Opinions on City Placement

[Russia4Life]

I used to play with no city squares overlapping before I discovered this site. I read all the threads I could find with anything about city spacing, and played a few games with the CxxC method but that seems so wasteful. I came up with my own method want to know how many others use a similar spacing or if there is something someone think is better and why.

The spacing I am currently using looks something like this

X = used space
0 = unused space
C = City


0 X X X 0 X X X 0
X X X X X X X X X
X X C X X X C X X
X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X
C X X X C X X X C
X X X X X X X X X
X X 0 X X X 0 X X

Only unused spaces end up on the edges but if you keep repeating the pattern those unused squares will end up over the ocean eventually, and you can severely cut back on overlapping squares from the CXXC method I read about. Anyways, this is where I want to hear what people think, or if there are any better patterns I can try.

 

[Magic_gorter]

It all depends on the map. If it's all grasland I will build my cities with two spaces between them but I move them diagonally:

C X X X X X C
X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X
X X X C X X X
X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X
C X X X X X C

But I also will look at special tiles. I will not build it on forest, plains, etc if there is a better tile next to it. And I will also look at specials like whale, pheasant.

Do you also know about the zero line trick. Cities on both sites of the zero line can use the same tiles with workers? If this happens you can build the cities much closer without being afraid of not using all tiles.

 

[rrhal]

This will maximize tile use by Large cities:

X X C X X X X C X X X X C X X
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
C X X X X C X X X X C X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
X X C X X X X C X X X X C X X
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X

Use this if you grow your cities to 20+ . It uses all the land with only 1 square of overlap between any 2 cities. allows cities to get to be 30+ by the end of the game. this is a good thing since population is the biggest contributor to final score.

 

[Russia4Life]

It all depends on the map. If it's all grasland I will build my cities with two spaces between them but I move them diagonally:

C X X X X X C
X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X
X X X C X X X
X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X
C X X X X X C

But I also will look at special tiles. I will not build it on forest, plains, etc if there is a better tile next to it. And I will also look at specials like whale, pheasant.

Do you also know about the zero line trick. Cities on both sites of the zero line can use the same tiles with workers? If this happens you can build the cities much closer without being afraid of not using all tiles.

I did not know about that, usually on random maps though the 0 line is over the ocean for me. I did notice 1 thing about the zero line other than that, units seem scared of it if you give them a goto order. I have had boats that I tell to go from say 2,34 to 150,34 for example and instead of crossing the 0 line they go the opposite direction around the world.

This will maximize tile use by Large cities:

X X C X X X X C X X X X C X X
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
C X X X X C X X X X C X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
X X C X X X X C X X X X C X X
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X

Use this if you grow your cities to 20+ . It uses all the land with only 1 square of overlap between any 2 cities. allows cities to get to be 30+ by the end of the game. this is a good thing since population is the biggest contributor to final score.

That was what I was looking to do maximize land use with as little overlap as possible. The way I used to play I would have massive populations, but also had alot of unused terrain. I have had size 40+ cities a couple times by finding 4 wheat and changing the rest of the terrain to grass, but getting that large of a city size seems kinda pointless since you can only change so many citizens into specialists. I am not sure where the cutoff is but somewhere around 35 I believe, where everything after is an unchangeable entertainer.

 

[Flygon]

The cutoff is 42 IIRC.

 

[Russia4Life]

2 questions, what cuts off at 42 and what does IIRC mean?

 

[IMBC2]

1) The "specialist cutoff" is 36. The 37th citizen and onward will automatically be "useless" Elvises (entertainer) that cannot be changed to other specialists (and won't give you the benefit of 2 luxuries afforded normally by an Elvis).

2) IIRC = If I Recall Correctly

 

[Magic_gorter]

I did not know about that, usually on random maps though the 0 line is over the ocean for me. I did notice 1 thing about the zero line other than that, units seem scared of it if you give them a goto order. I have had boats that I tell to go from say 2,34 to 150,34 for example and instead of crossing the 0 line they go the opposite direction

Yes the game thinks that the shortest route is to the east. you have move manually over the zero line without using goto. It's good to remember where the zero line is before moving an unit.

 

[Spoonwood]

I think you really want smallpox or ICS spacing. In other words CxCxCxC.

 

[Russia4Life]

why would anyone space like that complete, seems like a waste of settlers, then not only did you waste all those settlers but now you have to build improvements in each of those cities just to work 9 tiles. The only way I could see that being a viable option is if you are going for a quick military victory where you likely will not even need to go beyond size 8.

 

[Spoonwood]

You get more commerce earlier with ICS. You get free roads for each city. You can build more caravans more easily earlier for more wonders with ICS. The caravans also can help produce more commerce with ICS. There's more to it... see the article here for some of them http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/Freeciv_without_city_smallpox Note FreeCiv basically comes as a later version of Civ II.

 

[Russia4Life]

Smallpox/ICS sounds boring to me, I will stick to the larger spacing.

 

[Spoonwood]

Try it for a game and see how things go for you.

 

[Russia4Life]

Well I guess I could try it, but my goal isn't to look for unfair advantages over the already crappy AI. Since I already have little trouble wining on deity already. I'd rather get larger cities as I find that more fun, especially towards the end of the game when I have 50-60 sized 25-35 cities not including any AI cities I capture.

 

[WildPony]

Well I guess I could try it, but my goal isn't to look for unfair advantages over the already crappy AI. Since I already have little trouble wining on deity already. I'd rather get larger cities as I find that more fun, especially towards the end of the game when I have 50-60 sized 25-35 cities not including any AI cities I capture.

Hi Russsia,

In your original post you were asking for ideas on "better" city placement, by which i assume you mean "stronger". Spoonwood served it up for you and now you are spitting it out. So you feel it provides an unfair advantage to have cities which overlap? What then were you looking for, a more effective solution where cities would be placed further apart than in your model?

If you're not looking for advantages over the crappy ai, the only way around that is to play vs. a human. Unless you can find a way to get them to stop irrigating a plain that will not be used for 2000 years or get them to group units for an effective attack instead of having them trickle in one turn at a time... Every time a strong human player starts a game vs. the ai, a victorious outcome is inevitable.

Your point about larger cities being more fun is well taken. But if you were looking for "what is stronger" you can heed the words of spoonwood. Of course it won't turn out to be CXCXCX exactly.. because you do want to factor in terrain and whales like magic gorter was saying. Much nicer to build on grass than on forest. But building a city ever 2 or 3 spaces (CXCXXCXC) is a very powerful way to accelerate your start.

Attached is a true to life example, human duelle, chinese civ.

 

[WildPony]

why would anyone space like that complete, seems like a waste of settlers, then not only did you waste all those settlers but now you have to build improvements in each of those cities just to work 9 tiles. The only way I could see that being a viable option is if you are going for a quick military victory where you likely will not even need to go beyond size 8.

Yes Russia, this strategy pretty much eliminates the need for buildings. You just build more settlers instead... so many, so quickly, that you won't feel as if you are wasting them. .

 

[Russia4Life]

Hi Russsia,

In your original post you were asking for ideas on "better" city placement, by which i assume you mean "stronger". Spoonwood served it up for you and now you are spitting it out. So you feel it provides an unfair advantage to have cities which overlap? What then were you looking for, a more effective solution where cities would be placed further apart than in your model?

If you're not looking for advantages over the crappy ai, the only way around that is to play vs. a human. Unless you can find a way to get them to stop irrigating a plain that will not be used for 2000 years or get them to group units for an effective attack instead of having them trickle in one turn at a time... Every time a strong human player starts a game vs. the ai, a victorious outcome is inevitable.

Your point about larger cities being more fun is well taken. But if you were looking for "what is stronger" you can heed the words of spoonwood. Of course it won't turn out to be CXCXCX exactly.. because you do want to factor in terrain and whales like magic gorter was saying. Much nicer to build on grass than on forest. But building a city ever 2 or 3 spaces (CXCXXCXC) is a very powerful way to accelerate your start.

Attached is a true to life example, human duelle, chinese civ.

I understand what you are saying that it is a stronger setup. Didn't mean for it to be taken in any negative way when I said I was going to stick to wider spacing. I am basically looking for a wider spacing that utilizes all the terrain with as little overlap as possible, because I enjoy building really large cities and having a massive rail and farmland system. rrhal had a nice one that I played a game with and I liked it. Magic_gorter's idea is decent too because 1 move units can move from city to city in 1 turn with roads, not causing unhappiness for units not ending the turn in a city. It had a little more overlap than I was looking for but I guess that's the trade off. Whereas the CxCxC thing leaves me no room to grow past maybe 8-10 depending on the terrain. It would probably not even be worth it to build aqueducts in that system since there will be less than 8 squares available to a city to work (plus the center) unless they are on the border.

Yes Russia, this strategy pretty much eliminates the need for buildings. You just build more settlers instead... so many, so quickly, that you won't feel as if you are wasting them. .

Yeah I got that off of reading the link Spoonwood gave, I would have never guessed that spacing like that would be so powerful before reading the links off that page. That strategy just doesn't sound like it would be fun for me though, and after all the reason I play is to have fun. I do wish to improve my game play but I don't want to use strategies that takes the fun out of the it for me.


As a side note I wish I could play versus another human, I never have but I think it would be fun even if I did get my a-- kicked. I just never knew anyone else that played civ, and actually sitting in for a full game online I do not know if I'd be able to do. I only recently discovered this site, I was hoping that there would be players on that were looking for other players to play with, I even went on the chat thing a couple times with no luck. Instead I found alot of useful information, which is a good consolation I guess, it has improved my end of game scores.

 

[Spoonwood]

As an addendum, you don't really waste settlers by going with smallpox or ICS spacing. You only lose 1 population point for a settler, and you get that back fairly quickly when you go ICS. Your settlers also spend less time building roads, irrigating, and otherwise improving tiles... since most of that comes for free (no free irrigation for settling on a forest). And since the food box comes out smaller for smaller cities, you actually end up growing faster in most cases.

This doesn't mean to say you should play this way Russia. One might argue that the game designers did NOT want an ICS spacing strategy to work so well, as they made civ III such that you lose 2 population points for a settler, corruption could run amok with an ICS spacing, the AIs would grab a lot more territory if went ICS too early and carelessly, luxuries/resource availability, etc. They did include an unhappiness penalty for having a slew of cities in civ II, but really it didn't offset the advantages of an ICS strategy... if that's what they wanted to do.

 

[WildPony]

As an addendum, you don't really waste settlers by going with smallpox or ICS spacing. You only lose 1 population point for a settler, and you get that back fairly quickly when you go ICS. Your settlers also spend less time building roads, irrigating, and otherwise improving tiles... since most of that comes for free (no free irrigation for settling on a forest). And since the food box comes out smaller for smaller cities, you actually end up growing faster in most cases.

Ole Spoonwood nails it again . I happen to enjoy ics as one strategy and mostly in the early going i build settlers from size 2's that become size 2 again very quickly... Or if it is later and i am in Republic with the ability to celebrate, i mostly let cities grow to size 3's and celebrate them to 4's and above before building more settlers.

And yes for sure Russia i understand what you are saying about wanting the game to be as fun as possible. If close city building would damage that for you, no sense in doing it. Lots of human players enjoy 5 or 10 city limit games (versus eachother) for that very reason. I actually like playing with only 1 city vs. the ai to give them a fighting chance.

 

[Rommel1942]

I think city placement varies on a case by case basis. Sometimes its easy to spread them out and get the most out of the land as you can for each one. In emergencies however, city placement is wherever you need it to be. Sometimes there are one of those "canal" cities that makes a way through a long thin tapering continent. And the only place to put it will be within the radius of another city or cities, but what can you do? Or you might build a city on a mountain, to close off a pass to an enemy- because it will mean an impregnable fortress once walls are built.

I guess my whole point is sometimes there are larger issues than what is efficient for each individual city. Though generally, that is integral to victory...... creativity sometimes is as well