Re: city placement

There are many possible algorithms; which one to use
depends on a couple things.  First and foremost, what
style are you playing?  For a smallpox solution, I use
the following pattern as much as possible:

X...X
..X..
X...X

(In other words, each city is a knight's move away
from the nearest cities.)  If you're playing with
mindist > 1, it becomes much harder.  For largepox, I
count the number of specials available to the city. 
For mediumpox, I start deciding where to place my
cities on a peninsula or somewhere else that maximizes
the number of sea squares I can get.  For every city
surrounding, I count the number of additional squares
the city would bring into production.  (I actually
employ all three algorithms in a game, with my initial
two cities being largepox, then smallpox until I hit
the happiness limit, then mediumpox for the rest of
the game.  And I have no problem disbanding a largepox
or smallpox city if it would interfere with the
placement of a mediumpox one; usually I find it's
still worthwhile to have the optimum placement for the
given strategy.)

Other factors include for example whether you're
playing with specials.  If not, then a hill with a
river is ideal, as you get the trade from the river,
irrigation from the city, and you can mine it for the
shields.  I also will "mine" plains with rivers to
make forests that have trade bonuses.  Especially for
smallpox, building on desert, mountains, and hills
gives you more food and on grassland more shields. 
And what stage the game is in also is important.

--- Andreas_Røsdal <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I have a gameplay question, about city placement.
> Where should cities be placed to maximize
> food/shields/trade?
> Is there an algorithm to solve this?

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