Placing cities in the beginning

[saintly_saint]

Hey all, this will be my first post:

I'm just a beginner at Civ III and i wanted to know what is a good way to plae your 2,3,4th cities etc... at the beginning of a standard sized pangea game. ( till i now i tend to build my beginningcity far off my capital to block other civs from expanding towards me,)

any help would be appreciated

 

[casual_moose]

sometimes expanding and putting a city far from your capital wont stop them. they just go around it or go in a boat. when i place my 2nd 3rd 4rth 5th cities i look for the best place near my capital. i'm not sure if that helps but thats what i do.
btw welcome to cfc

 

[saintly_saint]

thx moose, but what i mean is, i was playing a regent game a couple of weeks back and i kept on expanding very close to the capital (no overlaps tho) and at the end i was squashed between several otha civz whos empires where much more stretched then mine

 

[casual_moose]

o... dwere there cities on better tiles that yours? because if most of there cities are on tundra or desert or something, then they might not be more powerfull than you and you could of declared war.and if the sities are farther away from your capital, that increases corruption or something like that

 

[saintly_saint]

no they were in good terrain, and everthing seemed normal,i ended up being crushed by egypt(north), rome(west), zulu(south) and sea the only choice left being war, and i dont like those wars where you struggle to survive. ( i tried building cities over the enemies' since their culture wasnt ev where but all i got was weak little cities that dint amount to anything)

 

[casual_moose]

did you build cities over them after you razed the city, or did you try to culture flip them?

 

[Jurimax]

My 2 cents: it often pays off to crank out settlers as fast as possible. In order to outexpand the AI you need your settlers to come out faster than the AI. This way you put the pressure on the AI from the beginning.

There are some good articles in the War Academy on optimizing your start.

Greetings Jurimax.

 

[kb2tvl]

I would suggest to get pottery early then a granary while cutting down trees while building it and expand faster.

For city placement, I would suggest placing cities at 3 for ancient age peak or at 4 spaces for midevil or 5 for a peak at the industrial times. I would not be too concerned about over lap but when you want to peak.

 

[saintly_saint]

so, the last game i managed to build up an army and then just conquered the zulus early gaining all their territory, won that, then tried kb2tvl's strat and it worked well excpet that the cities in the ancient which i placed at 3 sqrs overlapped alot thus limiting my prduction in the middle/industr. ages

 

[Kaiser_Berger]

You shouldn't worry about overlap too much. That is one thing that many (myself included) worried about when we were new to the game. Your cities will be much more productive in the Ancient Age with a closer placement. Seeing as the Ancient Age is the most important age, it makes sense to get the most out of it. In a lot of games the game can be pretty much over by the late middle ages due to a strong start the the ancient age.

 

[Shevek]

The further away you place your first cities from your capital the longer the settlers have to walk to get into position. You waste time with walking around in which your new city could be producing things and growing. Over time that just multiplies.
Also you do not need more than 12 workable tiles for your cities for most of the game as hospitals come rather late.
So with a loose build you sacrify early advantage for gain in the far future.
I almost always would go for a dense build in the early stages, something like 3 - 4 squares apart.
That applies especially when going for a military type victory. When going for culture win you might want to give your capital some more space.
Hope this helps.

 

[mbrown]

I generally place my cities 4 spaces apart.

Placing the cities 4 spaces apart allows the cities to expand until late in the game and fills in the culture boundaries immediately.
I will occasionally use 3 to fill in boundaries or 5 for a potentail super city site (i.e. an early city which I may want to use as a wonder factory)

 

[budweiser]

The best way is creeping expansion as the game goes along. The first core is better serverd at three spaces as others have said. By the time you can get an FP you are probably into the second age and that second core should be at 4. Those two cores can serve you for the whole game and any other cities can be spaced at 5 to maximise land grab. They will be corrupt so it doesnt matter. If your two cores are really lopsided complared to the shape of your empire, you can palace jump to a 5 space third core. That would be the best way to go, but often not necessary.

 

[anarres]

Originally posted by Shevek
The further away you place your first cities from your capital the longer the settlers have to walk to get into position. You waste time with walking around in which your new city could be producing things and growing. Over time that just multiplies.
Also you do not need more than 12 workable tiles for your cities for most of the game as hospitals come rather late.
So with a loose build you sacrify early advantage for gain in the far future.
I almost always would go for a dense build in the early stages, something like 3 - 4 squares apart.
That applies especially when going for a military type victory. When going for culture win you might want to give your capital some more space.
Hope this helps.

This is more or less the best advice you can get about city placement, especially the bit in bold.

If you have been playing with little or no overlap I suggest you give ticht city placement a go - you may be suprised at the power of it.

Oh, and hello Shevek!

 

[AlanH]

Originally posted by saintly_saint
( till i now i tend to build my beginningcity far off my capital to block other civs from expanding towards me,)

Cities don't block AI civs unless they are on one tile choke points before galleys. They don't even bother going round. They'll just march on through if they want to settle the other side of you.

 

[casual_moose]

Cities don't block AI civs unless they are on one tile choke points before galleys.

or if the city contains the coast in its city radius.

if you demand them out enogh times you could declare war

maybey not the smartest choice but it could work

 

[kb2tvl]

Remeber that you can abondon cities latter in the game. Think of it as pruning unneeded branches.

 

[Flavor Dave]

In general, after my 2nd city, I "skip" a city space quite often, then go back and fill that in later. This can be a risky strategy, as the AI can really f*** you up by plugging the hole himself. Yeah, you can get it to flip...but that takes a long time.

This is an especially effective strategy if you really know the territory, either with a scout or an early chariot. I like playing with a scout; sometimes I can tie up 4 luxuries before the game really gets going. That's a massive, massive advantage. You won't have to worry about happiness for a very long time.

Also, it's good to plop cities directly on jungle tiles. It converts the terrain to grassland immediately, and immediately puts a road there. That saves you aLOT of worker turns.

 

[kb2tvl]

I wanted to add that sometimes I will place a second or third city at 20 tiles out from my capitol. The intent would be that that city will be my future forbidden palace. Also, I have been placing all cities at a distance of 5 but I will have 10 cities at a distance of 5/5.5. Then I will place cities at a distance of 10/10.5 on the second ring. This seems to work pretty well.

 

[civ_steve]

I also like to form an inner ring of cities at a distance of 5.0 or 5.5 from my capital. This is close enough to the capital to provide good support and small amounts of corruption (early on), but far enough to be able to build a decent number of cities in my innermost ring. Cities outside this innermost ring get a big jump in corruption, so you want a good number of cities on this 1st ring. If you haven't already done so, read the Strategy Article on Ring City Placement (RCP).

Fast growth is essential. Recognize the tiles that are best for population growth and build cities that use them. A capital with bonus food tiles and a granary will allow you to flood the map with Settlers! There are articles on building Settler Factories around (Bamspeedy has a link in his signature to a very good article)

Forbidden Palaces: I use 3 ways to build it. If militaristic, and/or I'm being aggresive, depend on a Great Leader to build it far away from the capital. Otherwise I can either build it close to my Capital in a high-production city, than do a Palace Jump to shift the capital far away (takes planning; read the Article), or I can build it in a fringe city, 10 spaces away or so, and get WeLoveTheKingDay going to get as much production as I can get, and wait a while.

Lastly, chances are good that you're going to have to take someone else's space away to fully develop your empire. Make plans for this - establish embassies with potential allies, form an army, do a mass-upgrade, declare War, sign Alliances, blitz them. Repeat as needed.