piers/logging camps

No, I think it's intended to be able to build them only if you start a city near that spot. It doesn't have to do with city level.

I was also wondering. The other day I noticed that i needed more Growth in my cities, but i was for example unable to build any wells. This was in both level1 & 2 cities.

This is from my head though. Right now, I'm at work, so this might not be 100% accurate.

Snaking does work -- I've recently begun using the strategy to settle on better starting tiles, and have been able to build both piers and logging camps using it.

In order to build logging camps you need the forest to be next to your city. This would mean that a forest tile is on one of the 8 squares around your city. So if a forest is diagonally from your starting city you can build a forest once you have access to build diagonally from your city. That is the extent of the snaking allowed.

The same goes for piers.

IF you have these tiles next to your main city though you can snake to any forest and river and build the logging camp there, but if you build over the forest next to your city you will lose access to the logging camp.

If you can snake more than this I would like to see it happen with a before an after picture.

Although if your city naturally expand toward a river or a forest, the choice to expand there will open up.

Is there requirement to build a well?

I have never successfully built a pier or logging camp if I did not start right next to a forest or river. I did once, find a 3x3x3 square was cornered by a river and forest, greatest city ever, but it has to be touching the starting town in my games.

It can only be built in the 8 squares around your starting spot. So it is possible to snake to the 4 corners and be able to build them after not being able to at default, but you can't snake across the map for it.

I don't think so.

It can only be build in a Town.

I've had the option to build a logging camp appear after expanding my city's zone of control, so keep that in mind.

I can only think you must be mistaken. If you mean you built a building right above your city to open up the option on a forest that was connected to your city by touching the top corner, then yes, but snaking to a forest or having them pop into your borders does not happen.

No; I mean that building something that specifically expands the zone of control of your city gives you access to more surrounding squares, and potentially the resources they control.

I just wish the developers would finally see the light and remove the ridiculous restrictions on snaking to rivers and forests.  It's completely counter-intuitive, there almost no one who likes it, it's makings dozens of people asking questions.

Seriously, if your rules are so convoluted that old timers are confused about how exactly they work, as evidenced in at least four current threads, you should just change them.

I'm pretty sure they have this restriction so that there is no gameplay benefit to turning on manual placement of buildings.

However I think the cure is worse that the disease, it frustrates everyone to not be able to build on a river/forest once your city reaches it. Who would it really hurt if you allowed it? It is a single player game, if someone wants to cheese by snaking long distance to a river/forest  then surely that is their choice? Of course in multi-player it would be a problem, but a flag to turn manual placement off completely for multi-player would probably be needed anyway.

I'm of the camp that a reasonable restriction would be nice. If the forest is within 2 tiles of your city center then you should be able to build on these tiles. At some point, I'm going to create a resource called dense forest where you can always build a logging camp for your city. Then this issue will be less of a problem as you can always build a logging camp when your city is next to a forest good and then you need this dense forest to build a logging camp.

Yes, and that ways lies the dreaded 'streamlining'.  Lets also make it so that there is no gameplay benefit for manually designing troops, for manually fighting your tactical battles, for manually choosing what you are buildings, and for manually choosing where to settle cities.  Actually, why  don't we just get rid of the map, and just have a single pre-designed hero move to the right, with a button for attacking, and one for jumping over the enemy... actually, forget the one for jumping.

You forget the 2 buttons for accept fight/quit game. Its weird how this game has all this features but half of them seem completely useless - of course they arent useless to the people who LOVE them, but to the people who want to play a computer game vs playing a fancy fantasy they are pretty useless

One solution I can think of would be,

with having the radius that is taken into account (for possible city buildings) expand with increasing city size ...

for example:

Size 0 = Same procedure as now, i.e. the first ring of tiles around your city center is taken into account

Size 2 = The second ring aaround the city center is taken into account

Size 4 = The third ring around the city center is taken into account.

This way larger cities might gain access to buildings they couldn´t build before (giving an additional incenntive to growing cities) and the player doesn´t get benefits by manually placing city buildings

That's a solution that I'd go for in this case.

I find totally nonsense in that restriction.

If I want to sneak my city for reaching sooner a resource, extend the Zoc in one way, to make a city-highway or just because I want to see how long a city can be stretched, I will sneak it, with or without lodging camps.

With automatic placing, the city will eventually reach the forests too. Or not.  I don't mind. But if a city reaches a forest or river, please, ALLOW us to build!

Keeping that restriction is so stubborn and nonsensed...

I think you can only snake if the forest/river is immediately diagonal. So, it's right next to you, but it won't let you build a pier or lumbercamp until you snake a bit.  I just find snaking to be stupid and gamey when it comes to movement.  People would snake cities into long roads so they could move huge distances without spending any movement points and it just seems very metagamey and hacky.  Like a flaw in game design exploited.  And you can still do that if you choose.  As for snaking to resources to trees and water, I don't care.

I believe the better solution would be to limit snaking.  Like for example not allowing buildings to be placed unless they either connect (by connect, I mean by a corner or edge) to your main city hub or they connect to at least 2 non hub buildings, and only the latter once at least 5 hub connected spots are used. Sure, you could snake out a bit using this design, but not the way you suggest to exploit in any real manner.  Real cities work this way too - having a starting city next to the ocean or a large body of a water or mountain is currently a HUGE detriment, but in any real-world (or hell, even fake world) setting this makes no sense what-so-ever.

I'll add something to this topic....that's slightly off topic.

Since there is major concern that snaking can be abused by placing buildings out great distances, why not just implement some code restricting expanding the city past a tile until that tile is completely filled with buildings?

As is, each tile only requires two buildings, diagonal from eachother, before you are allowed to proceed onwards to the next tile. If this expansion were cut in half by requiring the tile to be filled first, the concerns against the concept of snaking would be cut in half aswell.

In fact, other than the extreme circumstance of adding a wonder to the city, snaking would be generally limited to the first two tiles away from a city hub.

IMO, being able to snake out to 16 tiles around your city shouldn't be that big of a deal.

Besides, those who play with autoplacement won't even notice the difference. Those that play with manual placement will be able to properly develop their available resources. But MOST importantly, the AI will stop building cities is such STUPID places, as they think they can snake their cities. This will make the AI more resiliant and will help balance the upcoming nurfs the AI will be receiving as the auto-complete bug is being fixed.

What's wrong with snaking? Just make the AI snake towards resources. I guess it would be hard to get the AI to snake towards choke points.

I like snaking, makes my city look like a strip mall.

There are three important reasons for this, and one minor:

1) This mechanic makes city placement more important, and gives more varied options on what a good city spot can be (it's not a non-brainer where to place your city in every case). Choosing your city spot is strategy, snaking can hardly be called anything resembling strategy.

2) It's exploitive with snaking in the human hands compared to what the AI can understand.

3) Snaking makes extremely gamey movement bonuses when walking through cities.

4) The minor reason: snaking is unesthetical as hell.

I for one always play with auto-placing. Don't understand the fuzz about wanting exploitive gameplay and non-brainer choices regarding city placement. How do snaking make people feel they are smart and accomplish something clever?