Tips on planning layout of cities, please.

[Polonius]

Could we get a discussion going about city planning please? It’s one of the less dramatic features of play, but it seems to me that it’s also one of the most crucial. City build speed is important early on, but it goes for nix later if the placement badly done. A sloppy grid of cities just won’t respond efficiently enough to meet your demands once you get off Chieftain level.

Having played for 5 weeks or so now I’m getting the knack of how to achieve the various sorts of victory conditions and have chalked up at least one of each (thanks in part to some great help from this forum – thanks people). But I can still be let down by hasty or just plain dumb city planning.

It’s instructive to re-run the same map start a few times and see how dramatic a difference a good layout can make. Unless I concentrate properly I can get cities that stagnate and stay tiny, ones that are built too close together (or too far apart), ones that would have done far better if I’d put them just one tile from where I did, etc.

The beauty of this game is that it throws up so many different situations and possibilities, so there is never going to be a perfect build order or an all-purpose ideal grid of cities. But do you have any general principles, sites to seek or avoid, spacings that work better than others, or just any stuff about city planning that you’d like to pass on please.

Thanks.

 

[Polonius]

A few basics (in no particular order) to kick it off:


1. Cities stop growing when there’s not enough surplus food to support another citizen. Typically, the “free” food in the city centre kicks the development process off nicely, but this effect quickly cuts out if the new citizen is producing less than the 2 food they need. Growth=Food, so learn all the food optimising tactics. And check the table under Food in the Civilopedia to see where the food is mainly found.

2. Just to muck up point 1, optimising shields will speed up the build rate for units and improvements. But you nearly always want both food and shields – to say nothing of getting the best out of commerce – so you usually have to compromise.

3. Mining, irrigating and road building are all vital tools, but building new workers costs population (1settler costs 2 citizens, 1 new worker costs 1 citizen). Your favourite balance = what?? Do you prefer to just pop a worker or two into every build queue or make “worker factory” cities? (Cities that start with a 3 food tile somewhere can make great early “Settler factories” but is this always a bonus or sometimes a waste?)

4. Big cities aren’t always welcome as they can lead to unhappiness problems before you are ready to use the coping strategies. But they are extremely handy if you can manage the whingeing.

5. A good “town planner” should be able to look at the shield/gold/food potential of a site and predict just how far and how fast a city could grow there. They will then try and match their research order to bring in temples, granaries, marketplaces, key Wonders, etc on cue to support the planned expansion. When picking sites, look for cows, rivers, stooks of wheat, and…????

6. Don’t take “It’s too crowded” too literally. They don’t mean that there are no tiles left within the city to move to. It is more to doing with the population reaching the maximum dissatisfaction size for the prevailing difficulty level, government type, luxuries available, etc. It’s a happy face balance thing. Spending more on entertainment instantly makes them forget the neighbours for instance.

7. Building cities close together can speed up your early build (less travel time, quicker to build roads etc) but can choke off growth later in the game. Sometimes this can suit your aim, sometimes not. Effective planning seems to include not only understanding the short term effects of your layout but also grasping what’s likely to happen mid-game and end-game.

The above won’t be news to most of you – but what tips can you share with us? Please correct me if any of the above is wrong, and add your own tips and observations. Despite all the above waffle I need to get a lot better than I am at this aspect of the game.

 

[Polonius]

It’s also worth bearing in mind as you progress that one beneficial layout has the regular Palace near one end, and the Forbidden Palace somewhere up the other end (depending on map style). So look out for a city that can build you the Forbidden Palace in reasonable time when you need it (i.e don’t wait till they’re all too corrupt to build anything).

And one tactic which can be handy is to name your cities alphabetically – Alftown, Bertville, Cordelia, etc. This can provide a very quick comparison as to how cities are growing in relation to how long they’ve been there. ("Gosh, Oddspot is twice the size of Foulswamp already…why’s that?")
It can also provide a prompt for changing your focus (“geez, Mundaring already – it’s time I ….”).

Hoping that all this waffle unleashes some more information from the real experts on the site.

 

[eyrei]

My first priority is to build cities so that their cultural borders will encompass the entire area I envision as 'mine' by the time they reach 100 culture points. If I am right next to other civs, I will build them closer so that my territory is defined by the time they gain 10 culture points. This keeps the AI from grabbing land at your borders.

 

[tetley]

I usually get most of my cities by capturing others' cities, so usually I don't plan the layout myself. But nevertheless there's two biggies to city layout:


1) RIVERS, rivers, rivers!!! Settling on rivers is d*** important! One could argue you should settle one square away from a river to maximize gold, but--it's only 1 gold; who cares. Besides an earlier 12-population and not having to build an aqueduct if you build on the river, you get to build Nuke plants later. Plan on these cities being your star performers throughout the game. Locate your Palaces accordingly.
2) I try to settle lots of coastal towns. When you build a harbor, every coastal/sea square worked gets two food, allowing that citizen to sustain himself food-wise. And then a little gold to boot, without a Worker having to road it. This in effect gives you some "free squares," while other cities work your more inland squares.

And then there's a few little things:

1) If I have a choice, I settle on the square that yields the least food. For example, if desert and plains are next to each other, I pick the desert. The resulting city gives me 2 food, regardless. Also I'll settle Jungle to get the free clearance, and I'm slightly more reluctant to settle Forest early because of the lost 10 shields.
2) I try to space out my cities just enough so all 20 citizens can work the squares, but sometimes there's exceptions. For example I'll gladly move closer a square if it means I get a river. Ideally I want every square in my empire worked, plus all the coastal squares I can.
3) If you get a city with good food bonus squares but no river, make that city a Despot-rush farm and/or Worker/Settler farm, that needs not grow beyond size 6. You can scrunch in neighboring cities accordingly, since you need only work 6 squares. I'm pumping workers throughout the game now that I've figured out workers are the best way to populate size-13+ cities.
4) No city is truly useless. If all else fails, you can always pump out Workers, or cut off its resources and pump out cheap & upgradable stuff. Warriors are even useful throughout the game--they quell resistance, prevent culture flips, and you can disband them elsewhere for 2 shields. I can never have enough of them, even in the Modern Age.

 

[Moulton]

I built a planning tool in civII--celephane or plastic with the optimun city bounderies drawn on it, and a center spon to be sure it is lodated properly in the diamond. My goal is to place cities optimally so that every square is in a city. Cant make it 100%, because other things modify it---like rivers and mountains, but it is a starter.
I lay my borders first, if possible, preferring to put a blocker in the open turf rather than make the cities too close. My current layout is rather scrambled, and there will be many missed squares, because I had to take some far borders first, and fend off encroachment from Rome while I was building.
On coasts, I make every effert to make an optimum placement, and try to leave no gaps there. If necessary, I will build a fort and put a warrior in it. (Civ I and II i used diplomats--they were cheap and no maintenence. and diplomats never get tired of standing around doing nothing )
Open area in the center can be filled in later, provided you have no rite of passage going, but for me, this meant this time that i have some long empy roads to the two edge (choke point) cities.
With no rivers, you city will cap at 6 anyway until you can build an aquaduct. With rivers, it is sometimes necessary to move workers so you have a no-growth city until you get happiness modifiers in place, or keep pop down building workers and settlers unless you need something else from that city.

 

[Polonius]

Thanks to you all for some great tips and information. I have printed out your suggestions and also made up a city size template (like Moulton’s). I found I could just about fit it on the back of an old CD case (and the edges make it easy to hold).

I’m also making up a simple table listing all the various bonuses, government advantages/disadvantages etc. to refer to until all this stuff sinks into the brain and finally sticks!

I think from now on, whenever I need to improve my knowledge, I’ll just do a search on this forum using “tetley” “eyrei” “Moulton” etc. and just read whatever comes up. You guys have posted some very handy stuff here in the past few weeks. Thanks indeed.

 

[Moulton]

Thanks.

Comes from 12 years of civ games perhaps...

BTW, I use soft plastic, like celaphane or electronic parts bags. Have to use something like a magic marker to write on in... but it tends to stick to the screen with static electricity.

 

[tetley]

Just don't read my tip on Great-Leader farming with barbarians, okay?

 

[Daaraa]

I think that the city placement is affected by the type of victory you want.
If you are going for cultural, it is just fine to have cities with only a few workable tiles due to overlap. All you need in them is a temple and a library and then they are contributing 5 culture per turn at least and that number is not affected by corruption.

If you are going for a spaceship victory you would need better production to get those space parts out. A smaller amount of cities than the cultural victory and spaced out to maximize workers.

If you are going for a war-type strategy, (what I usually do) I'll build right at the bad guys border, refuse ROP treaties and I won't trade maps. I'll end up with a mix of the previous two. Culture to prevent city-flipping and production to get those tanks out there.

Rivers are very important. Free aqueducts and buildings like nuke plants and wonders like hoover's dam depend on them. I had a game where my continent had no freshwater whatsoever. It was a real pain. I couldn't figure out why it felt like a different game until I realised I couldn't build hoover's dam.

I always have a worker-factory and if possible a settler factory but usually the same city doubles. I like have on average 4 workers per city later on in the game. If I own 100 cities, I'll have 400 workers. (Helps with pollution and with the next sub-topic)

I'll also change terrain improvments to suit the situation. Example - The Romans and I both started building Sun Tzu's at the same time. I spied on Rome through my embassy and saw that they had 20 turns to complete. They had already improved for max production and had 12 people. I was going to complete it in 28 turns. However, I was optimized for growth. I had about 25 (give or take 3) workers nearby (one or two turns movement) and I re-optimized for production, had two workers join the city so I was at 12 people and I was going to complete it in 16 turns. It took me three turns to complete the transformation and I got the wonder with one turn to spare. (I guess the Romans had a bone to pick after that cause we went to war a couple of turns later )

Anyways, I think that city placement should be dictated by the type of victory you want.

 

[Moulton]

Planning toward the end game, I try to develop 3 or 4 cities with maximum production. This means, basically as large as they can grow and support themselves, with tiles optimized for production.
Last game, Quebec and York wer producing 89 and 88 shield per turn. York was also a research center, with all the wonders -- Coepernicus, Newtons, and SETI. Had not gotten to Manufacturing Plants yet.
That reminds me of a question. York was producing 110 beakers: half its Commerce tokens. I did not 'see' the multiplication effect of the wonders. Does it get computed but not displayed? Or not really computed at all?
I also had several cities that had more food than they could use--and much of the time I limited workers to keep growth stable. but with the granary full, or nealy full, simly assigning a labor unit to a food square produces workers or settles as needed in 1 turn.

 

[Zouave]

Don't build a city on enhanced grassland tiles. You will lose production if you do.

 

[spork]

Optimal city layout depends heavily on the difficulty level. The initial "territory grabbing" phase was already covered well. I always study Iron Working first, because it is by far the most importanr resource early on. You simply must have it, and your neighbors won't sell it to you because they're probably too lazy to buld trading roads and connect additional iron sources.

But, I found you get a big advantage from intelligently building dense suburbs immediately next to your capital. Theoretically, you can build 8 suburbs that are maximally close to the capital (2 squares away). You should try to come as close to 8 as you can, but at minimum, build 5. Don't worry; there will be plenty of space for your workers. Then, design your improvements so that your cities stop growing somewhere between population 6 and 10. If you play Diety like I do now, aim for 6.

Remember that most unit shield costs are divisible by 10. For this reason, while you're still in despotism, make sure your cities produce exactly 10 net shields per turn. 11 or 12 will be of no help, and 9 is no better than 7, except for huge, rare projects. In my current diety game, I'm still in my despotism, but my capital and five of its suburbs are making 10 net shields each, meaning I can make two new Persian immortals each round just from these few cities. Of course, I'm working on making the same sort of suburbs around my Forbidden Palace.

Remember to never place your capital near the ocean: If you do, you basically give up the possibility of building suburbs on that side, and that's a big waste. In general, have a good idea of what your suburb layout will look like before you plant your capital. Sure, walking with your fist settler for a few rounds puts you at a disadvantage, but correct city placement will make up for it very quickly.

The importance of hills doesn't become clear until you switch from Despotism. remember though: once you switch, a hill with a mine and railroad makes four shields and a food. That's BIG! That's why hills are so damn valuable for production. Of course, it can't all be hills, or your people would starve, but it shouldn't be all grasslands, either. Oh, and remember that all mountains which you can work from your capital and its immediate suburbs should evenutally be mined and raildoaded. They give you no food, but it's worth it to irrigate some grasslands to make up for the loss.

So, in summary: plan and build good suburbs; it's the key to the game!

 

[Polonius]

Thank you all for your excellent posts.

One of the things that I love about this game is that it contains so much potential for variety of playing style. There are just so many different ways to approach the game, as so many interesting strategies that can work well.

It's great to be able to come to this site and read so many ideas that hadn't occurred to me to try yet (and might never have done!).

 

[Smirk]

You do get the river commerce bonus on the city square so don't worry about wasting it.
The best squares to not place on are the balanced food, shield squares, food being more important like grasslands. However give precedence to placing on a grassland than the shieldland, I always avoid placing on a shieldland. Although river or coastal access supercedes shieldland.

It is a waste to place on most resources, except in special situations. I've placed on iron before to quickly get it connected to roads, since hills take 2 times longer to road (only really important for speed conquest and/or early game).

Placing on wheat, cattle and most other resources is a waste, except if you do plan to make a settler/worker city, getting that bonus +1 food in the city square that is always worked is a big plus, however only do that if there are other wheat or cattle around, otherwise you'll be better off placing beside it and then irrigating the bonus. An unfortunate side effect of getting 3 food on the center space is that you will never be able to disband the city (I consider this a bug, or a design flaw of the game mechanics), you can still give it to an enemy and then retake it and raze it, then rebuild in a better spot where you can irrigate or mine that resource.

I'd recommend not worrying too much about making every city perfectly lined up, there are plenty of times when you want to share specific squares and since they are so rare its a huge bonus to have them available to two or more cities. For instance, flood plains and moreover wheat flood plains. If I share a wheat flood plain I can pop rush temples and all other early city improvements in those 2-3 cities in very short time. Also since I pop rush them, placement is only for early game, I will abandon them later and resettle if they are too stunted by lack of workable land.

Also be aware of how big a bonus it is to get that free border expansion when placing close to other cities. Most times you have to share the outlying 3 spaces, but getting those squares without first building a temple or library is another small bonus that can make the difference when it counts, in the beginning.

Also all the palace and forbidden radius placement scemes can safely be ignored. Having more 5 production cities only means that hospital will take 20-30 turns instead of 120 or whatever it is, still useless for you anytime soon. In other words having ten 5 shield cities and having five of them are effectively the same. If you need some low production unit like workers you will have plenty of those junky cities no matter where you place the palace or forbidden.

Don't make any compromises with palace and fobidden placement, put it on the absolute best spot for one city, the radius will work itself out. The later game benefits are all percentages, while putting a factory in that 5 shield city will make it 7 or 8 (actually maybe 6 with corruption) putting it in a 50 shield city will more than make up for any relative loss through less 5 shield cities. And that 50 shield city with the plant and factory can pump out tanks and infantry in 2 turns.

There have been games where my forbidden and my palace were within range of each other (right next to each other, 5 squares apart maybe; palace later got moved for my ironworks city :> ). My palace was on fertile grasslands with a number of cattle and wheat by a river, and the forbidden was nestled by a river with a bunch of hills all loaded with gold. Likely the two best cities in any of my games so far.


A final overriding principle is that you can always fix late game problems by resettling, however if your placement scheme is too strict you can't deal with changes.


Hope that helps, its all I can think of now.


One more thing, if I see flood plains when I start a new game I know I have already won that game.


Made a correction, you do not get any shield bonus for settling on a hill, I must have had iron sneak under my city square. I just remember seeing 2 shields in 1 of my cities, not in golden age and not with any city size or greater civ trait bonus.

 

[Moulton]

Limiting your cities to the Diamond sizeLimits them to 8 productive squares plus the city center. That is probably enough for Pop 12, and if you plan to finish before you exceed that size, this should work fine. My style it to try to get my core cities, those with little or no corruptin, up to pop 24 or so. A good city this size, with the proper improvements, can produce a tank in 1 or 2 turns.
But this is style, not so mluch strategy. Both strategies work.

 

[SSK]

Nice to see all the suggestions. I *Still* haven't been able to get CivIII since the Mac port isn't yet in stores

But in CivII, I was intent on staking out a large territory for myself initially by placing far-flung outpost cities and preventing the AI from flanking them into "my" interior. Then I used to locate the prime resource spots within my staked out area--in CivII, special resources used to be pattern-placed by the program in such a way that there were occasional spots where 3 or 4 special resources were each a knight's-move (in chess) from a central spot (i.e. all available to 1 city's 21-square grid), on which I would plunk a city. If I found such a spot with my first settlers, particularly if on a river too, then I knew it would be a glorious civilization. I.e. I tried to make cities which eventually become humungous powerhouses.

Q: anyone know in CivIII whether the bonus resources are placed in this (knight's move from one central spot pattern)? How about strategic resources--are they randomly laid-out?

I always strove for the infamous huge trade center approach, preferably on the river or coast, where I would put Colossus, Copernicus, Newton--generating a killer science city. Often 40-50% of my science would be made in this city. I would also put Shakespeare here so the city could grow unlimitedly under Democracy by having no unhappy citizens. In the midgame, my Shakespeare city was always like 6 pop points above all others.

And in the days of King Richard's Crusade (KRC), I'd build a production center with a few hills and KRC. Then I'd use this city, with caravans, to build all other wonders, particularly in the trade center. I guess I can't do this now since KRC and caravans are gone, and Iron Works comes too late. I guess I'll have to rely on Golden Age (so I guess I won't be playing Americans or Germans... GA too late).

Now, with the city square liberalized so that you can place on desert and jungle with no penalty, I would take advantage of this--why waste a nice shield-grassland when you can plop your city on a jungle with no penalty?

As for density, I always liked to space my cities so that all squares could eventually be worked. However, with CivIII's corruption issues, I understand I might need to change this and crowd a bit closer to the capital and forbidden palace. Bummer. I hate corruption.

 

[Phantis86]

As a beginner, I don't have much advice I can give.

Since you have 35 times more experience in this game that I do, I doubt this will be of any value to you. But here is what I can help you with from my understanding.

1. Food and Shields are the absolute most important items at the beggining stages of the game. They both increase the speed at which your civilization can grow. Civilization growth is crucial when you first start, because you want to get the most land you can.

More land=more resources
More resources=more units, technology, etc.
More units, technology, etc.=Victory!

2. Irrigation can increase food production (and shields I think). This will help you get a quicker start. Remember the more shields and food, the quicker you can expand and grow.

That is all I can help you with now. Hope this helps a bit, but I doubt it.

********************************
EDIT: Typing error.

 

[zebomba]

I like the perfecionist approach: 2 huge capitals with about 5 huge cities around it, never overlapping. The rest of the cities are just cannon fodder, outposts or barriers against the enemy expansion. Those huge cities can safely figth against 50 ****ty cities the AI builds, not only bc its huge numbers, but also bc corruption is almost non existent. In fact, I've never lost a huge city. They can afford 3 defenders plus some attackers early on. And pumping 5-6 modern armor (or cavalry, or knights, whatever) each turn means no civ can fight against you. I'm playng at emperor level right now, wonder if it works on deity.
It's all a matter of mixing terrain. All grasslands still can work, but surely not all mountains. And avoid deserts. They suck big. The only thing to get there are resources, but then an outpost can do the job. Tundra isn't that bad. It can be forested.

 

[Moulton]

I use the idea of the two cores of highly productive cities, but have not tried to spot my capitol perfeftly... close enough works, so far. Keep in mind that a large part of the score is the amount or perhaps percentage of the land you control. So, productive core, plus outlying cities that stay happy, produce nothing but score points. Actually, your second tier and perhaps third can be producers. Those are the ones that take 5 or 6 turns to produce a Modern Armor...