City Spacing

[vee4473]

So, testing it out... what're the theories behind how far apart to place cities in this new version?
I was usually a "no overlap" player, but with cities working 3 hexes out (i think), that might not always be possible.

How does overlap either help or hinder this go around?

[pdxsean]

It takes a lot of work to get your cities to use all of the possible hexes. However, if you only space them two apart it'll cause crowding as you near the industrial age. In my first game, most cities were only 2-3 hexes apart and most topped out in the 14-18 population range. In my second game, I tried for 3-4 hexes and it's working out really well. I think 4 is a good rule, of course closing off the border with the neighbor will cause several 2 or 3 separations, but for the majority of inner cities 4 is working great for me.

The drawback is that there are plenty of 4-5 hex wide places in the game, and if you want to have a city on the shore you're going to miss out on plenty of land. If you want no overlap, you'll end up with little strips here and there that never get developed. This isn't all bad, since measured growth is the name of the game this time around.

[MxM]

What works for me is to see groups of resources and position city to cover them more or less quicly (say with no more than 5-10 new hexes). The distance between cities is nearly irrelevant. I do not think there is a distance penalty, so I could found city on the opposite side of the word if it is beneficial in terms of resources. The only drawback is protecting it and potentially pissing some civs by expanding close to their borders.

Because there is quite large penalty on the number of cities, both in happiness and in in civics and in duplicated infrastructure for which you have to pay, there is no reason to found city for the sake of doing it. It is actually better to have single city with twice more population than two cities with half population if the resources they work are the same. (Well, it is difficult to get one city with twice the population, but it is different question). So, look for the groups of resources and RIVERS. That's where your cities should be.

In recent game, in just before the industrial age, I found city roughly 20 hexes away on an island that had just two hexes, with one being spices and another iron (though I did not need iron, there was no spices anywhere else in the world)

I actually quite like the way Civ 5 turns out in many respects, the city founding logistics including.

[pdxsean]

What works for me is to see groups of resources and position city to cover them more or less quicly (say with no more than 5-10 new hexes). The distance between cities is nearly irrelevant.

I really like your thinking here. As I read what you wrote, I realized that I am still stuck in that "fill in the space" mentality... in reality, building cities should be absolutely about getting prime locations. The river thing is huge, I agree.

How do you feel about keeping solid borders? I don't see any problem with leaving large desert expanses between my borders but I don't want to leave a grassland area in the middle where an AI player might plop down a city CivIII-style.

[MxM]

I really like your thinking here. As I read what you wrote, I realized that I am still stuck in that "fill in the space" mentality... in reality, building cities should be absolutely about getting prime locations. The river thing is huge, I agree.

How do you feel about keeping solid borders? I don't see any problem with leaving large desert expanses between my borders but I don't want to leave a grassland area in the middle where an AI player might plop down a city CivIII-style.

Yes, and civ 3 style cities did happen to me. It is not that big deal, but you have to be careful to be able to connect all cities to the capital. If you can not connect them, then it may become a problem. Also it depends if you can protect separated cities from invasion, so I would build the walls and upgrades much faster for those remote cities that become separated. There are definitely minuses of having city separated from you capital and each time you have to decide yourself if it worth it.
From another side, it is probably easier to conquer Civ III style AI city, because you can attack it from multiple directions. Or be a friend with it so that you have open borders agreement. So there are ways to turn this situation either into advantage or at least to reduce negative consequences.

In my recent game, I had my civ split in two. But I could effectively protect both parts through ocean and connect using ports. It is actually quite nice to be able to have an in-land city connected to another coastal city by road, that coastal city would be connected to another coastal city through ports in both coastal cities, and only that second coastal city would have road connection to the in-land capital. But you have to think in advance about things like that when you decide where to position your city. It is not just distance from another city.

[rah]

Yes, with no distance penalty you can use good the good land an ignore the marginal land. But if you leave a gap, the AI will fill it and could disrupt your trade routes. And there is nothing worse than having the AI build a worthless city right up against you and then the next turn having them whine that you've got too many troops on the border. DOH

[Dinner]

Yes, with no distance penalty you can use good the good land an ignore the marginal land. But if you leave a gap, the AI will fill it and could disrupt your trade routes. And there is nothing worse than having the AI build a worthless city right up against you and then the next turn having them whine that you've got too many troops on the border. DOH

I've had that happen multiple times. There seems to be no real solution other then to destroy the city in question but you just know some other civ will wander in and settle there soon thus repeating the problem.

[MxM]

I've had that happen multiple times. There seems to be no real solution other then to destroy the city in question but you just know some other civ will wander in and settle there soon thus repeating the problem.

But solution for what problem exactly? You can connect your sites through the sea. And more often than not, you can defend them anyway.

[Brizey]

You can always buy up tiles to prevent the AI from "plopping".

[rah]

But I hate wasting money on the useless hexes three out, because they're expensive.
And yes if the AI does that, I do have a tendency to just eliminate the city but like you say, it's like roaches, unless you kill them all, they keep coming back.

[MxM]

As I said, splitting your civilization in two parts quite often is not THAT big deal, especially if you have superior resources because of that.

[pdxsean]

You can connect your sites through the sea.

I'm not sure if this is what you mean, but the harbor provides trade routes through sea tiles. Obviously no road/rail through the sea... sad that an embarked unit moves less squares than the same unit on a road.

[MxM]

I'm not sure if this is what you mean, but the harbor provides trade routes through sea tiles. Obviously no road/rail through the sea... sad that an embarked unit moves less squares than the same unit on a road.

True, that's exactly what I mean. Being able to connect two halves of your empire is quite important.

[jnh140]

You know, something that would be interesting would be the ability to plop down "towns."

Cottaging has been all but eliminated here in Civ V, and I was a bit dissapointed by that-- gone is the slow but steady growth bonus cottage spamming provided. As mentioned above, theres a lot of little worthless tiles that don't get used in any way; it doesn't make sense that NOTHING happens in those areas for thousands of years of development. I'd love to see "minor cities" occupying this area; or perhaps rural development springing up along long roads. I'd imagine they don't produce in the same way, as proper cities, but would be net positives for having them spread out on the map, using up unannexed territory.

[Zoetstofzoetje]

You know, something that would be interesting would be the ability to plop down "towns."

Cottaging has been all but eliminated here in Civ V, and I was a bit dissapointed by that-- gone is the slow but steady growth bonus cottage spamming provided. As mentioned above, theres a lot of little worthless tiles that don't get used in any way; it doesn't make sense that NOTHING happens in those areas for thousands of years of development. I'd love to see "minor cities" occupying this area; or perhaps rural development springing up along long roads. I'd imagine they don't produce in the same way, as proper cities, but would be net positives for having them spread out on the map, using up unannexed territory.

didn't we have a 'colony' option in civ3? it might be interesting to dispense of settlers altogether (at least until the renaissance) and have little towns and fortresses that protect resources grown into fullblown cities.