The Case For Food - Or, How to Become Economically Dominant

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by Theseus
Contrary cows say "MOOOO" and contrary iron hills say "FeFeFeFe"!!!

So what do non-contrary cows say?

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Krill
Fe is the chemical symbol for iron, Dom.

Yes, I know...

Another forest in the middle of flat land is useful, and the so are extra 3 shields.

Putting this into context: how often do you share a Forest tile between two cities? By the time you switch out of Despotism and Iron Hills actually become interesting, the value of tile sharing is greatly diminished. Oh, and MOOO tiles are usually bonus Food tiles.

I'm not trying to argue with Theseus nor Cracker just for the sake of arguing. The point was made that close city-spacing allows for the sharing of your best tiles. The point I'm trying to make is that tile sharing is only really important when it comes to bonus Food. You're not going to place your cities one tile apart just because you could potentially "share" a bunch of Bonus Grasslands (or Fe Hills).

(If you start micromanaging Shields like crazy, as I've often done in the past sigh, you'll see that in most cases you really only need to share a 0-Shield (inland lakes, roaded Grasslands) or 1-Shield producing tile (mined Grasslands, irrigated Plains) to make things work out right. With these and some careful planning you can virtually eliminate Shield waste through micromanagement. The ability to share Bonus Grassland and Iron Hills and whatnot almost never comes into play. The only time I can think of is when you would need a Bonus Grassland to get over a Corruption "hump".)

Of course, there are many other reasons to place your cities close together; for instance, in addition to tile sharing there is also tile access (i.e. working your best tiles without the need for border expansion). But this guide is about Food.

[Krill]

"Yes, I know..."

just making sure...

[Jon Shafer]

I agree with Dom that the primary use for sharing tiles is with regards to food. I will occasionally swap a mined grass between cities before I have enough improvements up, but the extent of which is much less than I would do with, say, an irriagted wheat or cattle.