Spacing question

[Feyd Rautha]

With 36 tiles possible for your cities in a hexagonal spread, how far apart are you planning to space your cities?

Based on the gameplay I've seen people seem to be keeping to the old 4 tiles apart strat although others seem to be much closer.

Based on the fact that I've seen endgame photos and videos where some cities barely had 24 hexes I'm not sure myself that 3 apart isn't a bad idea.

Thoughts?

 

[Ahriman]

Depends in part on the civ. Further apart for Russia and Indian and maybe US, closer together for some others (eg Persia might favor smaller cities to have more excess happiness for golden age generation).

 

[Mannu]

Depends in part on the civ. Further apart for Russia and Indian and maybe US, closer together for some others (eg Persia might favor smaller cities to have more excess happiness for golden age generation).

I'll be trying to start with 5 or more spaces in between. I'd rather have a large land area with fewer cities working the best tiles than many cities packed in close and working whatever tiles are still available.

Mostly that's just an aesthetic choice for me though.

 

[Ahriman]

Remember of course that the further apart they are, the more you have to pay in road maintenance.

The more I think about it, the more I like the road maintenance mechanic. Its massively superior to "distance from palace" in terms of providing penalties to sprawling growth.

In particular: harbors let to ignore it, so you can have a highly sprawled coastal empire.
And the road length needed to connect your cities is a much better proxy for empire sprawl than distance from Capital, particularly if you have a Soviet style empire where all the expansion is in one direction.

 

[Zhahz]

I doubt there will be an "optimal spacing rule" or anything like that. I think it'll be highly situational based on map, civ, goals, terrain, personal preference, and more.

In Civ IV, for better or worse (ie, I probably don't do it optimally), I have a particular way I like to place cities (when possible). I like a tightly spaced empire with few wasted tiles. I doubt I'll be doing things the same way in Civ 5 since I think cities will be less generic. Building a filler city just to keep tiles covered probably won't be the greatest idea unless you're really looking to REX and sprawl.

It doesn't seem likely that you'd often use all 36 tiles around a city, so you could go for more overlap or you could keep seperation so you can shift tiles/focus for cities or something in between.

Lotsa options and decisions on this alone - good stuff.

 

[SirTurtle]

Check out this thread.

 

[RD-BH]

Doesn't placement depend on rate of expansion (culture and/or tile purchase)?
If I build with a desired resource in the outer ring, does culture expand toward it?
What if the AI values luxury more than food (or vice-versa) and expands diferently than I?
What is the cost benefit analysis of tile purchase?
Seems to me, play-the-map remains the catchphrase of the day.

 

[Ahriman]

If I build with a desired resource in the outer ring, does culture expand toward it?

Not AFAIK. Culture expands onto favored tiles, it doesn't expand onto tiles with favored tiles adjacent to them.

What if the AI values luxury more than food (or vice-versa) and expands diferently than I?

Then you don't get what you want.

What is the cost benefit analysis of tile purchase?

Value of an extra tile (including extra tile to work, specific tile you want, specific tile you don't want the AI to get, bigger interdicted zone the enemy can't enter without war) vs opportunity cost of what else you could spend the gold on.

 

[RD-BH]

Even if I get the tile I want, culture bombs from close neighbors could change everything.
Civ5 requires strategy ... spooky.