City spacing: when are they too close?

[yimboli]

Greetings all.

wow this is one awesome forum.

This is a serious question that has honestly made me lose sleep. Shed some light if you will.
It'll prolly be wordy; if you just wanna see my question w/o the background, skip to the part labelled **question**.

So, I just picked up CtP2 about a month ago; thought it blew the hell out of smac and civ2, and from what I remember from those two games, there was a tradeoff between the number of cities you build in a confined space and the strength of each individual city. In other words, if you build cities closer together, you can have more... but the city influence borders will eventually conflict, each individual city will run out of room to expand, and be stunted, never able to achieve its full value because the cities were built too close together.

I always figured i'd build them relatively close together, like with 6 tiles in between each city (give or take) to allow for two influence expansions without the cities getting in the way.

Well I just installed the apoloyton mod and played it; imagine my surprise when 8 dudes marched up to my frontline city and took it . well, i reloaded, pulled some diplomacy, tried again, avoided the attack... but i was constantly amazed at how the empires seemingly produced 4-5 times as much as I, and once I traded maps with some civs (indians first, then thai), I got one look at their land and was in pure awe.

I guess i was used to the old AI which did not use tile improvs as much, or have as many boosters at startup, but i quickly saw how they outfoxed me every time. their cities were very close together (comparatively speaking of course), every piece of land had a tile improvement, and their cities were 2-3 times the size of mine.

**question**
The apoloyton mod AI makes cities closer together than I do. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but i always appreciated the extra room for my cities when i hit around the rennaissance/modern age and they needed the room to expand to support the high population. I now see that in the beginning, closer cities is better, but isn't that going to screw over the AI in the late game?? I mean, how are their cities going to grow past when they can no longer expand to support the extra population? I was honestly saddenned when I saw that, cuz I knew that once I survived past the ancient age, the game would be cake cuz my cities would be so much bigger than theirs they couldn't keep up. Has anyone else had such concerns? This is my number one question: What is the optimal space to maintain between new cities?!?! And how did they get so much public works? (is that an AI booster perhaps?) I can post the savegame if you want, but i figure its not necessary. This is driving me nuts!! plz help. i'll pull you out of the ocean next time your drowning.

have a great Coast Guard day, and thx for letting me

yimboli

[Maquiladora]

Well for a start the AI gets bonuses you do not, so its not like its planning it cities better, because chances are, it isnt.

City spacing it depends how long you think the game is gonna last, if its gonna go well into the modern era try and you think your cities are far from attack for the early game then get 3 borders on some of your cities, if its gonna go to war in the renaissance then go for 2 borders only.

[larsenex]

Enjoy the space of water...

I rarely play the large maps on 'all' land. In fact I have found that playing on more water than land maps allows me to go further along in the game. I believe the AI does not know how to attack an island based Civ very well so I tend to space my cities out two or three bands out. Try putting your Civ on a med sized island and space your Cities out on the coast. I have found this to be rather a fun excersise. Enjoy your game!!!

Lars

[Peter Triggs]

Hi, yimboli and welcome to the forum.

i always appreciated the extra room for my cities when i hit around the rennaissance/modern age and they needed the room to expand to support the high population. I now see that in the beginning, closer cities is better, but isn't that going to screw over the AI in the late game?? I mean, how are their cities going to grow past when they can no longer expand to support the extra population? I was honestly saddenned when I saw that, cuz I knew that once I survived past the ancient age, the game would be cake cuz my cities would be so much bigger than theirs they couldn't keep up. Has anyone else had such concerns? This is my number one question: What is the optimal space to maintain between new cities?!?!

It's nice finally to find someone who thinks like I do, but you and me might be in a minority of two. You might want to try "Call to Conquest": I tried to fix it so that the AI will initially space their cities quite far apart. But I was really surprised when Maquiladora posted some screen shots of a multiplayer game (this thread) to see how many cities they built and how close to each other they built them. Since humans are smarter than computer programs, I guess this is the winning strategy.

larsenex:
I rarely play the large maps on 'all' land. In fact I have found that playing on more water than land maps allows me to go further along in the game. I believe the AI does not know how to attack an island based Civ very well so I tend to space my cities out two or three bands out.

That's putting it mildly. How often (if at all) have you seen the AI launch a cross water invasion? I've been struggling with the source code for weeks trying to figure out what's going on here.

[Martin Gühmann]

Well with city spacing, for my taste the AI city spacing in Apolyton Pack is also too far therefore I make sure that at least some Ai personalities have a wider city spacing in GoodMod.

Unfortunatly it is true that a wider city spacing is a disatvantage in the early game and you have to wait ages until you can use the third city ring.

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
That's putting it mildly. How often (if at all) have you seen the AI launch a cross water invasion? I've been struggling with the source code for weeks trying to figure out what's going on here.

Putting it not so midly, I think there is noting serious going with the AI.

-Martin

[Tamerlin]

As far as I am concerned I think that 6 tiles between cities is the optimal distance... it allows for the city to grow and prosper adequately. Though this is what I believe to be the optimal distance, this is not the way I am playing. I usually build my first cities 8 tiles away from each others because I like to watch them grow and expand... I agree that this is not an efficient strategy at the beginnnng of the game but it is a great pleasure at the end of the game... and pleasure is the reason why I am playing actually.

[yimboli]

hey all, thx for the replies.

Originally posted by Tamerlin
I usually build my first cities 8 tiles away from each others because I like to watch them grow and expand...

Wow. 8 tiles, huh? That must be hard to defend if you're playing a mod with good AI.

ya, I agree with the 6-tile spacing. I just wish that city spacing wasn't so small in the start and larger in the late game. I can certainly understand how it adds to strategy and planning, but your decisions in the beginning of the game are sooo crucial, perhaps a bit too much. just a couple extra cities in the beginning could help you out if you're under attack, but in the later game, those cities that saved you may wind up stunting the growth of your capital.

alas. I just wish there was some way to move cities, or some kind of equivalent, so you could play around with having variable city distances over time. But i guess that's not too realistic. Thoughts, anyone?

yimboli

[child of Thor]

For me i mostly hate the way the AI "over industrialises" its territory. I just looks weird to me when there is too much uniformity in city placement, and all the tiles with the same kind of improvements on. This is really just an asthetic complaint - as i know its the most efficient way for the AI to play.
For myself i only build on land that looks like a good place, with usualy a trade good and a reasonable mix of land types(just so that in my mind my people have access to lumber,stone etc). The only time i'll put a city in a bad place is if i'm trying to control some border territory over the AI.
Can we train the AI to use a more orangic system for chosing its city placement(or even a more strategic one)?
I'm not sure - i guess it's easier to make it choose the most productive sites.

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by yimboli
Wow. 8 tiles, huh? That must be hard to defend if you're playing a mod with good AI.

It is not that difficult as at the beginning of the game I am more the hunter than the prey. Since I have started playing at the higher difficulty levels my beginning strategy is to hunt for the closest civilization and to conquer its cities as soon as possible. These early conquests allow you to grow far more quickly than you would through a peaceful colonization of the land around your starting location. Of course all this would be far more difficult if, for example, the AI could launch naval operations as I would have to protect the cities near the ocean instead of moving away their garrison and sending almost all my units to the front.

I am also careful to build a road network as soon as possible and when my inner cities could be threatened I already have a ring of well defended frontier cities... at least most of the time.

alas. I just wish there was some way to move cities, or some kind of equivalent, so you could play around with having variable city distances over time. But i guess that's not too realistic. Thoughts, anyone?

yimboli

I think that the road/railroad/maglev infrasructures and the aerial transports are in a way simulating what you are writing about, they are not reducing the distance but the time needed to reach your destination.

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by child of Thor
For me i mostly hate the way the AI "over industrialises" its territory. I just looks weird to me when there is too much uniformity in city placement, and all the tiles with the same kind of improvements on. This is really just an asthetic complaint - as i know its the most efficient way for the AI to play.
For myself i only build on land that looks like a good place, with usualy a trade good and a reasonable mix of land types(just so that in my mind my people have access to lumber,stone etc). The only time i'll put a city in a bad place is if i'm trying to control some border territory over the AI.
Can we train the AI to use a more orangic system for chosing its city placement(or even a more strategic one)?
I'm not sure - i guess it's easier to make it choose the most productive sites.

I would say the AI is not methodical enough! For a start its cities overlap, even on the second border, thats worse than building on desert, it wastes good land far too often by placing its cities in a terribly uneffecient way. I know that might be boring to see the AI continually place cities in a perfect jigsaw over good land, but its the best way for it to compete, unless theres some way to force the human to be less methodical.

Trade goods altering terrain values perhaps, but again, id rather fit my cities in a jigsaw and cram 2 more cities in, than place a few directly on trade goods.

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
I would say the AI is not methodical enough! For a start its cities overlap, even on the second border, thats worse than building on desert, it wastes good land far too often by placing its cities in a terribly uneffecient way. I know that might be boring to see the AI continually place cities in a perfect jigsaw over good land, but its the best way for it to compete, unless theres some way to force the human to be less methodical.

Trade goods altering terrain values perhaps, but again, id rather fit my cities in a jigsaw and cram 2 more cities in, than place a few directly on trade goods.

Yes your right - still when i look at documentaries or read books on ancient civs, they werent just founding cities all over the place.
Its my desire to actually play a real kinda historic game i suppose - which hasn't actually been made yet

[Maquiladora]

Me too, thats why i wish there was a way to make everyone play less methodical, but thats humans fault for adapting and being so damn clever

[Tomite]

Hey Yimboli & others

i too think the AI does much better with spread out cities. The disadvantage at the beginning is offset by the cheats AI's get in the beginning. I do three things: 1) in strategies.txt (MM2_strategies.txt for MedMod etc.) find instances of "MinSettleDist" and set them = 6, except 2nd & 3rd instance, which are Strategy_Settle_Compact & Strategy_Island. 2) In same file, find "Goal_settle" & set MaxExec = 2 ; this makes AI settlers settle instead of stand around for decades (I'm gonna try =3 next game tho). Last, include APOL_FortsforAI's.slic whatever its called. It works in MedMod with no renaming or editing needed & gets the AI to build forts to keep its country together.

This make especially the civs on the other side of the world much harder to overtake -- i can scale back some AI cheats now!!