What's best rule for city proximity? 4 Squares away like the AI places them?

[Leonid]

Make sure each town has a 3 ring radious for develpoment? Or a 2 ring radius (4 squares between each town)? Any advice?

I used to make sprawling cities in civ 1 and 2 about 6 squares away form each other.

But with corruption in this game th eway it is and such. Is 4 squares a good rule? Whne placing cities form your capitol?

[Eli]

4 squares IMO. You are taking more space, it doesnt really hurt the ability to move troops from one side of the empire to another and in the modern era every square is important.

But that's my style of course. If you prefer more militaristic way of play when you conquer the world before the modern era 3 squares seems to be the best.

Note : Purely theoretical, I didnt tried these strats yet.

[Eli]

I'm talking about distances between towns, not distances for city development.
There is no point(except very specific cases) to make one empty "line" between cities IMO.

[Leonid]

Its been awhile, so i might be rusty. But in Civ2 wasn't the maximum a city could grow and useable space a 3 ring radius of squares from the city?

So that would expand outward 3 squares from the city eventually? There fore 6 squares between your towns.

So if you put 4 squares between cities you would be depriving them of that outter ring of development when they get bigger?

This is correct right? It is best to let them each use a 2 square radius instead of the maximum 3? I have always wondered about this.

[Barry Brenesal]

For what it's worth, I'd suggest posting cities that face water and at the edge of your land "frontier" 4 squares apart. This leaves you the luxury of building deeper in your territory at 6 squares apart, or more, for maximum use of resource and growth potential.

[treedom]

Originally posted by Leonid
Its been awhile, so i might be rusty. But in Civ2 wasn't the maximum a city could grow and useable space a 3 ring radius of squares from the city?

So that would expand outward 3 squares from the city eventually? There fore 6 squares between your towns.

So if you put 4 squares between cities you would be depriving them of that outter ring of development when they get bigger?

This is correct right? It is best to let them each use a 2 square radius instead of the maximum 3? I have always wondered about this.

No it was 2 out from every side (civ3 is the same). It's basically a 5x5 diamond, with the corners cut off (or a 'fat-x' as the rulebook calls it).

[Lord Maxwell]

I put mine 3 steps apart, so neighbouring cities can send over infantry in one turn to reinforce cities in troube. Using this spacing inland cities generally get choked at 15-16, and sea cities go to 20-22ish. (Given that grassland is mined. If grassland is irrigated you get alot higher growth figures. With only a small shield income you can still build in reasonable time with factory and powerplant in the city.)

But this far I found the specialists pretty worthless. I'm not cutting shield production to get more scientists. (Esp as scientists are bugged, it doesn't seem like even their single beaker end up in the beaker bar. Or I might be blind.)

So 3 steps from each other. Mining all grassland, irrigating all plains, and once in a blue moon making an irrigated "ditch" through grassland if I want to reach a dry patch of plains.

[Grim Legacy]

I use the city radius as a measure. Making sure they interlock, but never overlap. Occasionally I let a few squares go if they are barren or if I want a coastal city somewhere.

I'm not very charmed by the "mining grassland and plains" thing. Seems off to me.

[Eli]

Originally posted by Grim Legacy
I'm not very charmed by the "mining grassland and plains" thing. Seems off to me.

I agree, but sometimes you simply dont have a choice. Like in my current game, there are almost no mountains and hills and lots of grassland.