City-Spacing

[sexpig111]

Hello my friends. Does anyone know of any good articles or topics on city spacing? I have no idea how far away to place my cities. I have seen some references to ICS (which I kinda know about through civ3), but I don't even know how that works in a precise sense. Also, what would be general city-spacing guidelines for non-ICS style builds? I am not looking for anything hyper-specialized, just general guidelines to help get my game off the ground. Also, is it generally more important to maintain a coherent pattern early, or just to go off to productive locations regardless of proximity to other stuff like my main base?

[Chaunk]

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=116572&highlight=base+spacing

The search function is your friend.

[sexpig111]

THANKS DAWG!

[vyeh]

Re: City-Spacing

Originally posted by sexpig111
Also, what would be general city-spacing guidelines for non-ICS style builds? I am not looking for anything hyper-specialized, just general guidelines to help get my game off the ground.

Factors:
(1) The more overlap, the less average resource per base. Less nutrients = less population = less votes for Planetary Council. Less minerals = longer time to build units and improvements. Less energy = longer research time and less energy credits.

(2) Squares not inside a base radius can only be crawled for one resource. Squares inside a base radius can be worked for all three resources.

(3) Later you may want to be sure enemy units can't paratroop in. You can only stop airdrops within 2 squares of a base.

Originally posted by sexpig111
Also, is it generally more important to maintain a coherent pattern early, or just to go off to productive locations regardless of proximity to other stuff like my main base?

In optimizing your entire empire, you're looking to make each base as productive as possible. With few bases, it makes sense to deviate from a pattern to take advantage of the terrain. As the number of bases grow, deviating from an optimum pattern is more likely to lose more resources (to the neighboring bases) than is gained for a particular base.

While in the long term, deviating from a coherent pattern early is less than optimum, in the short term, you gain turn advantage, which is especially critical in the early game.

[Hydro]

Another factor to consider is defense. Bases spaced 3 tiles apart can send infantry defenders for interlocking defense in 1 turn. This is also useful for infantry-based probes, or even spd 2 attack rovers (or rover defenders).

Overlapping defense is a wonderful thing.

Hydro

[CEO Aaron]

Factors:
(1) The more overlap, the less average resource per base. Less nutrients = less population = less votes for Planetary Council. Less minerals = longer time to build units and improvements. Less energy = longer research time and less energy credits.

This is countered by the fact that a more densely packed empire is a) easier to defend
b) faster to build
c) has more base squares (better early resource generation
d) is less negatively affected by efficiency problems

And once you get nutrient satellites, the true limit to your base population is habitation domes, not locally available nutrients. Hab domes are VERY late, and you'll spend a great deal of time at the habitation cap between researching soil enrichers and nutrient satellites. As such, it behooves one to pack relatively tightly so as not to waste time and resources.

(2) Squares not inside a base radius can only be crawled for one resource. Squares inside a base radius can be worked for all three resources.[/quote]

This is a non advantage, in so far as working a square requires a citizen who must then be quelled with drone mitigation, either police or facilities or psych. Operating a crawlers requires only a square producing resources and 30 minerals or so, based on your industry rating.

[Archaic]

Of course, an effective ICS is very former intensive. Forest and Forget works in the early stages, but you'll need a *lot* of Boreholes and Condensors going into the mid game. Depending on your play style and your patience, you may not be able to put up with the micromanagement.

It is worth noting however that all the best SP records at Transcend with any decent sized map are held by people who used heavy ICS strategies.

[CEO Aaron]

That IS the one drawback of tight base spacing, namely the need to spend former time crushing rocks and clearing fungus, instead of just upgrading squares of opportunity. But the drawback is a very minor one, as your extra former time pays huge dividends in the long term power of your faction.

[Darrell01]

If you want to have all your bases not overlap, build them in NE to SW or NW to SE rows. The next row does not have to line up and be exactly 5 spaces away. It can be 5 spaces and any x amount plus or minus off the perfect grid or city bases. Then you have a little more flexability in setting down your bases. I'll make a little grid here. Each number is a different city and the B is the base center with o being unworkable tiles. The idea here is you still have maximum base expansion over the entire world map, and you have some flex in where to put your cities.

o222oo111oo333o
222221111133333
22B2211B1133B33
222221111133333
o222oo111oo333o
ooo444oo555oooo
oo4444455555ooo
oo44B4455B55ooo
oo4444455555ooo
ooo444oo555oooo

Anyway here is another thread where I gave some numbers about population when determining spacing for cities.

[CEO Aaron]

In practice, I feel that only the University(unless you're playing with blind research), Gaians, Planet Cult, and the two alien factions can practically afford to stick to a rigid base layout plan. That's because each has the capability to start with Centauri Ecology as a technology, and therefore can build formers with their starting minerals. Those leading turns give you the time to road out a base plan and clear base squares that might be covered in fungus or rocks.

[Chaunk]

I've always preferred a rigid-but-flexible base spacing. Imagine the map is a chessboard. Build all bases on the black squares only and then drop in boreholes on the white squares at maximum density. The density of the bases is then dependent on terrain and preferences, whilst always allowing for maximum borehole placement. I will generally place my bases close together, but not usually so close as to have bases visible in the other bases screens. It works well enough for me