What City Placement do you use?

[vmxa1]

BRC it has many meanings and all apply. I was manly saying, I have the song on a CD and one of the lines is about co hitting it. I was only letting you know I knew the words and I am not too old for Rap (not all of it).
I think I will not comment on "she who must be obeyed".

[Dominae]

Originally posted by vmxa1
BRC, I am 57 and I have OPP, but it is bit harder to hit it.

I was manly saying, I have the song on a CD and one of the lines is about co hitting it.

Yeah, right...

I actually liked Naughty by Nature back in the day...A little too angry for me these days, though.


Dominae

[Catt]

I went ahead and voted 3-tile, but I'll qualify the vote with the caveat that I let the game circumstances decide for me. My first few cities are usually 3-tile from my capitol, but I might very well move 4-tile or decide to go 2-tile in certain circumstances. Subsequent city locations depend on the map.

Examples are in order.

If I happen to get one of those magical starts of (1) multiple-cows-on-a-river-with-shielded-grassland close by, or (2) floodplains-with-wheat-and-shield-producers-close-by, I might very well build my second city on an ICS spacing -- this on the principle that the surroundings are simply too much for one city to exploit. If I need to move 4-tiles from the capitol to grab a bonus resource (cow, game, etc.) and/or have a riverside location, I'm likely to do so.

On an archipelago map, I tend to let the coastline (and the fish or whales) dictate locations for me.

Are my neighbors powerful and aggressive (i.e., Rome)? -- I'm either going to rush early or prepare to be rushed -- either way my build is going to be tighter than it would if my neighbor is France.

Does a 3-tile spacing put a prospective location on grassland, with tundra one tile further? I'll go to 4-tile and found a city on the tundra, thanks, and keep the grassland available as a workable tile.

My AU 204 spacing probably gives a good example of my spacing biases (see the spoiler for thought processes and maps): (1) default to 3-tile spacing until more of the game circumstances are known; (2) with a smaller landmass, exploit the coasts; (3) be wise about tundra and default city center tile production; and (4) don't be afraid to "ICS" even with the last two cities you'll ever found -- if they're on a peninsula and can exploit a good chunk of coast and sea despite the tight land spacing, go for it.

Catt

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Dominae

Yeah, right...

I actually liked Naughty by Nature back in the day...A little too angry for me these days, though.


Dominae

thank god you didn't hear N.W.A., or Ice Cube and Dr. Dre in their early 90's days...

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Master Zen
thank god you didn't hear N.W.A., or Ice Cube and Dr. Dre in their early 90's days...

Oh I did, and Snoop Dogg too. I'm just saying that's becoming "not my thing" anymore (although I have most of the songs recorded somewhere).

Back on-topic. I voted 3-tile, and am just beginning to do what Catt described: closer or looser city-spacing based on terrain. I will default to 3-tile, but I'm now actively thinking about which tiles will be accessible from various locations, which definitely influences their future placement.


Dominae

[BRC]

So how big is Nelly in Canada?? He's my hometown boy.

I still can't get over the problem that I had building my FP by hand, even with WLTKD and a courhouse. I did everything that I could, but eventually just said "screw it" and got myself a leader.
While this should be built before Ralphing really comes into its own, it frustrated me to have to deal with such a slow construction. I am looking for a solution and the "opportunity" to decrease my # of cities without hurting my empire seems the most viable.

[Catt]

Originally posted by BRC
I still can't get over the problem that I had building my FP by hand, even with WLTKD and a courhouse. I did everything that I could, but eventually just said "screw it" and got myself a leader.
While this should be built before Ralphing really comes into its own, it frustrated me to have to deal with such a slow construction. I am looking for a solution and the "opportunity" to decrease my # of cities without hurting my empire seems the most viable.

I have adopted the attitude of "If you can build the FP, build it . . . in the best spot you can, but don't put off building it." This usually means that I start a manual FP build in city only 6 - 7 tiles from my capitol. But this also means that I can usually get 5 or 6 (or more!) shields from the city, meaning that I can build the FP in less than 40 turns in almost all cases (although the "200 turns" indicator when the city is size 1 or 2 is scary sometimes ). A mobile palace (in the future) takes care of not having perfect cores, and the benefit from having an FP up-and-running ASAP seems to me, anecdotally, to be tremendous. And if I never relocate my palace, an overlapping Palace-FP core is not nearly the killer that a much later FP is.

Below is a map from my current random game -- it was a great start, and I drew the French (commercial) and was able to build the Pyramids in my capitol -- the map appears to be a continents, 60% water map, and I managed to REX quite well -- only a small bit of my growth (to the north) came at the expense of a neighbor, the rest was all native growth (south is tundra, and much looser spacing -- also note that there is a 2-tile spacing city north of the capitol -- floodplains with wheat there!).

I built the FP manually in 310 BC, a fairly early FP without a leader. I never ended up moving my Palace - never had a leader - but I can still relocate north with a manual build in only 15-20 turns if I want to do so. The blue dot is the capitol (founded in 3950 bc); the green dot is the FP; the red dot is a captured AI city (with wide open spaces ) -- with a factory+power plant, courthouse and police station, it produces a net 34 shields -- or a tank in 3 turns.

Try the manual-FP-build close to home -- even if you don't relocate the palace later, it offers significant early power, and doesn't mean you've shot yourself in the foot if you later decide to forego aggressive expansion.

Catt

[Dominae]

France looks like South America...

(I should really stop posting off-topic, bleh).


Dominae

[BRC]

Catt: As soon as I have mapped out my starting continent, I make plans for the location of my FP/Palace. I make plans based on owning the whole continent, because I will. I have built the FP close by on a few occasions, but in my latest game, my initial core is in a corner of the continent. IOW, not a great spot for the long term. I was thinking about doing a Palace jump closer to where my FP would be to speed it up. What do you think about this??


Also, is it stupid to try extremely hard to get the PERFECT setup? I, personally, would not be happy with the placement that you have chosen in your game. I don't mean anything by that, just that I am anal about it.


I do realize that an early FP is amazingly powerful, but I want to make sure that it is in a good spot. Am I just taking it too far??


Here's a map of my game. The black spot is my initial start spot. The blue is the FP that I had problems building. The green is where I have just relocated my Palace too, for the remainder of the game. The FP came online at about Theology. Right now, we are in the first third of the Industrial Era. Let me know what you think.

[Catt]

Originally posted by BRC
Catt: As soon as I have mapped out my starting continent, I make plans for the location of my FP/Palace. I make plans based on owning the whole continent, because I will.

I have been experiementing with a more peaceful approach, so our interests and game expectations may call for different approaches. But what I have really come to enjoy about the close FP build is the flexibility it offers (more below).

I have built the FP close by on a few occasions, but in my latest game, my initial core is in a corner of the continent. IOW, not a great spot for the long term. I was thinking about doing a Palace jump closer to where my FP would be to speed it up. What do you think about this??

All with the caveat of not knowing the terrain, the former location of your opponents, the timing of your expansion, etc. . . I would probably have built an FP close to home (probably just east of the capitol) and later moved my palace to your FP site. A later relocation north would have ensured 2 productive cores and a decent ex-core. The early FP would have really helped in the early game, you still ended up using a leader to build the FP (I would need one for the palace jump), and you still end up with 2 cores and an ex-core. Again absent other unknowns, the end result is the same, but the 2 cores are less aesthetically placed in an "early-FP" scenario that in yours.

Yours looks like a good map for a leader-built FP though -- the start position is awfully well centered for the surrounding land -- it would be tougher to find a decent spot for a close, manual FP.

Also, is it stupid to try extremely hard to get the PERFECT setup? I, personally, would not be happy with the placement that you have chosen in your game. I don't mean anything by that, just that I am anal about it.


I do realize that an early FP is amazingly powerful, but I want to make sure that it is in a good spot. Am I just taking it too far??

It depends on what your goals are. If you're playing for UP, you probably want as near perfect as you can get. If you're playing for less than UP, even mediocre placement is going to ensure you a win with only half the land that you already control in your game.

Absent UP ambitions, I'd say you're taking it too far. If you delay an FP by 50 turns, you delay reduced corruption and waste for what is probably 15%-20% of the entire game, and arguably for the most important portion of the game (imagine that the 10% gametime is equivalent to 30% - 35% game power potential).

My posted minimap is admittedly a pretty ugly FP-Palace placement, but what I like about it is the flexibility it offered. The early FP helped a great deal with gaining early-game parity, and I expected that I would relocate my palace once or twice -- first north to Spain and then southeast to Germany. Turns out I didn't have any need to do so -- I could win going away, and I could/can win in any manner I choose. Perfect doesn't win any acolades unless you're playing for it.

Bringing this more clearly back in line with the thread topic, if one plays with an early game 3-tile spacing core, the close, manually-built FP tends to be (1) easily doable; and (2) allows a very productive early dense empire, even where that empire is smaller in total land controlled than AI empires. A later palace relocation to an AI core (as alexman points out, perhaps in the other thread) is always an option, as indeed are multiple palace relocations to multiple cores. But even if you don't subsequently relocate for whatever reason, you haven't missed the power of an early FP, and you haven't doomed your native homeland to intolerable waste and corruption, even with a pretty ugly FP-palace placement.

Catt

[Arrian]

Absent UP ambitions, I'd say you're taking it too far. If you delay an FP by 50 turns, you delay reduced corruption and waste for what is probably 15%-20% of the entire game, and arguably for the most important portion of the game

Catt's right. An early, somewhat-less-than-optimal FP is still very, very powerful, and will lead you to victory. It may not be pretty, but it works.

I've played out two games as the Mongols. Both on Monarch, both involving very early warfare that generated early leaders. Due to the fact that I did not manage to put together my usual rampaging horde of 20+ horsemen with accompanying swordsmen to take down the continent, I had a leader and a decent spot for a FP, but 1/2 or less than 1/2 of my continent - such that if I did build the FP, it would be impossible to set up an optimal FP/Palace axis to cover the whole continent. I bit the bullet (both times) and rushed the FP in newly conquered territory.

The Mongols have godawful traits for building, but with two productive cores up and running relatively early, I still out-built/out-researched/out-everythinged the AI and won handily.

I must admit, however, that I didn't enjoy it as much. It just didn't feel right... knowing that my Palace/FP axis was not optimal and never would be. Allowing neighbors on my continent to actually survive untouched! *shakes head* All wrong, man, all wrong...

-Arrian

[Catt]

Originally posted by Arrian

Allowing neighbors on my continent to actually survive untouched! *shakes head* All wrong, man, all wrong...

-Arrian

As Theseus has said before . . . you crack me up!

Catt

[Arrian]

That's what I'm here for

"...but I'm not on MY island"
"What, you mean Ireland?"
"Yeah, it's MINE"
[/Braveheat]

-Arrian

[BRC]

See, that's the thing. I wouldn't call myself a bloodthirsty barbarian, but I want the whole continent. That is priority #1. Now, I'll take my time to get it (I want it by Industrial Era). I also need two massive cores. I want the whole continent productive, and I will waste large amounts of gold on fringe cities. I'll work on all this.

That being said, I see Ralphing helping my dillemma a lot, as I will want wide spacing around my new cores. However, I know that I will need tight spacing to get to this position. Ralphing is my answer, with a later emphasis on wider spacing around the cores.

Thanks guys

brc

[Datajack Franit]

I don't really use any kind of grid, just place the city in a decent spot and focus on getting it bigger and bigger