I've seen people mention about placing cities in the CxxC and CxxxC style. I believe this means you have 2 or 3 tiles between your city centers. Why so close? I always wanted to try and get CxxxxC so that your 21 tiles in each city don't overlap.
CxxC?
- Thread starter Dulahey
- Start date
Welcome to Civfanatics center Dulahey 
. It's because you can't work those 8 extra tiles for half the game, so they're wasted. CXXXC spacing means each city gets about 13 tiles, perfect, because of minimal wastage and the ability to get a metro for extra free units in some govs and bonuses in the center city square. Also, 13 tiles is all you need, if the city is managed well, to get a unit every turn with factories in place, so the extra 8 are more waste as well.
. It's because you can't work those 8 extra tiles for half the game, so they're wasted. CXXXC spacing means each city gets about 13 tiles, perfect, because of minimal wastage and the ability to get a metro for extra free units in some govs and bonuses in the center city square. Also, 13 tiles is all you need, if the city is managed well, to get a unit every turn with factories in place, so the extra 8 are more waste as well.Minesweeper
Chieftain
It is very helpful in online games, and until you get Railroads, it will allow you to move units from one city to the next one out in 1 turn, which can help you attacks or defense immensely.
Mathias
Mathias
n/m, was just talking to someone and realized why I always liked my cities spread out and very large. I usually play with minimal warfare up until the very end and get a diplo/culture victory. I like using the french and just becoming a huge productive powerhouse.
Obviously this is on the lowest 2 dificulty settings, but I don't foresee myself playing the game enough to be able to win on the higher settings.
Obviously this is on the lowest 2 dificulty settings, but I don't foresee myself playing the game enough to be able to win on the higher settings.
Then the OCP (optimal city placement) is very nice. It does force your workers to doa lot of roading for nothing, until after Sanitation though.
Fatal Exception
Chieftain
- Joined
- Sep 16, 2005
- Messages
- 31
I tend to divide my empire into 'zones' and use different city placements in different zones.
In my core zone, I want to make productive use out of as many tiles as possible for the entire game, especially because I like to beat up my neighbors early and eliminate them or at least stunt their growth. So I'll use either CxxxC or CxxC placement depending on the terrain and how much room there is in general.
Once I start settling far enough from the capitol, I switch to OCP so that I can support a larger population in that area later. Before switching out of despotism I try to whip a temple in these cities. I'll continue resettling in OCP on my home continent/island as I take down the neighbors.
Other continents count as a third zone. If I can settle them at leisure I'll use OCP for population late-game, if I have to worry about other AIs settling the same land I'm trying to settle I will use CxxC so I don't have to use culture buildings.
In my core zone, I want to make productive use out of as many tiles as possible for the entire game, especially because I like to beat up my neighbors early and eliminate them or at least stunt their growth. So I'll use either CxxxC or CxxC placement depending on the terrain and how much room there is in general.
Once I start settling far enough from the capitol, I switch to OCP so that I can support a larger population in that area later. Before switching out of despotism I try to whip a temple in these cities. I'll continue resettling in OCP on my home continent/island as I take down the neighbors.
Other continents count as a third zone. If I can settle them at leisure I'll use OCP for population late-game, if I have to worry about other AIs settling the same land I'm trying to settle I will use CxxC so I don't have to use culture buildings.
gunkulator
Emperor
I use CxxC or CxxxC in very corrupt land. All you want from these cities is to produce food so they can support a lot of scientists. No temples.
SimpleMonkey
King
Fatal Exception said:
This is the approach I've been taking. CxxC in my core (get as many cities built as quickly as possible at the start of the game) and then as I begin to spread out and relieve the AI of ownership of its cities, I end up inevitibly switching to OCP (since that's usually what the AI uses) in my more far-flung reaches. Since I'm using these corrupt cities for taxmen or scientists (or civ engineers if I'm going for a culture victory and trying to get up some culture-producing buildings), I want as much land producing as much food as possible.
As I move up to higher levels (I'm trying to make the leap to Emperor in my current game), I will likely have to start razing AI cities rather than taking them over. But unless advised otherwise, I'll still stick with OCP out in the borderlands.
gunkulator
Emperor
There are several advantages of CxxC or CxxxC spacing far from your core.
- The AI won't found a city in between
- You don't need to rush temples to fill the gaps. Rushing temples negates the taxman advantage of food-cities
- Except for Democracy, each city contributes to unit support so more=better
- Fewer worker moves needed in between irrigation
OCP has it's advantages too. Fewer cities = less corruption. Size 20 core cities can produce 100+ shields per turn. And fewer, bigger cities mean you don't have to switch to communism.
I agree though that if you're a warmongerer, communism and cxxc is best.
I agree though that if you're a warmongerer, communism and cxxc is best.
OCP has those advantages (maybe) only on lower levels. Corruption is an issue,but not near the issue as having a smaller empire.
I would say OCP is best left to C3 where Rep does not get any unit support. You don't have to switch to commie anyway, I don't.
If you play long enough to get metros, 2 or 3 is plenty. You can have them without OCP. You just take a few tiles from the next cities and spread it out til you get to where the city losing a tile does not need a replacement tile.
I would say OCP is best left to C3 where Rep does not get any unit support. You don't have to switch to commie anyway, I don't.
If you play long enough to get metros, 2 or 3 is plenty. You can have them without OCP. You just take a few tiles from the next cities and spread it out til you get to where the city losing a tile does not need a replacement tile.
Fatal Exception
Chieftain
- Joined
- Sep 16, 2005
- Messages
- 31
Well, I play on vanilla, so there's no unit support for cities in Republic, and Communism is a weak government. Corruption is a hideous problem on higher levels, there are no civil engineers, and all cities away from the core are good for is taking up space (borders) and holding population (especially taxmen, scientists aren't needed once I've beaten the AIs into submission).
In Firaxis scoring, the benefits of having an enormous population outweigh the benefits of winning early by such a degree that if I'm playing for max score, I want my cities placed to sustain the maximum possible population without triggering a domination victory before 2050.
In Firaxis scoring, the benefits of having an enormous population outweigh the benefits of winning early by such a degree that if I'm playing for max score, I want my cities placed to sustain the maximum possible population without triggering a domination victory before 2050.
mastertyguy
I'm tired!
In Firaxis score, having huge territory is victory.
I usually do whatever I can to use every tile. Generally in CxxxC , near the coast a little CxxC. I think building even denser is good in big desert when you are not agr, since you got more city tiles. But, as everywhere else, there is a very important statement, universally recognized. Those are ancestral statements: "It always depends."
I usually do whatever I can to use every tile. Generally in CxxxC , near the coast a little CxxC. I think building even denser is good in big desert when you are not agr, since you got more city tiles. But, as everywhere else, there is a very important statement, universally recognized. Those are ancestral statements: "It always depends."
Fatal Exception said:
Well I have no interest in score, that is useful for a HoF game only IMO. Playing to 2050 is only for fun as the game was won/lost a long time ago. I don't play on levels that one can beat the AI into submission with OCP.
I suppose someone could, but OCP on Sid will usually be painful as they fill those gaps or flip your cities or just take them away.
Other than milk runs, the score are normally higher for winning quickly. Win the game on 3950bc and see how nice the score turns out.
The big thing is that with 21 tiles, you have 9 that cannot be use for about half teh game. You do this to 10 or 15 cities and you have wasted a lot of tiles. You forced workers to walk a long way for nothing. YOu need more time to get defenders over to protect those cities, or you have to have extra defenders sitting around for no reason.
Because at Demi/Deity/Sid you will not be kicking the crap out of the AI to start the game. You will be paying the demands or become extinct.
SimpleMonkey
King
vmxa said:
vmxa speaks wisdom. I used to place my cities in obsessive OCP, with no tile overlap. I also used to get whupped as soon as I tried to move up past Warlord.
Write out vmxa's advice onto a post-it note and stick it up on your monitor. Consult every time you find yourself tempted to build all spread out "just for when I finally get hospitals." Oh yeah, and read the 4 Rules of Wonder Addiction again. Your game will improve amazingly.
OCP is a very bad idea even in highly corrupted areas even when you just want to generate score 
(at least before sanitation)
As people already said you should go for about 12 tiles per city (or sometimes even less) in your core to make best use of your land in the early game.
As for the corrupted areas outside the core it is best to ICS them. These towns can be quite usefull even though they produce just one shield and one coin.
1. They produce 1 beaker/coin per turn each and give you units support, not much but you can have lots of such towns with ICSing.
2. More importantly each such town can build workers and settlers which require a small number of shields, but cannot be build in the core because you want high population cities there. These workers can be used to build rails instantly when you enter IA or can be joined to core cities, etc. The method of building settlers and workers in corrupt land is extremely powerfull.
3. Another very powerfull use of corrupted lands is to hire scientists there: irrigate evrything and let them grow first and then switch some citiezens to scientists. If you have a large area you can actually get more beakers from corrupted land then from your core. This is very tedious though.
As you can see #1 and #2 only depend on the number of cities, but not on their population and #3 is more efficent with dense placement because with small cities you don't need aqueducts and need less food tp grow.
(at least before sanitation)As people already said you should go for about 12 tiles per city (or sometimes even less) in your core to make best use of your land in the early game.
As for the corrupted areas outside the core it is best to ICS them. These towns can be quite usefull even though they produce just one shield and one coin.
1. They produce 1 beaker/coin per turn each and give you units support, not much but you can have lots of such towns with ICSing.
2. More importantly each such town can build workers and settlers which require a small number of shields, but cannot be build in the core because you want high population cities there. These workers can be used to build rails instantly when you enter IA or can be joined to core cities, etc. The method of building settlers and workers in corrupt land is extremely powerfull.
3. Another very powerfull use of corrupted lands is to hire scientists there: irrigate evrything and let them grow first and then switch some citiezens to scientists. If you have a large area you can actually get more beakers from corrupted land then from your core. This is very tedious though.
As you can see #1 and #2 only depend on the number of cities, but not on their population and #3 is more efficent with dense placement because with small cities you don't need aqueducts and need less food tp grow.
ThePrankMonkey
mowing em' down!
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2002
- Messages
- 702
to make sure i got this straight CxxxC means units have to travel over three tiles before they reach the next city, right?
