Two Cities Using the Same Squares

[William Keenan]

I'm playing FW and I have two citys that are both using the same squares. Has anyone seen this before?

[Paul]

Yes. This can happen if two cities are on different sides of the zero-coordinate line.

[La Fayette]

I find it highly remarkable that the first reply comes from someone who usually builds only ONE city
Thank you Paul.
I suppose that some of our tricky friends have already tried to exploit this feature by building half a dozen cities on each side of the zero line.
How does it work, my friends?

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aux bords mystérieux du monde occidental

[Paul]

Yes, lately I mostly play with only one city, but I had noticed this way back when I played with more cities. That was some time ago, so I may be wrong about this. But as far as I know a square can be worked by two cities: one to the left and one to the right of the zero line. I don't know if this also works for the central city-square, because I always used to build my cities with minimal overlapping. So the central city-square for one of my cities was never in the radius of another city.

If any of my information is wrong, please correct me.
[This message has been edited by Paul (edited March 30, 2001).]

[Ming]

You can use every overlapping square by both cities EXCEPT the actual city square itself. While the game doesn't recogonize that a city on either side is using the same square, it does show the other city in the city screen, so you can't place a worker on it.

[Deity Dude]

Does anyone know if u can violate the "no building cities in adjacent squares" rule at the zero line.

[Paul]

I have also had random maps where land crossed the zero meridian, although it is indeed rare.

[Marquis de Sodaq]

I have seen tile sharing between cities away from the 0-line. Once in a blue moon I will conquer a city near mine, and am able to use the same square with both. IIRC, my city had just claimed use of the square after my bad guys occupied it while approaching the neighbor.

Sadly, I can't remember in what order it unfolded. It may well have been a fluke, anyway, considering how rare this happens.

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"There is no fortress impregnable to an ass laden with gold."
-Philip of Macedon

[rah]

quote: Originally posted by Paul on 04-05-2001 01:13 PM I have also had random maps where land crossed the zero meridian, although it is indeed rare.

I have seen this also and don't consider it to be that rare.

The last 3 MP games that I have played this occured. (with me starting within one square of the timeline in all three games.) Unfortunately there was not a trade special reachable from both sides in any of those game.

RAH

[Blaupanzer]

This "ocean at the timeline" was an intentional design feature according to some official document I read somewhere at some time. (Age does unkind things to memory.) Actually, SG is right. As my faulty memory recalls, occasionally an isthmus or island sneaks into that zone. However, we were supposed to be able to identify the timeline based on the lack of contiuous land at that line on the map from north to south. Don't know if this "feature" was continued in MGE or not, so RAH may be right about that.

My contention about not being able to build cities right next to each other at the time line does not contradict the idea of sharing resources. That opportunity arises in many games.

I tested this. I made a map where I created an island directly to timeline zone. I wasn't able to build adjacent cities to the both sides of timeline. I build two cities one square apart so that the timeline ran between them. I made both size 20 and behold, no overlapping squares!
[This message has been edited by Marko Polo (edited April 06, 2001).]

[Blaupanzer]

No to Deity Dude, at least for random maps. The zero line always has ocean on one side of the line from top to bottom of the map.

[Scouse Gits]

Not actually disagreeing with BlauPanzer, but I believe the answer is yes - you can build in adjacent squares on either side of the date line ... but the number of times that you are given the opportunity to do this is very seldom indeed - I will not gainsay BP, but I have a faint recollection of a random map with a small isthmus that crossed the date-line - and this was where ai first spotted the duplicate usage trick -- really nice if you can share a couple of whales!!

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Scouse Git[1] -- git1@scousers.net

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