How often do you move sea based cities and why?

[s0nny80y]

I started off as Duncan and only focused on moving the capital to claim new tiles on an archipelago map. Very satisfying since the tiles are valuable. Especially helpful for land based cities to grow.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Pretty rarely. I try to place the water city in the optimal location the first time. If I can't do that then, I will settle the city as close as possible to that optimal location and move it 1-2 times to get it there.

 

[HughFran]

I've only played one game so far (I only downloaded RT at the weekend) but I only moved one city and that was because I had captured it and it was in a crap spot (AI spam city). I therefore moved it colser to my borders and somewhere with a lot more resources. I honestly don't see much point in moving location - I try to find an optimal spot and stay there. What is the point in farming/mining/improving the sea tiles just to move away from them,? It honestly makes no sense to me

 

[Lucius_]

I'll usually settle one tile off of optimal and move once. Rarely I will find a city location where the optimal spot is surrounded by ocean tiles so I have to move more because of having to settle on coast tiles.

Captured cities I move a lot. I love I can move the AI's cities to better locations. Wish I could pick up and move their crappy land cities too!

 

[EpicWestern]

I would prefer that it would be a little easier to move aquatic cities, but I still find reason to make 3-4 total moves a game. Mainly its just that tiles are expensive, especially if you're two tiles a way from important resources and have to make an indirect purchase.

I've also made moves away from the coast with enemy cities I've taken over so they wouldn't be attacked by melee units.

 

[kipwheeler]

If I have multiple water cities, I usually pick one to be the mobile territory grabber, and the others I try to position so that I only move them one hex or not at all. The mobile one stays small with high production and I use it to seal off choke-points or "pre-urbanize" areas where I will plant later cities.

 

[Gorbles]

Considering how important improvements can be, I generally move whenever I don't have to build something. In peacetime, quite a bit. If I forget to, or fall into the trap of spamming buildings, I fall behind on improvements compared to any comparable land city (my own or the AI) - even assuming Energy purchases.

 

[Aldor]

I often place water cities one or two plots from their target space, then move them to grab some "free" tiles. Thinking about it, its fairly pointless before the city grows to size 6. Probably cheaper to just buy tiles outside the first ring if you really want a resource.

 

[Evgenij]

I usualy do it like this:
1) Found new city on water about 6-7 tiles away from other cities.
2) Build trade depot and trade routes to increase production.
3) Move city as close as possible to my other cities (usually 2 tiles between cities), to avoid being captured by enemy in a single turn and to capture some hexes. This allows me to see 4-5 hexes outside my normal water city territory, being able to see incoming enemy armies (if any).

 

[Greasy Dave]

The big cities, 7 times - 5 forward and then 3 back, in a slight elipse - when I get 20+ pop and I want tiles for them I'd rather spend 14-20 turns moving than 1000's of gold on the tiles

Get the production and science bonus on coastal tile wonders and you're storming.

 

[Barathor]

I usually offset my aquatic city a tile or two from the target tile I want to keep it on, move it around, and then purchase any other tiles around it. I try not to move too much.

- - - - - - - -

I really wish Firaxis reconsidered the design behind aquatic cities. I would love it if they kept their ability to move, but also gained tiles culturally at only half the rate of land. With this, just remove the +50% culture bonus as well. This way, it would be a little less awkward obtaining tiles and it wouldn't be so dependant on purchasing tiles with energy, especially when trying to obtain land tiles for aquatic cities.

Also, aquatic borders would appear a bit more fuller instead of the odd shapes from painting them through movement and the tentacles reaching out because of purchasing.

Also, it would make abilities and perks involving culturally obtaining tiles more relevant again, since right now some of them are useless when it comes to aquatic cities.

 

[mrjepson]

My current game I'm moving every city after my second one. I build them in the same spot (takes one turn if you already have culture on all tiles), then I drive them out to their final location. With no buildings and feeding them a trade route they only take one or two turns per move so they aren't much slower than the colonist and they are self defending. My second ring of cities are about size 3 by the time they get to where they will stay so they build their trade depot in about 3 turns. I figure it is faster than getting a colonist out and waiting for it to grow. Has the plus of me controlling every sea tile anywhere near my start. For my second ring I'll start the cities a bit closer I think.

Other than that I almost always move the cities I conquer as they are packed to close together.

 

[Alkaid]

I find myself moving them a decent amount. It's pretty common to find really resource-rich spots in the water that about 2-4 moves of a city will let me grab up all the other good tiles around. I'll settle on some titanium or something and later move around to get the other resources then settle back into a position that keeps as much of it in range as possible.

I haven't really moved cities around much just for the sake of expanding territory size, though.

 

[aguliondew]

I move them in a V shape. My cities do not get much bigger than that and when they do I have specialist. 3-4 spaces apart most of the time.

 

[Olodune]

I move most aquatic cities once or twice to get enough workable tiles. Sometimes I'll create space early (after Depot), but this does seem dubious. If I can I'll seek out titanium to settle by which helps keep the move down to 2 or 3 turns. As if I needed another reason to settle by titanium.

I prefer to settle tiny islands if possible to get normal border expansion and higher early defense - but at least one real aquatic city is very nice for ship building.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I usually move them once or twice per game. More is really not needed with the current win times.

 

[CaptainPatch]

As soon as I have improved the six hexes surrounding the city center. (Actually, it would be better to start the move while #6 is still being improved.) The reason to make the move is to grow the city. Depending on which direction the move goes and whether the city has been moved before, the move can add 3 (max) additional tiles to the city FOR FREE. (Buying surrounding tiles can get expensive after awhile.)

 

[Adino]

Optimally I place my cities planning 2 movements. This lets me collect from tiles 3 away, and support a size 14 city. I don't move unless either the city is working all its land or I have built my core buildings and nothing is urgent. (Trade depot and health buildings) From final location I buy tiles I want.

That said some of the time I get lazy and forget to move them. Other times the terrain doesn't support it, and still others I have to adjust for tactical or other reasons.

 

[Miravlix]

Depends on how much production I can throw at the city, to move it in a low amount of turns.

I always plan to move a aquatic city some, to cover it's effective area and grab any close by strategic resources, even if they end up outside range of the final location of the AC.

Playing on sparse maps, I find myself with extreme shortage of resources, placing towns like crazy and waiting for them to grow, doesn't seem as efficient as hunting resources with a sea town, so I often put down a water town with the single purpose of painting the map, so I get strategic resources inside my border, with a small army of workers capturing the strategic resources, while the city work on grabbing more.

 

[Callonia]

I move aquatic cities alot.

1> I'm in war against AI and conquered alot of aquatic cities in terrible locations. I move them to optimal locations instead! And then send the rest of the unneeded cities into sectors of map where I have no presence in so that I will gain presence!

2> To claim new hexs for my cities to grow bigger.