Help with City Placement (pics included)

[thejuicygoober]

Hi! First time poster, long time reader. So I just got the game and I'm not exactly sure where I should place my second city.

Here is my current map.
What I think are potential city spots are marked by the colors.
My only city, Mecca, is the in the center of the dark green.
America currently has one city and is the civ in the fog to the right and with the pig resource.




Now my questions are
1) Should I build my second city on the red dot? Or a tile west of the red dot to close the borders (though I'll lose the sheep)?
2) Should I build my third city on the blue dot or is that stretching my reach too much? (Too close to America/ too far from me)
3) Where would you found your fourth city? (The yellow dot looks really attractive to me!)
4) Should the pink and orange dot really just be one city? (The orange seems like it has a lot of crappy tiles and could just be moved one tile east towards the nicer lands and still get the 2 incense and the 1 fish)
5) Should I found the light green city for the whales or is that city too much of a waste compared to its mantience? (Oh and the purple dot is next to water if you couldn't tell)
6) If not specificially mentioned above, are there any dots you think I should move one tile or something? (Like maybe blue SW one tile or light green west one tile)

Now I know that civ is all about playing the game the way you want/ dynamicly reacting to your oppenents to but I still feel I'm just making guesses about where to build. That's why I'm asking yhall for your suggestions! Thanks!!!

I'm playing on noble difficulty, standard size, continents, and my play style is builder/defensive.

-Charlie

Thanks again for the help!!! I'm watching intently for your comments!

[clarkcd]

My playing style would have me grabbing the red dot first, the blue dot second (or the orange if the Americans grab that site) and the purple dot third. This way they hopefully can't get past a wall of culture leaving you free to build the other cities once you've built up a little economy.

I'd then grab the yellow dot, the orange dot (if it hasn't been settled already), the pink dot and the green dot last. I try and pack my cities in nice and tight just like you did while grabbing as many resources as possible. I also try and prioritize my building sites by location to enemy, number of resources and usefulness as a city generally in that order.

If you manage to snag all the land you've highlighted then you've got a very nice starting point.

[mhistbuff]

I pretty much agree. I would definitely combine the orange and pink cities by moving the pink city two spaces east. But, you might want to consider keeping the pink city where it is (or moving one square to the east) and just abandoning the orange city. Your boundries should expand enough, particularly if you get the blue city, to include the incense by the time you can work it. The pink city might be more productive with out even that little desert. I think the orange city is worth less than the green one. Maybe even move the green one just one square to the west - more coast means more food and commerce.

[DeepInTexas]

Normally I would say that your trying to overthink it, and in my opinion trying to hard to put your cities right next to each other, but your map shows that you don't really have much choice as land seems to be at a premium.

Therefore, I agree with clarkcd on going for the the red first, then the blue, to box yourself in. This seems more in line anyway with the style of play you say your going for.

Don't move your red over one though and lose the sheep. If your red city culture bordars expand like your first city, then you should close the gap to the sea pretty quickly. Hopefully that is.

Good luck.


PS. On larger maps like pangea huge, feel free to spread out your cities if that's what it takes to get the best reasorces. Upkeep on lots of cities is high, so make sure you getting the most bang for the buck on city placment.

PSS. Watch out for those lions when placing your red and blue cities! hehehe

[xxFlukexx]

In no way am I saying that my way is the best way. That being said:

1) Yes red dot first, no don't move it.
2) Yeah I'd go with blue dot next because of the wheat resources which gives lots of food if I recall correctly. That city doesn't have access to irrigation and lots of plains so growing might be hard in the beginning.
3) If you have fishing, yeah grab yellow, with fishing boats that city will be sweet.
4) Yeah, I would combine pink+orange, orange city has too much desert in it. But this is a playstlye choice, I don't like to build lots of cities or cities that won't be that great in the mid-to-late game. I would move it one square left of the top incense, you get access to the river tiles + 2 hills, and both incense, but lose the fishies. You will get the bonus from the fishies later when your cultural borders expand.
5) Nah, found the green dot city last but do found it. Or else the AI is just going to come with a boat and plant their own city there. And bleh I hate it when they do that.
6) I wouldn't move blue away from that resource there, it will be it's best tile forever.

Hope that helps, it looks like red, capital and yellow will be your three best cities. Tons of forests around your cities, I suggest getting workers and start chopping like mad.

[Hayden]

Originally posted by DeepInTexas
Normally I would say that your trying to overthink it, and in my opinion trying to hard to put your cities right next to each other, but your map shows that you don't really have much choice as land seems to be at a premium.

Therefore, I agree with clarkcd on going for the the red first, then the blue, to box yourself in. This seems more in line anyway with the style of play you say your going for.

Don't move your red over one though and lose the sheep. If your red city culture bordars expand like your first city, then you should close the gap to the sea pretty quickly. Hopefully that is.

Good luck.


PS. On larger maps like pangea huge, feel free to spread out your cities if that's what it takes to get the best reasorces. Upkeep on lots of cities is high, so make sure you getting the most bang for the buck on city placment.

PSS. Watch out for those lions when placing your red and blue cities! hehehe

My strategy on city placement is to always have my cities packed like sardines, the more cities you can get in a given area, the more land you will be able to work during the early stages of the game. By the late stages of the game, you will be working every square anyway, so it wouldnt matter if you had your cities close together or all perfect 21 square tesselations.

For example lets say you have 100 squares under your control:
1. Make all of your cities so that they have 9 squares to work and therefore you can fit about 11 cities, and by the time you have a population of 9 in each you have maxxed out your territory and are working every square.

2. Make all of your cities perfect 21 squares and you will then only be able to make about 5 cities, therefore in order to work every square under you control you would need to get your cites up to 20 populations, which is quite difficult on harder difficulties with health problems that often arent alleviated until you get some late techs. On harder difficulties lots can be said for packing your cities in close I believe, its all about maximising your total worked area.

Also in the original diagram, theres gaps between some of the city sites and some of it is prime land like grassland and plains. It would be a waste not you make use of it.

[padillah]

Hmmm... Am I the only one that would move the pink dot one south to fit better into the other cities? Yeah, you loose one whale but you pick up four forest.

"What about the yellow dot?" Move it one square east and two south. This packs better and allows you more actual land (ocean doesn't do much for me).

Also, I'd move the orange dot one south. Yeah, yeah. But one whale vs. four land tiles... in the middle of a desert? And you've got plenty of coast cities, you don't need the access.

I'm torn between leaving the blue and red where they are or moving them 10-15 squares to see if there is more coast I can secure before the Americans go nuts and start gobbling up land.

As for order, I'm with the rest:
- Red (probably two squares closer to the Americans, even if it wastes one or two squares)
- Blue (or even a little higher on the coast to really grab land and hem the Amers in)
- Purple (that one I'd leave. You're up agaist the coast and the Amers, nothing more you can do.)
- Yellow (to secure the coast nice and early)
- Orange (to give it time to grow, the others will catch up with all those desert squares in there)
- Green (again, to secure the coast)
- Pink ('cause it's last)
- Then start in on any land you may have been able to squeeze in between the blue/red dots and the capitol.

And build units like a madman! Those Americans are going to come gunnin' for you! And don't let them get their UU or they'll go nuts. I've noticed the AI LOVES it's UU. (Issabella freaked out when she got her Conquistadores, I'll not do that again.)

"But, that's just my opinion... I could be wrong."

Tom P.

[padillah]

Originally posted by Hayden
1. Make all of your cities so that they have 9 squares to work and therefore you can fit about 11 cities, and by the time you have a population of 9 in each you have maxxed out your territory and are working every square.

2. Make all of your cities perfect 21 squares and you will then only be able to make about 5 cities, therefore in order to work every square under you control you would need to get your cites up to 20 populations, which is quite difficult on harder difficulties with health problems that often arent alleviated until you get some late techs. On harder difficulties lots can be said for packing your cities in close I believe, its all about maximising your total worked area.

I never though it out this way. The odds on getting a true 20 pop city are huge. I've gotten 1 - 3 per match at most and that's real late in the game. If I count on not having big cities there will be much less unhappiness, unhealthyness and I can specialise a lot earlier.

Hmmm, must ponder this. It intrigues me and that is a good thing.

Tom P.
"I like refried beans, that's why I want to try fried beans. 'Cause they might be just as good and were wasting time." - Mitch Hedberg

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Hayden
My strategy on city placement is to always have my cities packed like sardines, the more cities you can get in a given area, the more land you will be able to work during the early stages of the game.

I haven't played the higher levels of CIV yet, but the OP is referring to Noble level. AIUI, tight spacing isn't as important/useful in CIV as C3, where corruption away from the capital made tight builds a near-must at the higher levels.

The OP said he was a defensive builder - so he'll want resources in the land grab, rather than pinching them off rivals later. This suggests a looser build - certainly at at first.

Also, you didn't mention the city maintenance for your 11 cities and the economic implications of this.

[padillah]

Originally posted by Cort Haus


I haven't played the higher levels of CIV yet, but the OP is referring to Noble level. AIUI, tight spacing isn't as important/useful in CIV as C3, where corruption away from the capital made tight builds a near-must at the higher levels.

The OP said he was a defensive builder - so he'll want resources in the land grab, rather than pinching them off rivals later. This suggests a looser build - certainly at at first.

Also, you didn't mention the city maintenance for your 11 cities and the economic implications of this.

So, you'd rather work fewer squares? He does have a point about being able to work more squares at lower populations. This also allows for more specialists (if you've got the food) without as much impact.

Tom P.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by padillah


So, you'd rather work fewer squares? He does have a point about being able to work more squares at lower populations. This also allows for more specialists (if you've got the food) without as much impact.

Tom P.

No, I did not say I wanted to work fewer squares.

What I did say was this :

This suggests a looser build - certainly at at first.

We're not talking about getting a military rush infrastructure here, we're talking about a peaceful land grab. Cities can be be back-filled later to take advantage of the unworked tiles with small unit/missionary pumps, but the whole point of the CIV design was to avoid tight-spaced city spamming.

[DeepO]

Re: Help with City Placement (pics included)

Before reading the rest of the thread, let me answer the original questions.

Originally posted by thejuicygoober
Now my questions are
1) Should I build my second city on the red dot? Or a tile west of the red dot to close the borders (though I'll lose the sheep)?

Closing borders is not the problem here. Borders will close when building culture, and your capital will expand it's borders around the time you're able to settle your 2nd city.
More of a concern is cultural pressure: That city is going to be under 'attack' from Washington. Capitals easyly generate culture, meaning that if you build to close to it, you might lose tiles or in the extreme might even lose the city to a cultural flip. The red dot looks perfect, if you can settle it first go for it. One North of the red spot is maybe even better, it will leave room for another city to the South East. But in that case, you will have to hurry to settle that extra spot as it is so close to Washington that the US will go for it fast.

Whatever you do: you only have one horse resource in reach. You need to settle near to it, so you can build horse-based units if you need to.

2) Should I build my third city on the blue dot or is that stretching my reach too much? (Too close to America/ too far from me)

My guess is that you won't be able to reach the post before another US city is built close by. I'd suggest trying something else first.

3) Where would you found your fourth city? (The yellow dot looks really attractive to me!)

Don't look at purely the resources here, start looking at your empire needs. Your capital will likely be involved in wonder and settler building. Your 2nd city looks like a good barracks spot. Which means you are lacking commerce. Depending on the situation (aggressivenes/opportunities vs the US) you either want another production center, or you want commerce.

For commerce, yellow looks sweet. It is however also relatively safe from AI settling... depending on how you are choking the US, you can take this spot, or take e.g. one West of orange (orange itself I wouldn't settle early on: too few food available). Or you can take the SE from red: on the coast it will be a good commerce site as well (possibly even taking incense with it)

For GPP, yellow looks superb. It's about your only spot for some early GP production due to 3 food resources in reach (giving you 6 or 7 specialists max)

For production, it seems your map doesn't look too nice. pink might be a good spot for another barracks city. Yellow too, but you don't have a GP city.

4) Should the pink and orange dot really just be one city? (The orange seems like it has a lot of crappy tiles and could just be moved one tile east towards the nicer lands and still get the 2 incense and the 1 fish)

Why not keep ppink, and move orange one spot West? Nearly no overlap, and not that bad terrain. Settling orange is not so good: it will take a long time before actually gaining you a lot. Other cities are preferred

5) Should I found the light green city for the whales or is that city too much of a waste compared to its mantience? (Oh and the purple dot is next to water if you couldn't tell)

Unless I'm missing something, you should move that city one tile West. It gains an extra grass. If you scout and find another seafood resource, you can also move it 2 tiles west (whales don't become available until later on and obsolete, fish are better seafood tiles)

6) If not specificially mentioned above, are there any dots you think I should move one tile or something? (Like maybe blue SW one tile or light green west one tile)

See above. green should definately move, and either pink or orange too. Purple maybe, depending on scouting out the coast.

DeepO

[padillah]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
We're not talking about getting a military rush infrastructure here, we're talking about a peaceful land grab. Cities can be be back-filled later to take advantage of the unworked tiles with small unit/missionary pumps, but the whole point of the CIV design was to avoid tight-spaced city spamming.

OK, that's why I was suggesting moving the blue and red sites over a considerable number of squares... to get more land and press in on the Americans.

Tom P.

[Velociryx]

* Found your second city on the red dot (not the vast expanses of forest in the region).

* Chop-Rush two additional settlers out the door, settling in Purple & Blue, respectively, and hold.

* Close your borders with the Americans, build up sufficient culture to block him off, and use the gold mine in your sphere of influence to offset any maintenance costs you may have.

* Now start specializing your cities out (depending on difficulty level, at least one troop pump, preferably two, until you gain military superiority, one to work on additional settlers to backfill and take advantage of the other resources, and one to work on wonders (two if you don't need the military output from two cities).



-=Vel=-

[Arrian]

My thoughts:

Red first.

Next, either yellow OR a city at Mecca 6-3-3-3 (on the hill due north of the gold). If you *really* want the whale later, you can build a city 1 tile west of the green dot. Bear in mind you need a fairly advanced technology before you can make any use of whales!

Next, whichever of the above you haven't done yet.

Next... sorta depends on what the Americans have been up to. I might build a city 1 tile EAST of the orange dot and another city 2 tiles east of the pink dot. The latter city gets to be on the river (fresh water +2 health), although you then lose the fish. But you will have fish anyway if you get the other city. And you'll still get the luxury (incense?).

-Arrian