The perfect city

[BenitoChavez]

I'm bored at work.

In my boredom my mind started to wander. As it tends to happen I started to think about Civ, specifically what characteristics would make up the ultimate city, one that excels in all aspects. High population, the best wonders, max yields for production, science, culture, faith, etc.

In my opinion, we probably want:

1) Max adjacency bonuses for our districts
2) Lots of flat grassland for farms
3) Lots of plains hills for mines
4) A river for freshwater
5) A few mountains for campus and holy sites
6) Access to the ocean to build a harbor + ships
7) Any resources needed to satisfy placement requirements for wonders.

This is a first attempt at my perfect city. Behold my MS paint skills.

Spoiler :

I put the city next to a river for the housing and on a plains hill which gives 2 food, 2 production for the city center.

I went for most districts laid out in a hexagon shape, with the government plaza at the center. The major exception are the Theater Square and the Industrial zone. Those benefit more from wonder/mine adjacency.

I put mountains mostly in the 4th ring so they wouldn't take up precious workable tile space but the Holy Site and Campus could still benefit from their adjacency. Farmland is best grouped together as well because it gets bonuses as you go through the civic tree.

As for wonders Ruhr, Big Ben, and the Colosseum are solid wonders no matter what victory condition you are going for. ToA and Hanging Gardens are good for growth.

So what do you think? What can be improved? How should the districts/wonders be laid out? Are there better wonders to get? How would you lay out your perfect city?

 

[Archon_Wing]

Imo the perfect city isn't on the river but next to a lake next to the river. River spots are prime real estate and if we can get fresh water by not being on a river that would be good.

The city should have lots of forests for chopping too.

Ideally the harbor should be next to a river tile for hub adjacent but there should be as few water tiles as possible. Maybe enough for Collosus and Opera House.

I do NOT want Collosseum in here. Collosseum should be in a nearby city because spending a slot on an entertainment complex slows things down too much. I do want the potential for a water park late game.

For similar reasons, Big Ben and Forbidden City should be outside too. Ideally the wonders should benefit the city proper such as Ruhr, Oracle, Oxford, Great Zimbabwe, and Broadway. However, there may be a number of aesthetic and practical concerns too.

 

[UWHabs]

Kind of depends if you're talking about the best city for a OCC game, or the best city combined with other cities in an empire.

As for the above:
-The Harbor is basically useless without having water tiles to use. I mean, yeah, I guess it could be up to a +4 harbor there which gives something if you want to force having all the districts, but feels like that's going to be more or less a wasted spot most of the time.
-I would also skip the Aqueduct there unless if you're also talking about a "must include all districts", since it's only going to give you +2 housing with the cap already on a river.
-In terms of inefficiencies:
*The Harbor is missing the +2 for being next to a city-centre
*The HS and Campus both have 3 districts next to them, which will round down. Likewise the theatre has only 1 adjacent district, so that's a wasted adjacency.
*Really, some of those mountains near the holy site should be natural wonders. Although then you have to balance getting the, say, double yields vs the holy site there. Or whether it would be better to have a wasted city tile to get the natural wonder bonus affect more tiles within the city, too.
-For other wonders, Forbidden city is a good general purpose wonder, so my "ideal" city would probably have it there. And as above, Oracle, Oxford, etc... would also be tempting wonders. You'd also want to consider St Basil or Petra if you convert a bunch of those plains hills to tundra/desert ones.
-Hanging Gardens probably doesn't give enough boosts to the city itself to really be valuable. Potentially Apadana would be more useful given the other wonders built, although obviously helps the empire more than the specific city.

I mean, the city above would still be an awesome city, but ideally you need to decide if you're planning on the best OCC city, or the best city for an empire, since the wonders you'd place there would vary a little.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

"They are all…perfect." --- Moritsugu Katsumoto, The Last Samurai

If I had to choose however, at present, I favor the capital city of my current game. I am planning a bunch of mines, some floodplains with adjacent plains for feudal food bonuses, an industrial zone with a factory, Rhur Valley, and an encampment with a military academy.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

I'm a little bored myself.

Still perfect.

Has anyone ever tried to play a multiplayer with themselves? I was thinking of giving the Deity AI further advantage by making like 7 on a small map, having 3 allied, 3 more allied, then me.

 

[acluewithout]

Why so many districts?

My “best” cities will rarely have a commercial hub or harbour - that’s for my satelite / colonial cities. They’ll normally have a campus and something else useful (or at least fun) - IZ (more fun than useful) or holy site (faith instead of production). I’d ideally want a triangle or diamond - makes counter spying easier and districts boost each other. If it’s a diamond, the government plaza is my fourth district.

Depending on victory type, I want either hills and mines or hills and lumbermills. Freshwater. Also good food resources to grow.

Whether I want choppable resources or not depends on what style I’m playing. If I’m aiming for mines, then jungle and woods on hills to chop is ideal.

 

[shaglio]

You messed up your diagram a bit: the Harbor is a district on the water, so there wouldn't be a river on the west and northwest edges of the tile (the river would end between the Com Hub and Gov Plaza). I'd also throw in a couple of sea resources bordering it. But I agree that I'm also drawn to the Harbor/Com Hub/City Center triangle.

Also, would you want a river branch to cut through the farmland, or do farms no longer benefit from being riverside like they did in Civ 5?

 

[acluewithout]

City Centre, Campus, Industrial Zone triangles are also fun, particularly if you can get one mountain tile for the campus and mines for the IZ.

Holy Site, Theatre Square, CC is also fun (if you’re Japan). Again, very nice if you can get a mountain tile.

 

[BenitoChavez]

Imo the perfect city isn't on the river but next to a lake next to the river. River spots are prime real estate and if we can get fresh water by not being on a river that would be good.

Interesting. What is an extra river tile good for? As far as I know commercial hubs and city centers are the only things that benefit from river tiles unless you're talking about civ specific bonuses like The Netherlands.

I do NOT want Collosseum in here. Collosseum should be in a nearby city because spending a slot on an entertainment complex slows things down too much. I do want the potential for a water park late game.

For similar reasons, Big Ben and Forbidden City should be outside too. Ideally the wonders should benefit the city proper such as Ruhr, Oracle, Oxford, Great Zimbabwe, and Broadway. However, there may be a number of aesthetic and practical concerns too.

Hmm, that's a pretty good point. I'll have to reconsider my wonder choices.

Kind of depends if you're talking about the best city for a OCC game, or the best city combined with other cities in an empire.

As for the above:
-The Harbor is basically useless without having water tiles to use. I mean, yeah, I guess it could be up to a +4 harbor there which gives something if you want to force having all the districts, but feels like that's going to be more or less a wasted spot most of the time.
-I would also skip the Aqueduct there unless if you're also talking about a "must include all districts", since it's only going to give you +2 housing with the cap already on a river.
-In terms of inefficiencies:
*The Harbor is missing the +2 for being next to a city-centre
*The HS and Campus both have 3 districts next to them, which will round down. Likewise the theatre has only 1 adjacent district, so that's a wasted adjacency.
*Really, some of those mountains near the holy site should be natural wonders. Although then you have to balance getting the, say, double yields vs the holy site there. Or whether it would be better to have a wasted city tile to get the natural wonder bonus affect more tiles within the city, too.
-For other wonders, Forbidden city is a good general purpose wonder, so my "ideal" city would probably have it there. And as above, Oracle, Oxford, etc... would also be tempting wonders. You'd also want to consider St Basil or Petra if you convert a bunch of those plains hills to tundra/desert ones.
-Hanging Gardens probably doesn't give enough boosts to the city itself to really be valuable. Potentially Apadana would be more useful given the other wonders built, although obviously helps the empire more than the specific city.

I mean, the city above would still be an awesome city, but ideally you need to decide if you're planning on the best OCC city, or the best city for an empire, since the wonders you'd place there would vary a little.

- I don't really play OCC so I kind of assumed it would be 1 of many cities in an empire.
- I wasn't really sure about the aqueduct either but I wanted the hexagonal, max adjacency bonuses for my districts and I wasn't sure how to fit another district in there without giving something else up. Maybe I should swap it for an aerodome since I don't have that.
- Moving the harbor next to the city means there will be a bunch of water tiles which is generally less valuable than land, unless they have resources on them.
- The Campus and HS are next to a gov plaza which is +1 adjacency. With two other districts thats +2 overall. You're right about the Theater but I wasn't sure how to get it surrounded by wonders without giving something else up.
- Good point about the natural wonders.

Why so many districts?

My “best” cities will rarely have a commercial hub or harbour - that’s for my satelite / colonial cities. They’ll normally have a campus and something else useful (or at least fun) - IZ (more fun than useful) or holy site (faith instead of production). I’d ideally want a triangle or diamond - makes counter spying easier and districts boost each other. If it’s a diamond, the government plaza is my fourth district.

Districts have yields that are hard to come by from terrain alone plus great person points or allow you to produce units. My ideal city should have both. And since this is going to be a very high pop city it should be able to build all those districts no problem.

You messed up your diagram a bit: the Harbor is a district on the water, so there wouldn't be a river on the west and northwest edges of the tile (the river would end between the Com Hub and Gov Plaza). I'd also throw in a couple of sea resources bordering it. But I agree that I'm also drawn to the Harbor/Com Hub/City Center triangle.

Also, would you want a river branch to cut through the farmland, or do farms no longer benefit from being riverside like they did in Civ 5?

I mentioned earlier that if the City Center is next to the harbor means you have some water tiles which aren't ideal, unless they have resources. I guess since this is an ideal city I could probably put some there.

As far as I'm aware farms don't benefit from river adjacency.

City Centre, Campus, Industrial Zone triangles are also fun, particularly if you can get one mountain tile for the campus and mines for the IZ.

Holy Site, Theatre Square, CC is also fun (if you’re Japan). Again, very nice if you can get a mountain tile.

Do CC, Campus, IZ triangles have some bonus other than just the standard adjacency? Same for HS, Theater, CC?

 

[BenitoChavez]

"They are all…perfect." --- Moritsugu Katsumoto, The Last Samurai

If I had to choose however, at present, I favor the capital city of my current game. I am planning a bunch of mines, some floodplains with adjacent plains for feudal food bonuses, an industrial zone with a factory, Rhur Valley, and an encampment with a military academy.View attachment 495687

That is definitely some good dirt for a city. Flatlands for farms, hills for mines, good spots for districts where you can get lots of adjacency bonuses. It's not perfect though (it never is ) because of those mountains taking up valuable tiles and no access to the ocean.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Interesting. What is an extra river tile good for? As far as I know commercial hubs and city centers are the only things that benefit from river tiles

Quite a few wonders require river placement, and maybe even lumber mills on rivers.

 

[shaglio]

As far as I'm aware farms don't benefit from river adjacency.

Huh, I guess I'm still hung up on the Civ 5 mechanics. I'll have to reevaluate my placement decisions in light of this.

As far as I'm aware farms don't benefit from river adjacency.

Huh, I guess I'm still hung up on the Civ 5 mechanics. I'll have to reevaluate my placement decisions in light of this.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

That is definitely some good dirt for a city. Flatlands for farms, hills for mines, good spots for districts where you can get lots of adjacency bonuses. It's not perfect though (it never is ) because of those mountains taking up valuable tiles and no access to the ocean.

I still say Pella is the perfect city. I have an industrial zone there, an encampment 1 turn from military academy, and a bunch of farms and mines.

I quested my knights to find a city to rival Pella's perfection! They have been, as yet, unsuccessful...…

 

[UWHabs]

I still say Pella is the perfect city. I have an industrial zone there, an encampment 1 turn from military academy, and a bunch of farms and mines.
View attachment 495783
I quested my knights to find a city to rival Pella's perfection! They have been, as yet, unsuccessful...…
View attachment 495784

If Boston was placed, say, 1 SW of the encampment above it, that'd be a pretty sweet city itself. +4 campus spot, with a big bread basket underneath it and a large industrial area north. Pella is nice, but there's just a couple too many mountains stealing potentially usable tiles. Although in reality, not like a city needs to work all 30+ tiles.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

If Boston was placed, say, 1 SW of the encampment above it, that'd be a pretty sweet city itself. +4 campus spot, with a big bread basket underneath it and a large industrial area north. Pella is nice, but there's just a couple too many mountains stealing potentially usable tiles. Although in reality, not like a city needs to work all 30+ tiles.

You're right, that'd be a nice spot. The AI's placement its 7 cities (especially New York) leaves much to be desired. But hey, they were cheap

 

[nrh]

Great thread, love your diagram, thanks for sharing

 

[UWHabs]

I might have a candidate. I was worried I would lose out on Petra, since the city didn't have any help in chopping it in. But I'm glad I got it. The only downside to the city is that I hate building over any of the tiles since they're all so strong. And I was going to build the Maracana (7 turns construction time), but forgot that it needed a flat tile. I'm also only using 12 trade routes in the city to get its food up - maybe I should use all 30+ on it to truly get it rocking. Or use my Factory-stacking Magnus.

 

[Karmah]

The only downside to the city is that I hate building over any of the tiles since they're all so strong...

So if I understand you correctly your city has too many nice prod tile to build ?

 

[UWHabs]

So if I understand you correctly your city has too many nice prod tile to build ?

Am I gonna replace a 2/6/2 tile with an encampment? Ended up throwing a high adjacency theatre on flat tile bottom left (was gonna border 4 wonders before I finished off the last civ in the game), and after re-routing a couple trade routes got up to 330 prod per turn (I think it was 134 from tiles, like 96 from trade routes, plus a little from the buildings and such). I mean, I guess I could have thrown Petra onto one of the floodplains tiles and had an extra flat tile there to work with, but yeah, I definitely felt guilty replacing those sweet desert hills with districts.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

As far as I'm aware farms don't benefit from river adjacency.

A baffling design choice in a game about the rise of civilizations. I'd like to understand the development team's rationale for this. A desire to extend your irrigation system further and further out beyond ready sources of excess water should, to my mind, be one of the imperatives pushing people forward on the technology tree.