Spacing cities

[AznWarlord]

Never really cared to figure out how far a city should be spaced from another. Should it be where gaining your first culture expansion connects two cities together?

i.e.

XX
XXXX XX
XXXX XX
XX

The big X equalling the old city and the small ones making a new one?

When the new one expands the borders connect.

 

[Sashie VII]

I believe you're talking about Optimal City Placement, in which the goal is to have no tile overlap between cities.

Might want to take a look at this

Personally, I'm more a builder so I go with a mixture of CxxC and CxxxC.

 

[AznWarlord]

Okay thanks, I've been looking through much of the War Academy, but it's painful to have to read every single headline.

 

[Turner]

I try to go for OCP, but I'm flexible in that I'll put a city where I think I need it. I hate overlap, but I can deal with it.

 

[Desertsnow]

My first few cities generally are at OCP. I like my core to be able to develop to its full potential. Placement tends to get more compact as I expand, though, with my frontierland at CxxxC or occasionally CxxC. I only rarely go to ICS distance (CxC) though.

 

[Sashie VII]

Personally I dislike ICS, not even my specialist towns are ICS.

 

[AznWarlord]

I judged myself, I don't ever go below Loose Placement, unless I've conquered a city which overlapped my border. I hte those damn AI's!

 

[darski]

In a game today, for the first time, I saw an AI Civ put a city in a CxC placement.
They had planned to get to my land but I blocked them. That doesn't usually cause them to double up the cities though. just looked odd to me. I do it to them all the time but they don't

 

[WaterDragoon]

heres the thing really. If you play conquests the OCP is pointless. I am still palying my first game but i can tell you already. In the future i will start at cxxxc and starting on the 3rd city from the capital i will go cxxc. the way corruption works by size 8-9 a city that far from the capital is producing 9 commercer cooruption or more. even if the city is making more you quick can see how it isn't profitable to the whole civilization.

9 x 10 is 90 commerce corrupted..... just do that math....

 

[Norton II]

I almost always use tight placement (cxxc) in the core and semi-core, ICS everywhere else. This lets most of my productive cities grow to size 12, which is as big as they can get for most of the game anyway. Specialist farms usually don't need to grow past size 6 (don't want to pay for aqueducts), but if you have one on a river with a food bonus or two, it can still grow past 6 without working very many tiles.

 

[Desertsnow]

I still prefer OCP in my core, but my outskirts will always be more compact. I'll even settle new cities in conquered territory if the spacing is too wide *cough*Rome*cough*

 

[Sweetchuck]

Just to reiterate, I think CxxxxxC or whichever pattern you're using means the two tiles (x's) closest to the city are those initially part of a standard new citie's radius (that starts like):

xxx
xcx
xxx

So, a CxxC city would actually be exactly two tiles apart and would overlap - I'm not even sure the game will allow two new cities to be built that close together.

I do agree that the most efficient placement is CxxxxC since that includes the highest percentage of workable tiles and the lowest percentage of unworkable tiles since your workable area will max out at exactly two tiles in either direction (except the corners) from your city center - but that all depends on the initial terrain.

I usually still build my cities 5 or 6 tiles apart, but I'll go lower if the terrain is optimal or for placement reasons.

I do notice that, all things considered - the AI will usually build CxxxC patterns if allowed.

 

[Tomoyo]

The most efficient is a mixture of cxxxc and cxxc, because hospitals don't come for a really, really long time, a time by which hopefully you've won.

I generally use cxxxc only, since cities unconnected by cultural borders are ugly, as are cities too close to each other. Building cultural buildings is a bother.

 

[Sweetchuck]

Ok - CxxC wouldn't overlap, I wasn't thinking the logic through.