What should you look for and prioritize in settling?

[SirLemonWinks]

The only tile that gives your starting city 2 Hammers is a Plains Hill. Any other tiles grant the City Center 1 Hammer instead.

 

[Zantetsuken]

Think this is more of a strategy section post, but whatevs

Production is king in this game, so plains hills isn't a terrible goal in my opinion, otherwise it may depend on who you are playing as to some degree, Scythia valuing horses or England with the coast, etc.

 

[playshogi]

Fresh water is always good. Then look for a good spot for an industrial zone that is within 6 tiles of the capital. The capital should have a flat, riverside tile for Ruhr Valley wonder adjacent to a nice spot for an industrial zone. Another idea is to look for a good spot in the capital for the Coliseum and place satellite cities within 6 of that tile.

 

[Miravlix]

City center gives you at least 2 food 1 production, so any tile with less is an interesting spot to upgrade.

If a spot has more than 2f/1p the city will be upgraded to that, but settling a city removes some features, so that 3f march becomes a 2f tile, so no upgrade.

Lux can be settled on and since most has crappy yield, that you don't want to work, they might be good tiles to consider settling on.

Strategic resources don't vanish either.

I think all bonus tile elements is removed, march, quarry, etc.

One thing to think about is boosts from improving a tile, if you settle on something you wont be improving it to get the boost.

 

[Zantetsuken]

Fresh water is always good. Then look for a good spot for an industrial zone that is within 6 tiles of the capital. The capital should have a flat, riverside tile for Ruhr Valley wonder adjacent to a nice spot for an industrial zone. Another idea is to look for a good spot in the capital for the Coliseum and place satellite cities within 6 of that tile.

Rivers are definitely a top priority of mine, fresh water is very important, even when you have neighborhoods, coastal water will work in a pinch, but I always try to base my cities around having access to fresh water, either directly or through aqueduct, unless it's just a crappy little outpost city to grab a couple key luxuries or strategic resources, which is more viable in this game than civ 5 since there isn't the increasing science/culture costs for more cities, not every city needs to have all the districts and buildings, sometimes you just really need those truffles and iron and a city with just a granary and maybe some coastal water will suffice

 

[player1 fanatic]

Fresh water, or if really necessary due to other terrain placement (like for nabbing strategic and luxury resources), one tile away from fresh water or the mountain.

Although I practice that scenario only for middle/later game cities, when I can rush buy granary, so that city does not stagnate right away at 2 housing, which would be brutal. So I get granary right away and start building Aqueducts.

Coastal water is a trap. It it pretty much as bad as no water, just single housing level away from no water, and does not have access to aquaducts. Only recommended if there is an actual fresh water one tile away or the mountain so you can get aqueducts.

So anyway, fresh water is good, everything else is bad.

One tile away from fresh water is also good, if having access to gold for rush buy and engineering for aqueducts.

And everywhere else, in late game when neighborhoods are available.

 

[Plus Ultra]

Long rivers with forest/hills are ideal, you really can't go wrong with those.

Bear in mind:
-You need 3 farms forming a triangle (two of them adjacent to a river) to maximize food outpout per tile.
-Lumbermills on river tiles give fantastic production.
-Rivers are needed for several tier 1 wonders and the all-important water mill.

 

[isau]

The answer will vary somewhat from civ to civ, but basically the Meta game right now seems to involve spamming 3 types of districts:

- Commerce
- Industry
- Harbor

Commerce and Harbor both give you gold and an extra trade route, Industrial district gives raw hammers and makes those trade routes give hammers too.

In theory you can look for clusters of mountains for Holy Sites and Campuses but, particularly in the case of the Campus, this hardly seems to matter since tech is so easy to get.


Germany is overpowered as heck because it can just ICS and spam cheap industrial districts followed by commerce districts and basically break the game.

 

[SirLemonWinks]

The answer will vary somewhat from civ to civ, but basically the Meta game right now seems to involve spamming 3 types of districts:

- Commerce
- Industry
- Harbor

Commerce and Harbor both give you gold and an extra trade route, Industrial district gives raw hammers and makes those trade routes give hammers too.

In theory you can look for clusters of mountains for Holy Sites and Campuses but, particularly in the case of the Campus, this hardly seems to matter since tech is so easy to get.


Germany is overpowered as heck because it can just ICS and spam cheap industrial districts followed by commerce districts and basically break the game.

ICS?

 

[Timally]

ICS?

I think it stands for something like infinite city spawn, or sprawl. Basically it is to spam a lot of small cities close to each other. It was very popular at the launch of Civ V to spam cities four tiles from each other no matter the terrain. The individual small cities got major bonuses from gold from connections and were broken with stuff like science. It was always better to spam than to grow tall complex cities. You ended up with games like this https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=c...ICSgC&biw=1920&bih=1070#imgrc=gRx89Gj0I-e3-M:

 

[WackenOpenAir]

In civ3 the term ICS was used mostly by people who wanted to maximise score by settling the whole map at minimum distance (1 tile between cities) ending up with like 500 cities or so. All the land irrigated so each city has 3 irrigated tiles to use and having 5-6 citizens that do nothing productive.

 

[GT_OKEZ]

I usually scan for luxury resources and will attempt to settle in the area. Fresh water or 1 tile away from fresh water is preferred. Luxury resources provide enough amenities and if you have extra the AI will pay a pretty penny for most of them.

Next thing I value is strategic resources though not as important as luxury.

 

[isau]

ICS = infinite city spam.

It isn't quite infinite in Civ 6 but pretty close. The one thing that may slow you down eventually is amenities.

But basically in Civ 6 Housing puts a hard cap on your cities that makes food not matter very much. You're going to hit that cap pretty early even with low-ish food. Any food you do need, beyond the sorta kinda helpful food when you start can be acquired from trade routes.

What you want is trade routes and you get those from Commercial districts. Your cities will be very low production at first. But the way you fix this is building a Trader in a city that is up and running somewhere else (or just buying it), and sending the Trader to a city with a Industrial district. In Civ 6 trade routes apply their bonuses to the city that sent the trade route (weird I know). So the way to get any city up and running is to make sure you have an industrial center to send the trade route to.

On top of this, later on Industrial Centers have a 6 tile AoE effect for even more production.

You should avoid building Campuses unless you've run out of stuff to build because you don't need them. Same with the Culture district unless specifically going for culture victory.

In addition to this, every tech or policy you get increases district costs. Strange but true. So to jump start your empire, ignore almost everything you can and run straight to Industrial Districts. Commerce district is unlocked on the way.

If you don't do this and try to build districts in a way that seem natural, e.g. Campuses when they unlock, you will be slammed by huge hammer costs and become part of the sea of people mentioning how long build times are in Civ 6.

If any of this sounds extremely unbalanced that's because it is.

 

[RohirrimElf]

I settled on a spot that i thought was a great location. Turned out it had only 1 hill close and one on third ring. It was brutal to get my Industrial zone up.
I would say hammers are the way to go.

 

[isau]

I settled on a spot that i thought was a great location. Turned out it had only 1 hill close and one on third ring. It was brutal to get my Industrial zone up.
I would say hammers are the way to go.

Right. This is another big imbalance in the current game.

A hill tile is objectively worth more than a flat tile in most cases. Forests or improvements can change this but generally it holds true.

In previous games a hill tile and a flat tile both gave around the same net yield (+3). In Civ 6 the hill is +4 and the flat tile is +3. I have no idea why they did this. It's very unbalanced, and when you factor in the limit imposed by Housing it's so punishing that if I roll a start without production I immediately reroll. No other terrain feature particularly matters, although rivers are nice for some extra Gold from your commerce district.

 

[ExemplarVoss]

They did it because the hills are necessary for production, which is rare and in demand as the production costs go absurd.
Food costs are on more rational curve, and offset by adjacency bonuses...which give far more net yield.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

There are alot of things to look for.

Fresh water is really important in the early game but get less valuable as game progress.
Flatland is valuable in the early game because it can be farmed and farms are very important due to housing and food but after hills can be farmed flatland is much less valuable.
You do want production so spots that have very little production are much less valuable but after you get some trade routes you can help these cities out.
Without freshwater look for spots that allow you to build an aqueduct.
Coast are valuable, harbour and costal resorts are both good.

 

[SirLemonWinks]

I think it stands for something like infinite city spawn, or sprawl. Basically it is to spam a lot of small cities close to each other. It was very popular at the launch of Civ V to spam cities four tiles from each other no matter the terrain. The individual small cities got major bonuses from gold from connections and were broken with stuff like science. It was always better to spam than to grow tall complex cities. You ended up with games like this https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=civilization+ICS&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjd4anckvbPAhXCI8AKHZvODskQ_AUICSgC&biw=1920&bih=1070#imgrc=gRx89Gj0I-e3-M:

In Civ VI, if two cities that are close together that they share the same tile, can 2 citizens work on that tile, or only 1 citizen from 1 city can work on the tile shared by those 2 cities?

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Only one city can control a tile.

 

[Windscion]

Only one city can control a tile.

... at a time. Which city it is can be changed. Select the city which you wish to have work that tile, hits the silver profile (looks like a coin) icon and enter the citizen management screen. Hexes within the 3-hex radius currently owned/operate by another city of yours have little swap icons. Click those to transfer control of the hex to your current city.