The Quaint Old Village Approach

[ducki]

Damn, I messed up the top row.

How about
CxxxxCxxxxC
XxxxxXxxxxX
XxuuxXxuuxX
XxuuxXxuuxX
XxxxxXxxxxX
CxxxxCxxxxC

Which actually gives 4 squares in the center that are "unusable" or out of reach.
C++++C++++C
+++++++++++
++==+++==++
++==+++==++
+++++++++++
C++++C++++C

There, that worked better.
"=" is unusable, IIRC.

If you go diagonally, it might be possible to have a fully meshing grid, but I haven't worried that hard about it.

[DaveMcW]

Corruption is lowest in the cities closest to the capital. In the modern age a size 4 city with no corruption is useless, you should abandon it to reduce corruption in your large cities farther out. I would definitely sacrifice 1000-year culture buildings to do this, even obsolete wonders. But if you planned ahead you won't have any culture buildings in the doomed city.

It is not that important to have the full 20 squares usable in every modern city, especially if you run out of room on your continent before you hit max corruption. But if you do use 5-square spacing, those 2x2 empty spots should be covered by unit factories in the early game.

[Theseus]

I have been developing a new idea / methodology for city placement, or maybe a refinement.

I definitely lean toward packing'em in in the ancient era (or rather, when sub-6 pop). Typically a 3 tile spread (mobility), dependent on terrain.

As towns grow into cities, and then metropoli, I find that I am less concerned about getting to full utilization of 21 tiles than of the RESULTS, specifically shield production.

There are breakpoints in build costs for most of what I want a city or metropolis to be building... namely, 100 shields for units, and 160 shields for buildings.

Thus, once I get a typical city's production up to around 55 shields, further expansion is inefficient, and thus I will probably not remove any QOVs, maintaining their ancient culture.

Late GAs, mobilization, certain of the GWs, and the IW all create different conditions of course. Commercial does as well, where it's important to develop as many metropoli as possible.

[ducki]

Well, I went and tested it, just to make sure I was remembering correctly, and

C++++C++++C
+++++++++++
++==+++==++
++==+++==++
+++++++++++
C++++C++++C

Does indeed give you "perfect" spacing for full tile utilization for a big city, but as you can see, does indeed leave a 4 tile block of unused tiles.

A series of QOVs - or suburbs - among a series of metros could give 100% tile utilization, but damn! what a lot of work above and beyond the normal level of micromanagement!

Not only that, the bonus tiles will invariably be uncooperative and you'll end up with a cow or wheat or somesuch in a spot that should be a QOV.

I thought there might be a better plan, so I tried to get the cities to mesh better, which I did, though I had to restart several times to get a starting point with enough land to allow me to try it out without fudging due to coastlines or mountains.

I ended up with
+++C++++C++
+++++++++++
++=++++=+++
+++++++++++
C++++C++++C

Which only had 2 unusable tiles for a 5 city metro-clump.
But it's dreadfully difficult to get the map generator to cooperate with a planned city grid.

It's purely academic for me, and I carried it to the most extreme of extremes - looking for 100% tile usage "strategy" - just to see if it was "possible" - a way to plan for QOVs and Metros in a "perfect" grid.

Which it is, technically, but you need a lot of cooperation from the map generator on coastlines, bonus resources, mountain placement, etc.

I don't like the idea of abandoning a city, though, so if it ever came down to it, I'd probably just shrink it down far enough to be a QOV, adding to my Cumulative Culture, while leaving the full complement of tiles available to any large city/metro that can use them.

So, to bring the ramble to a screeching halt, I like the idea of QOVs and will probably use them if I ever need more tiles for a "better" city to become a metro - I just won't be using some formula to place my cities to that I have 0% tile "waste" - but I'm sure someone can figure out an easy to use "plan" for creating this spacing for both early and late game "ideal" spacing.

I guess I didn't bring it to a halt as quick as I thought. Rambles are like that, eh?

[ducki]

Damn, looking at that again, there should actually be no unusable tiles in that grid.

I must be tired.

QOVs - good.
Tired, blurry-eyed, migraine-pained grid-making in notepad - bad.

'Night.