City placement redux (for the third time)

[Harovan]

Well, the pattern with the 'o's is common knowledge, many people play so. But the topic of this thread is to discuss, how an earlier dense built city pattern can step by step be thinned out to build later metropolises. With my approach, you have the "borg" style placement in the early game, having a 2-3 spaced placement of the cities, after aqueducts you eliminate one row of 'c's and have both large cities (up to size 12) and the rest of the tiles used as well by the camps, an very late in the game, with a better government and all the corruption reducing improvements built, you eliminate the second row and can have every city a powerhouse. An additional benefit is, the time, when you eliminate the rows of camps by building workers, are exactly the times when you need workers most.

[Theseus]

Sir Ralph, you NAILED it!!

That's exactly what I was trying to get to... but I had a couple more governing thoughts, that were being touched on in earlier posts:

* DaveMcW's ICS start with an OCP approach thereafter is interesting, but 1) I hate disbanding the capitol, and 2) I had the same reaction as Dominae, I want to do this empire-wide (well at least for my core... call it the capitol and at least two rings of metros around it).

* If you look at the 3-tile and 4-tile examples I put up, a couple things jumped out at me: 1) military support is just outrageously great in a roaded 3-tile plan... the outer cities are directly supported by 3 or even 5 other cities, and 2) in the 4-tile plan there is just a tremendous number of tiles not be worked for a long time.

Sir Ralph's plan totally got it. In addition to the positives he mentioned, it gives 3-tile military road support early, when it is most needed.

The reason that I called this 2/3/4/5 spacing is that I knew I wanted to start with 2 and 3 spacing, but end up at 5. I falsely assumed there would have to be a 4 spacing interim period.

What Sir Ralph designed would thus be 2/3/5 spacing.

A couple of thoughts:

* SR, what are your guiding principles in positioning cities? Obviously the thing to do is figure out your 5-tile spacing plan first, and then fill in where the camps go... but where?

* We need to figure out the opportunity cost of using Settlers this way.

* We need alexman to chime in on how this impacts number of city corruption over time.

* What are thoughts on what gets built in the camps... Workers and Settlers only? Barracks and units?

* This needs a better name than 2/3/5 spacing. Sir Ralph, the honor is yours.

I am really, truly excited about this. As DaveMcW said, his less extensive version was a gamebreaker. I believe that this will become the acknowledged optimum city placement methodology.


(and yes, this is exactly what I wanted: have my cake and eat it too. )

[Dominae]

Before we go on to naming this particular strategy, we should figure out if it is superior to "pure" 3-tile spacing. It's all fine and nice to want 4-tile come the Industrial age, but most games are over by then.

With 3-spacing, your borders expand at a reasonable pace, yet you get all the benefits of tight placement. Additionally, you do not run into all the problems of doubled or tripled OCN, which you otherwise would with ICS. You could potentially stop expanding and use a geographically small, very tight-knit empire, but then you're just giving land away to the opponents.

If your cities are too crowded (close together, I mean) you'll be spending a lot of time managing them, and you'll need to disband them sooner to really benefit from improvements. Also, the problem with the "military camp" idea is that your permanent cities will be competing for tiles with your camp cities. If most of your cities are permanent, then you're not "wasting" resources in this way. You get a high numbre of quality, permanent cities (that, thankfully, max out at around size 12).

What it realy comes down to is maximized use of available land. If it looks like there's a spot (preferably close to the capital) that will not be fully exploited in the near-future, it should probably be considered as a city-site. This may or may not involve 2-spacing. My early experience with this was with Flood Plains, where I realised I could sneak in a city around these and get a "free" Worker-pump (not the glorious size-6 version, mind you, but one that could pump out Workers every 4 or so turns with little interference with other cities). But there are clearly occasions when "the land" dicates that 3-spacing is the best it can support efficiently, and you should always listen to what "the land" tells you.

Edit: Might I add, that the "camp" idea in Civ3 dates back to the early days, where Vel was still talking strategy. The game where he describes this strategy is obviously perfect for it: caught on a peninsula, with no room to expand but into areas of high corruption (distance from capital).


Dominae

[Harovan]

I would build the six camps and the six cities around the capital first and define the priorities, in which order the camps and cities are to be built, by terrain and resource needs.

The camps help first in settler building and get later a barracks as their only improvement. With Monarch difficulty, 2 MPs and 2 luxuries (which should be available, otherwise we need the slider) they can grow to size 6 without a temple.

The cities get some improvements. High food cities get a granary and produce settlers and workers, high shield cities a barracks and produce units, high gold cities get a library.

After that inner core is settled, I would expand further, with the next ring of cities and camps.

Downsides: The other teams may grab a lot of land and leave us without later resources.

Upsides: With the inner ring of cities and camps we have a high productive and very good to defend core of 13 cities and, since many of them are dedicated to unit building, we should be strong enough to get our air to breathe.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Dominae
Before we go on to naming this particular strategy, we should figure out if it is superior to "pure" 3-tile spacing. It's all fine and nice to want 4-tile come the Industrial age, but most games are over by then.

I'd also throw out a plea for settling on common terminology for city spacing -- I think we all use similar (or the same) terms, but don't necessarily mean the same thing.

Putting aside for a moment (just a moment) the more complex and interesting discussion of temp cities and potential build patterns employing them, can we agree on some terminology? My own future biases will tend towards using numbers (for clarity) but for reference I'll throw in my alphabet-based terminology since I've used it a lot recently.

First, numbers. I instinctively count the present city as the start point, meaning city-tile-tile-city is "3 tile pattern" or even "3 tile spacing" (even though only 2 tiles actually appear between cities).

In my world,

2-tile spacing = city-tile-city = "ICS"
3-tile spacing = city-tile-tile-city = "dense" or "tight" build
4-tile spacing = city-t-t-t-city = "loose build"
5-tile spacing = city-t-t-t-t-city = "optimal" or "OCP"

Also, I think "ICS" is more of a style than a build pattern -- an ICS'er will build a lot of "ICS-spaced" cities, while a "non-ICS'er" may occasionally build a few cities using only 2-tile spacing due to map features, etc.

Finally, I think "optimal" or "OCP" is not "optimal" for gameplay or for efficiency, but the name, as far as I am concerned, is so widely used that calling it anything else would just cause confusion.

Objections to adopting the above terminology?

Catt

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Dominae
Before we go on to naming this particular strategy, we should figure out if it is superior to "pure" 3-tile spacing. It's all fine and nice to want 4-tile come the Industrial age, but most games are over by then.

Dominae, this does not matter, because it is flexible. After Construction, we have 2 types of settlements: Cities up to size 12 for quick builds of expensive units (Knights, Cavalry), some better improvements like Unis and Banks, and may be the one or other wonder. And we have the camps for cheaper units, so we don't waste tiles.

If the game is over before the Industrial age, fine, no need to disband the second row of camps. If not, we have the option to grow most of our cities to metropolises. This option we lose, if we fix from the start on 3-spacing.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Catt
Objections to adopting the above terminology?

Nope, we've been using the same terminology all along, you and I.


Dominae

[Harovan]

A playable 3-tile pattern with exactly 12 tiles per city is this:

. . . . x . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . x . . .
. . x . . o . . . . .
. . . . o o o . . . x
. . . o o O o o . . .
x . . . o o o . . . .
. . . . . o . . x . .
. . . x . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . x . . . .

The x'es and the big O are cities, the small o's are the tiles dedicated to the big O city (as example).

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Dominae, this does not matter, because it is flexible. After Construction, we have 2 types of settlements: Cities up to size 12 for quick builds of expensive units (Knights, Cavalry), some better improvements like Unis and Banks, and may be the one or other wonder. And we have the camps for cheaper units, so we don't waste tiles.

I can see there's a case in the very early-game, where timing is everything, and things cost relatively little. But by the end of the Ancient age or start of the Medieval age, what will those little cities do? You'll want all your best tiles to go to the size 12 cities, so you'll be left with low production in most of your camps. This makes even the "cheapest" units (Pikemen, more Horsemen) look expensive. If your plan is to disband these cities at this time, I think that sticking to 3-spacing is less wasteful in such a short time span.

If the game is over before the Industrial age, fine, no need to disband the second row of camps. If not, we have the option to grow most of our cities to metropolises. This option we lose, if we fix from the start on 3-spacing.

Ok, let me ask once and for all: what's the point of aiming for metropolises? Yes, you increase your average Shielf output per city, but cities at size 12-15 (standard 3-tile pattern with RRs everywhere) produce a sufficient number of Shields for any purpose. Extra Commerce is even easier to downplay, since 10 Commerce split among 2 Marketplaces is just better than going into just 1.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
A playable 3-tile pattern with exactly 12 tiles per city is this:

My empires look like this more often than not (for better or worse - still needs some discussion).


Dominae

[Theseus]

I've been playing your Dark Side Challenge, btw, and I've been frustrated at my inability to grow my cities into large metros. I'm about to get Motor Trans, and there's nothing I love more than 2 turn tanks on Wartime production. Try that in the typical 12 pop city!

I guess that's really my point: A strict 3-tile spaced empire is restrictive to long-term growth, which I at least want as an OPTION if a game is still alive past sanitation.

And yet I don;t want to do 2-tile ICS, and I don;t like 4- and 5- tile spacing in the early game (if you like at the examples I posted above, that's where I got started on this... checking the benefits (?) of 4 tile spacing around the capitol due to the Palace's culture).

That's why I think this is so great.

Take another look at SR's design... if I am extrapolating correctly, the capitol and the 'keeper' cities are in fact mostly on a 3-tile plan. It should be 4 out of 6 surrounding camps at 3 tile, and 2 at 2 tile.

I don;t think your your slowing territorial expansion arguments or corruption due to OCN really hold water... this is only marginally tighter than strict 3-tile.

In fact, I think (needs more pondering) you actually expand territory FASTER using this methodology. It's counter-intuitive, but look at my 3-tile example... there, I was able to fit 8 new cities around the capitol, whereas in SR's plan one can only fit 6 into the first ring, thus forcing you to expand territory faster with the next 2 cities.

Hmmm... let's think about this... in application, I would probably build my four 3-tile camps first, and then 2 tiles from each of them four 'keeper' cities, or maybe adjust that order depending on terrain, neighbors, etc. So I've definitely expanded further, essentially having started my second circle. I'd then fill in the two camps near the capitol, and then the last two 'keeper' cities. So that's the capitol, 6 camps, and 6 'keeper' cities in the first two rings, compared to the capitol and 8 keepers in one ring in strict 3-tile spacing.

And, of course, corruption due to OCN improves dramatically with each phase of camp removal... in your bigger and better cities and metros.

I don;t remember camps being discussed this specifically in the context of an optimized approach to short- and long-term city placement. But to give credit where it's due, anybody wanna bet against me when I guess that Aeson's been more or less doing this all along?

[Theseus]

Originally posted by Dominae
Ok, let me ask once and for all: what's the point of aiming for metropolises? Yes, you increase your average Shielf output per city, but cities at size 12-15 (standard 3-tile pattern with RRs everywhere) produce a sufficient number of Shields for any purpose. Extra Commerce is even easier to downplay, since 10 Commerce split among 2 Marketplaces is just better than going into just 1.

I wrote my last post x-posting with a bunch of you guys... but I think I gotcha Dom.

I don;t really understand your comment about Markeplaces... but I will say 21 metros are going to be a helluva a lot healthier than 41 cities.

BTW, I concur with Catt's nomeclature.

[Dominae]

I'm still on fence about the "new thing". See my post two above yours (in response to Sir Ralph's) for the issues I think need addressing.

You're right, my Marketplace comment makes no sense (I was thinking in terms of Corruption, but alexman's FAQ set me straight). Still, smaller cities are more manageable from a Happiness/Pollution point of view. And Tanks in 2 turns is nice, but a necessity? I would prefer more cities producing Tanks every 3 turns. Another thing is that, with large cities, it is more difficult to minimize wasted production. With smaller, closer cities it is easier to shift laborers around to get maximum use of out available tiles.


Dominae

[DeepO]

I think the discussion depends greatly on situation. In a longer, SP game, a setup with maximum 4 tile spacing, with temporary encampments for settlers, workers and units will probably be best. Commercial might make a difference, in that a final tighther spacing will work better.

In shorter, MP games, Sir Ralph's 3 tile spacing with 12 workable tiles will beat all competitors, as you won't have time for hospitals anyway, the game will be decided much before that. Losing tiles, defensability and corruption will otherwise always exist (it may be possible to create some temporary cities, but not to the same extent as in a 4 tile spacing)

But the above is all theory, in practice, whatever global layout you choose will need to be adapted. Terrain is extremely important, not only mountains can be in your way, but not squandering bonus resources will be essential for a perfect game. Also, let's not forget the sea shore cities, as these can most of the times use more tiles then needed on the sea, leaving more for inland cities (which thus can be closer together).

One problem here, is that any too rigid pattern (like perfect 4 tile spacing) is going to lose flexibility, as it can't swap the tiles of neighbouring cities. Therefore, smaller, size 12, 3 tiles cities can 'move' a little, making better use of terrain, and not losing any tiles in general. They're fastly becoming my favorite

DeepO

[Theseus]

I just tried it (admittedly very partially) in my first effort at AU 204.

I got America and planted Theseusville where I started. I proceeded to build New York 11 from there, and then did an insane 2-3 tile spaced REX (worked like a charm, btw).

When the time came... POOF... no more New York, and Settlers and Workers to spare.

I'm going to do that with the next temp camp shortly.

Me likes.

The design takes some attention, though. I messed up, and in abandoning New York I lost the use of one tile.