Too many resources for a single city? Need advice on placing cities.

[VegaDelalyre]

Hi, I'm a Civ II-holic and it's been zero days since I played Civ.

I'm trying to understand how to place cities in Civ4 and came up with this layout. My capital city would be the blue one, but this raises questions:

1. Would 3 maizes + 1 cow + 1 clam be a waste? Should I leave some for a neighbouring city?
2. I'm thinking of building my second city on the right side, outlined in lime, so as to start blocking the white competitor. Is that a good strategy?
3. How to block my western neighbour? There's a cow by the lake, but then I won't be exploiting the gold west of my capital city. There's also a whale a bit closer to my soon-to-be enemy, but it'll only be exploitable later on.
4. Finally, there's a convenient mountain range in the lower-left corner, that would help block the western guy, but it's surrounded by desert and would make for a poor city placement (S1 or S2), wouldn't it?

I'm playing as Charles de Gaulle (French civ), btw. Thank you for your advice!

Edit: proper(er) English.

 

[AcaMetis]

Don't have time to go into details (and others can probably do a better job of it anyway), but broadly: One thing I'm missing is lack of overlap between cities. Cities that can share tiles can help each other grow cottages, take over good tiles when one city can't work them, defence is easier, and maintenance is lower. Obviously there's limits and situations where the opposite holds true instead, but in general, a dotmap with zero overlap requires closer examination.

Would 3 corns + 1 cow + 1 clam be a waist? Should I leave some for a neighbouring city?

Not necessarily, although being 1 tile from coast means the city can't make full use of the Clam (can't build a Lighthouse for +1 on water tiles). Such a city would be a fantastic great person pump later on, but therein lies the key: Later on. Early on you will need to share that food in order to use all of it, so it will be worth looking into sharing that food with at least one other city - the clam in particular, since a landlocked city can't make the best use of it long term.

I'm thinking of building my second city on the right side, outlined in lime, so as to start blocking the white competitor. Is that a good strategy?

There are situations where that is a good strategy, but the long and short of it is: It depends. Are you afraid of this rival settling in your face and drowning you in culture? Is this rival a bad military target? Does the map not favor military strategies? If so is this rival a warmonger who will settle right in your face and cause border tensions? Is this rival at risk of expanding further into your territory if you don't block them off early? Are you at risk of losing limited expansion space if you don't contain them early? Etc.

It's hard to say if it's worthwhile in any particular case at a glance, but generally, settling cities because of a rival civ forcing your hand is the exception, not the rule.

How to block my western neighbour? There's a cow by the lake, but then I won't be exploiting the gold west of my capital city. There's also a whale a bit closer to my soon-to-be enemy, but it'll only be exploitable later on.

Same as above, basically. Go out of your way if the situation calls for it, otherwise you're better off focussing on your own empire and developing it efficiently. A neighbour might settle a city you could have, but if they spend time developing it while you spend time developing the tech and units needed to conquer half their empire effectively that will be a net gain in your favor.

Finally, there's a convenient mountain range in the lower-left corner, that would help block the western guy, but it's surrounded by desert and would make for a poor city placement, wouldn't it?

AIs can and will use Galleys to settle around mountains if that is the only thing blocking them off, so don't worry about them too much. It's a delay tactic, not a permanent solution. As above, letting a neighbour burden themselves with a poor short term city while you leverage your short term efficiency into a long term advantage is the better strategy.

 

[a pen-dragon]

Would 3 corns + 1 cow + 1 clam be a waist? Should I leave some for a neighbouring city?

A bit more details on this.

Without additional happiness resources your cities can grow to size 5, the capital to size 6 (one more than normal due to being charismatic).

Now there are a few concepts playing into how to optimize city placement.

1. Cities should grow quickly. This means that a newly founded city should have a food resource improved ASAP. This can either mean taking one from an existing city, or settling in a way that allows you to improve that resource fast. The second option generally means that you want food in the first ring around cities, due to how culture works.
2. You want to work your good tiles: It would be a shame to improve a tile (especially food), and not work that tile for an extended amount of time, because the city has nothing to gain from more growth. In that case it is useful to have another city placed in such a way that the food can be shared. Later on it is also useful to have cities to help grow cottages (the civ4 commerce improvement, they get better the more they have been worked), mostly for the capital, as in the beginning a single city can not work all tiles in its BFC, but mostly for your capital (due to bureaucracy and plans for oxford university, as both are huge multipliers) you want to have these grown to their maximum as soon as possible. A few close cities can each work a few cottages and grow them for later use in the capital.
3. So, close cities that can share tiles are good. (also they cost less maintenance)
4. Why food is THE early game yield: Food allows your cities to grow. So far so good. However until now we did not consider the most unbalanced mechanic in the game: Slavery. With a granary in place (effectively doubles growth, basically the same effect as in II), slavery can transform , in the form of population, into at a ridiculous, close to 1:2 ratio (2 production per food). That means that then a tile with 5 (or 3 surplus), effectively can be a 2 6 tile. (Two food to support the citizen working it.) This is why, especially in the early game, food is king. Now whipping (i.e. using slavery to accelerate production) comes at a cost: Each whip generates 1 . Once every 10 turns this whipping unhappiness is reduced by one. Thus a city whipping a lot will quickly stack up unhappiness, meaning that food is better distributed to allow more cities to whip, but at a slower pace (once every 10 turns is good).
5. Building cities with much overlap is not the best for an individual city long term, but short term advantages are better in growing your empire and thus it is better for your entire empire in the long run.

How culture works:
A city can only use tiles that are culturally controlled by the civ the city belongs to, and at most 2 tiles away (the same 2 tiles away as in Civ II, in the following called BFC (Big Fat Cross), or second ring)

• When settling a city, that city only has cultural control of cities that are one tile away, a 3x3 square (the first ring). To expand your borders you need to generate culture ( ).
• The problem in the early game is that except for the capital and creative leaders your cities do not produce any culture. This means your are typically stuck working the first ring for quite a while.

Let's apply this to your position:

• The triple corn would make for a great capital, but this is too much food, requiring at least one city to share this with. 3S of the capital would be a good spot for this, as it can share all corns and has good land on its own.
• The gold city would be slow to grow, as the food is in the second ring. Floodplains kind of work, but are very slow. 1S of the gold would allow to share one corn of the capital to stand the city up faster, and also not waste a floodplain by settling on it (settling on a floodplain removes it, reducing food from 3 to 2.)
• Red is in a good place.
• Pink would be moved 1S, but is a project for later, as it has low food.
• Your silver spot could be on the cow (this provides a 3 food city center), to allow working the fish down the line.
• A coastal city can be built between the capital and silver to work the clams (lighthouses provide +1 food on water but can only be built in coastal cities).
• The orange marble spot is almost useless.
• A city can be built next to the wheat, but is low priority, due to the wheat being not that strong and the land around it rather weak.
• Rice is ok.

You will probably not be able to claim all these due to AI expansion, but that can be dealt with later.

In that layout the capital and the cit 3S are responsible in the early game for quick expansion, meaning producing settlers and workers. 3S, gold, and clam can work a few cottages for the capital.

I'm thinking of building my second city on the right side, outlined in lime, so as to start blocking the white competitor. Is that a good strategy?

This would be a bad idea, as that city does not accelerate your growth. It takes a long time to stand up. It would be better to build a few stronger cities first and then, with a strong basis, think about neighbours. Either by building cities or conquering them. Sometimes it is worth it to build the second city in a contested spot, but only for really good reasons. The silver spot is not such a good reason.

Edit: Fixed culture icon.

 

[VegaDelalyre]

Thanks for your advice, @AcaMetis and @a pen-dragon . It seems I completely overlooked the "collaboration" aspect between cities. From what you're saying, this is even more important for the capital city, which needs to be supported to fulfill its greater role, right?

I took note of the city suggestions.

• The clam one, however, I don't see where I should place: we want it by the shore, but it would either be really close to the capital and lime one, or it would have lots of tundra...
• Are you suggesting placing the (blue) capital as is, and a city 3S to it? It would share six tiles

 

[AcaMetis]

It seems I completely overlooked the "collaboration" aspect between cities. From what you're saying, this is even more important for the capital city, which needs to be supported to fulfill its greater role, right?

It depends on the situation. In most cases tile sharing with the capital is extra important because you want to grow cottages that the capital can eventually work with the Bureaucracy civic, which massively boosts the capital's production and commerce output, as well as stack on top extra city specific boosts like using a Great Scientist to build an Academy for a massive beaker output bonus. Of course other times you want to share tiles with the capital for other reasons, like if it has way too much food that you want to share with another city to get the most out of it, and still other times the capital actually isn't that important for one reason or another (generally when you plan on moving the capital in the relative short term).

Of course even outside of that having cities close by has other advantages, RE: defence and maintenance cost as I mentioned earlier.

The clam one, however, I don't see where I should place: we want it by the shore, but it would either be really close to the capital and lime one, or it would have lots of tundra...

You can't settle a city within two tiles of another city on the same landmass, so assuming the cyan city is placed where indicated the clam city would have to be settled 1NE on the Tundra tile. This definitely isn't a strong city site you settle early, but it is a city you would settle eventually just to make use of the Clam. A low pop city with at least one decent food resource that can get itself minimally established can still be a net positive to your empire, just not a very high priority one. Of course this is another thing that is very highly situational.

Are you suggesting placing the (blue) capital as is, and a city 3S to it? It would share six tiles

That is a good suggestion for a city site, yes. Sharing six tiles is not the norm, mind, but the concept of cities sharing tiles is very common practice.

A pen-dragon detailed the reasons why pretty well, but to try and give an example: Cities can't always make the best use of their best tiles, and sharing those tiles gives you more opportunities to get the most out of them. I.E. a city building a Settler can work a 33 Plains Cow tile just as effectively as a 6 Corn tile, since excess will automatically be converted into (there are caveats, but we'll just keep it simple for now). However a city that is focussed on growing can make much better use of the Corn than the Plains Cow, the difference in growing speed from an extra +3 is night and day. If these two cities share those tiles you can assign them to whichever city makes the best use of them, and clever use of Slavery allows you to turn that Corn's hefty food surplus into a heftier amount of production in the process.