selective or proximity expansion strategy?

[civ2003]

Hi,
After starting a new game, do you expand by building cities close to the capital ( they don't overlap tho, but borders joined up ) even tho the nearby tiles are poor ( no resources ) and thus make it very very slow for the city to grow. If not, do you build only build cities on tiles with access to resources ( food, luxury, raw material ) although they may be quite far from the capital, resulting in an empire that is sparse.

Which do you think is a better choice?

 

[MadScot]

Close to the capital and overlapping. Unless the terrain is truly dreadful - total desert, for example. That's the first few cities. Then it depends on what is nearby, where the AI seems to be, etc. But I like a reasonably dense initial build anyway.

 

[wilbill]

I would agree with MadScot. Whether you go for a denser build or "optimum" - no overlap, you really don't want too much distance between cities. Do that and you'll have a civ that's very hard to defend against an AI attack and/or AI's plopping settlers in among your cities.
Occasionally, faced with a patch of desert, mountains, or jungle, I'll leave some space, but later "backfill" to close the area off from the AI.

 

[civ2003]

In my current game ( large, continental,monarch, 9 civs ), i have 11 cities and they are rather spread out because the area around my capital is very poor for growth and all the resources are spread out. However, I took a long time ( at 875 BC now ) to build them as my settlers have to travel long distances

compare my city layout to the other civs,

 

[Sirp]

Yes your cities are WAY too spread out.

-Sirp.

 

[civ2003]

but i don't really have a choice, some of the areas are really bad,
there are a few patches with no food bonus, no grassland, no fresh water which means no irrigation. If i were to build a city there, the city can't support a size of more than 3.

Therefore i suppose its better to build on more fertile land tho further away but with faster growth.

 

[R3dKnight]

hmmm i go for bonus tiles. if i see a cow and a little bit of extra commerce just by moving my settler jsut a tiny bit (usually 1 or 2) of tiles, i'd go for that radius, since later on, you'll need all the tiles u can get.

gotta love those river sides. i always grab those river sides for extra commerce. Chances are at the start, i always follow the river when scouting to find a good expansion spot.

 

[R3dKnight]

Oh don't forget, early on irrigation is meaningless. so forget irrigating and if the city is 2-3 squares away from river, try not to worry too much.

by the time irrigation improves food production, you'd probably irrigate the nearby cities anyway to connect.

 

[MadScot]

Irrigation is not worthless early in the game. It has no benefit to any tile producing two food - which means plains with a 1 food bonus, or grassland without a bonus. On everything else, it adds one food .

The despotism penalty is that any production (food, shields or commerce) greater than 2 is reduced by one. So irrigating to get from 2 to 3 is pointless, because the penalty just knocks you back down.

But, for example, plain (1 food, 1 shield) will improve to 2 food, 1 shield when irrigated, even in Despotism. And that is actually faster than mining a regular grassland tile would be, and gives the same results.

 

[R3dKnight]

yea yea i missed that part !
plains. n flood plains can be irrigated, but generally leave grasslands alone. i always mine those shield grasslands for the extra shield.