Your spacing of cities.

[Surreptitous]

I always just go by the rule. 3x3. 3 squares one way 3 squares the other. And that's my spot. Sometimes it will be 3x4 though if there are less resources and the cities really need the square.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Re: Overlap

It depends on the map. If you find yourself pretty boxed in, you need to get the most out of every tile, and lots of overlap is probably a good thing. But if there's plenty of space that you want to block the AI off from settling, widely spaced cities make more sense. Also, the quality of the land is a factor. Sharing high-value tiles (resources, riverfront grassland, etc.) makes more sense than sharing low-value tiles (plains) because it maximizes the chance that these high-value tiles will always be worked and benefiting your empire (e.g., if city 1 is at its happiness cap, you can allocate its Corn to city 2, which still has some room to grow).

I've never experienced tile "sharing". Either City 1 has access to the tile, or City 2 does. I've never seen a tile that is available to both cities. It is grayed out in the City Zoom screen. If there is a way to instruct a city to give up control of a tile, please do tell me! I would much rather the COW tile go to my younger, smaller city, than my robust fully built city.

 

[ShadyCharacter]

I've never experienced tile "sharing". Either City 1 has access to the tile, or City 2 does. I've never seen a tile that is available to both cities. It is grayed out in the City Zoom screen. If there is a way to instruct a city to give up control of a tile, please do tell me! I would much rather the COW tile go to my younger, smaller city, than my robust fully built city.

You know I've been playing this game since it came out and I only discovered how to do this a couple months ago. You go into a city's screen and click on the shaded tile that's being used by another city. Yeah.... that's it. I'm not sure if it works for the 8 tiles around a city though, might just work for the expanded fat cross tiles.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

I've never experienced tile "sharing". Either City 1 has access to the tile, or City 2 does. I've never seen a tile that is available to both cities. It is grayed out in the City Zoom screen. If there is a way to instruct a city to give up control of a tile, please do tell me! I would much rather the COW tile go to my younger, smaller city, than my robust fully built city.

Easy. Just go to the city you want to work the tile. If its "grayed out" just left click on said tile, and it will become "lit". You can now click again on that tile, and the city will work it. Once its is lit, it belongs to that city, and even if it isn't being actually work at present, it won't be availabe to the other city.

This procedure can also be used to direct where "chops" go to, when availabe to more than one city...

 

[DMOC]

Greetings, first thread and post.

I had a question or two about your preferences for cities.

Do you try your hardest to give your cities maximum fat-cross space? Or do squeeze your cities in tighter to utilize the land faster.

Similar in line with that questioning. Do you automate your workers? Do you tell them not to change improvements? Do you go for max possible population for multiple specialists?

Thank you for letting me pick your minds

Welcome to the forums!

-Depends on fat cross space. If I've got lots of room to expand, I want maximum fat cross space. If it's a high level game and there's not much to expand, sometimes you don't have a choice and must have overlap. Overlap can have its uses and doesn't become an issue until very late in the game, so it's ok to overlao.

-Do not automate workers.

 

[brainshannon]

I automate workers on two conditions:
1. Build trade network. Once I have my main rail lines are laid out (and all other important improvements), I will automate workers to build trade network as they have nothing else to do, so I build rails on every tile, just in case and that is a pain. So why not auto-build trade network?

This was true in vanilla and warlords, but in BTS a good number of positive random events will trigger only in squares with no improvements, including roads and rails. This is a great incentive to only build transportation routes where absolutely essential in order to maximize your chances of getting one of these events. In my current game I got over 700 beakers of research toward gunpowder cause I left a desert square unimproved.

 

[pxpdoo]

This was true in vanilla and warlords, but in BTS a good number of positive random events will trigger only in squares with no improvements, including roads and rails. This is a great incentive to only build transportation routes where absolutely essential in order to maximize your chances of getting one of these events. In my current game I got over 700 beakers of research toward gunpowder cause I left a desert square unimproved.

While that may be true, not entirely comfortable with the "lottery" effect it implies. I'm intentionally leaving squares UNimproved, because something good MIGHT happen...?

 

[say1988]

This was true in vanilla and warlords, but in BTS a good number of positive random events will trigger only in squares with no improvements, including roads and rails. This is a great incentive to only build transportation routes where absolutely essential in order to maximize your chances of getting one of these events. In my current game I got over 700 beakers of research toward gunpowder cause I left a desert square unimproved.

Mp, I would likely, personally, skip a desert (if isn't a good location for a fort or on a direct transportation line). But every improved tile will be given road or railroad if I have a spare worker. And this gets tedious in larger empires, so I automate transportation network. The trouble it saves is worth not getting a random event (which has a completely intangible effect.

 

[Rhyshaelkan]

Since we lack Engineers in this version of Civ. Is there any way for you to remove land improvements? This would allow you to grab a local forest and turn it into a preserve. Thus hopefully spreading the forest back into your lands.

Is it worth hamstringing some of your cities by not improving the land and waiting for scientific method? Quite a wait in my opinion.

On the other hand the purposeful hamstringing of a city might allow for early specialists. Were you to have a couple high food tiles you could allow for most the city squares to lie fallow till forest preserve and National Park become available. Then you could have quite the GP city.

Gifting a defenseless city to pillage the turf and prep it for forest renewal sounds nice in theory. However if that city is deep in your land. There is no guarantee that that city will hold its own BFC.

 

[Balderstrom]

Any combat-unit can pillage improvements, even your own.
Select an axeman sitting in a fort, the pillage icon is available. Or send the Axeman to a cottage or the like. You can pillage your own improvements. Just the only way for a worker to do so, is to build something on top of a current improvement.

 

[say1988]

You can't pillage roads in your own borders, never tried, but I believe railroads are the same.

 

[Tyrael]

Overlap and spacing depends, but NEVER automate workers, they're completely ********. Once I had one that tried to build a farm over my floodplains town late game in a city that had enough food to work all 23 tiles and support 5 specialists. I think I'd rather have the 7 commerce as opposed to the 1 food I don't need.

PS- that's an example of an automated worker being 'smart'.

 

[Iranon]

Did you tell the city to emphasise commerce though? From my experience, workers are reasonably intelligent if you use city automation as well.
Automated workers are, however, absolutely drawers at figuring out what a city is supposed to do if you don't.

 

[Stoney the I]

i tend to avoid overlap, cause i like seeing the big 25+ sized cities they can become mid to late game. but on higher difficulties this doesnt work as well cause you'll need the production and commerce the many early cities can give you.

if i want to relax i play noble and never overlap a city unless i really really have to

if i want to play "for real" i play monarch (and lately occasionally emperor) and i overlap almost every city except my capital.

 

[CivMonger]

the only time I automate my work force is in the late game when I'm blowing through enemy nations and they aren't going to be productive in the time I plan the game to end. Thus, not necessary to spend the time improving them. Aside from that, its all manual baby.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

I like spacing out my cities because of blocking out the AI in the early game, and then capturing juicy cities from the AI later. At least until you get printing press, quality > quantity. It's ok to have gaps. You can then later fill them in once you get medicine, for environmentalism and Sid's Sushi, and run a specialist economy right on top of a cottage economy for some serious research power.

Automating workers could work, sort of, if you also automate your cities. I don't like doing that though. I like to be in control of everything.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

I build two kinds of cities. Good cities and filler cities. Good cities work all 20 tiles, no peaks or desert if I can avoid it. Filler cities fill in the spaces bewteen by good cities and usually work 6 to 15 tiles. In the early game they share tiles to maximize the total production and commerce generated by my empire. Later on, when I have alot of happy and health resources, my good cities start to take tiles away from my filler cities, hopefully without starving any citizens. If I can't feed them, too bad, or I'll just build a farm on some crappy tundra tile it wasn't working before. With biology and Sid's Sushi and Mining Inc my filler cities become pretty good late game. Crank out some bombers or arty or something.

I never automate workers, unless I've built the special improvement ontop of all my resources, then I automate trade network once I get railroads. (Maybe I don't WANT a pasture over those horses in my GP farm)

 

[Rhyshaelkan]

Sadly your production city(moai, ironworks) and your great people farm(heroic, national park) are mutually exclusive. Since your production city also usually becomes your wonder city it is sad to have all those GPP not being multiplied by Heroic Epic.

Even so, with National Park giving you 20+ specialists and their 60+ GPP multiplied by Heroic Epic, civics, leader traits, possibly Forums( unrestricted leaders Phi + Roman Forums ). Depending on the production of the GP farm you could also add a few points with wonders. Sick GPP production.

 

[pxpdoo]

All of which hearkens back to the exponential usefulness of the much-maligned "Fast Workers"...

 

[Stoney the I]

Since your production city also usually becomes your wonder city it is sad to have all those GPP not being multiplied by Heroic Epic.

think you mean National Epic