Optimal/Best distance between cities?

[code99]

I was playing my game now and i was about to settle my second city and i wasnt quite sure where to settle ... closer/farther away from my initial city.

I was thinking 6 tiles apart so that each city has 3 tiles around it to work once metropolitan administration is researched.
However, that is a looong way off since im only at the start of the ancient era.

I could settle closer so i can have more cities but i might regret this later on?

Whats your take on this?
What do you do normally?

 

[Snofru1]

I usually use about 5 tiles, but 4 or 6 tiles are ok, too. Of course the terrain is the main thing, being on coast or next to a river is as important as having many resources. Of course you should also take into account how many opponents you have. On a small maps with many AIs I would settle closer.

 

[irishhombre]

Coastal cities are invaluable. I use the dotmap to plan the distance between my cities.

 

[Thunderbrd]

There are 2 very different schools of thought and perhaps using both is fine. One is to pack cities in tight and close while the other is to spread them apart so as to avoid overlapping tiles as much as you can. All while trying to avoid missing out on the use of any useful tiles in general. If you maximize the potential land plots dedicated to a city, that city will eventually have higher maximum yields and can thus be very valuable for a super city where you're building nearly everything you can, military included - more production = stronger military and wonder output. However, there are a lot of useful buildings to boost yields so for the nation as a whole, the more cities you found, the more you can get from a smaller section of land and this also tends to keep the populations lower and more easily maintained (though you're actually doubling up a lot more on property control units per tile this way it's not so many needed per city and proper building management may be able to do the trick without many control units in play at all.)

Therefore, for me, it's give the core cities as much room as I can while packing in the additional ones later.

 

[code99]

I see, thank you all for your replies.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Experiment, with adding cities close and far. See what suits you and your play style. I'm rather "old school" and my 1st cities are generally close....unless there is a Must have resource farther away. Like horses or elephants or camels which I will settle near even if it makes that city somewhat isolated from the capitol for awhile.

 

[Raven Destroyer]

tend to spread the first 6 apart to ensure they'll have most of their tiles at the third ring, so I've got a couple of Industrial hubs, and then I just go free form, to just get a weight of numbers effect

 

[Harrier]

A lot of events need 8 or 9 cities (not sure which). So when you have found your neighbours, place your cities acordinly.

 

[Trantor]

6 tiles is good.... if your game reaches the age of droids
but near borders settle closure else AI will sneak in