SE and city placement

[slobberinbear]

If you go with a Specialist Economy, how, if at all, does it change your strategy in placing your cities?

Out of habit, I will generally try for an OCP placement (i.e., each city 4-5 tiles away from all others with little or no overlap), assuming I can get the bonus tiles I want. But a specialist economy means, at least until Biology and super-high health & happy caps, having lots of tiles in the BFC that are unworked. This means that the traditional OCP may be wasteful in a SE, at least for 2/3 of the game. If I have a size 20 city running a SE, I may only be working 8-10 food tiles in the BFC.

Assuming you can get the necessary food, are you better off having more cities closer together? And if you pursue that strategy, does that hurt you when Biology rolls around and/or if/when you decide to switch to a Cottage economy?

Obviously, the main issue with the SE is securing all the food bonus tiles you can lay your hands on. My question assumes you could get sufficient food to run multiple cities in a smaller area than OCP dictates. I'm essentially asking whether the short-term benefit of having more cities with specialists outweighs the maintenance issues and long-term land-use limitations.

I will post a representative map to illustrate my question.

 

[DaveMcW]

And if you pursue that strategy, does that hurt you when Biology rolls around and/or if/when you decide to switch to a Cottage economy?

Extra cities never hurt you in the late game. Post-biology I will build a city if it can claim 3 tiles not in any city radius.

The main issue is whether the extra cities pay off in the short term.

 

[slobberinbear]

This is Hatty's starting position on the Earth18 (huge) map, and the "standard" OCP placement I would typically use:



I end up with no meaningful overlap, get fresh water everywhere (critical for Hatty), and miss out on one floodplain.

Same map, showing the Fertile Crescent:



My purpose in starting the thread is to show that In my "standard" placement, a lot of the floodplains/special tiles may go unworked if I go with a SE.

Thebes, for instance, has 8 farmable floodplains (assuming you don't farm the specials) plus the unusual FP stone, FP marble, desert horses, riverside incense, and plains/river wheat. To work all of those tiles in a non-SE, Thebes would have to be size 13. If Thebes just worked the farmed floodplains and the wheat (9 tiles), it would generate a food surplus of 19 (assuming no unhealthiness), allowing for 9 specialists at a happy cap of 18.

If I went in that direction, the special resources (other than wheat) are not being worked. So what if I placed cities like this, to get the stone and incense under production?



With farming, each of the cities could support a few specialists or production tiles. I get 6 cities in the same area I previously had 4. But I have higher maintenance costs and have to construct 50% more infrastructure buildings.

Which approach makes more sense for a SE?

 

[xanadux]

First dot map wastes your flood plains early in the game, 2nd dot map I think is a little overboard. I think the balance is either 4 or 5 cities. I might go with a map similar to your second one, but do away with the light blue dot completely,
and delay the dark blue dot until persia is gone and make it 1E to get the clams too.

Infrastructure is not really a problem. All you need is a granary and a library. Lots of farms, lots of whip production, lots of scientists. Get CoL and even more scientists.

You've got 23 floodplains and a wheat tile, all farmed running specialists, takes 48 pop to use it all, 1 for the farmed tile, 1 for the specialist. Even 4 cities it will be forever to make use of all this. I think 6 is a bit too much, so it seems 5 cities in the medium term is about right for max specialist production. Would be sweet to get light purple city to build the 'mids for representation. Maybe grab math early, and the forest chops are enough for it?

 

[DaveMcW]

I would cottage spam Thebes, then run 6 specialists with the leftover food.

Other cities would be built for production and use the flood plains to feed the miners.