How far apart is 3 tiles? 4? 5?

ducki · October 19, 2002, 17:41

I've wondered this since I started reading threads, especially the REX stuff.

How far apart is 3 apart?
City-1-2-3-City? (Build AFTER 3rd tile)
or
City-1-2-City? (Build ON 3rd tile)

I normally build AFTER the 3rd tile, or even AFTER the 4th, and only ON the 3rd if cramped or if I've just got a few tiles I can't reach before the coast, especially if there's whales, fish, or a resource on land beyond current reach.

So, when you say build X tiles apart, does that mean ON X or AFTER X?

Thanks in advance!

HazieDaVampire · October 19, 2002, 19:50

i try to build my citys so their labour radiuses don't go over each others. so mine would be city - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - city.

vmxa1 · October 19, 2002, 20:15

Looked this with grid on in paint to see how to make cities with two tiles overlayed and no gaps.

vmxa1 · October 19, 2002, 20:19

This is what I like, 5 tiles from the last city on a straight line in any direction. It gets a little hard to do as the terrain is not shaped evenly. I try to adjust so as to get the most workable tiles with out gaps. In the end it can not be done at all times, but at least in the early going it means no gaps, once the first cultural pop occurs.

vmxa1 · October 19, 2002, 20:21

I should add that some maps at Deity will require you to use a smaller template. I have not gone to the extreme of the 1 tile, 2 tile ICS, but in a rare case that may be called for.

Theseus · October 19, 2002, 21:38

Just to be clear...

City-tile-city is a 2-tile pattern.

vmxa1 · October 19, 2002, 23:02

Quote:

Originally posted by Theseus
Just to be clear...

City-tile-city is a 2-tile pattern.

In he post, 5 tiles is the number I move to make the city, so the space is 4 tiles between. In the next post, I mean that 1-2 is the number of tiles between cities. I guess I was not clear, more lazyness. I have never made them this small myself.

ducki · October 21, 2002, 17:09

Thanks a lot guys!

I've just read a lot of strats here that say to place cities "3 tiles apart" or "4 tiles apart"... The concensus seems to be that whatever number is used is the location of the city, not the number of tiles between.

Gracias.

Alex · October 21, 2002, 17:26

I don't follow a rule so strictly. I like to give my empire a natural feel and look, so I try to think as a settler: "where would I like to build a city now?"... Weird, isn't it?

ducki · October 21, 2002, 21:52

I don't religiously follow any certain plan, but I like to settle either on the 4th or 5th tile away from my capital early on... barring any desert or tundra or mountain-bound cities, my first 4 or 5 _should_ be rather big at the end of the game. I try for 3-4 tiles in between cities, but if I can seriously increase production or growth by going further, I definitely will. Also, if I just don't have enough space, but really need a city to catch a resource, I'll pack em 2 tiles between, but that's my minimum for now.

ducki · October 21, 2002, 21:57

I really just started this thread to get a handle on what people mean when they say, in a strat, "Place your cities 3 tiles apart," and thankfully, I find it generally means "Place your cities with 2 tiles between them" - which to me is 2 tiles apart, not 3, but as long as I understand the jargon, there's no need to change it or argue definitions.

I too find the "borg"/ICS a bit....
....ugly and....
....repulsive to me, but it's always good to understand effective strategies in case I need to use or borrow from them.

Thanks for all the responses!

JohnM2433 · October 21, 2002, 23:53

So by your system, a tile would be -1 tile apart from itself?

I guess you would say it's not apart from itself at all, but to me that sounds like 0 tiles apart. Then, in a logical progression, the tiles right next to a given tile are 1 tile apart from it, and so on. The "distance" given is from the center of one tile to another. OTOH, most people would probably say that the distance between Canada and the US is 0, the minimum distacne between their borders, not the distance between their geographic centers. In fact, when we talk about the distance between two things, we usually mean the minimum distance between a point on one and a point on the other. So I guess your understanding is more intuitive, after all. It's just that in Civ III, space is divided up into discrete units, so tiles are better conceptually represented as points with paths between them, which are represented graphically by contact with other tiles (come to think of it, I wonder how accurately that might desribe how the program actually stores map data. Nah, it's probably more of a matrix, without links to neighboring tiles stored as part of a tile's data).

While we're on the subject, when we say two tiles are x tiles away from each other, does that mean that the shortest path a unit can take from one to the other covers x tiles? Seems like a reasonable way to measure distance in Civ III. But the game uses another measure as well -- the "distance from the capital" used to calculate corruption is the "real" distance, not the shortest path a unit can take.

Whoops. Now deactivating Ramble Mode.

Theseus · October 22, 2002, 00:13

There is no tile.

Nyl · October 22, 2002, 00:18

If your workers chop down a forest and your speakers are off, does it make a sound?

vmxa1 · October 22, 2002, 00:30

Yes, but you do not hear it.

Playa del Carmen · October 22, 2002, 00:45

I place a city where a city needs to be placed. Ideally, that is NOT overlapping another city's working radius. Unless I'm just trying to grab territory from the AI or get to a resource, then I don't mind overlap as much.

ducki · October 22, 2002, 00:51

Quote:

Originally posted by JohnM2433
So by your system, a tile would be -1 tile apart from itself?

I guess you would say it's not apart from itself at all, but to me that sounds like 0 tiles apart. Then, in a logical progression, the tiles right next to a given tile are 1 tile apart from it, and so on. The "distance" given is from the center of one tile to another.

No, I'm saying that would be 1 tile AWAY, not 1 tile APART.

And really...I don't care what the standard is, as long as I know what it is.

Which is why I asked.

Still, 1 tile apart, IMO, would be City-Tile-City.
1 tile away would be...silly, but City-City.

Hey! It's the Twin Cities!

Hehe, thanks again for the help, oh great gods of Apolyton.

Alex · October 22, 2002, 08:30

Quote:

I too find the "borg"/ICS a bit.... ....ugly and....
....repulsive to me

That is why I love SMAC. This type of city placement would make sense for Yang, and would be strange for Deirdre... It lends a sense of adequacy to the game.

Quote:

If your workers chop down a forest and your speakers are off, does it make a sound?

Who would've thought that Berkeley's philosophy could be applied to Civ3?

Arrian · October 22, 2002, 10:06

ducki,

I'm with you. I can't bear the borg/ICS style, and to me "four tiles apart" would mean city-1-2-3-4-city.

I no longer insist on 4-tile spacing (no overlap), and will often drop to 3, especially in the early going.

For instance, in my last game, my capitol had 5 (!) cows in its radius. 2 of those were out the very outskirts, and thus by building cities 3 tiles out (capitol-1-2-3-city), I was able to utilize a cow each in the new cities, leaving my capitol three others to use. It was an embarrassment of riches, and claiming all 5 of them for Thebes would have been silly.

But for the most part, my cities are built with little or no overlap.

-Arrian