Advice Needed on City Placement

[dg55]

Love the game so far. I am asking for some advice on the placement of new cities.
One user had posted that a city should be located in the left-most spot of seven contiguous common terrain tiles, with a blank spot to the left of the city, so all city expansion would go to the right.
I noticed that if I start a city on the left-most spot of 5-7 contiguous common terrain tiles (eg forest), with a series of another 5-7 terrain tiles (eg desert) to the immediate left of that city, the city will eventually expand both left and right into both series of terrain tiles.
It seems that this second case would be preferable, as you would then ave the two terrain types of plants/animals/minerals to work with, in fulfilling tasks.

[baz]

Yeah, I often start with the planet equally split between three biomes and place my initial cities on the same end of each biome, to give a broader choice of biotica for each city... or if I have an ocean, I'll place a city on each coastline, so they can spread to sea as well as inland.

I've never tried to fence my cities in with blank spaces, but it seems like a waste to me. It's certainly not necessary in any case.

[Ares]

There are a few different configurations depending on what biomes and leaders you get. The two big variables are if you're gonna use an Ocean and if you're gonna do science in a Taiga.

First advice I will give you though is that if you want to control how your borders expand, never ever make another biome touch a city. I've found the most success with at least two barren tiles on the side I don't want them to expand, but for max control you want to make sure you have a non-claimed tile with the correct biome on the side you want them to expand with a resources planted in that tile.

The basic setup is, as mentioned, three cities with 7 tiles in a row on one side. However, if you end up with a science Taiga you want to maximize the distance between the Taiga city and one of the other cities. The way you accomplish this is by having one city with 7(+) on one side, then you have 7(+) Taiga tiles with a city on the other end, leaving you with a city that has to be built in a split biome (which is fine for most biomes). If you also want to have an Ocean you want the Ocean and the Taiga to be the two biomes that meet with cities on either end.

The way I approach this in my games is that I put down four tiles of my first biome with a city at one end. Then if I my next leader wants any other biome than Ocean or science Taiga I count out five tiles on the barren side of my city and from that point I place three tiles of my next biome going towards my first city (leaving me with two barren tiles next to my city) and put my second city on the far side of that biome. This way if my third biome wants to be science Taiga I'm set up to be able to place that on the other side of my second (split) biome.

However, if my second biome wants to be an Ocean I place that city on the side I've expanded my first biome with one barren tile as a buffer. As long as you make the Ocean before you actually place the second city I've found this to have a very high success rate at keeping the Ocean city expanding into the Ocean. I do this to make my first biome the split biome in case I need a science Taiga as my third biome.

Once you get to the point that you need to expand your biomes all the way up to another city you just need to pay some attention to the expansion needs of the cities and carefully control when you place down those last biome tiles.

Edit: If the second biome wants science Taiga you do the same five count, but make that biome go the other way (leaving four barren tiles between your two first cities) and then place the third on the other side of your first, again making your first biome the split biome.

[dg55]

Thanks for the great advice

[ALDC]

Hmm I never have to worry about how to expand and influence which Patch the borders will expand to. Here's what I always do.

1) Have any food focused or non exclusively gold and/or science leaders for one of your first 3 nomads (choose at least one from Sage, Diplomat, Botanist, Huntress, etc but NEVER all from Merchant, Inventor, Miner, Goddess, etc) this is due to the fact that (assuming you've unlocked the Planet Shop) you can get Expansion Charge using Food Points.

2) Leave a gap of 4 or more from each City Centre before counting another gap of 4 before placing the neighbouring City Centre.

3) When you have sufficient Food Points buy 1st out of 5 Expansion Charge from the Planet Shop. Use it to expand the land between your 1st, 2nd or 3rd cities. Each Expansion Charge gives 4 patches (8 plots) of space between two unassigned Biomes (only 2 patches if Biomes are assigned).

4) 1st <-Expansion Charge -> 2nd <- Expansion Charge -> 3rd <- Expansion Charge ->

5) The Planet Shop has 5 total Expansion Charge you can buy for each game session. This means that if you buy all 5 Expansion Charges and use them strategically, you can have 4 Cities each reaching all 4 City Levels.

6) Before selecting each Project, make sure you can max out the benefits from that Project (eg. Woodcutter needs 2/5 trees to give 60/180, make sure your City is able to achieve 5 trees within it's borders) before ending an Era. After each Era ends, usually the previous Projects becomes Legacy and you're unable to go back and max out the Project benefits.

7) Always keep spare Draft Charges before choosing a Project, you never know if you need to unlock a spare Biome card to get more Biotica to max out the Project.

8) That said, when starting a new game use the "Unlimited" re-rolls for Biome Draft cards.

9) If you know how to use Micro and Terraform, use it to max out the current Biotica within the borders.

10) Again, keep spare Upgrade Charges, most 3 star Biotica give huge amounts of Yields. You can upgrade to 3 star patches only in later Era.

11) Always buy Eons for "a few more turns" to max out Projects and increase City levels instead of just ending the current Era.

[Nephy]

Do you find you need all that space? Maybe you're getting more than me but I find I run out of eons far before I would use 5 planet charges. Using upgrades for legacy spots and teraforming like hills and mountains help too.

I've just been using maybe two or three to get all four cities about the same distance.

[ALDC]

Originally posted by Nephy:

Do you find you need all that space? Maybe you're getting more than me but I find I run out of eons far before I would use 5 planet charges. Using upgrades for legacy spots and teraforming like hills and mountains help too.

I've just been using maybe two or three to get all four cities about the same distance.

Depends on the Biotica you draw, some 3 Stars Biotica require high Biodiversity for them to be placed, so you need plenty of 1 Stars and maybe some 2 Stars Biotica to get it up.

But yes, you can play Tall or Wide depending on your preference. I find that for the Miner, I can usually play Tall, upgrading patches to higher Stars and able to hit all their City requirements.

As for running out of Eons, it's a matter of practice and buying additional Eons from the Planet Shop. If you can plan where to place each Biotica beforehand and not rearrange them, that would save a lot of Eons.

[Wakazu]

Probably the best setup is 8x8x8 biomes with the cities placed on the border of biomes, and here is why:
Each biome is designed to excel in one or two types of resources, like the Desert biotica mostly provides gold with ocasional food source or two, Forest is mostly food with a dish of science on the side, etc. Placing two cities on the borders of a biome allows you to expand the variety by distributing the biotica between the cities fitting their interest - like, lets say we have a Forest with a Sage settlement on the right and Botanist on the right, so now we can plant both food and science giving biotica in the biome, just make sure fruit trees are going to Sage's orchards and herbal bushes - to Botanists gardens.

[a Orc]

Originally posted by Wakazu:

Probably the best setup is 8x8x8 biomes with the cities placed on the border of biomes, and here is why:
Each biome is designed to excel in one or two types of resources, like the Desert biotica mostly provides gold with ocasional food source or two, Forest is mostly food with a dish of science on the side, etc. Placing two cities on the borders of a biome allows you to expand the variety by distributing the biotica between the cities fitting their interest - like, lets say we have a Forest with a Sage settlement on the right and Botanist on the right, so now we can plant both food and science giving biotica in the biome, just make sure fruit trees are going to Sage's orchards and herbal bushes - to Botanists gardens.

Agreed. Another advantage of this is that you can expand any biome by 4 patches whenever you want, as there is always a town border inside each one.
I do have some amendments though. Usually I don't place the town right at the border of the biomes, but one patch inside. That way, the biomes connect outside the town and you can take advantage of adjacency bonusses between biotica from different biomes. Especially useful early game when options are limited.
Sometimes I put one patch of another biome between the two larger biomes if I want to sneak in a biotic from that biome in a town.
Finally, I don't close the circle, but leave a gap to be able to add more towns without breaking up a biome later.