20-11-2002 05:48									#1
	City Placement Strategy Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

For the purposes of this topic spacing should refer to the number of blank tiles between cities. ie, it does not include the tile of either of the cities in the measurement.

Hense 4 spacing would see c x x x x c as c being a city and each x being a blank tile available for improvement(s).

	20-11-2002 05:54									#2
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As there is little chance we will get to hospitals, 4 spacing seems a waste. My choice would be an adaptive 3 spacing, so that cities can have 12 worked tiles each without problems.

And adaptive, in that this is no fixed pattern, but can vary a little to go for resources faster, to block other civs, to build inbetween conquered cities, and things like that.

DeepO

	20-11-2002 05:55									#3
	The Benefits of 2 and 3 Spacing in MP. Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

It may not please some people aesthetically, but crowded cities have major benefits in MP.

I have been experimenting with the capitol having 2 cities with 2 spacing and the rest with 3 (distances to cap). This reduces corruption for the initial build period, makes each city easier to defend, and results in more cities getting the benefits of a close capitol. The combination can result in a late ancient power house ready to take on larger threats than could be handeled otherwise.

Cities after the first ring would then use 3 spacing for the most part, except where 2 spacing could squeeze in an extra city or two in difficult terrain or on coast lines.

	20-11-2002 05:56									#4
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I agree that there will be no need for +12 cities.
(damned, looks like this isn't going to be debate afterall )

quote: but crowded cities have major benefits in MP.

I assume you mean 'no' major benefits

	20-11-2002 06:03									#5
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Yeah.. I too was thinking on the 2 space paradigm, the problem of which is you can't really make all your cities 2 apart. But it has a lot of advantages military, and diplomatically: with 2 spaces in between, troops can move from city to city in one turn, thus unseen from the outside. And you can shuffle defenders: move 1 defender to a border city, move another one to the now undefended city, move a third one to the next, etc.

I would strongly look out for rivers, as these can mess the shuffling up in the early game, and make our 3 space cities close to rivers (with the added advantage they don't need aquaducts). This if there are going to be rivers closeby, of course.

DeepO

	20-11-2002 06:12									#6
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My perfectionistic tendencies be damned, close cities is the way to go... I'll have to look into it to see how close (I can't bring myself to make close cities in SP, one reason why I'm not a top grade SP player)

	20-11-2002 06:16									#7
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quote: Originally posted by alva848 I assume you mean 'no' major benefits

Oops. I suppose that is open to two meanings. I was referring to crowds of cities, not crowds of people in cities.

Yes, DeepO the 2 spacing is good in some places, but I tried an empire entirely based on it and found it difficult to get enough workable tiles.

Of course, I tried it because I was stuck in very difficult terrain with not very much space. A lot of desert and jungle outside of my core of 10 or so grasslands and 10 or so plains. I would say I got the worst starting spot out of 8 (easily).

In my small space I did build the mightiest empire though. Boy did I make an impact when the coiled spring sprung and the knights poored forth to swamp my competitors.

	20-11-2002 06:29									#8
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Well, we should always take terrain and situation into account, so if we see a human civ we can block, and go for an AI on other side, I would use 3 spacing on the AI side (secrecy is the least of my concerns there), and try 2 space for the human. Also, if we have enough food and little open territory, using intermediate cities can be done as well: make cities that are only meant to gro to size 2 before they build workers, spears, or settlers. This can be very powerful, but in SP games it is an underused tactic as you normally can just build it 3 space apart, and take another AI city if you need more room.

But I too like at least half of our cities to be able to grow to size 12.

DeepO

	20-11-2002 08:21									#9
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Never tried any of the city spacing ideas presented here, I always tried to maximize the number of workable tiles in each city, with as little overlapping as possible.

But your comments on better defensive city spacing DeepO really got me thinking.
That's a reason i'm not an economist. I do well in SP mode, but online I've got nothing on you guys.

	20-11-2002 12:52									#10
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I agree that a city having any more than 12 workable tiles is pointless. Our cities will never reach size 13.

2 or 3 spacing (whatever is best in the situation) gets my vote.

	20-11-2002 20:34									#11
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Yeah, as much as I'm a perfectionist type in SP (mostly 4 tile spacing, some 3), I totally agree we should crowd our cities more, because Hospitals just ain't gonna happen.

I suggest mostly 3-tile spacing, with modifications for terrain, of course. I think 2 is too little in most cases. NYE has experience here, though, so I trust his judgement.

-Arrian

	20-11-2002 20:44									#12
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I think we should try to get as close as we can to this pattern:

code:

        a
      a a a
    a a O a a b
    c a a a b b b
  c c c a b b O b b
c c O c c d b b b
  c c c d d d b
    c d d O d d
        d d d
          d

	20-11-2002 21:05									#13
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Very good layout, Sir Ralph... it is what I was looking for: defense, and still the 12 tiles per city.

There are of course exceptions here: some of the terrain won't be fertile enough, and in some cases your a,b,c and d's will be mixed because all the a's would be food tiles, most of the b tiles hills, etc.
We should be able to shift cities a little: those 12 tiles can also be reached when the city is moved one position to either direction (but this will create defense problems)

DeepO

	21-11-2002 03:37									#14
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DeepO has a point....

So the question seems to be do we sacrifice our defensive posture to take advantage of better terrain, or do we sacrifice better terrain for increased defensive capabilities?

We still don't know our geography yet. If it's all grasslands and plains then this should be no problem, but if we're in very hilly terrain with deserts wouldn't that present this strategy with some operational problems?

Just a thought. Good work on the chart Sir Ralph, all this is making alot more sense to me.

	21-11-2002 03:52									#15
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Meshelic, SR posted to be as close as possible to that layout, so of course tile restrictions might apply. There is no point in giving up a cow, just to be able to defend our selves better... but even then, we could generally keep each city close to other cities (just not all of them) to have that advantage. Again, closer to a human border needs more defense, closer to an AI doesn't have such rigid demands.

As to terrain: those 12 tiles SR has coloured for one city do not restrict overlap: you could excange an 'a' and a 'b' without running into problems at all, this was more what I had in mind with my previous post.

DeepO

	21-11-2002 05:58									#16
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Ah I see. As I said I'm no economist.

	23-11-2002 05:10									#17
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I'm not sure I understand SR's layout exactly... how many tile movements from city to city?

I will argue for 3 tile movement between cities (i.e., 2-tile spacing), dependent on terrain, rivers, etc.

I think we have to be *ready* for all-out early warfare, whether that becomes our strategy or not.

Should we recruit cracker?

	23-11-2002 09:20									#18
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I think Sir Ralph's layout is great, subject to adjustments for terrain. I may start borrowing it for SP games.

There are a few other tricks, though, that we ought to keep in mind. If a city has saltwater tiles in its radius, it generally belongs on the coast so it can build a harbor. Also, near the coast, I'll often plan cities in terms of growing to size six working only land tiles and then shifting to using a lot of water tiles as I install aqueducts and my cities expand to size twelve (and perhaps eventually a little beyond). And as others have noted, issues like adequate food, building on rivers to avoid the need for aqueducts, and quick access to bonus tiles tend to interfere with theoretically optimal build patterns.

But I definitely agree with a general theme of keeping cities (especially near human opponents) close for defensive purposes and of not going out of our way to plan in terms of cities' growing past size twelve.

Nathan

	23-11-2002 17:19									#19
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Theseus: in SRs scheme, all cities have 12 tiles to work, whiile staying at a 1 move distance (2 spacing). Of course, it's an ideal, we won't be able to follow it everywhere. But by using the difference between diagonals and vertical distance (diagonal for unit movement, vertical for tiles), we could have the best of 2 worlds.

Coasts: normally, with the same scheme, we should get some 6-8 landtiles to work, and some 10 sea tiles (if the coast would be a straight line, instead of jagged). Which means of course there isn't that much choice for those cities, if those 6 landtiles aren't very good, the production of that city is hampered. But there is something else that can be used here: the scheme SR proposed is valid when all cities are at maximum size, which won't happen until later in the game. So at first, we should be able to switch tiles a bit, and later on make coastal cities primarily for commerce, inland cities for production. This is a strat I also use on SP games without that fixed pattern, if I can be bothered with all the MM of citizens, and believe me, it works. (it's natural, no coastal city will have good production anyway)

DeepO

	25-11-2002 12:45									#20
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I used to squirm with anything less than 4/5 spacing. Since our excellent performance during the early game of the C3DG, I have been converted. I support spacing cities for 1 turn defender moves. It makes sense to be able to shuffel troops around covertly. More so because 13+ cities will be very unlikely. Our cities will be up more quickly, corruption will be less. The gains using this philosphy seem to be expotential.

I agree that targeting the spacing at 2/3 should be a basic placement philosophy, but still lets do whatever we need to meet our REX goals as they arise.


Mss