How far should a city place with another?
- Thread starter Psyche
- Start date
Aardvark
Chieftain
It depends on your goal: space race, domination, etc. It also depends on whether you have vanilla or conquests. Closer together provides quicker development. Until you get sanitation, city size is limited to 12. Since the preponderance of the game is usually before sanitation, wider spacing wastes tiles during this time. Wider spaced cities are also harder to defend. If a unit can move from one city to the next in one turn, reinforcement becomes easier. I find having my cities with two tiles between works very well.
I've written a post like this a couple of times now, so here goes:
Here are the 4 main patterns:
Optimal City Placement (OCP): (CxxxxC, where C is a city, and x is a tile) This allows cities to use all 21 tiles, making them late-game productive powerhouses, but these cities will waste 9/21 tiles until you get Hospitals, so for half the games, you waste 43% of your tiles, but you get a good benefit late in the game. It's ok to use this on lower levels, where you can get lots of cities in, but on higher levels, you won't get many cities in.
Loose Placement: (CxxxC - 3 tiles between cities) This placement is sort of like a more cramped optimal city placement. You get around 16 tiles per city, so Hospitals aren't necessary, and you can get decent production without them, but if you want the extra production / population for a Space Race / Modern Age win, this works well. It's productive pretty much throughout the game, though it does waste some tiles before hospitals.
Tight Placement: (CxxC - 2 tiles between cities) Common in games with lots of warring, CxxC placement is good as you can get defenders from one city to others in only 1 turn with roads. These don't need hospitals, as they'll only get up to size 12 or a bit below, as they work 9 tiles, but it's great for the early game. More cities = more everything, and usually, it means more units to conquer the world. On higher levels, this helps get more cities in a small amount of room.
Infinite City Sprawl (ICS): (CxCxC - minimum distance between each other) This is good for civilization-wide culture victories, but beyond that, it doesn't have many benefits, except in conquered land or for small maps going for early domination / conquest wins. Production and food is a problem, as each city only gets 6 tiles, but you'll hit the optimal city number [for corruption] soon, which is bad.
Conclusion: it varies from goal to goal, and difficulty greatly. I play mostly Demigod, and I use Tight or Loose placement depending on my goal and amount of room I have. My current one as the Celts is aiming for Domination, so I'm using tight placement to get my troops around quickly. None is "better", it depends on how you go about the game.
Bamspeedy on OCP
Here are the 4 main patterns:
Optimal City Placement (OCP): (CxxxxC, where C is a city, and x is a tile) This allows cities to use all 21 tiles, making them late-game productive powerhouses, but these cities will waste 9/21 tiles until you get Hospitals, so for half the games, you waste 43% of your tiles, but you get a good benefit late in the game. It's ok to use this on lower levels, where you can get lots of cities in, but on higher levels, you won't get many cities in.
Loose Placement: (CxxxC - 3 tiles between cities) This placement is sort of like a more cramped optimal city placement. You get around 16 tiles per city, so Hospitals aren't necessary, and you can get decent production without them, but if you want the extra production / population for a Space Race / Modern Age win, this works well. It's productive pretty much throughout the game, though it does waste some tiles before hospitals.
Tight Placement: (CxxC - 2 tiles between cities) Common in games with lots of warring, CxxC placement is good as you can get defenders from one city to others in only 1 turn with roads. These don't need hospitals, as they'll only get up to size 12 or a bit below, as they work 9 tiles, but it's great for the early game. More cities = more everything, and usually, it means more units to conquer the world. On higher levels, this helps get more cities in a small amount of room.
Infinite City Sprawl (ICS): (CxCxC - minimum distance between each other) This is good for civilization-wide culture victories, but beyond that, it doesn't have many benefits, except in conquered land or for small maps going for early domination / conquest wins. Production and food is a problem, as each city only gets 6 tiles, but you'll hit the optimal city number [for corruption] soon, which is bad.
Conclusion: it varies from goal to goal, and difficulty greatly. I play mostly Demigod, and I use Tight or Loose placement depending on my goal and amount of room I have. My current one as the Celts is aiming for Domination, so I'm using tight placement to get my troops around quickly. None is "better", it depends on how you go about the game.
Bamspeedy on OCP
HungryMouse
Chieftain
> Ginger_Ale
great explanation, indeed.
definitely must be included in the civIII pocket guide.
great explanation, indeed.
definitely must be included in the civIII pocket guide.
Abegweit
Anarchist trader
Just to add a little to GA's excellent summary. In most cases, a core works best with something between tight and loose placement. Nine tiles per city is too few and sixteen is too many. So place your cities according to terrain. Put them on rivers, not food bonuses, etc. The obvious stuff. Use CxxC or CxxxC as appropriate to the particular location.
Brain
Lost in thought
And conquered territory far from your capital should be ICS.
Choffy
One more turn
I start with CxxC to be able to move units easily + reduce corruption on distance from Capital.
Later on after the 2 rings of cities around the capital, I start to have more CxxxC just to maximize map coverage with temple. Those cities will have low production anyway.
Later on, I keep most of captured enemy cities and just settle additional cities on chokepoint or ressources.
Later on after the 2 rings of cities around the capital, I start to have more CxxxC just to maximize map coverage with temple. Those cities will have low production anyway.
Later on, I keep most of captured enemy cities and just settle additional cities on chokepoint or ressources.
Abegweit
Anarchist trader
@Brain
While true, there's little point doing this if going for a war victory. The game will be over before you reap the benefits.
Assuming that you are going for a late victory (space, diplo and especially 100K), you are right. A late victory also increases the value of big cities back home so your core spacing should tend to be wider.
While true, there's little point doing this if going for a war victory. The game will be over before you reap the benefits.
Assuming that you are going for a late victory (space, diplo and especially 100K), you are right. A late victory also increases the value of big cities back home so your core spacing should tend to be wider.
SJ Frank
Spamalot Co-court
I follow one simple rule:
- don't waste any tiles
- don't waste any tiles
Tomoyo
Fate
I follow the rule "don't waste any land or fish tiles".
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