Appropriate City Placement

[Krill]

The only time you could justify that approach in terms of gameplay is if you were building a "Fort Stanwix". And that only applies if you are playing against other humans.

[Shogun Gunner]

If you like the look of the "suburbs", there is a graphics modpack that updates the railroad graphics creating little buildings along the rail line. In urban areas, this modpack really gives you the feel of urban sprawl.

[Golden Bear]

As noted earlier, different difficulty levels allow different city placements. Monarch and lower you can probably get by with wide city spacing.

However, if you believe that a key to the game lies in early population growth, then you are not maximizing by spreading out your cities. On Emperor and higher you have to grow fast and spread out fast. You need to use all your available resources and monitor their use in detail almost every turn. Generally this means CxxC particularly around your palace city.

This has all been said before. My personal concept is that I start cxxc but will throw out settlers to grab luxuries and resources as soon as I spot them. I can then fill in behind them. After a certain amount of spread I will let my fringe cities go cxxxc with the plan to boom them later when hospitals are available. Also, I will take my two or three most productive cities and put hospitals in them - these cities must not overlap - and let them grow into metropolises at the expense of some 12 pop neighbors.

But, in the early game, spreading out cities too wide will waste resources and terrain and will ultimately delay growth. Also, it is easier to defend cities spaced three squares apart.

Golden Bear

[justjake73]

My strategy is to try and get all tiles included but not at the expense of balance. If there are 2 special tiles, I try and see if two cities can fit. If there would be too much overlap, then I only place one city. "Holes" will eventually be encompassed by your culture and you can build airbases on them.

[Commy]

If someone has already mentioned this, my apologies...but I think it is very important when considering city placement, loose vs. dense...

Lets assume, for a second, that you actually play the game in the industrial and modern ages...

When you build factories, power plants, whatever, you get +50% shields (100% with nuclear)....now, if you put factories in all your cities, and you are working all your squares, whether you have tight base spacing or loose base spacing, you will get about the same amount of shields still...however, with tight base spacing, you will be paying a lot more maintenance...if you build 50% more bases, you'll pay 50% more maintenance, and yet, still get the same amount of benefits...

This applies to a good number of the improvements in the game...marketplaces, libraries, universities, banks, stock exchanges, research labs, factories, power plants, manufacturing plants...

So maybe in the ancient ages this won't matter, since most of the squares won't even be worked unless doing tight spacing...but wait until the industrial ages, sometimes even the medieval ages, and that maintenance will really weaken your economy...

Tight base-spacing is great if you are playing a 200 turn game, but after that, your economy will not be nearly as good as it could have been....

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Commy
Lets assume, for a second, that you actually play the game in the industrial and modern ages...

Sure, but there are many factors that make your points all but irrelevant. The first two are, in my opinion, the really important ones:

• The game is usually decided by the end of the Middle Ages. Either you are on your way to win, or the AI is about to wipe the floor with you. What mattered, was the early expansion, for which a tighter pattern wins by far.
• The cost of more city improvements comes back to you in unit production and support capability. You can have many more units, or build many quickly. This is crucial, as it allows you to shift only a small portion of your production to military builds, even in need. A loose city pattern forces you to build units in more of your cities, adding large delays to city improvements (to the economy).
• The cost of improvements can be made up with a tech deal, if you happen to have AIs to sell to. At this time, my science is usually going at 100% with a healthy surpulus. The few coins for structures mean nothing. And if I take time to actually build Banks (yeah, right...), I can turn it down to 90%, and pay for the structures myself.
• By making smaller cities, you do not have to build Hospitals, and you do not get the increased Pollution from large populations. Another delay on more productive builds (and tile improvements, like Railroads) does not happen to you.
• More cities means +1 Shield in more places, when playing Industrious civs (I like to play the Maya...) This means even faster building of things I need.
• More cities means more Gold, when playing Commercial (and sometimes Seafaring) civs. If you count Markets, and perhaps Banks into this, those civs actually do not need to fear the cost of structures, because they have ways to pay for them on a per city basis...

[Grim Legacy]

The benefits of tight city placement are widely recognized, yet I personally loathe the esthetic aspect of this strategy.

I like the solution implemented in an old fantasy Civ 1 derivate game: Master of Magic. This game mandates at least 3 squares between cities. You cannot build one less than 3 squares away from any other. Overlap is still possible, but not to an unpleasant level. Pleasing to the eye, and the end of extreme (compact) expansion strategies.

[Aqualung71]

What Modo said

With one important addition......3-tile spacing is important in human-human games for defence reasons.

At Emperor and above, it becomes increasingly difficult to win with loose city spacing.