Ideal city spacing is four spaces away.

[shulec]

City site selection (I currently play Emperor, random leaders, continents or fractal)

City spacing is set based on ideal location based on tile types, resources, and proximity to neighboring civilizations. Obviously, cities should be founded at locations that are best based on the map and long-term strategy.

I have found that I usually have a tendency to place my cities four spaces from my other cities. I don't choose a site that is specifically four spaces away, this is just usually how it works out. I usually have them on a different horizontal or vertical parallel. This results in fewer overlapping tiles.

I feel that spacing cities five tiles away often leaves many more unworked tiles. Spacing cities three tiles away limits workable tiles due to overlap and ultimately limits city size.

In general, when specific map factors do not dictate a specific city site, is it better to have your secondary cities (excluding you capitol, gp farm, and main production city, main commerce city) three tiles away to ensure you use all workable tiles?

I think this only matters late in the game, early in the game your secondary and third tier cities are often weenies that don't contribute much. This is also much less important if your are a war-monger. So assume this is a "peace-monger" strategy.

Please share any thoughts on city spacing.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Closer, low-pop cities can take care of more per city advantages and can facilitate mass whipping and specialists. The city tile is always free food and a hammer, too. Tight cities are a better defensive formation.

But, I recommend ignoring all that most of the time and just settling resource clusters. Marginal cities can be fitted in wherever later to work the rest of your land.

 

[MrCynical]

A bit of overlap between cities is generally preferable to leaving gaps, since it'll be quite a while before your cities grow to the point where you can use all the tiles. It's also preferable to get good locations for your core cities, and worry about filler cities to use the rest of the land later.

Generally it'll work out as a bit under four tiles between cities on average, and an irregular arrangement to get all the useful tiles.

 

[PieceOfMind]

4 spaces is the cheesy circle.

Source: And old article..The Curious Cat - City Upkeep Explained

I think the idea is still basically the same. My preferred spots are also 4 tiles away, but especially the third diagonal from the capital, as these only overlap 2 tiles with the cap and can have units move between the cities in one turn after Engineering.

 

[Willem]

4 spaces is the cheesy circle.

Actually, most of those locations are only 3 tiles apart. A little too close for my liking.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Actually, most of those locations are only 3 tiles apart. A little too close for my liking.

You know it's the spot with the C's right? Not the X's. The X's are a distance of 5 from the palace, the C's are at a distance of 4. The cheesy circle is the circle to build inside of - this is where you'll always have to get some overlap. On the red X's it's obviously easier to avoid overlap.

EDIT Oh wait I misunderstood you. No all the C's are on spots exactly 4 tiles from the palace, but this is using the CIV metric, where diagonals are worth 1.5 and distances are always rounded down to the nearest integer.

 

[miked1991]

You know it's the spot with the C's right? Not the X's. The X's are a distance of 5 from the palace, the C's are at a distance of 4. The cheesy circle is the circle to build inside of - this is where you'll always have to get some overlap. On the red X's it's obviously easier to avoid overlap.

EDIT Oh wait I misunderstood you. No all the C's are on spots exactly 4 tiles from the palace, but this is using the CIV metric, where diagonals are worth 1.5 and distances are always rounded down to the nearest integer.

Surely civ should be using diagonals of length root 2? If they're using something differant, it means the distances are wrong... hindering empires that spread on the diagonals.

 

[PieceOfMind]

One likely reason they use 1.5 for diagonals is that it's much much faster because it only involves integer math and it's a fairly good approximate to the Euclidean metric anyway. When you send your bombers on a mission, you will notice their operational range still looks like the best circle they could make out of it.

Distance is not always Euclidean anyway (i.e. root2 being the diagonal of a unit square). It doesn't make the distances wrong. It just means the metric they use is superior for program speed, because using floating point math (which you'll probably need if you start using roots) is very slow in comparison.

 

[Iranon]

I prefer the closest spacing that the game will allow. Non-border cities don't require culture and can get something useful done right away, sharing tiles adds some flexibility, many small cities are better for whipping and I will have less trouble with growth caps as teh game progresses.

 

[Ian Kognitow]

But, I recommend ignoring all that most of the time and just settling resource clusters. Marginal cities can be fitted in wherever later to work the rest of your land.

I'll readily second this. It's nice to perfectly arrange BFCs into a nice jigsaw pattern but it really should be all about resources. Particularly the first 2 or 3 cities are likely to throw off pretty spacing since they especially should be securing strategic resources. You didn't really pass up going to the space next to marble and horse just because it was 6 tiles away from original capital, right?

And anyway, unless you're reallywarmongering and destroying (or being slaughtered by neighbours such that it doesn't matter, it's not like you shouldn't get border pops in time to secure contiguous cultural border.

 

[azzaman333]

I settle the cities I think the AI is going to try and steal from me first, then fit as many cities into the remaining space as I can fit.

 

[Willem]

No all the C's are on spots exactly 4 tiles from the palace, but this is using the CIV metric, where diagonals are worth 1.5 and distances are always rounded down to the nearest integer.

A tile is still a tile. That formation puts overlap on every single tile in the capital except for the ones immediately surrounding it. And the ones on the edges overlap everywhere except for the very outside of the ring. It's really not a very efficient configuration IMO. Those X's don't even make sense, the BFC extends further out than that.

 

[PieceOfMind]

The red X's are just there to indicate the distance of 5. The cheesy circle is not necessarily meant to suggest to you that you place 8 cities all that close to the capital, but if you are going to place a city close to the capital, it's best to get it just inside that red circle if you have the choice. For example, the four cities on the diagonals would have minimal overlap with the capital and minimal distance costs.

One should always settle in the best spots but this information (assuming it's still valid - I think it is) should be factored into the decision, if only slightly.

EDIT Actually maybe the idea is competely outdated now. I'll see if I can check the code.

 

[Willem]

EDIT Actually maybe the idea is competely outdated now. I'll see if I can check the code.

I'd say it is. I can make a circle with no overlap at all and with just a few tiles going to waste. That one is very inefficient IMO. Though it does manage to squeeze in one more city than my set up does.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I think the reason it doesn't work any more is that in one of the versions or patches Firaxis went through and made a bunch of economy-related things not round anymore. This I suppose was meant to help cut the silly micromanagement people were doing like running the slider always on either 100% or 100% etc. The Cheesy Circle was probably considered equally micromanagey, so they removed it by making distance costs not rounded anymore.

 

[Willem]

I think the reason it doesn't work any more is that in one of the versions or patches Firaxis went through and made a bunch of economy-related things not round anymore. This I suppose was meant to help cut the silly micromanagement people were doing like running the slider always on either 100% or 100% etc. The Cheesy Circle was probably considered equally micromanagey, so they removed it by making distance costs not rounded anymore.

Looking at that circle again, if you move all the cities out by one tile then you'd have a much better layout. There'd be minimal overlap only on the diagonals with only a few tiles going to waste.

 

[noto2]

I often try to avoid overlap. Sure...my cities often overlap but usually as minimally as possible...and sometimes I have gaps because I settle cities in super city spots, with good resources... I certainly don't intentionally create lots of overlap. Why do that? The maintenance costs would certainly eat away any benefit

 

[Iranon]

Push the ones in the cardinal directions in by 1 tile and you have a cheesy square! No need for culture, tight and compact, with a minimum of distance to connect them quickly with roads.

Maintenance issues are overrated. The 'free' surplus of the home tile (especially if on bad terrain) and trade revenue alone go a long way to cover the expense... tile sharing for optimal whipping (and possibly cottage growth) helps recover the investment somehwat early, other per-city-bonuses (religion, religious wonders, free specialists, corporations) push an infinite-city-sprawl approach over the top.

If I have 15 cities at 1AD I don't care if my economy is in shambles, I'm likely to recover and pull away anyway... pretty much the only problem is accidentally locking myself at 0% science without a way to get recovery techs like Code of Laws or Currency in a reasonable time frame.

 

[bestbrian]

You found me out, I'm guilty. I learned this in my Civ II days and I still try to do it - found cities radiating 5 tiles out from Cap. Just keep pushing them out until I run into AI, Ocean, or junk tiles. My name is BestBrian and I'm an ICS addict.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

There's nothing wrong with extensive overlap...