Obviously the visible tile yields that I can or will be able to reach are important to consider. However, I would guess that some tiles become more useful with later tech, as river tiles (or mountains next to cities) did in civ5.



What are the most important things to consider? Are river particularly useful? How about elevation, cliffs, sea, mountains, lakes, tundra, forests etc? Will technology/buildings/etc make these more/less useful than they first appear to be?

Avoid peaks and the borders of the region, no tech will ever make them useful.



Rivers and ocean tiles can provide you a lot of extra dust in Tier 1, and a lot of extra food in Tier 2.



Forests will give you a give you 1 more industry with a tech and building in Tier 2 in addition to what they already give. Very low priority.



Elevation and cliffs have no effect other than unit movement through the region.



Terrain type, dessert, tundra, snow, grass, etc, has no special effect beyond their FIDS. You'll see all that when you're about to place your city.



When placing your city, hunt out the most anomalies that you can get. The ones that give you Approval are generally the best.



If this is your capital or other major city, you'll also want to plan out your districts a little bit. The 2-thick stick layout is very popular, but the triangle may be better. (see here). That thread was written during development and a lot of the leveling is no longer relevant. Just look at the pictures and try to do something kinda similar. Just keep in mind that ruins will block your plans.

Don't get too carried away by anomalies, especially ones that just give you +food, or +industry, it's a temporary boost. Anomalies that give +happiness can be good but remember it's really the debuffs that happen all the way at bellow 40 that you need to worry about (-20% ind/food, which is sometimes temporarily acceptable honestly) not the +15% from getting your city 90% happy all the time (dont waste all your cities potential on just keeping them happy!). Happiness is a bit overrated, your goal isn't to be happy its to be efficient. Your dust research is also affected by your empire happiness so it's okey to have some cities be not the happiest and others really really happy to compensate. Honestly so long as you secure a bunch of luxuries happiness is not really that much of a worry even with many cities. And also, building efficient cities generally means that they naturally become happy from being well efficient at growing, with the only required attention from you in the are of occasionally considering upgrading districts.



But I digress,



The ideal position is to build on top of a river that's in the middle of a large forest.

Building near the ocean is also very viable albeit the start will be rough on anything but broken lords.



The key is to take into account upgrades that benefit tiles though the ages. Rivers, Forests, and tiles that are average (have all F, I, S) are very desirable. If you ignore this your city will just be average at best though the ages, if that.



To give an example: if you build on something like a large forest the cumulative exploitation will just dwarf any anomalies, in time. Lets say you get 3 anomalies with 6 industry on them, sound pretty good for starting position, well once something like age 3 upgrades apply the city on top of the forest has like 7 of those for free even if no districts have been built at all, not to mention that any direction they expand the city will see tiles that are essentially as good as your anomaly (so they get 3 anomalies per every district upgrade, if not more). Forests and rivers are average but not terrible at the start (your maybe equivalent of 1-2 workers behind) while on the other hand a lot of anomalies in things like plains result in every choice of expanding the city just dragging you behind, while the forest/river player always gets better and better which each expansion.



If you're looking at your city and thinking "why would I build a district" then chances are you build in a crap spot and/or have no future plan for the city. Honestly you might as well burn it if thats the case and it's your 3rd or 4th city, your empire will benefit more from lower empire plan cost then you ever will from having it.



Another tip, expand early and scout early (if in doubt split your initial army and go in all directions). Your first city can suck, your 2nd city shouldn't!

Thank you, brilliant and thoughtful answers!



I like to turtle a lot, so I prefer to keep just 1-3 strong cities and let the rest fight it out until I am ready to take on the remaining enemies with a few elite units, as in Civ 5. Aside from economics the problem with this, as far as I understand, is that strategic resources are needed to create high-level unit/hero equipment. Is there any other way of securing these? Can I stockpile them with trade before going to war, or can I easily skip the material of a particular era if I lack it? Are strategic resources very important when placing cities as well?

PaleBluePixel wrote:
Thank you, brilliant and thoughtful answers!



I like to turtle a lot, so I prefer to keep just 1-3 strong cities and let the rest fight it out until I am ready to take on the remaining enemies with a few elite units, as in Civ 5. Aside from economics the problem with this, as far as I understand, is that strategic resources are needed to create high-level unit/hero equipment. Is there any other way of securing these?

Sure, you can buy them from the marketplace. You'll need to research the tech to unlock it. I believe it's a tier 3 tech.

PaleBluePixel wrote:
Thank you, brilliant and thoughtful answers!



I like to turtle a lot, so I prefer to keep just 1-3 strong cities and let the rest fight it out until I am ready to take on the remaining enemies with a few elite units, as in Civ 5. Aside from economics the problem with this, as far as I understand, is that strategic resources are needed to create high-level unit/hero equipment. Is there any other way of securing these? Can I stockpile them with trade before going to war, or can I easily skip the material of a particular era if I lack it? Are strategic resources very important when placing cities as well?

Tip: dont underestimate the power of lv10 units :P also the game doesn't like few cities research wise, you want a lot of cities.

A huge consideration needs to be what I call the +2 rule or winter survival.



Anomalies are obviously key as they always have huge bonuses, but what happens if they are surrounded by a bunch if tiles that all have just +1 modifiers? You get screwe'd by Jack frost that's what. As soon as winter hits you city essentially becomes a one tile city...your lone anomaly has a debuff to boot.



Winter basicly reduces all FIDS by -1, so any tiles that only have a +1 FIDS buff of any kind are worthless.



Try building a settlement in winter some time. Its depressing, but you will find the real rich areas. In order for cities to stay relevant in the early winter phases before expansion of districts and building buffs can help mitigate, learn the rule of +2.



For example...if all your food tiles are just +1 you will starve. If all your industry tiles are +1, production will literally grind to a halt. Only have +1 dust? Guess your gonna have to sell back that Shiney new building.



Don't underestimate an area with a ton of +2 tiles vs an area with a nice anomoly, surrounded by +1s.

Winter has several "-1 X on terrain with X" penalties (the exact effects seem to vary), which can hurt you more if you have tiles that give +1 to 3 different things (which might suddenly be producing zero) rather than +3 to one thing (which will still produce at least +2).



However, there's also an era 1 building that gives +2 science on terrain with science, an era 2 building that gives +1 industry on terrain with industry, a hero ability that gives +1 dust on terrain with dust, etc. So having tiles that give +1 to 3 different things can help you there, since you'll get to apply more bonuses to them (just like winter can apply more penalties). In my experience so far, winters are fairly short (at least in the early game), and in the late game you can get a hero ability that negates the effects of winters, so I'd lean towards these diverse-production tiles, personally.



Also note that your city center and borough streets apply -1 food to the tile they're on. If you can manage to place them on a tile that wasn't generating any food anyway, you get to ignore that little penalty. It's not a big difference, but all else being equal...

Honestly, I believe anomalies remain the main thing to consider when you build a city, especially if you have the Landscapist trait.

They give you a tremendous boost at the beginning.

Rivers and seas are great but they do not give you any production at the beginning, and you need to get extra technologies to benefit from the other bonuses.

And don't forget anomalies also benefit from the tiles bonuses and also that they have a very nice +15 science when you build the right technology.

Another consideration is defense. And cost effective building. I've come to the conclusion it's almost always preferable to build your main city or districts on Anomalies as often as possible. This ensures during a seige your best tiles are still part of your city.



Another trick is to building districts on resource deposits. If you do so and have the appropriate tech, you essentially get a 2 for 1 as it will count as an extractor for that tile without having to build it.



You also retain access to those resources when your city is under seige. I was unable to build gear made out of titanium during a seige because all my extractors where outside my main city as is often the case. Had I had one inside my main districts I could still use it.

Wherever you like to build a city will be highly influenced by the faction and play style you have.



I have basically only played with the Vaulters since they seem to be closest to my preferences of play style.



I look for rivers, coasts and forests and I really like tiles that give one of each resource. Vaulters quick research style make it very easy to get buildings that severally boost my cities in all areas and they just become powerhouses. Anomalies are nice if I can include them but not the most important thing in the world. Those that give extra happiness is worth consider more than others.



You can also have different goals with different cities, such as cities that produce lots of food and specialize on that. I really like how you can use different strategies to form your empire differently every-time you play.



But for my first city I would concentrate on a good spot with at least one good anomaly that give extra food and/or production, but I would not risk the long term development of my city too much.