Wherr to expand?

[WideCoast]

Hi!

I'm almost a casual player who still enjoys alot bnw. I picked it up again on my free weekend and realised I still have the same problem. I'm not sure where I should expand. May be, because I tend to switch a lot between trad&liberty. I did a bit googling and found this:

The perfect city placement needs the following, in order of importance:

A river (extra Food on Farms next to river with Civil Service and the ability to build Water Mill and Garden)
Placed on a hill (extra Production at the start of the game and extra defensive stats)
At least one luxury resource
A mountain (requirement for certain Wonders and Observatory)
Sea access (if there are sea resources nearby, or your cities are all coastal for feeding them with Cargo Ships)
While producing a Settler your city cannot starve or grow, which allows every tile to be devoted to production and gold generation. 3

Food counts for 1 Production in Settler production. You generally shouldn't produce Settlers before level 4, because it will take too long to build a Settler and your city will take too long to catch up to other players when you finish the Settlers.
Your expansion should be located next to luxuries you don't have or settling a claim on an extremely good strategic position for further conquest or turtling. You should always aim at least for another luxury, because settling each city consumes 4

So I was wondering if that's accurate or not?

 

[gobbledydook]

1. Food counts for 0.5 production, not 1.

2. I'd say that you're missing the point of city placement. The best city placement is one that encompasses the most workable resources in the 3 city range (for tradition) and 2 city range (for liberty).
Then, you also have to decide whether there are good food sources (wheat/deer/etc, or lots of river farm tiles), and reasonable production (20 turn universities aren't fun)

If you have more than one spot that lets you grab the best resources and secure the growth and production of the city, then you figure out whether you want the hill, or the river, or the mountain, or the coast.

3.
Settlers at pop 2 used to be viable with tradition if you didn't care about religion or you are settling a faith natural wonder. But since they pushed back legalism in tradition, you want a monument first and that means the earliest you could start a settler is pop 3. I wouldn't wait till pop 4 to build one - you want to settle the earliest you can so you get the best city spots and your new cities start growing earlier.

4. Generally one unique lux per city is fine, whether tradition or liberty.

5. Everything else looks fine.

 

[joncnunn]

Moderator Action: Moved to General Discussions

 

[joncnunn]

On luxaries, when playing Tradition, it's not nearly as important that the luxury brought in by a city be unique as it is when playing Liberty. (Due to founding fewer cities + the Monarchy policy)
By contrast, Self founding wide needs the new cities to get the new unique luxury right away in order to keep on founding without going negative in happiness.

 

[inthesomeday]

Going wide it isn't as important to avoid negative happiness during expansion. For Liberty I'd move the top requirement down below a unique lux, hill placement is #1 followed by lux then river then mountain then coast.

 

[danaphanous]

Yeah it totally depends on if you are building a large empire of smaller cities in the beginning with liberty or a tall empire of 3-4 cities with tradition.

Most people understand what makes a good tradition city. You look at the 3-tile radius and try to have the most resources/luxuries possible. City spacing is 5-6. Being on coast/river is important and it's very nice to have a river for all expos but I'd say if you can get your capital on the coast also being on the coast on the 2nd or 3rd expo is far more important so you can feed your capital with 1-2 food cargo ships later. Basically you want fast growth because your advantage is growth --> fast science. Mountains if you can get them. Hills are less important here since you'll grow fast anyway and have more tiles to work and be building windmill if you aren't on hill faster but if the hill is the best spot or the area is likely to be attacked it can be valuable. And it's always better to place your capital on a hill in my opinion for early advantage.

Now for wider empires: you CAN'T grow as fast and will stay low pop as a result for a while. So you want good production tiles around to work when you halt growth at times. Liberty and large empires main early advantage is much higher production and ability to produce more things at once. You don't want liberty cities that have terrible production because they'll be a liability that you just have to constantly buy buildings for. An exception might be fast-growing jungle cities. I like to claim a few of those because growing means a lot more extra science midgame. So what are your priorities with liberty/wide play? As someone else said pack your cities more densely. I space 4 usually. If at all possible settle on a hill. Along with republic this gives new cities a huge head start and good defense for the inevitable attacks. You are interested in the 2-ring resources since liberty has slow border growth so pick spots near several resources in the 2-ring radius and about 3/4 near A luxury. Obviously uniques are preferable but you'll run out of those eventually and duplicates can eventually be traded so I'm fine with them. Rivers are still a close 2nd to hills for me and definitely above mountain. Though you can't grow fast right away you still will be after you tech aqueducts and river cities grow faster, can be easier to defend, have a couple extra buildings as well early, and later hydro plant. Coast is next in my consideration. You want a few coast cities but they aren't nearly as important as tradition. Consider moving to coast more strongly if there are sea resources as they can be quite strong tiles and they go to waste if you don't have coast. Also having an outpost for navy and cargo ships is nice. Try to get a couple at least. You don't have to rush to claim coast though, other things are higher priority. Last is mountain. Lucky for you mountains are often near hills so often they go hand-in-hand but don't settle a terrible spot just for a mountain. Usually it works when it works and isn't worth moving for imho. You'll get 1-3 spots that work with mountain on a normal map where moving near one doesn't hurt you (usually hilly areas) and you do it. I have it last on my list of priorities for this reason. No one of your cities will have amazing science anyway like tradition, it is the sum of your 8-10 cities that gives you the power. An observatory in one might mean 5% extra science. It's nice but other things are more important. It is higher priority if you expect the city to grow well and have strong base science as it is a multiplier. For instance if I'm also near jungle I'll be much more likely to consider moving for the mountain as they will synergize. For a normal slow-growing liberty city though? Not so important and don't move to an objectively worse spot for it imo.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

1. Food counts for 0.5 production, not 1.

That's actually not how it works. What counts is not food but rather surplus food. The first surplus food gives you a 1:1 hammer ratio, as does the second. The third does not, from there it goes:

1 food: 1 hammer
2 food: 2 hammers
4 food: 3 hammers
8 food: 4 hammers
12 food: 5 hammers

So the ratio goes up to 1:0.25.

I know this is how it worked in G&K and I'm fairly sure the same goes for BNW, but don't quote me on that.

 

[Dushku]

Wanted to add that settling on top of luxuries that have gold as tile yields (such as Ivory or Cotton) can be a good idea since those are poor tiles to assign citizens to and you get the gold yield every turn anyways. Though I wouldn't do this for Cocoa or Citrus, which DO tend to be worth working.

1 food: 1 hammer
2 food: 2 hammers
4 food: 3 hammers
8 food: 4 hammers
12 food: 5 hammers

So the ratio goes up to 1:0.25.

I know this is how it worked in G&K and I'm fairly sure the same goes for BNW, but don't quote me on that.

I'm quoting you because you're correct Just keep in mind that food hammers don't get Liberty's Settler hammer multiplier.