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**dregor** · July 14, 2006, 18:59

Now for the nitty gritty of it.

I built the capital exactly where the game started me; I rarely move my initial settler. I then tried to play the game out in my head a bit. I figured I would have learned Bronze Working before I founded my 2nd city, so I took into account my being able to see bronze, but not iron, and built my second city in the red area, 2. The fact there's marble there as well is great too.

For my 3rd city I figured I'd have iron, but lo and behold that didn't matter seeing as how my capital had iron within its borders. Looking at what is available to me, I decided to go for a coastal city. I'm pretty bad at founding coastal cities. I tend to put them off in favor of better inland sites and it's not uncommon for me to be 5, 6 cities in and realize I have no ports, so I've been working on that. I also suck at building naval units in general and am trying to rectify that. I'm a little annoyed that my capital isn't one square to the right to be honest, the area directly left of its radius would make a nice coastal city. Alas, I hate overlapping the fat X and avoid it when I can, so this is the next best spot IMO. City 3 is born.

City 4 is a tough one for me. I have several options on where I can go with it. I know there's some silver up in the north, gold in the east, and beyond the gold a scattering of some more resources, including ivory and stone. The silver is up in the tundra and doesn't really serve to extend my territory out into the main chunk of land, so I opt for the gold. I've probably messed up where to place the city. The tile with the pigs would be a great site for a city, except it's got pigs on it and I don't want to settle on a resource tile. One up from it would let me access a gold, pig, stone, deer and ivory, and miss out on the other gold and the corn. One down would be 2 gold, stone, pig, ivory and corn. Looking at it now I probably should have made this the site of city 4. My thinking for where I did put it was it was closer to my other cities for defensive purposes, but if I did it again I'd probably put it 1 under the pig site. See, I'm learning already.

The 5th site was chosen mostly to fill in my borders a bit. I didn't like the big gap in the middle of my territory like a crescent. The spot I did choose offers pigs and a good number of hills, while being on a river. I think it's a pretty nicely balanced site, if not resource rich.

(cont.)

**dregor** · July 14, 2006, 19:02

So that's the run down of the city placements. Now onto improvements.

Legend:

F = Farm
C = Cottage
M = Mine
P = Pasture/Camp
Q = Quarry
L = Lumbermill
W = Windmill

It's rare that I'll use a watermill or a workshop. I just don't see many strong arguments for it.

I don't think there's much I can say about these three. In city 1 I opted to leave 2 forests uncut for the +1 health bonus. One thing I have trouble deciding on is when to use a mine and when to use a windmill. My general thinking is that if it's a food poor area, windmills are nice. For tiles with workable fresh water, I'll usually do grass = cottage, plains = farm, flood plains = cottage. If there's very little options in terms of food I may make some of the grass and flood plains farms, like at city 4.

Of course, I spent far longer thinking about the placement of my cities than I probably would if I was playing, and even then I can see I've made mistakes. I guess what I'm looking for is some solid tips on what I'm doing wrong and what I should be doing right. Sorry for the length of this if you've made it to the end, and hopefully others in my boat will be able to learn something from the (hopefully!) replies I get. Hopefully it's been clear enough and easy enough to understand.

Thanks.

**Thedrin** · July 14, 2006, 19:45

This is not an attempt at a definitive guide for this map. There is one place where I wasn't sure if it would lead to over extending or not. I assumed it would since that would lead to a more unusual way of placing cities.

Assuming:

1) I settle immeadiately
2) don't take account of any civ traits
3) I know the layout of the land but not the strategic resource location.
4) Playing at Monarch level.

I'll refer to your cities by numbers and the cities I would build by letter.

City A (or city 1) has good production (even before the iron) and food. For the way I play good food is strongly desired in the capital to provide a base for expansion. This will mean that the production will only be partially used for military. I'll build one wonder, maximum, in the early days and not until the main cities are out.

I now want a city which will provide cash and another city to provide military units. If city A didn't have good food the second cities first priority would be the ability for fast growth.

City B goes where you have city 4. It has a lot of food but that will be used to work the gold tiles. The first and third population point work the flood plains, the second and fourth work the gold mines. This won't have great production initially. It'll take a while to get the fourth population point and gold mines produce less production than ordinary mines.

IMPORTANT NOTES:
1) If it were any further from the capital I would leave this spot alone (unless I was playing as organised).
2) City B is a very good site but in danger of being settled by someone else first. Depending on your difficulty level, if you wait til your fourth city before settling it you probably won't get it.

3rd city must be a good production city. Your city 2 may look like the obvious candidate but it will grow too slowly to take adequate advantage of its production. The next good site is your city 5. This, depending on your difficulty level, is very far away. It may already be settled. If you're not organised it might be just too far if you also want to fill in the gaps later.

Assume neither of these spots is good enough. (If this is not the case you can ignore the idea used for the founding of city C and your site for city 3 will make a good city later on)

There are no other reasonable production sites so an alternative plan is needed. Build another high food city. Gradually switch the burden of expanding to this city and gradually switch the capital over to production (military and such).

City C is set on the tile north east of your city 3. It has 3 overlapping squares with your capital. For the moment city C will take the pigs while the capital has the rest. Later in the game the capital may well take all the squares.

Next, build city D between city A and city B to fill in the land. On the forest, 5 tiles south of your city 2. It will take in 3 flood plains. Alternatively build it 1 tile north of this to get the bronze and one less flood plain.

After this fill in space at your leisure. Recommended sites are
1) On the forested tundra hill taking in a deer, a silver and the marble. This city will inhibit the growth of your rivals into other areas which you can build.
2) On the peninsula west of Karakorum. Let the capital take the overlap. A weak great people farm.
3) On the forested tundra north of a deer and south west of the crab.

**dregor** · July 14, 2006, 20:19

Excellent response, just the kind I was looking for. You've given me a lot to think about. One question. Why would you build your city C north east of where I have city 3? Just to take advantage of the pig? Would placing a city on the peninsula west of Karakorum as you suggested for a weak GP farm serve the same purpose? Just trying to fully understand it.

Your notes on distance from the capital are good. I try and keep things fairly close as is, but I never truly consider how much of an upkeep hit I'll take with a city some distance away.

How about my improvement choices? Do you see any glaring errors in my thoughts with them? It should be noted I'm not actually playing this map, I only generated it as a lesson for myself.

**Dominae** · July 14, 2006, 21:07

I would put my second city one tile NE of your Site 3. While this creates overlap for a couple of tiles with the capital site which may seem like a detriment, it's actually a bonus since you can maximize your use of the Pig tile; with Corn in your capital's radius it's unlikely that you will need both it and the Pig tile continuously after building Workers/Settlers. Furthermore, your Site 3 gets the Clams right away but the price is a whole bunch of Sea tiles which are really not that great. This site looks great for military unit production (Food resources to support a bunch of Hills), and going one tile NE of your location adds yet another Hill - a far more useful tile for this purpose than all those coastal ones.

I would definitely want a city fives tiles West of the capital location as quickly as possible: with a border expansion it would work two Clam and one Fish, a great spot for a GPP factory. Before being set up as such it would also help with Worker/Settler production. However, there's very little chances of the AI beating you to this spot so in the interest of land denial I would probably go East first. This spot would be my third city for sure though.

Eastward I would put my third city (second Settler) four tiles West of your Site 4, or if you prefer, 3 tiles South of your Site 2. This site that I have chosen has a lot going for it: fresh water, Copper, Corn with a border expansion, and a good mix of Cottage-able tiles and Hills for production. However, the real reason I prefer this site over any of yours is that it does not leave a gap between the "fat crosses" of any of my initial cities. Actually, if you look closely, there's just one gap between my sites B and C - but it's a Desert tile!

I'm not sure if you were planning to backfill after claiming all the choice spots. Personally I find this not to be a special case strategy that I would only employ if either Creative (for real land denial) or there was a strategic resource I really wanted. In general I prefer settling good city-sites as quickly as possible around my capital. The further away from my capital, the better the site has to be - on an exponential scale. You really do not want your Settlers to be walking around for more than 1-2 turns.

Your Site 4 is obviously great, but I would risk losing it just because it's too far away for my taste. It looks like a great target for your first conquest. If you build up just a few Axemen you should be able to take that one city no problem - then sign peace as quickly as possible.

Your Site 2 confuses me a bit: although it does access a few strategics, mostly the tiles it has access to are poor: Mountains and Tundra. I would only consider putting a city here much much later. I assume you like it because it provides Marble, but in my opinion that's not a great reason to rush for it. Do not let the allure of Wonders make you bad decisions regarding city placement!

If I could offer a take-home message, it would be: follow the advice in the title of this thread. Maximizing the use of your land does not mean chasing down every last resource, it means using the land you do have access to efficiently on any given turn. The way to do this is to build cities quickly and make sure they are always working improved tiles. Remember that for a large part of the game your cities are well below size 21, and therefore do not use all tiles within their "fat cross". A little tile overlap is thus not only justifiable, but recommended (by me).

I hope this helps.

**dregor** · July 14, 2006, 21:22

Indeed it does. I had chosen site 2 for the access to marble and copper. I figured the marble would help me gain the Oracle faster which I enjoy getting even if I'm not going for some sort of slingshot strat specifically. Free tech is a free tech, and it's usually the only one of the early wonders I'll gun for. But I defer to your advice

Both of you have suggested the overlap on the tiles for a city northeast of my site 3. Definitely learning something about when to sacrifice overlap

**Thedrin** · July 15, 2006, 06:32

Still talking just about city placement.

Nothing affects your ability to place civs like my two favourite traits: organised and creative. Organised lets you build farther away, creative lets you pick the most optimal locations and get the benefits as quickly as possilbe. It was a surprise to discover that one of the leaders in the expansion will get both of these traits - Augustus will allow for very powerful city placement.

Just some comments on differences between what myself and Dominae did. There are good reasons for discarding my choices in favour of Dominaes - it's all down to preference.

1) Filling in the land makes trade between cities and city infrastructure when you have limited workers easier and quicker to develop.

2) Ordinarily I would do this but I have exceptions:
a) exceptional food site - say five or six tiles with high food - to boost early expansion and make a strong great people farm - very rare
b) exceptional production site and the food resources to work them early on to have an early center of military production - very rare
c) two or more tiles with a high commerce yield and the food resources to work them early on - more frequently occurs

3) Such cities would still have to be in the second ring of projected cities for me to go for.

4) Your city five might meet the criteria. But normally I would only make one exception. With flood plains and two resources, city 4 gets the nod. Only go for the two if you're an organised civ. Even then, if you're not creative, you have to make sure you can still get the best out of the city early on which it doesn't look like here.

5) Letting another civ take the gold means a good chance they build on the east of the gold mines - a great spot is south of the pigs, north of the corn. This is far enough away that it may not be as valuable a city should you conquer it.

6) Gold, Silver and Gems are a great boost to the economy but building the city so far away will stifle your economy somewhat until you get the mines up and running. You have to determine whether or not its worth the benefits.

7) If you're not a creative civ you need to build right next to both gold mines so that you can work them as quickly as possible.

8) On higher difficulties the AI faces less penalties than you. Letting your economy take a slight hit in order to get both gold mines may well be better than having a neighbour whose research is driven by the gold mines.

Why would you build your city C north east of where I have city 3? Just to take advantage of the pig? Would placing a city on the peninsula west of Karakorum as you suggested for a weak GP farm serve the same purpose? Just trying to fully understand it.

By the time city C is built the pigs may or may not have a pasture. Even so a worker can improve the pigs and wheat while the city works on something else. For the pensinsula, to get the most out of it you need to divert city production to building work boats.

While I love high food cities for a starting place, having all the food tiles on the sea means having to spread the capitals production between settlers, military, maybe a worker and workboats. A city with land based food resources just has to spread its production between settlers, military and maybe a worker.

Also, Domiane highlighted that city C will get good production - even without the pigs there will be enough food to mine most of the hillsand work the forest.

**Thedrin** · July 15, 2006, 07:48

Improvements:

Key:

1 west and 2 south refers to the tile located at that position relative to the city that is being discussed.

Assumptions:

1) All early game resources are visible.
2) All worker improvements are available.
3) Civil Service has been researched - I would usually improve my cities before CS such that I will not diminish the best possible post CS arrangement.
4) State Property is not in use - I've never used it and so I can't comment on its uses.
5) Biology has not been researched.
6) Coastal cities have lighthouses.
7) If you want cities that put more resources towards specialists then this won't be a great guide. This will just be an attempt at getting the most out of city tiles.

I'll use the cities I suggested above since the relative strengths of my different cities affects how I use the land.

City A: high production and the food to utilise it.
City B: Wealthy with the food to utilise it.
City C: Good production, good food.
City D: Decent food. Okay production.

Owing to the limited uses of land in the northern parts I'll not speak about what to do there but I will talk briefly about the western peninsula as well, from here known as city E.

I should point a couple of prejudices I have.

1) If I have a grassland and a plains and I want a cottage and a farm, I will always farm the plain and put the cotage on the grassland. For some reason cottages on plains irritate me and I try to avoid it.
2) I very rarely chop forests - only to get the most out of my land. I consider railroaded lumbermills excellent.

City A:

Assume this city gets all the squares that overlap with other cities (3 to the west and 3 to the south). Since this was designated a city for high production it only needs enough food to work its forests and mines.

It has enough food available to it to work every square without chopping down any forests so leave all the forests standing. Also, mine the 3 hills and the iron, pasture the pigs and farm the corn.

This leaves 3 grassland and 4 plains. However, the corns has no access to water yet (which it will need to make the most of civil service). To do this farm the grassland 2 west and 1 north and the plain 2 north and 1 west.

This leaves 2 grassland and 3 plains. Working all of the other tiles gives 4 surplus food to play with. There are a number of possibilities. My preference would be to cottage the eastern grassland and farm all the plains. Let city E work the one remaining grassland, two tiles west. This leaves city A with 4 food surplus which can be put into engineers and priests for further production.

City B:

Commerce city. Again, the aim is to make sure that it has enough food that it can make as much use of the money available to it.

Once you've mined the gold, cottaged the flood plains and improved the deer and the corn (don't forget to irrigate outside your border to get an extra food onto the corn tile) you'll have 6 surplus food. The aim now is to get as much cottages as possible.

There are ten remaining workable tiles (after the 2 mountains and 2 desert) - 1 tundra, 4 plains, 4 grassland and 1 grassland hill. Unimproved they give a total of 14 food but require a total of 20 food to all be worked. Since you already have 6 surplus you can cottage all 9 of the flat tiles and mine the hill (since it's a bit low on production). Then working every tile in the cities radius will cause you to break even on food. This is my preference.

Alternatively, build a windmill on the hill and ignore the tundra. Put the 2 surplus food into a merchant specialist.

City C:

A second string expansion city. Once you've built your cities it can be a second string production city.

After fishing the clams, farming the wheat (which will never have fresh water), cottaging the 1 grassland tile and losing 3 tiles to city A, city C has 7 surplus food. Mining most of the hills (including the forested plains hill) and putting a windmill on the desert tile will allow every tile to be worked.

City D:

This can be put to a number of uses and in a couple of places. I'll base the decision on what use to put it to on the national wonders that can be built.

The 11 national wonders are: Forbidden Palace, Globe Theatre, Hermitage, Heroic Epic, Ironworks, National Epic, Oxford University, Red Cross, Scotland Yard, Wall Street and West Point.

Assume that the military and production wonders go to city A and city C - that's Heroic Epic, Ironworks, Red Cross and West Point. City E gets the National Epic. City B will probably get Wall Street and Oxford University. Hermitage and Forbidden Palace would be wasted on city D but might be useful in city B.

That leaves the Globe Theatre (which I usually put in my great people farm - city E here), Scotland Yard (effects are independent of placement) and the possibility of one of Oxford University and Wall Street. These last two require wealthy cities to get the most out of them so plan city D so that it'll be a second city with high commerce.

Since it's going to be a commerce city put it 3 south and 5 east of city A, on the forest next to the river. It will miss the copper but since there are already 2 productiion cities this isn't to big a deal.

Cottage spam is the way to go. Cottage every square with the exception of the 2 northern plains and forest squares. This is 8 grassland, 3 flood plains and 2 plains. The excess food from the city tile and the floodplains will allow the forest to be worked. Optionally, mine the forested plains hill. This won't change the food distibution so save it for a moent when a production boost is needed or just wait till you can put a railroad and a lumbermill on it.

Farm the two remaining plains tiles by farming the grassland tile 3 squares north of the city. This will provide fresh water for the corn square in city B. Alternatively cottage the north western plain and farm the grassland tile 1 tile north of the city. A more efficient way to do things - I just don't like cottaged plains.

City E:

Farming all tiles available to it (just one from the capital overlap) and putting a windmill on the hill gives 14 surplus food for 7 specialists. This makes it a better great peolpe farm than I first suspected.

**Thedrin** · July 15, 2006, 09:17

On the tile improvements that you have put down:

Since I tend to specialise my cities I'll be looking at each city in terms of what specialisation it has. I'll try to ignore what other types of cities you have.

City 1:

Seriously restricting the production potential of this city to produce cash. Cash is a good thing and all but when you have other locations that can generate it, this very fine piece of real estate could be put to better uses.

The extra food from all of the farms you are putting in only goes towards supplying the cottages with food - I thnk you might get just one extra population point out of the city.

This city can still be a decent production city but it's growth wil be restricted by health issues. Putting the Ironworks, factory, forge and maybe a coal plant in here will require a lot of alternative health bonuses.

City 2:

There's little point in putting in so many improvements. A quick fallible check says that to work all of the squares - even if you assume that the quarry and the bronze mine are there for the resources and aren't being worked - would produce a major food deficit.

Only the city square itself (+2), the deer (+1) and two of the grassland tiles (+1 each from irrigation) can produce excess food. After that only the plain (irrigated) and the final grassland tile (can't be irrigated - leave as a forest) can break even on food production. Leave the remaining forests for health and possible production bonuses.

Use the five excess from working these squares only to mine the bronze, quarry the marble and mine the plains hill. Keep the forests for health

City 3:

In this situation, the cottaging of the grassland forest works since there are so much sea squares that this city will produce a lot of wealth. The cottage adds to that and this city would be good with the market, grocer and bank modifiers.

The only issue I would have is that cities with so much sea have difficulty building things. In this case there are 3 mines which means it's not a particularly bad case but I would keep the forest until a time when the extra production of chopping was absolutely needed and then put in the cottage.

City 4:

Similar complaint as to city 1. The difference is that, while for city 1 you were increasing the cities income, the changes here bring far less benefit. The increase in the number of farms (and not improving the tundra) gives 1 (maybe 2) extra citizens. Even if they're put into merchant specialist this city will be no where near as wealthy as it could have been.

City 5:

I didn't speak about this one above so I'll give my preference for it first. Since I orignally wanted city 5 as a production city (but decided to ignore it and turn city A from expansion to production) I'll assume it's going to be a production city.

Working the pastured pigs, mined hills and the pristine forests will cause you to break even in food production. Mining the forested hill is optional.

This leaves 6 grassland and 4 plains to works with. Now use the river to boost production further. It looks like 3 of the grassland tiles and 1 plain tile can recieve watermills (maybe two plains - the placement of watermills is something I haven't worked out yet).

Finally farm the remaining plains and grasslands. This will give enough food for 1 priest or engineer specialist. Alternatively, put cottages on two of the graslands.

City 5 Redux - your placement:

A very good commerce city. This city will produce lots of gold and is a good alternative to a production city.

A complaint is that this city will produce 1 surplus food. Either remove a farm or add a farm to break even on food.

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