Perplexed by city placement in regards to water access and district zone overlap

[Artifex1]

I would theoretically want to place my cities with 3-4 hexes apart to take advantage of multiple district zone overlap.

Then again is it better to go 4 hexes and place with no water access? 5 hexes and place with 1 hex away from coast or river so an expensive aqueduct could help housing and growth? or 6 hexes away on the river and/or coast for water access so no aqueduct worries but then I sacrifice overlap?

This question keeps perplexing me and I am wondering if anyone here has a correct answer or thoughts on the matter?

 

[manu-fan]

Thoughts differ on it. Some people say place as close as possible for district overlap. Others say place them apart so that cities have plenty of room for growth and production and districts. I think the right answer is to place where the best spot is, and not worry about whether is 4, 5, 6, or 7 away from another city. Because of this, some will be close, and others will be further away, and you'll have a nice mix.

 

[Jimdigriz]

District overlap? I'm confused! Ive been placing my cities at optimal distance (so that hardly any tiles overlap). So can two cities benefit from a district on one tile?

 

[ezzlar]

If you play Germany and crowd along a river (5 city circle) and place the commerce hub along the rivers and next to Hansas you have almost won the game. Just add the +100% adjency card for commerce/industrial.

+2 commerce for river. +2 cogs for each commerce hub near Hansa and an additional cog for any resource. Then +100%.

 

[Victoria]

There is no optimal distance for cities @manu-fan is right. Look at the terrain and do what is best for it. Last game one had one central and 7 around it... on of the 7 was not near any water not mountains so aqueduct not possibe... It sat at 3-5 for a while then Bam it was up in the 20's by the end of the game. There was 2 luxuries there which do not need to be worked. and it made a pretty circle (user experience counts a lot for ones indulgences)

So can two cities benefit from a district on one tile?

The industrial zone and entertainment zone top level buildings (factory & Zoo) provide all their output to any city center within 6 tiles.
The industrial zone is the main easy thing to do to get one up on the AI. The Zoo may provide amenities locally but naturally these get spread across the empire.

Have a play, do not try to get perfect, it is the terrain that rules placement rather than the placement ruling the terrain.

 

[UWHabs]

I'd rather place cities on the map where it makes the most sense. Sometimes you run into the flaw, where the optimal placement is just a bit too far away, then you just have to make the case where you either place the one city there, or try to squeeze in 2 cities to that zone.

Some civs (Japan for one) I would probably plan to pack a little tighter than others, as they can get more benefits from sharing. It also varies more on terrain - if the space between 2 cities is a desert, I'll often just skip over it until later. If it's grass/hills, I'm probably more likely to split that into 2 to have 2 decent cities able to get up and running.

 

[Larsenex]

If you have a 'triangle' of cities and they are each 5 tiles away and all of their industrial and entertainment zones are inside the triangle, yes all those hammers will overlap. Those three cities will be 'industrial' powerhouses and never lack for amenities.. There is an engineer which you can place in a city which extends the reach another two tiles which is amazing. This overlap is by design. Some folks have said optimum city placement is within this industrial overlap, however due to the random nature of terrain its very hard to place all your cities in this optimum pattern.

I try to settle my first 3 cities with this optimum pattern in mind if I can. All the rest are satellites that support these three.

 

[Victoria]

I used to do 3 but noticed that the gaps between took forever to close and the cities did not use all the tiles. I am now doing about 5 closer the extra power is great

 

[Woka]

For science/domination victory:
I have 2 cities with 6 hexes in between and i boost them in production with cities all around with 3 hexes in between.
That and satellite cities with campus/commercial hub

For cultural victory:
Maximum cities with 3 hexes in between.
That and maximum of coastal cities for resorts.

For religious victory:
Maximum cities with 3 hexes in between.
That and maximum near natural wonders/woods on rivers

 

[Disgustipated]

District overlap? I'm confused! Ive been placing my cities at optimal distance (so that hardly any tiles overlap). So can two cities benefit from a district on one tile?

Yes both industrial and entertainment districts can benefit multiple cities. I'm not sure if there are any others, those are the only 2 I know about.

conveniently there is a thread right here discussing it:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/district-zone-overlap-planning.606538/

 

[mnf]

I don't have a fixed rule, but these are the things I'd consider:

• Early game, fresh water is more important so I'd go as far as 6 tiles if the land is absolutely atrocious, but in that case more often than not I'd just go further and try to forward-settle, then back-fill later.
• Early game, if the city site is going to get 3-4 farms/pastures/fishing boats/plantations anyway, then I'm not that worried about fresh water because those improvements will give enough room for initial growth. Failing that, I'd mostly go for fresh water if it means going from 3 tiles to 4 tiles distance.
• Mid-late game, fresh water isn't that important anymore because I'd have the production to churn out those builders to quickly build farms around the new city or to simply buy a granary immediately, or in the late game to buy tiles and send traders to get a neighborhood up.

And then there's wonders that need brute force tiles to be effective.

• Ruhr Valley city gets 6 tiles distance, i.e. maximize access to grassland hills or really high-food tiles to go with plains hills. 4-5 IZ bonuses add up to 28-35 production, but having 7 extra grassland hills with Ruhr Valley is already +35 raw production. And a good Ruhr Valley site could potentially grab many more hills than 7, so the benefits can easily far outweigh 4-5 satellite cities packed around it.
• Petra city will also tend to get more space as you'd want it to grab more desert tiles, although I normally ignore Petra and deserts unless the civ I get has an unique improvement that can be built on those desert flatland, or if the Petra city is going to have access to a respectable number of desert hills. There's absolutely no point building the Petra if you only have access to 4-5 desert tiles; you might as well use those tiles to build districts, then.
• Chichen Itza getting all the rainforests rainforest tiles around it. Same situation as Petra.

So yes packing cities close for the IZ and EC ranged buildings are nice, but it's not the end-all-be-all of Civ VI strategy. Packing cities is going to out-build the Ruhr Valley super city if you are building units, but they're not going to out-build the super city if you're building the space race projects. On the other hand, many little cities all with Theater Squares is going to out-culture most super cities simply due to the limited source for culture yields.

You need to place your cities to work towards your victory goal like Woka said in post #9.

Case in point:

Spoiler :

I started this game just now. In the capital I have access to 13 grassland mines/quarries, plus another 3 grassland lumbermills, and maximum food is about 60-62 by Feudalism, meaning I will be able to sustain 10-12 food surplus when I have room for growth. This is just too good a spot for Ruhr Valley to pack cities close by and ruin all the production. Although this map is Pangaea, so I might just forget the Venetian Arsenal.

My 2nd city will be towards Gandhi, 3rd will be a canal city just under the Mercury. Then take Delhi for my 4th city when Gandhi finishes the Stonehenge, eliminating one religion from the victory roster while also obtaining it to counter other religious civs.

The Ruhr Valley possibility, a neighbor I want to take out that is spaced so perfectly, and the canal city up north just makes the situation call for not packing cities around my capital. Although I will be building the IZs and ECs of the 2nd and 3rd cities towards the capital. Especially the ECs, as the capital will need all the amenities if it wants to grow to 26 pop to work all the tiles.