Decisions on city placement

[Desmond Hawkins]

Are your decisions on city placement based more on the optimal city structure (a city pattern that yields the fewest shared squares, while wasting no squares), or is it based more on other strategic decisions (resources, rivers, enemy locations)?

Please, discuss. I am just getting back into this game.

 

[wilbill]

I haven't liked OCP since shortly after I started playing. I prefer to place my cities closer together with strong consideration given to resources, fresh water, etc. Early in the game, I like to keep my core cities close enough to allow for defensive support.

 

[punkbass2000]

Uh, more the second one, though its not like the first one is really an option.

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

I don't mean true optimal city placement, because that is almost impossible on a random map. I mean just working towards that point whenever possible.

 

[Dan]

a few things to remember:

When playing Seafaring civs you get a commerce bonus in the citys square when they're built along a coast.

Building ajacent to a river square gives water flow to the city, so that you dont need to build an aqueduct, as well as giving you yet another commerce bonus in the city square.

I do sort of try to proportion the cities so that I don't waste so many squares, while taking into consideration which kind of squares I'll be wasting if I take the other way and focus on hitting as many rare resources as possible.

They're all things we know we know, but it's something that I always look for.

 

[TimBentley]

Building ajacent to a river square gives water flow to the city, so that you dont need to build an aqueduct, as well as giving you yet another commerce bonus in the city square.

And gives extra food to agricultural civs in despotism (in Conquests of course).

 

[The Omega]

I build strategically. Never got the hang of optimal city placement.......

 

[punkbass2000]

I don't mean true optimal city placement, because that is almost impossible on a random map.

I know.

I mean just working towards that point whenever possible.

And I still don't. In short, don't do OCP. It's worse than PCP. There is no reason for OCP other than challenging yourself.

 

[Scuffer]

Strategically. I play the game for fun, not like a chore, and I find that all these systems bore me. They work pretty well, but they never looks like a country you would actually want to live in, does they?

 

[Tassadar]

What is the most important factor in civ game ? Growth, right?

So i built my city strategicaly to grab at least 1 food bonus per city, and i dont over lap too much. 2-3 tile per city maximum, most of the time no over lap at all. But it depend on map size, small map, more overlap, std map size, few overlap.

You will be surprise what just a fish tile on a coastal city could be a very powerfull growth factor with a harbor, then you can assign a citizen on that nice golden mountain close by...

Dont forget that if you cut forest and irrigate a game tile( exept on tundra), it is also a powerfull food bonus.

So basicaly, food bonus tile give initial boost to growth, and later when the city size is topled, it provide enough food to exploit high production tile like mountain and hills.


Second factor is river and small fresh water lake, no aqueduc, like already said.

 

[Tomoyo]

I prefer to place cities like cxxxc in a relaxing game, so in the Indutrial age I have good cities and not too much pollution. When I'm serious, I like cxxc, but then micromanagement becomes so tedious.

 

[LLXerxes]

I dip in a little of both.
Strategic placement the least of the time. I often do wonder about crossing rivers and what terrain and suitable locations to create forts but most of the time I'm just gaining land and looking for rescources.

 

[microbe]

Some of my general considerations:

1. try to place ~4 tiles apart.
2. next to river
3. do not settle one tile from coast, as that means you cannot build harbor while being forced to work on coastal tiles.
4. try to settle on hills if possible
5. avoid settling on BG; settle on inferior tiles if possible

 

[Bloodied66]

OCP is fun to have at the end of the game, and you end up with these metropolitan centres with extreme amounts of production and commerce. However, between ancient age to mid-industrial, a strategic set up is much much better, and even after that OCP isnt that great. Especially if you are on a high difficulty level, OCP is suicide.