Optimal City Spacing

[Artifex1]

Do you have a hard rule on how far apart you like to keep your cities when placing them and what distance does that tend to be? A "sweet spot" perhaps?

 

[Breadsmith]

I like about 7 spaces away, so both cities can potentially use their entire workable space at some point, but I'm pretty sure that a bit closer is better

 

[Leyrann]

I like building them at minimun distance, but that's mostly because I want to have as many cities as possible, and I could see there being not enough tiles per city in the late game. And amount of cities doesn't cost you anything except increasing builder costs (but lets assume you work every single tile in the end of the game anyways) and settler costs (which after a while would get replaced by military costs as you just start conquering areas when there's nothing free left).

 

[WileyWilson]

Do you have a hard rule on how far apart you like to keep your cities when placing them and what distance does that tend to be? A "sweet spot" perhaps?

I like to put my 4 or 5 core production cities 4/5 tiles apart to maximise IZ stacking. All other cities are 6+ tiles apart.

 

[Takfloyd]

4 or 5 workable tiles between two cities is usually best. Most of the time it's good to have some overlap because you can share improvements and switch them between the cities depending on current need, and you rarely run out of room for citizens anyway. I try to avoid overlap for my capital and other monster-size cities that I want to make use of all the tiles in, and I often go with minimum distance for fringe cities, especially late-game,to get them quickly up to speed with IZ stacking.

Having a set "rule" for all cities would be both dull and impractical.

 

[Zuizgond]

As close as possible in order to build a maximum of cities. As long as your entertainment district can reach two additional cities, it's worth it.

 

[kungapa]

As close as possible. The majority of production will come from buildings and districts - and the more cities covered by an IZ, the better. A city that gets production from six IZs gets +18 hammers with factories, +42 hammers with power plants, and +54 hammers if you get the engineer that boosts factories.

 

[Bigv32]

The answer in the current build of the game is - "The more the better, so place them 3 tiles apart (or 4 tiles if you could the city center)".

The answer in practice is - "How ever many the player feels like managing."

My answer is I try to keep cities with 4-6 tiles of one another (3-5 blank tiles between them). This allow for maximum overlap, but also makes defense a lot easier. Archers get bonus damage if they are in a district as a first promotion, so the closer the cities, the more distrcits that cover the same area, the faster your trade routes cycle to get roads built, etc.

This is must easier if you download the better trade menu mod and production queue mod on this site as they both do a great job at reducing the micro.

 

[Bigv32]

As close as possible in order to build a maximum of cities. As long as your entertainment district can reach two additional cities, it's worth it.

Industrial zone is more important here. Closely spaced cities will not grow as large, so ammenities are not as big of a concern. If you have a city that only has 1 tile that can reach 1 more city than the other, put the indy zone there. (please keep in mind this is just a general statement. There are always exceptions, but in this game, production overcomes all problems).

 

[bite]

I try to have it so my capital gets its full 3 tile ring, I'm more flexible with the other cities

 

[kungapa]

I try to have it so my capital gets its full 3 tile ring, I'm more flexible with the other cities

This will likely be sub-optimal for overall production for your capital.

- In the early game, you will be housing-constrained (and border growth constrained...) - so you won't be able to work the full 36 tiles (net any districts you build).
- In the late game, having other cities far away enough that your capital gets its full 36-tile ring, you are likely sub-optimizing production from powerplants and factories. You can place the districts to maximize production in your capital - to the detriment of your other cities

 

[joncnunn]

Do you have a hard rule on how far apart you like to keep your cities when placing them and what distance does that tend to be? A "sweet spot" perhaps?

Hard rules are bad as any number as a hard rule would result on some maps given where the city states and AIs have already founded their cities in preventing some key tiles from ever being worked.

My soft rules are avoid both the absolute minimum the game allows you to found on the one hand but also avoid the no overlap on the other.
But having cities start with fresh water and also ensuring that some key tiles aren't permanently locked out of being worked are both more important.

 

[Victoria]

@kungapa I am afraid I am with @bite on this one. The huge majority of my gold is spent on tile growth and builder buys. If my capital does not have hills enough my second city will amd I will push those borders out and get a big production city running in most cases.
If its a second city and it can be close to the first then thats fine, I can just swap out my captals tiles. The city does not have to have a huge pop, typical 11-13 is fine but the big majority of the pop working plains hills

 

[LethalLeigh]

I always give my first 2-3 cities Maximum space if possible. then I start to put them closer together as I settle further away from my from my Main cities. But always allow my cities to have 2 hexes worth of space. the third hex ring I over lap because some districts like IZ and entertainment can cover many cities. which is even better if you have Toronto as a City State.

 

[Victoria]

Isn't Toronto fairly useless now?

 

[LethalLeigh]

Much weaker now that Regional buffs don't stack. However it still increase the range of IZ and EP by 3 spaces which means you need to build less of them. The closer your cities are to each other more are covered by a single district. What I want to know is does the Great Engineer that also increases the range stack with Toronto.

 

[Victoria]

... I do not know but its rare you would want that single share to go 12 tiles, especially as it will only go 12 tiles if nothing else is closer.

 

[LethalLeigh]

The game I am play at the moment has 15 Civs still alive on a huge Inland sea map and the cities are force to settle close together. apart from my first 2 they are all 5 hexes away from each other.
there is a spot that has room for 2 districts that will effect 10 cities IF Toronto and the Great Engineer stacks. If not that number drops to 7.

I made a post a day or so ago asking if they stack, did not want to waste my Great person if they did not but no one has replied yet so I went ahead and used him anyway but I cant tell if it effects the out cities or not. Because I am trading Luxuries with the AI every other turn.

 

[joncnunn]

Moderator Action: Two posts moved to https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/which-of-several-mods-increased-max-distance-question.612084/ within Creation & Customization

 

[Janskey]

The game I am play at the moment has 15 Civs still alive on a huge Inland sea map and the cities are force to settle close together. apart from my first 2 they are all 5 hexes away from each other.
there is a spot that has room for 2 districts that will effect 10 cities IF Toronto and the Great Engineer stacks. If not that number drops to 7.

I made a post a day or so ago asking if they stack, did not want to waste my Great person if they did not but no one has replied yet so I went ahead and used him anyway but I cant tell if it effects the out cities or not. Because I am trading Luxuries with the AI every other turn.

Haven't payed enough attention to tell whether the GE bonus stacks with Toronto, but an easy way to check is to gift the city away and check the difference. Save first, of course.

Edit: would be nice if stuff like this was mentioned in the manual/civilopedia/something similar.