Playing Tall: distance between cities?

[Prozac1964]

Hi everyone, I'm trying my hand at playing tall in my current game. Is there an optimal distance to found your cities? Part of me was thinking I should look more at the tile and surrounding tiles to decide, and just put them anywhere on the world. And then I thought I should just make a square of 4 cities, keeping them relatively close to each other.

Any ideas?

 

[joncnunn]

No, the worst thing to do in Civ V is to lock yourself into a set geometrically pleasing city tile pattern regardless of the resources.

Anyway, the rule for playing Tall is found the best 4 city locations that you are aware of at the time, whatever that distance is. (Number includes the capital; ability to defend a city is part of the criteria for best)

For that matter a wide empire should be thinking about which city locations are best for the empire as the whole as well.

 

[Nick31]

No, the worst thing to do in Civ V is to lock yourself into a set geometrically pleasing city tile pattern regardless of the resources.

Anyway, the rule for playing Tall is found the best 4 city locations that you are aware of at the time, whatever that distance is. (Number includes the capital; ability to defend a city is part of the criteria for best)

For that matter a wide empire should be thinking about which city locations are best for the empire as the whole as well.

Co-sign.

The planning you do at the early stages of the game is critical, not least because this isn't Civ4: you're never trying to squeeze in cities. You want to really be thorough in scouting and planning... and given that Cargo Ships and Caravans have decent range, the only threat in going far is if you're forward settling an AI that will take immediate offense. The more you play, the better your feel is for city spots and how they'll impact your game over the next 100+ turns.

Otherwise, the usual list of conditions applies, not least of which is the caveat that you only get a handful of cities in CiV, particularly if you're going tall. Make them count. Remember, going Tall means maximizing. Linking your play is important. And on Emperor and above, you'll also have to think about diplomacy/defense.

 

[Sessy]

each city you found should have at least 1 new lux and at least 2 in total, otherwise you can't do anything, usually the case is 1.5 lux/city, and then some extra copies to trade for money or happiness.

Apart from resources, river, hill, coastal, mountain are all considerations. I usually space my cities 5/6 tiles apart if I want to go tall and use the tiles.

Best situation: on a hill beside a mountain by the coast, with a river. And some salt.

 

[szieker]

Best situation: on a hill beside a mountain by the coast, with a river. And some salt.

This.

Salt is almost like cheating. On my current Emperor level game, as Babylon, I have 7 salt in my first 3 cities. Game is out of hand in my favor early on. It almost feels like Prince difficulty. My religion is dominating my half of the Pangaea thanks to my Pantheon, no Warmongerers near me.

Salt is Silly.

 

[Illianor123]

Best situation: on a hill beside a mountain by the coast, with a river. And some salt.

+Flood plains and desert hills, for desert folklore and Petra.

 

[joncnunn]

each city you found should have at least 1 new lux and at least 2 in total, otherwise you can't do anything, usually the case is 1.5 lux/city, and then some extra copies to trade for money or happiness.

That unique luxury diversity is the ideal.
I have however played on a lot of maps where there is very low diversity of luxury resources in many starting regions.

On my game immediately prior to my current one, I'd have been stuck as an OCC doing that as there wasn't any unique luxuries outside my capital in sight.
So all three of my non capital cities only took in "extra luxaries", and used them to trade with the AI for it's extras for good affect.

Even my current game only features one nearby unique luxury type besides the ones in my capital.

Note the wide variability of resource diversity is a minor positive on the Tradition side of the Tradition vs Liberty debate ledger. Liberty starts are much more dependent upon luxury diversity than Tradition.

 

[SeedenGreedens]

Building tall works best with tradition. Once you have tradition, you get the free monuments and free aqueducts which can help getting a larger population sooner.

 

[Nick31]

That unique luxury diversity is the ideal.
I have however played on a lot of maps where there is very low diversity of luxury resources.

...

Note the wide variability of resource diversity is a minor positive on the Tradition side of the Tradition vs Liberty debate ledger. Liberty starts are much more dependent upon luxury diversity than Tradition.

Jon doesn't need me running around and co-signing his posts, but (again), this is very important to digest for the improving player

So many posts these days are about how to step up to Emperor or Immortal or above, and while there are many facets to that, one of them is understanding the balance between resources and city spots. As the the famous quote from the Matrix says 'There are rules here... some can be bent, others can be broken.'

It is neigh on impossible to play a good Liberty game (6+ city placements hard built) without lots of luxuries to offset the immediate happiness sapping of founding new cities. And nothing is more toxic to a player trying to step up a level than stagnant growth. That snowballs.

Conversely, a flexible Tradition game can see players wait and do a two-city National College start, and maybe just 3 cities for a long time, and then manufacture the happiness to finally plant the 4th. In doing so, you can be more selective on picking 'good' city spots even if they offer no new unique lux.

Indeed, often in a tricky start, the key is how to get strong cities, period. Good strategic and food resources, mountains and freshwater, trade routes to the capital, et al. Happiness can be manufactured. So long as you're growing your Capital, you can take the time to get the requisite happiness for a tall core-4 Tradition game.

You can do the Colliseum and Circus Max sequence if you must, albeit it takes time. A good land full of horses yields Circuses. My personal favorite is scout well and find that one Mercantile CS with two unique luxes, where allying them will give eleven happiness. That is immensely strong. Maybe you can't buy that University as fast as you'd like, but you can nonetheless get the happiness to keep you growing. Going Left-side Patronage (Opener plus Increase Influence from Gold Gifts), can get you to 80+ Influence on a few CS provided you're on top of quests and selling things to the AI. Obviously, if you play a decent diplo game, you can often turn a starting land with 5 copies of Copper or Crab or Silk into a trading station. But sometimes all you can do is sell copies for 7 gpt (ideally 240 bulk) and then invest that gold in a CS.

Either way, a strong city spot devoid of luxuries is still a strong spot in a Tradition Tall Strategy; conversely, if you're thinking Liberty, but your scouted land doesn't have the large diversity of unique luxuries, it's time to re-think.

 

[RatesAnalyst]

Nick31 - I'm with you.

I'm still learning how the game works, but the statistician in me says that the game, despite what you may read here, is NOT about the single best strategy. In fact, the game is about trade-offs and about how to compensate for not doing the best thing because you are unable to do so.

Yes, if we could manage everything you'd settle every new city with a new unique luxury and on a river next a single hex mountain... But unless you re-roll a hundred times that's not happening.

So you compromise. You settle a city with a duplicate lux and trade it. Or a city with a great gold flow and then buy a CS ally.

There might be an "optimal strategy" (tradition opening four cities, education by turn 75 etc) but that won't happen in the game. At least not every time. There'll be diversions and the true skill is assessing the diversions and getting back to the optimal line as soon as possible. It's not never deviating from the optimal line. Otherwise, why would you ever play more than once?

 

[Kirin Rider]

When placing cities remember the ability to build special terrain-dependent buildings. Obviously rivers allow Gardens and Water Mills, coast allows Lighthouses and Harbors and Seaports, and mountains allow Observatories. But don't forget about Horses and Ivory allowing the Circus. Late in the game you can get Hydro Plants or Solar Plants if terrain permits.

There are also two annoying factors which prevent you from building things: plains prevent the Stone Works and hills prevent the Windmill.

One thing I do is look long and hard at what hex tiles will be within reach of the third row of expansion. Sometimes this shows you a non-obvious placement which could yield up to, say, four Fish or three luxuries. Your core cities can even pump out so much culture that by the late game they have expanded to a fourth tier. This can snag you an extra luxury for use or trade in the late game, although you cannot count on this.

 

[joncnunn]

There are also two annoying factors which prevent you from building things: plains prevent the Stone Works and hills prevent the Windmill.

Windmill: That only provides 10% hammers while building buildings + the hammer that you would have gotten if you had founded on a hill. It amounts to decreasing the disincentive of founding on flatland.
Note that the Austrian version can be placed on a hill.

Stone Works: This goes back to during Civ IV it was realized that plains was normally better than grassland. (Civil Service allowed a long chain.) Of course if there was no fresh water near your plains start it kind of sucked, but normally there would be fresh water nearby for this chain.
But the developers didn't realize that reducing Civil Service affect to fresh water tiles only with no chain reversed this back to Civ III's grassland regions are better than plains regions.
So I play with a tiny mod that allows Stone Works everywhere.

Salt is indeed overpowered, I also play with a small mod that slightly nerfs it by moving 1 of the free food from Salt before you do anything to the granary.

 

[Xiao Xiong]

I find it is usually better to found at most one additional city before the national college. If the AI doesn't place your third city properly, just raze it.

Sometimes I don't found my second city until after I build Oxford University. It really kills your economy to build cities too fast.

 

[Nick31]

As a Freedom player, I find windmills incredibly useful, particularly if you've settle in high-growth low hammer places (coasts/rivers without many hills or forests). I don't particularly go out of my way in either direction, as settling on a hill certainly has advantages, but a Windmill can be a powerful thing because of the specialist slot.

A fully pumped up Windmill specialist adds 3 hammers (SOL), only one food (Freedom bonus), 2 raw beakers (Rationalism), plus an added 10% to buildings. All of this stacks, obviously. RR bonus, GA bonus, Factory bonus, 150-200% science bonus... it can be fun. Oh, and in low production starts I often chose the +15% production bonus as religion, if nothing else to add the hammers to my cap.

BNW through religion and ideologies made the Windmill very viable.

 

[JofOblie]

I don't care how strategically you want to place your cities, if my borders won't touch, I won't settle there. No point having a strong empire if it's ugly!

 

[Prozac1964]

I don't care how strategically you want to place your cities, if my borders won't touch, I won't settle there. No point having a strong empire if it's ugly!

LOL!

 

[reddishrecue]

The minimum distance between cities is 4 tiles away. Placing next to luxuries and strategic luxuries often pay off since you can sell the resources to other civilizations and make more gpt.

 

[joncnunn]

The minimum distance between cities is 4 tiles away. Placing next to luxuries and strategic luxuries often pay off since you can sell the resources to other civilizations and make more gpt.

Even better in case of some luxuries is right on top of them.
But in all cases, due to global happiness it's kind of a waste to found 4 cities that only take in the resources that 3 would have taken in anyway.

Particularly because:
1. Natural culture has a strong bias towards resource tiles.
2. It's actually dirt cheap to cash buy a resource tile even on the third range after culture adjoins. The normal distance & rough terrain cash buying penalties don't apply to resource tiles.
3. By placing the first three cities looser, the fourth city can now take in some other part of the map and have that luxury.

 

[reddishrecue]

Even better in case of some luxuries is right on top of them.
But in all cases, due to global happiness it's kind of a waste to found 4 cities that only take in the resources that 3 would have taken in anyway.

Particularly because:
1. Natural culture has a strong bias towards resource tiles.
2. It's actually dirt cheap to cash buy a resource tile even on the third range after culture adjoins. The normal distance & rough terrain cash buying penalties don't apply to resource tiles.
3. By placing the first three cities looser, the fourth city can now take in some other part of the map and have that luxury.

Buying tiles is a lot cheaper with america. Shoshone also has that extra tiles per city which makes it a lot easier to get resources which are important.

 

[johnny_rudeboy]

I don't care how strategically you want to place your cities, if my borders won't touch, I won't settle there. No point having a strong empire if it's ugly!

Lol, you and me both. I want either an island or a peninsula for my self to rule over. Perhaps settle a remote city in the later stages of the game to get some strategic resources or a natural wonder.

If I can get 3 cities along the same river with one of them being coastal then I really enjoy the game. Or perhaps settle 3 cities around the same mountain ridge (if it is big enough) or around the same jungle, dessert etc. Gives my empire a stylish look and an identity. I want to be the king of the jungle, the river emperor or what ever I call my self


One tactic that I have started using frequently lately is that I always move my settler 2-4 turns (depending on terrain) to get another good starting location other then the one I started at first. I have almost always been able to settle my 2nd or 3rd city on the original starting position that usually is a very good spot for a city. And even if this means you kind of often end up forward settling towards another civ and with your capital as well it more or less block them from settling in the direction you came from, giving you time to get your own settlers out and claiming that land.
I started doing this after the AI kept taking the locations I wanted to settle my 2nd and 3rd city on seeing as they get settlers out more quickly.
And this have allowed me to snag some natural wonders for my capital.

The down side is that you might miss out on a wonder or two in the early game (I play on emperor so wonders are still doable) seeing as you miss some early turns. But if you decide to only build one scout and start on a worker right after (after all, your warrior and settler have already done some scouting) you can get back in the wonder game.