13-02-2003 10:15									#1
	City Placement Strategy Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

This is an extremely important aspect of the game, especially in MP. Thus beginning a discussion at an early date would be good, perhaps.

What do we favour for city placement planning? Are we going to be perfectionist with each city allowed the most workable tiles possible? That is one extreme.

The other extreme would be Borg like. Cities every 2 tiles in a relentless push to assimilate the landscape and thus, the game. Admittedly this is a cheesy tactic, but very effective as Aeson's 60K score game shows.

The middle ground would be something in between. What is between? What general practice do we wish to follow?

btw, a definition for the purpose of the discussion. The term 3 spacing, or 4 spacing would refer to the number of empty tiles between cities. Thus 3 spacing would see city-space-space-space-city as a general rule.

Last edited by notyoueither on 13-02-2003 at 12:09

	13-02-2003 10:25									#2
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Here's my city placement philosophy:

Cover as many tiles as possible. I don't care whether you do it with a lot of cities or a few number of cities, but attempt to maximize the total number of tiles utilized.

That many times means building cities with overlapping boundaries so that at least an area of 4-5 tiles that would otherwise go unused is utilized.

It means building more cities on coastlines, becuase especially with harbors, all of those coastal and sea tiles are more ulitized tiles that add to the effective size of your empire in terms of food and trade and in turn help to sometimes feed the miners at work on hills and mountains tiles that can't support as much population.

It means making sure that cities are balance in food production and resources at least enough that all cities have enough food to actually UTILIZE the tiles in their city radius (or at least enough that any overlapping cities use the ones they are not using).

All of these things put together mean that you are using as many tiles as you can for your limited amount of space.

If given a choice between two plans, both which utilize the same number of tiles, I'll pick the one with LESS cities, as I'd prefer less production centers with larger total production and less corruption due to comparison to the Optimal City Number.

---------

but all of that is just me

	13-02-2003 11:12									#3
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While I agree that utlizing the maximum number of tiles as soon as possible, it might be wise to place cities based on where we want our border. Place cities far apart and "claim" the land inbetween and, more importantly, behind the "border cities". Once we "claim" our land, we settle however we like. Build our first city on turn one, or turn two AT THE MOST. City two and three should be placed where we will place our border (Prefer to build these "border cities" on hills, reguardless of bonus resourses. The 50% defensive bonus with Num Mercs means we can hold these cities easily until Cavalry)

	13-02-2003 11:34									#4
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3 tile spacing, starting from the capital, aiming at good city spots, ignoring potential borders.

Trust me, I've learned this from the PTW DG the hard way, and I wouldn't want Apolyton to make the same mistake.

	13-02-2003 11:48									#5
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I am a firm beleiver in letting each city grow to its maximum potential; that means giving it room to grow and putting it where it will serve best, not merely where it fits. 1-3 tile spacing is a good amount, unless situations dictate otherwise. And, as the Carthaginians, our inustriousness will let us road between cities very quickly, meaning that slow unit movement over distance is less of a factor.

	13-02-2003 12:15									#6
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Some people argue that 2 tile spacing is effective because you can arrange things to get most cities to 12 population with 12 workable tiles and most of your cities are 1 turn of road movement from each other for infantry.

What do you think?

	13-02-2003 12:45									#7
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quote: Originally posted by donegeal While I agree that utlizing the maximum number of tiles as soon as possible, it might be wise to place cities based on where we want our border. Place cities far apart and "claim" the land inbetween and, more importantly, behind the "border cities". Once we "claim" our land, we settle however we like. Build our first city on turn one, or turn two AT THE MOST. City two and three should be placed where we will place our border (Prefer to build these "border cities" on hills, reguardless of bonus resourses. The 50% defensive bonus with Num Mercs means we can hold these cities easily until Cavalry)

As for the ORDER in which cities are planted, I fully agree. Placing down border cities on defensively enhanced tiles before "backfilling" is very critical and FAR more effective in multi-player than in single-player because humans are far less likely to plop cities in the middle of your empire than the AI is.

That said, as Trip has indicated, you have to be careful... placing a city too far forward can both mean that an opponent will see it as a threat and that you will have less ability to defend it for being so far away.

	13-02-2003 12:52									#8
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3 tile spacing is good. especially for Carthage. It's not too loose & not too tight. It can be difficult, setting the cities at the "best" spots, but it can be done. This approch has come overlap with all of it's neighboring cities, but has less of a hassel with WorkForce Allocations on the shared Spots.

With (at least from the start) different people likely governing the different cities, too much overlap can present problems with Forcasting and Who gets what tiles, especially if there is a lot of micromanagement.

As for boarders, we will have to see what comes. We should have the first and maybe the second cities that are generated, to be close to the Capitol, for corruption and Defensive Purposes. It does no good to have one of your first needed REX'ing Cities to be so far away from the Capitol, that most of it's Production is wasted. Once you have your Core, you can build your boarders and hopefully backfill from there.

E_T

	13-02-2003 13:12									#9
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I don't see too much back filling in MP games.

Sacrificing 2 pop at an early point for a hopelessly corrupt city does not seem to be a popular idea with most MP players.

Rather they prefer to settle the sites that will do them the most good. If another civ crowds and cuts short REXing, then Barracks are built, along with copious amounts of Sword and Horse to rectify the 'crowding'.

	13-02-2003 15:26									#10
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While I do agree that it is good to start discussing the city placement strategy sooner than later, I believe that our starting location is going to have quite some impact. If there is land enough to be grabbed, we can go for a looser spacing, covering as many tiles as possible with as few cities as possible (much like what Arnelos said). However, if we end up being more or less cornered, we may have no choice but to pack our cities more tightly.

In SP, I am a perfectionist... overlapping cities is a crime I seldom commit (justified only when there would be tiles left outside of any city radius). But then, I know that I will most probably beat the AI even if I consciously use a less-then-optimal strategy... This IS-DG is an MP game against presumable some of the best (non-Poly... ) players on this planet, so we will not have the luxury of playing "to a theme".

Generally, I prefer maximizing the future possibilities, but I would not oppose overlapping if it is well justified.

BTW, nye, even your definition is still not 100% clear. While I will - on occasions - happily go for a 2 tile diagonal spacing (overlapping two corner tiles), I will most often aim for a 4-tile vertical/horizontal spacing. Which makes it a 3-tile spacing on average, I guess...

I agree that at least the first two cities after our capital (founded on the first or second turn) should be placed fairly close to the capital, mostly based upon bonus tiles available. Two or three good tiles in a city radius make a big difference in the early game.

	13-02-2003 17:11									#11
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A lot also depends on our neighbours.

Have the Persians / Celts / Egyptions or some other early warfare civ next to us, and we want to have nice and close cities.

Sending out settlers to establishing territory, and then back filling is rarely done in multiplayer. (With the exception of some PTW DG teams )

With the Carthage, we may be able to do it, but do you think 1 merc can withstand a war- chariot rush from the Egyptions, while we send reinforcements 1 tile/turn ?

I strongly recommend a close build with our first two settlers almost becoming specialist cities. Depending on the territory, one builds a barracks and thats it...All it does is pump out units.
The other is a settler factory.

If we want, we can disband these cities later

But its hard to say what to actually do in this game until we know
1. Our territory
2. Our Neighbours.

We must remember our weakness's
The Carthage is strong, but Mercs are expensive, and even being industrious....It takes time for us to build a defensive road network and infastructure to far flung cities.
We are open to an early archer / Egyption war-chariot rush. If we are to be eliminated, we will be attacked early....before we get mercs.

Our second weakness is an early GA. Again, an agressive civ can throw a warrior against our UU just to waste our GA. We must keep foreign exploring warriors our of our cultural borders. Perhaps even keep an archer or two in defense to kill "invading" warriors.

Regards

	13-02-2003 17:49									#12
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I agree that it's in large part going to be terrain based how we start out building. Who our neighbors are will be very important as well. A tight build (3 tiles) is more dangerous if CFC (Riders) or Webring (Ansars) are around.

Commercial helps with number of city corruption but not distance, so to fully take advantage of it (up until Hospitals) does require tighter city spacing. The 25% optimal number of cities bonus is in large part covered up by the distance corruption otherwise.

Up until Hospitals we can only grow to size 12 anyways, so I do think we should plant filler cities after the initial expansion to use up any good tiles that won't be already taken. These 'cities' can be settler, worker, or military camps, and should be viewed as temporary. The can be repositioned or added back to one of the permanent cities sometime late Middle/early Industrial ages.

As Carthage, we should be able to guarantee our survival in the Ancient Era, and these cities will begin paying off before the start of the Middle Ages. It normally takes about 20 turns before these cities make up their opportunity cost. As such we should choose a 'safe' 20 turn period to found these cities.

	14-02-2003 02:19									#13
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Screw what I said before about setting our border and backfilling.
ICS is the only way to go as evidenced by the PTW Team game.
Lux overextended its "claim" and is now in quiet the pickle

	14-02-2003 02:57									#14
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Cities every other tile is too tight; OCN makes it non-scalable unless we are unlucky and on a fairly small island.

We are commerical, so we have an extra incentive for our cities to reach size 13.

We should avoid founding cities seperated from fresh water access and ocean by one tile.

Somewhat more overlap than SP perfectest minimial overlap while having no skipped tiles is called for in MP though.

	14-02-2003 03:44									#15
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I'm for 3-tile spacing in the early game, at least for border cities. Without Religious, it's a pain to close cultural borders between 4-spaced cities.

	14-02-2003 04:00									#16
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Don't exclude the option of 2-spaced cities when there's enough good land available. Esp. in the beginning, this can mean a nice advantage!

	14-02-2003 04:29									#17
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I think that question can't be answered before seeing the land. If we have lots of land I would go for a placement which maximizes the potential space for every city. If we have very few land then we should be closer to the "borg" side...

	14-02-2003 04:48									#18
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Depends on the situation. If there's a resource we can't afford to lose (iron, luxuries) and if there are no other civs in (realistic) range of that site, we shouldn't be afraid to stake a claim. Other than that, start by settling close to the capital.

(We at Lux have learned this the hard way, as Trip and Donegeal inferred. )

	14-02-2003 05:29									#19
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If we plant base cities so they barely overlap radii, and put in other temporary cities in between them, it works well. Once the other cities grow large, the temporary cities are abandoned.

	14-02-2003 06:10									#20
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quote: Originally posted by Panzer32 If we plant base cities so they barely overlap radii, and put in other temporary cities in between them, it works well. Once the other cities grow large, the temporary cities are abandoned.

And it depends on our neighbours, but I would build the temporary cities first...as they are easier to defend.

	14-02-2003 09:40									#21
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quote: Originally posted by Vlad Antlerkov Depends on the situation. If there's a resource we can't afford to lose (iron, luxuries) and if there are no other civs in (realistic) range of that site, we shouldn't be afraid to stake a claim. Other than that, start by settling close to the capital. (We at Lux have learned this the hard way, as Trip and Donegeal inferred. )

I agree wholeheartedly.

My main focus here is where the other civs are: you must keep this in mind at all times. Lux is boxed in, so a tighter packing of cities would have been the obvious smart choice, though our selection does have some merit.

Er, that didn't make much sense. Let me try again:
If there are civs nearby, pack the cities in big and close!

There, that's better.

	15-02-2003 02:22									#22
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I would concur with Trip, Iron is important to get, otherwise 2 tile spacing, with slightly more if needed. Decisive actions in the PtW game may be happening now in the middle of the ancient age. By the time we're building Hospitals, the game should be decided.

	15-02-2003 04:59									#23
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2-3 tile spacing. Do not leave cities more that this far from any others, unless they is a resource that must be had. Although being carthage will mean we are less vulnerable to a rush unless it is very early, we should still not give anyone an opportunity to pounce on a city that cant be defended easily.

	16-02-2003 23:28									#24
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3 tile spacing from the capitol if it's on a river, and 2 tile spacing thereafter, as amended for terrain. In certain cases of very low food production, possibly even 1 tile spacing.

Selected Settler / Worker pumps can be abandoned down the road to allow the best cities to become metros.

	17-02-2003 05:41									#25
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I am probably going to amend the above post.

I was reading alexman's defense of Commercial as a trait in the Strat forum, and I got hit by a bolt of lightning.

Over the next week or two, I hope to develop (or, properly, catalyze the development of) a radically new city placement strategy, starting with Commercial civs. Watch the Strat forum for details.

	17-02-2003 06:27									#26
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Sounds good, Theseus. Please make sure we don't miss it here.

	17-02-2003 10:22									#27
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It seems to me that spacing should be proportional to the capitial in terms of distance from capitol penalties. That is; the initial cities around our Capital should have spacing of 4 (to allow max tile availability). Let me talk about the cities immediately surrounding our Capitol and the Capitol itself:

Not all of the tiles around each city is going to be pretty so not all tiles will be as 'workable' as others. The Cities with the least amount of corruption should have the choice tiles to work from. Also, if we are going to be in this game in the later stages it will be crucial that these "inner cities" (if you will) have room to grow. We are a Commercial civ, this is key.

The next ring should also be at 4 (so as to not impose on the cities that border the Capitol) with the cities after that going to 3 and then 2 ever after to account for increasing corruption and/or increasing the defendability of the cities.

Of couse some leeway should be given for the aquisition of crucial resources; like iron or putting a citie on top of a hill.

If you plan on the game being over very quickly (like most MP games in terms of amount of turns), then building close together from the start makes the most sense sinceyou don't ever have to worry about growing over size 12.

In most MP games once one or two civs start to lose ground they quickly drop out and the game itself is over because the rest are no longer interested in playing with only one or two other players. I don't anticipate this happening in this IDG. I plan on us being one of the last 2 (and then the last of course). This being the case it is important for those "inner cities" to have room to grow and to have a sizeable production capacity, both of which would be hampered by anything less than a spacing of 4.

Just a note here:
I'm not in the habit of explaing my Civ style/knowledge of gameplay because I like to win in MP games (secret strategies and all)! You all should feel lucky that I'm sharing with you. (I should have all of you sign NDA's before I write anymore!)