How close together do you build your cities?

[Sherlock]

Giving Civ6 one more try so I've got a beginner question here. How far apart do you build your cities? I like to place them pretty far apart so that each city will have lots of tiles to work. And they'll cover more territory.

But I see lots of vids where people will put their cities close together so their Civ is sort of 'packed in'.

What's your strategy for placing cities closer or farther apart from your other cities?

 

[Buktu]

Depends on my civ, my win condition and the map. In generel wide is better than tall so closer is better. That beeing that:
If I am going for science, religion or diplo I will settle 3 or 4 tiles apart mostly. So my IZs can reach multipe cities and I have lots of campusses/holy sites and citites to help with help projects for example.
If I am going for dom or culture I settle a little bit further apart, like 4 or 5 on average, so I have more space for wonders, national parks and improvements or I dont have to build that many settlers to cover pathes to my victims.
Civwise you have Japan e.g. who are great to stack districts so settle close together with them. On the other hand you have civs like Gaul that cant build districts next to each other so you want more space when playing them.
If a city has less workable tiles you want to space your cities out a little bit more as well, e.g. coastal cities with just a few land tiles, cities next to mountain ranges and so on.

 

[Socrates99]

Kinda depends on civ and VC. Big productive cities are better for culture and domination but VCs that are about maximizing raw yields like faith or science should be packed in like sardines because you're just trying to maximize the number of districts specific to your VC (campus, holy site). Space race doesn't even need massive cities. One big one with a few IZs for Magnus' vertical integration does the trick. Diplo can go either way, tight and small for number of trade routes or big and productive to crank out the send aid project.

Personally I use a mod that increases city distance by one and it's perfect. Even when you pack them in theres plenty of tiles to work. Further apart, like 5 or 6 tiles, leaves a lot of dead space and wasted potential. Plus you lose the ability to clump districts between cities to increase adjacencies.

TLDR 4 is my sweet spot. 3 is too close, 5 wastes space.

 

[GinandTonic]

How much land is available? If you have enough space for more than a dozen cities it makes sense to build the best locations rather than cramming them in.

If you're going for an early dom then it's all about the resources and early prod/ chops.

 

[PiR]

It depends if your objective is to maximize things.
All cities have to hug each other in order to create district adjacencies and enjoy regional bonuses from entertainment centers and industrial zones.
I know those things and take advantage of them when I can, but I don't let them drive me, I prioritize some other aspects for city placement, like wonder placement / great campus or harbor natural adjacency bonuses / etc.

 

[Vargas1]

Most games I end up with a pretty dense 'core' of 4-6 cities spaced pretty close together (particularly if I'm aiming to go for the Colosseum, which I tend to do most games). I don't always found all those cities consecutively, but I will usually plan out placement for them from the beginning. I will usually also end up settling some early cities a bit further away for any of the following reasons: (i) coastal access, (ii) good luxury/strategics, (iii) block off a choke point or crowd out expansion from another civ, (iv) get near a useful natural wonder or set of mountains.

 

[Bibor]

I don't think you can have a hard rule on the distance. It really depends on how many tiles you plan on working. And that - I think - is the key to answering your question. Simply map-tag all tiles you plan on working (plus districts) and you'll know how much space you need for each city. I usually plan up to 15 worked tiles at maximum, plus districts.
Doing it this way automatically takes into consideration mountains, deserts and other (un)workable tiles.

Regarding "playing tall paying off more than playing wide", I find this to be a mixed bag. The 15 pop and +4 adjacency cards are really good. The 50%/100% increase in building yields is simply too good to pass if you want a really fast finish date, especially if you manage to nab Newton, Einstein etc.

Realistically, with 15 pop and 4 adjacency, the output of that city can easily beat 4-5 smaller cities (buildings and districts cost turns and/or money).

 

[frutiemax]

The problem with clumping your cities too much is that you end up with no tiles to work on, making them less productive than when you have the full range of tiles. But if you have limited land or you want to easily defend your cities, you end up clumping them up anyway. It really depends on the context, I don't think there is an unique answer to this.

 

[GinandTonic]

Beyond a certain point pin planning becomes less useful. It'll be disrupted by everts along the way. If the cities are as close as they can be there is no room for an opportunistic wonder or a change in direction. It depends how important it is to squeeze every possible city in.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

The problem with clumping your cities too much is that you end up with no tiles to work on, making them less productive than when you have the full range of tiles. But if you have limited land or you want to easily defend your cities, you end up clumping them up anyway. It really depends on the context, I don't think there is an unique answer to this.

The answer is to keep population low.
4 or 7 pop.

 

[Bibor]

The answer is to keep population low.
4 or 7 pop.

I've somewhat tested both approaches, and I'm not sold on the idea that numerous self-built cities beat tall ones with humanism.

 

[GinandTonic]

I just played a Spain deity terra game inspired by the potato's you tube run. The four cities in the old world were packed in, the 18 in the new were spread out for the most part - wanting to grab resources.

It's all about the dirt and the strategy.

 

[Bibor]

After replaying a certain map, I managed to break the 300 SPT barrier in one city and now I'm even less convinced going wide is efficient enough.

Corporations seem to be the key (my new favourite game mode).

Mercury, tea, and turtles grant 15% science boost per Stock Exchange/Seaport slot, 3 maximum per city, up to 5 total (at least on a small map; not sure if it scales) and these can be transferred to your Oxford city. This is on top of the inherent corporation yields and host city science boost.

What I like about corps is that it's not an automatic win. For example, I had 2 sources of tea, so I had to declare to grab the third resource. And neither sources were in my Oxford city so I had to transfer. I could also get turtles, but they were on a separate landmass and thus a significant turn investment.