm much more comfortable with something in the 3-5 range. Which means shorter road networks, faster movement between cities, and the sooner you can get territory walled off.
I just wish that there was a distance penalty to keep the AI (or players) from putting cities 30-50 tiles apart with nothing between them.
Err, there is no distance maintenance, borders are meaningless. Empire does not have to be like an empire in real world on the map. Only three things matter, location, happiness resources you dont yet have, amount of tradeposts/hammers you can build there. (depends on what you spec the city for)
Just go for the best locations you can possibly get and defend, it dosnt matter if its 30 tiles away if you can pull of the defense when needed.
Just go for the best locations you can possibly get and defend, it dosnt matter if its 30 tiles away if you can pull of the defense when needed.
Conspirator
Prince
- Joined
- Apr 29, 2009
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- 388
Yeah I went straight out and took the best spots. 6 Iron, and multiple new happiness resources, find them and send settles to them. It doesn't matter if they're miles away from your capital. Then slowly fill in the gaps, razing cities as they get in the way.
This is true. But it may be half true. If you intend to build roads between your cities then the farther the city placement the more tiles you have to road to connect. Distance maintenance.
And this is something that affects compact versus wide city founding. Also the more compact and low-populated your cities are the more marketplaces (each costs gpt) you will need to build. If you build a city, it might be better to farm everything around it and wait untill population gets about 15 and then trade post all the farmed tiles (But keep some for extra food to make merchant specialists). Bad thing is that even though it might be better it will take forever... I hope they patch the gold issues.
Conspirator
Prince
- Joined
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Yeah I think that is probably the best way to start the game Lissenber. Loads of farms and mines, slowly converting into Trading Posts as population grows.
Tomice
Passionate Smart-Ass
Sorry, I didn't mean you by foolish. Read "not optimal" instead, please!
I'm happy about no distance cost:
- Many empires in history were scattered (*)
- Now we can capture distant cities and make a profit, while we were stuck with our neighbours in civ4.
- We can have island bases like pearl harbor without paying a fortune for it.
(*)
Spoiler :
Spoiler :
Tomice
Passionate Smart-Ass
Sorry, I didn't mean you by foolish. Read "not optimal" instead, please!
I'm happy about no distance cost:
- Many empires in history were scattered (*)
- Now we can capture distant cities and make a profit, while we were stuck with our neighbours in civ4.
- We can have island bases like pearl harbor without paying a fortune for it.
The AI should avoid cities it can never connect to it's capital, though.
(*)
Austria
Spoiler :
Greek and Phoenician colonies
(warning: huge image)
Spoiler :
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