Appropriate City Placement

[Forrest Gimp]

Why choose one or the other?

You have both the palace and the forbidden palace.

Use one for 2-3 Big Mama "perfect cities" for the wonders. I usually ancient rush the first cpu, then take his land, which is usually sweeter, by far, than what I start out with - perfect spot for Big Mamas, after I build the forbidden palace.

The rest of them are basically unit builders and follow the closer packed model. I usually relocate the palace closer to this center.

[vmxa1]

Ancient rushes are not very appealing above emperor and are scary enough there. You could pull of a rush at deity in vanilla civ, if things fell just right, but I have not managed it beyond emperor in C3C. I don't even try it any more.

Loose placement has a limit as to how far up the levels it can be used. Tight placement has no upper or lower restrictions.
Land can also make it hard to use OCP placement, such as smallish island, regardless of level.

[jshelr]

vmxa1 is certainly correct. at demi level, by the time you build your second settler, you usually have had two AI cities shoved right in your face. optimal city placement then becomes a question of where in hell can i put a city now?

[ErikM]

12 workable tiles per city is my motto.
Sometimes more, sometimes less, but size 12 cities is what I'm usually shooting for.

[vmxa1]

CxxC will provide that.

[sirsnuggles]

Dawidge

I like packing my cities into a "denser than optimal" arrangement, as well. I try to make cities that are exactly three spaces apart so that my troops will leapfrog from city to city on their trips to the front, providing a momentary boost to defense, instead of standing in the countryside. When you actually make it to the modern age, pick some of them to become super-metropolii and rearrange the neighboring cities' population placement to allow the metropolis to use all 21, while the "suburbs" must content themselves with whatever fringe is remaining. This works very well when pursuing a cultural victory.

I like your strategy. The important thing to realize about city density is that your cities can't use all of the surrounding terrain until very late in the game. Closer cities ensures that all the terrain is being used. Hence, the overall shield, and trade production is much greater.

That being said, I still play civ2 style, because I hate ICS.

[joncnunn]

Well, in Civ III there are certain disadvances to ICS, both diirect and indirect.

Direct: City Rank corruption. Every city no matter how small makes each and every one further from the palace somewhat less effective. For a city to be carrying it's own weight it much produce more shields than it is causing the cities after it to loose to waste.

Indirect: That settler your founding two tiles away from the one that just founded is allowing the AI to claim that much more land.

Actually RCS was first developed in Civ II (maybe even Civ I) by war mongling players, when there was no city rank corruption and at some point all corruption would be eliminated. (With Democracy / Communism / or nearly so with Fudamentalism)

[Lul Thyme]

'Indirect: That settler your founding two tiles away from the one that just founded is allowing the AI to claim that much more land.'
But you will be founding cities faster, and many players think that a denser build actually allows to claim MORE land in many cases...

[Solomwi]

Originally posted by Lul Thyme

But you will be founding cities faster, and many players think that a denser build actually allows to claim MORE land in many cases...

That's certainly been my experience, at least when there's plenty of open terrain into which to expand. When a good portion of those tightly packed cities are producing settlers, the settler flood takes on a whole new dimension.

I could see joncnunn's point in a more closely packed (civ-wise) game than I usually play, though. If the AI is a threat to expand right up against you quickly, it may well make more sense to go ahead and get your borders as far out as possible with your first round of settlers.

[Tall Stranger]

Originally posted by Solomwi


I could see joncnunn's point in a more closely packed (civ-wise) game than I usually play, though. If the AI is a threat to expand right up against you quickly, it may well make more sense to go ahead and get your borders as far out as possible with your first round of settlers.

I agree, but, as with so much else in this game, it all depends on the circumstances. If, in the course of scouting out the surrounding terrain, I find a particularly good area (a natural chokepoint, an area especially rich in resources/ luxuries), I will send a settler (escorted, of course) to the area. I will also, sometimes, try to create a wall of towns to cut off an AI's advance towards "my" area of the continent. However, doing that can pose a terrible risk to your civ, since the further away those towns are, the harder they are to defend. If you get the wrong type of AI neighbor, those towns are little more than bait.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by joncnunn
Direct: City Rank corruption. Every city no matter how small makes each and every one further from the palace somewhat less effective. For a city to be carrying it's own weight it much produce more shields than it is causing the cities after it to loose to waste.

Good point. I stop filling gaps in conquered territory, when the OCN gets crossed. If they grow big, they are somewhat more useful.

Originally posted by joncnunn
Indirect: That settler your founding two tiles away from the one that just founded is allowing the AI to claim that much more land.

This is only important if you have a chokepoint/resource/luxury to settle quickly. The advantage of starting more Settlers sooner is always more potent, especially if the AI is close by.

If you are thinking about claiming a border and then backfilling, now that just might work, depending on the difficulty level. Only thing is, you must be prepared for war in that case (I assume using "leave or declare war", or even outright killing any crossing Settler teams), and that slows down your REX.

[Shogun Gunner]

My single failing is to play "for fun" and not "by the math". There are times that I know that I'm not placing my cities in the most optimal fashion. It's usually dumb preconceived ideas with poor explanations like "i justed wanted the city on the river", or such. Many times I place cities for purely military reasons (chokepoints, controlling resources, coastline, blocking other players development).

Anyway, I could improve my gameplay in this particular area.

[joncnunn]

Having cities by rivers in ancient era is actually a wise move. Free Aquaduct, adviable from turn 1.

An empire does not live on corruption math alone.

I look for natural city spots; those near resources of all types and shielded grasslands, fresh water, etc.

If you can work that cow faster by relocating your city from the two tile away position the corruption math would yield you to one tile away, you are probably better off doing that. (And definately if the same move changes it from a non-fresh water city to a fresh water one)

[Bragelonne]

My psichologist is always telling me that placing your first city in some plains is NOT bad, but I just can´t stand for it. I just NEED to know that the soil on which mi capitol lies is GREEN and healthy, not that yellowish plainy color.

After my first city is placed, I insanely begin producing settlers which i deliver to strategical places far-away whenever I recognice it strictly necessary (i.e: the IA cannot have a city build on those wonderfull hills whith three golden icons on them!!). Notice that I usually play the expansionist civilizations, so I usually know more of the world map than my enemies.

FInally, I complete the "empty spots" between those cities and my capitol.

[vmxa1]

The city center tile is treated the same normally. That is 2f 1S 1C for civs with out special traits and in depsotism.

So go ahead and use that brown tile or even a white one. It is the other tiles that make the real difference.