Help a noob place some cities

[Udan mas]

Hi all,

Decided to try and play Civ 4 and after a few tries, i have grasped most of the game mechanics but i am still not sure where are the best places to put cities.

In civ 5 (which i usually play) i settle lots of cities far from my cap and close to luxuries.

In my current Dutch game could someone give me a hint of good places to put my cities and how many?

http://imgur.com/wzJVOWd

 

[Tatran]

With stone nearby (Pyramids), 1SE (floodplains) of the mountain would be a good spot for a second city.
Other spots depend on where copper + iron are located.

 

[nate45]

i like the spot 3N3E of your cap. settling on plains hills is always good for the extra hammers, and that spot secures the horses resource and also gets you some rice.

 

[Drakarska]

Just my opinion, ideally you want to place cities between 4 and 5 tiles apart. That image has a lot of potential for close city placements in order to dual-work tiles. Also agree with the above recommendations, I'd also recommend sending out a scout to clear out the rest of the coastal area, you may have a good spot for a GLH city.

 

[Packers5280]

Just a general rule is food is king in civ4. You generally want a food resource inside the inner ring of the BFC, unless you are creative. Since you are creative, you can have food in the 2nd ring of the BFC.

With that in mind I like 1SE of the stone, 1W of the wheat (for sharing cottage tiles if you want a strong Bureau cap), 1SE of the rice to grab pigs as well, and 1W of the corn. Its not high food, but 3W1N of your cap, so you can help work cottages for the capital, as well as on the FP. If you want to grab the northern horses first, its a bit food poor. I would check if there's food to the N of the horses. 1E is a good spot if there is food 1-2 tiles N of the northern horse. You can grab the rice, but rice is a bit weak, although it is wet and not dry which makes it better.

 

[Amao]

Hi all,

Decided to try and play Civ 4 and after a few tries, i have grasped most of the game mechanics but i am still not sure where are the best places to put cities.

In civ 5 (which i usually play) i settle lots of cities far from my cap and close to luxuries.

In my current Dutch game could someone give me a hint of good places to put my cities and how many?

Spoiler :

Difficult level you are playing dictate how many cities you are going to place early on. And techs you are having right now will have a saying on which city should be the first.

Personally, i'm going for the wheat/crab city (3s1e) for the first city. Reason, it's either auto connect to your capital with trade route or you just need 2 work turn to connect them up. Also it has 2 food resource (albeit not the best quality ones). And lastly, it shares tiles with capital which means it can help capital growing cottages and saves your early work turns.

I say, Noble, you are shooting for 7-8 cities on normal map before attacking. Below that, the more the merrier. Above that going for 6 or less.

 

[civtilidy]

Thats some really good land. I would aim for settling many cities 2 tiles apart to work tiles earlier, be less limited by health and happiness, more whipping, more AP hammers, more traderoutes, ev more corporationbonus, more drafting...
Aim for settling next to rivers to get leveebonus later and always settle close to foodresources before anything else. By settling close one city can grow to happycap and then switch the food to its neighboorcity.
Settle 3E 2S and build the great lighthouse by chopping and working 2 mines.

 

[lymond]

Just my opinion, ideally you want to place cities between 4 and 5 tiles apart.

Are you sure you meant to say that, as it sort contradicts your subsequent statement. There no golden rule on city distance, but keeping empire as compact as possible and tile sharing/resource sharing/cottage tagging is always a good idea and basically a necessity on higher levels. I will try to settle 3 tiles apart as much as I can, which is the min unless different landmass.

No clue what difficulty this is but seems to be a large map size.

Based on map view, it seems you have loads of land to take up later withough fear of Ais, although I may be wrong. Furthermore, I've no clue if a rush is in play here or not, so urgency of horses is not known.

so with that in mind, I'd focus on just smart settling patterns near your cap, with 2 good spots SE and SW of city (1W of wheat and 1S3W of Dam). Horse city could simply be placed 1N of Gold (farmed FPs) that can tag gold when cap whips or runs scientists. That's 3 good helper cities for the cap that are decent cities in their own right, and your distance maintenance will be low.

AFter that it really doesn't matter, just settle wisely nearby or go kill someone.

(@civtilidy - 3E2S? )

 

[Tatran]

I´ve just noticed, OP didn´t settle on one of the two plains hills and Amsterdam isn´t working the fresh corn.

 

[civtilidy]

Lymond: hehe meant 3W2S so on the coastal riverside grassland.

 

[Drakarska]

Lymond: hehe meant 3W2S so on the coastal riverside grassland.

Yup, my bad. Should have proof read it, but the kitten was walking on the keyboard

 

[lymond]

Yeah, just blame the kitten...always works

 

[Drakarska]

Heh, it worked for my boys when the cookie dough disappeared, thought I'd give it a shot.

 

[MantaRevan]

1st priority for me would probably be settling the floodplains. South on the hill or beside it would also be pretty alright.

I've been having trouble with city placement myself, hope you guys don't mind if I join in on this.

Spoiler :

[

I'm thinking of grabbing the stone, but any city I could place there would be starved for food for quite some time. Other than that, there don't appear to be any really fantastic spots that stand out to me.

 

[elitetroops]

@MR: I see plenty of good city locations there. South of corn for corn+copper, SE of cow for cow+corn or S of rice for rice+ cow. The last 2 could also help capital with cottages, if you weren't just farming everything... Is there any seafood north of the NW copper? If NW of copper has food it would be a pretty good spot. Stone is in a pretty bad location. Wouldn't settle that now unless you are really serious about the mids, which you apparently are not because you are very late for that already. If you dare settle in the face of Shaka, there are some pretty good spots in that direction as well. (Oh, maybe you are already about to kill him? In that case you get plenty of good land to fill in.)

But... 2 cities at 1000BC, 13 /turn while losing money, building forges and researching IW.. I can see a lot of room for improvement in your early game.

 

[Amao]

Heh, it worked for my boys when the cookie dough disappeared, thought I'd give it a shot.

it's said cat doesn't feel the sweet taste. so, tell boys that's a lousy one.

 

[Amao]

Are you sure you meant to say that, as it sort contradicts your subsequent statement. There no golden rule on city distance, but keeping empire as compact as possible and tile sharing/resource sharing/cottage tagging is always a good idea and basically a necessity on higher levels. I will try to settle 3 tiles apart as much as I can, which is the min unless different landmass.

No clue what difficulty this is but seems to be a large map size.

Based on map view, it seems you have loads of land to take up later withough fear of Ais, although I may be wrong. Furthermore, I've no clue if a rush is in play here or not, so urgency of horses is not known.

so with that in mind, I'd focus on just smart settling patterns near your cap, with 2 good spots SE and SW of city (1W of wheat and 1S3W of Dam). Horse city could simply be placed 1N of Gold (farmed FPs) that can tag gold when cap whips or runs scientists. That's 3 good helper cities for the cap that are decent cities in their own right, and your distance maintenance will be low.

AFter that it really doesn't matter, just settle wisely nearby or go kill someone.

(@civtilidy - 3E2S? )

Pretty much same thought. We could have a lot more info if OP provide a save.