Location of cities

[BurnPoodle]

Hi... I have some questions about where we should build our cities.

First : The computer doesn't seem to care where he build his cities, he builds them everywhere to take all his territory... is that a bug or he's just too stupid to know where to build good cities?

Second : Should we be stupid like him ? I mean, should we build cities everywhere so that he can't come on our territory and take some place ? or we should build cities only where theres valuable resources? This is my main problem when starting a game... If I start at a good place for my capital, then after when I build other cities, I'm often troubled with "where should I build ?"


...
I think thats all for now ...

 

[eyrei]

I think a balance of these two strategies is best. You must consider both strategic resources, and strategic positions when chooses city placements. I usually develop a grand strategy of how my empire will look before I start placing cities, although sometimes this is hard to do, and if you stick to your grand strategy you often end up in wars caused only by your own stubbornness.

 

[LKendter]

What I consider the most critical cities are the border blocking cities. That will stop the computer from sending units via land against you. Not much you can do about galleys.

The trick is you want to get your borders to lock up quickly. That is why a temple is my first city build. I will kill a pop point to do this.

You do want to build weaker cities in corner positions along the coast. Even in hills / mountains. You never know where the resources will appear The game where Babylon beat me to one area, turned out to be the coal city!

My current game has a 100% lock on my land mass. Plus two islands, and finished a third small "continent".