City Placement
I. Firstly an ideal city site always has a river, secondly it should have at least 3 or 4 tiles for farms or nets on the inner ring, this is to grow the city quickly in the beginning. You can also terraform the land to allow more space for farms, but it costs more Public Works.
Below is how I would rank the different terrains.
(Food/Production/Commerce)
Beach - 10/10/10 - the most resources are founnd naturally on the beach, so the more beaches you have, the better. Later in the game you can also place Ports here, which are the best early commerce improvements.
Mountains - 0/15/10 - as long as you allow a city near mountains to keep growing at a good speed, you can create massive production cities with mines. Desert mountains (0/10/10) and polar mountains (0/10/5) are also excellent for production, since they benefit the same from mines, although they lack a little bit compared to the normal mountain they are still good.
Plains - 10/10/5 - Good food and production makke it good terrain for any type of city, as long as you keep it growing. You can place any improvement you like here, but mainly you will want plenty of farms, and the extra production on plains (compared to grassland), will help you generate more public works.
Hills - 5/10/10 - because production is so impportant, hills can also be a good source, but only once mined. It is essential then to mine hills as soon as possible. Sand dunes (0/10/5) and polar hills (0/5/5) are similar, although they are good only for production because they have less commerce than hills. Ideally these two would be terraformed later in the game for regular hills, or mountains later.
Grassland - 15/5/5 - a significant negative is the low production, you can either go with the growth and maximise your city size as much as possible, you will be low on production, but you will have plenty of commerce, and extra scientists can be used because you'll have more population to spare. Or you can just terraform them to plains, but this takes time and Public Works.
Forest - 10/5/10 - again the production is poorr, but you can get a lot of early commerce here. You just have to be careful where you place the city for farms, and get it to grow as fast as possible.
Other - Jungle and Desert should be removed att Agricultural Revolution as soon as possible, the same goes for Swamp at Industrial Revolution, and Tundra and Glacier at Advanced Composites. Of course you should avoid putting cities near these terrains to begin with.
Coral Reef & Kelp Bed - they are good sea tiles to grow a city into, but you should focus more on conserving land for as many cities as you can build. You will eventually grow into this terrain anyway.
I. Firstly an ideal city site always has a river, secondly it should have at least 3 or 4 tiles for farms or nets on the inner ring, this is to grow the city quickly in the beginning. You can also terraform the land to allow more space for farms, but it costs more Public Works.
Below is how I would rank the different terrains.
(Food/Production/Commerce)
Beach - 10/10/10 - the most resources are founnd naturally on the beach, so the more beaches you have, the better. Later in the game you can also place Ports here, which are the best early commerce improvements.
Mountains - 0/15/10 - as long as you allow a city near mountains to keep growing at a good speed, you can create massive production cities with mines. Desert mountains (0/10/10) and polar mountains (0/10/5) are also excellent for production, since they benefit the same from mines, although they lack a little bit compared to the normal mountain they are still good.
Plains - 10/10/5 - Good food and production makke it good terrain for any type of city, as long as you keep it growing. You can place any improvement you like here, but mainly you will want plenty of farms, and the extra production on plains (compared to grassland), will help you generate more public works.
Hills - 5/10/10 - because production is so impportant, hills can also be a good source, but only once mined. It is essential then to mine hills as soon as possible. Sand dunes (0/10/5) and polar hills (0/5/5) are similar, although they are good only for production because they have less commerce than hills. Ideally these two would be terraformed later in the game for regular hills, or mountains later.
Grassland - 15/5/5 - a significant negative is the low production, you can either go with the growth and maximise your city size as much as possible, you will be low on production, but you will have plenty of commerce, and extra scientists can be used because you'll have more population to spare. Or you can just terraform them to plains, but this takes time and Public Works.
Forest - 10/5/10 - again the production is poorr, but you can get a lot of early commerce here. You just have to be careful where you place the city for farms, and get it to grow as fast as possible.
Other - Jungle and Desert should be removed att Agricultural Revolution as soon as possible, the same goes for Swamp at Industrial Revolution, and Tundra and Glacier at Advanced Composites. Of course you should avoid putting cities near these terrains to begin with.
Coral Reef & Kelp Bed - they are good sea tiles to grow a city into, but you should focus more on conserving land for as many cities as you can build. You will eventually grow into this terrain anyway.
II. The terrain you settle in and form
for yourself will dictate your long term strategy.
For example you have lots of grassland, this means a lot of growth but little production. Obviously then you need to spend all production carefully, and probably play a defensive game until you have a significant science lead, which the extra growth will eventually give you.
III. Don't travel too far to build a city, even if it is a river running over plains into a mountain chain, if its 30 turns away don't bother. The longer the settler is moving the longer the next settler takes to build from the new city or to grow more...
IV. The distance between each city should be decided by 3 factors:
One, the size of the map you're playing and how many players - the sooner you meet someone the sooner a war takes place, this means you need cities to be closer together so you can defend them easier and also cities will grow slower in war.
Two, the land that surrounds that city and will surround the city long term, if its all grassland the city will grow faster, if its near mountains it will grow slowly. So a city might have grassland close but later it might grow to mountains and slow down really fast in growth, which means it wont take as much space.
Three, the total land immediately available to you. If you find yourself on a tiny island with no way of moving units off before longships then build your cities closer to get more on your tiny island, and wait to die.
For example you have lots of grassland, this means a lot of growth but little production. Obviously then you need to spend all production carefully, and probably play a defensive game until you have a significant science lead, which the extra growth will eventually give you.
III. Don't travel too far to build a city, even if it is a river running over plains into a mountain chain, if its 30 turns away don't bother. The longer the settler is moving the longer the next settler takes to build from the new city or to grow more...
IV. The distance between each city should be decided by 3 factors:
One, the size of the map you're playing and how many players - the sooner you meet someone the sooner a war takes place, this means you need cities to be closer together so you can defend them easier and also cities will grow slower in war.
Two, the land that surrounds that city and will surround the city long term, if its all grassland the city will grow faster, if its near mountains it will grow slowly. So a city might have grassland close but later it might grow to mountains and slow down really fast in growth, which means it wont take as much space.
Three, the total land immediately available to you. If you find yourself on a tiny island with no way of moving units off before longships then build your cities closer to get more on your tiny island, and wait to die.
V. Building on top of rivers is
preferable, because the tile under the city collects 100% resources all
the time, and the city tile is the most important for a small city.
VI. Its VERY HARD to defend all your cities if they are on different landmasses, so in some situations (war) it may be better to squeeze cities on one continent, rather than spacing your cities on separate islands/continents.
VI. Its VERY HARD to defend all your cities if they are on different landmasses, so in some situations (war) it may be better to squeeze cities on one continent, rather than spacing your cities on separate islands/continents.
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