Do you overlap city tiles?

malfuriouspete

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meaning, when you settle cities, are you spacing them out so the BFC's aren't overlapping? I try to avoid this as much as possible.. but find myself with an empire with large cultural borders but relatively few cities compared to my IA adversaries who seem to pop down cities every 3 tiles away from each other - but I'm guessing the AI isn't programmed for optimal placement

Any benefits to this? I'm guessing with a few less tiles to work, more citizens can be converted into specialists (as long as there is ample food)
 
I always have a little overlap, and sometimes a significant amount if the resources are not positioned conveniently. You won't be able to work all that land without significant happiness and health problems if you have full BFCs for each city, so I don't mind it. Also, overlapping useless tiles like desert or mountains isn't an issue since you can't work them anyway.
 
There are certainly benefits to overlapping your cities. First, you can share tiles. If a city has three sources of food it can give one to a sister city to help it grow. You can also ensure that your cottages continue to grow. Secondly, the closer your orbiting cities are to your capital, the lower your maintenance. Third, I like to have a buffer for my capital from barbs, Shaka, etc.
 
Indeed the AI isn't good at city placement, but overlapping cities is something that brings quite a few potential benefits. Most notably,
  • Overlapping cities can be built to borrow already improved tiles from the existing city giving it an initial boost in productivity
  • Shared cottages can be worked by cities to be grown before returning to the capital (Bureacracy!)
  • Overlapping tends to mean closer cities so less travel time for workers and fewer roads to be built freeing up worker turns.
  • It increases your total :) cap by 4+number of :) resources and further if you build ) buildings. The same type of thing applies for :health:
Whats important to realise is that cities don't grow to size 21 till the very end of the game, most never do. Why not make use of the tiles that are otherwise gathering dust in cities' BFCs by overlapping early in the game?
 
Indeed the AI isn't good at city placement, but overlapping cities is something that brings quite a few potential benefits. Most notably,
  • Overlapping cities can be built to borrow already improved tiles from the existing city giving it an initial boost in productivity
  • Shared cottages can be worked by cities to be grown before returning to the capital (Bureacracy!)
  • Overlapping tends to mean closer cities so less travel time for workers and fewer roads to be built freeing up worker turns.
  • It increases your total :) cap by 4+number of :) resources and further if you build ) buildings. The same type of thing applies for :health:
Whats important to realise is that cities don't grow to size 21 till the very end of the game, most never do. Why not make use of the tiles that are otherwise gathering dust in cities' BFCs by overlapping early in the game?

Yes all that. Plus less distance to capital means less city maintenance.
I usually have some overlap especially to share food resources.
 
Wondering, can you choose which tiles to share? on the city screen, obviously the blacked out tiles are ones that being used by another city/outside the BFC
 
Wondering, can you choose which tiles to share? on the city screen, obviously the blacked out tiles are ones that being used by another city/outside the BFC
In the city screen where the shared tiles are blacked out, simply click on them and that city will take them from the other.
 
If you go into the city you want to work the tile and click on it, it will become available for that city and not the other(s).

Also, this dictates where chopped trees give their hammers.
 
Overlap also makes it easier for defense. On harder levels or even larger maps it can take a while to mobilize your troops. A shorter distance between cities can make or break your defense.
 
There's been a lot of talk in this thread about the advantages of close city placement; can someone elaborate on the disadvantages? What do you give up by spreading your cities out?

The huge buff to specialists between Civ 3 and Civ 4 makes close city placement much more attractive, but there must still be advantages to taking the alternate strategy.
 
The thing I've found is that if you maximize the space between cities.. keeping them 4 tiles apart so no overlap occurs, I tend to have far fewer cities (compared to the AI) once the map becomes populated and borders established. The AI will probably put 6 or 7 cities in the same space that I have 4.

That means fewer production centers when I want to start pumping out macemen and trebs to take land from my rivals b/c I need room to expand and have more cities as hammer centers.

*also, I guess if you spread your cities out, you deny land to the AI.. but probably have the added affect of making them more likely to declare war on you
 
There's been a lot of talk in this thread about the advantages of close city placement; can someone elaborate on the disadvantages? What do you give up by spreading your cities out?

The huge buff to specialists between Civ 3 and Civ 4 makes close city placement much more attractive, but there must still be advantages to taking the alternate strategy.

The biggest is troop time to get to a border threat (at least for me :)). For example, let's say you have 5 cities in your BFC, and they're spaced 5 tiles apart each fm your cap. You obviously don't have 5 sep stacks of uni's to cbt a threat, so if your stack is occupied on your east border and Monty declares on your west, your looking at a potential 10 turns to get your stack there. That's a long time for Monty to ruin your day.
 
There's been a lot of talk in this thread about the advantages of close city placement; can someone elaborate on the disadvantages? What do you give up by spreading your cities out?

The huge buff to specialists between Civ 3 and Civ 4 makes close city placement much more attractive, but there must still be advantages to taking the alternate strategy.

Max population for the spaced-out cities is higher because they can draw on more tiles, although whether or not you can reach it and maintain it is another matter. Corporations kind of blasted a hole in this logic too, since the food corporations can drastically increase your cities' population and you will be using specialists any way.
 
There's been a lot of talk in this thread about the advantages of close city placement; can someone elaborate on the disadvantages? What do you give up by spreading your cities out?

The huge buff to specialists between Civ 3 and Civ 4 makes close city placement much more attractive, but there must still be advantages to taking the alternate strategy.

Yes, it's quite frequent that 0 inconvenients to overlap are mentioned.
That would be because completely avoiding overlap is an equally frequent beginner's mistake (so people only sell the good points).

Inconvenients to overlap:
1- For the same cost in settlers, you hold less territory (resources?) and, assuming you're not isolated, rivals hold more.
2- If one expands a little far, he then has the option to backfill. Settling all cities with max overlap in the very beginning is a sure way to find oneself boxed in.
3- Assuming the territory held is the same, then overlapping cities has higher costs in buildings (Granaries, Forges, etc.) and maintenance.
4- Assuming one wants a super-city (hosting a National Wonder? Capital?), then it might not be the best idea to share the food. This is a weak point: one can overlap and yet leave the stronger tiles to the stronger city. But overlapping to work only weak tiles is a weak idea by itself...


Stronger points:
1- Sharing the food. Typically (assuming Granary), the city that is lower in size wants to work the food (because it costs less to grow a size).
2- Developping cottages. Cottages don't develop if they aren't worked, so having 2-3 cities sharing a cottage tile is a sure way to work it at all times.


Conditions:
1- One has to manage the tiles. If several cities share the same tiles, then the right city has to work the right tile.
 
Overlapping can sometimes be useful when there are wasted spaces between cities that aren't used and that can be used for the cities only when there is a spare food resource nearby to keep the city growing.
Cheaper maintenance from having cities closer to your capital is another reason why overlapping could be useful since expanding really far from the capital costs a bit more.
Using tiles that aren't workable such as deserts and tundras can also be a good excuse to overlap.
Smaller maps that have less civilians and need a :hammers: advantage for military production in skirmish can also be a good reason to overlap.
 
Yes, I do overlap city tiles. Share those good food tiles to greatly speed up city development and early tech speed.
 
I always overlap, and in the late game I will settle cities with zero new tiles (corps+trade routes make profit and specialists).
Early settling: depends on if I need to claim area or split food from the cap/grow cottages.
Normally a bit of settling forward followed by backfilling - remember that in a drafting era 3 size 6 cities are worth more then one size 18, and also that the happy cap normally makes it cheaper (less MP) for same tiles worked.
 
Fun fact: A forest preserve in a city's BFC gives happiness even if it "belongs" to another city. Admittedly, that's very marginal, but it's there.
 
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