This is not a bug, it's a game mechanic. It would be wise to talk about it in that context if you want to persuade the powers that be.

I would like this idea too.
(what I tried to post earlier).

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Sorry, but you can't tell me that my opinion and what I consider to be strategic to be 'wrong'. There is a great deal of dynamic strategy involved when 'snaking' is added to the development of a city throughout the course of a game; can't help that you don't see it that way.

With snaking, you have to carefully consider all the possible ways to build your city. How to get the best tile yield while still being able to gain access to the river or forest. Whether or not you want to reach a resource or choke point, or be able to connect your empire's highway system. Strategy games are about making these kinds of choices. Once in a while, you'll be stuck with a limited settling option, but those should be the exception, not the rule. This is very dynamic; a strategy game where you can make continual choices and seeing the consequences unfold.

Without snaking on the other hand, you reduce the game to 'one tile' cities. You get only the tile yield or resource or choke point. It's pretty much all downside, as your cities become one dimensional structures that serve limited function, only made dynamic by several differnet types of building you can place. 95% of these building choices are made the moment you select your city location.

Thankfully Stardock has designed the multi-tile city mechanic in their game. It's a tonne of fun to work with as you can currently snake towards resources and cultural borders. It was sad when they stepped backwards when it came to snaking towards river/forest tiles. Hope they put it back in.

I think you'll find that I can, already have, and will do so again; you're wrong (see?). I believe you are confusing busywork with dynamic gameplay.

At the moment you settle your city you already know:
What resources can be, and therefore should be, incorporated into the city.
Which terrain features can be, and therefore should be, incorporated into the city.
Which choke point can be blocked by the city. As you don't know for sure if this will be useful when settling, the actual blocking can be held off until later in the game.

You don't necessarily know:
Resources that can be covered by your influence.

The 'dynamic strategy' involved in reaching each of these goals can be summed up in one sentence; build something on the tile closest to whatever you are trying to reach.
If cities started out as 3x3 blocks, gameplay wise the effects would be exactly the same. It would save you the time it takes to make all these 'decisions', and still have the same results. So all you're really doing is busywork, or pointless micromanagement.

I also call bullshit on your claim that most building choices for one tile cities are already made at the moment you settle it. That is no more inherently true for one tile cities than for snaking cities. It is up to the developers to give you interesting building choices, whether you place them on the map or not has no influence on this.

I suppose I shall have to stoop down to a form of debate that you will understand: You are wrong.

You're describing a different game with different expectations. Go back to playing CIV.

The rest of us will continue to work with the design team, giving positive, upbuilding, and benefiting advice towards the successful implementation and release of FE.

I shall say no more on the matter.

I did like the one you could spread your city out.  I think it could have been implemented better, but I did like it.  Seems even more "boxy" now.  When you controlled how it spread it seemed to move with the game better.

My my, feeling a bit self-important GFireflyE?

I think I've got a pretty good idea what this game is about, as I have been following it's development for the past four years. The debate about snaking has been done to death more than a few times. Now that the dev's have finally made a small step in removing it, it's a bit annoying to see people calling to get it back. I've been trying to explain why snaking is a rather poor mechanic, and I was hoping you would explain why you think it is so dynamic and strategic. Unfortunately all you seem to have to say on the subject is 'it just is', without any explanation as to why. Pity.

The strategy of being able to snake your city has been there for many other 4x games with single tile cities. Although there were drawbacks to placing cities next to each other, one can still apply the ability to gain resources from both places. This game offeres a unique way to accomplish the same idea with a single city. That is a clever implementation of a mechanic of creating choke points AND resource grabs AND highways. The strategy does not come from where to place the initial hub, but more importantly WHEN to go after said aspect.

When is just as an interesting strategically as a carefully planned plop for a city. If I choose to place my city near a forest and a river, I do have to decide when I want access to one of the resources and when I want access to the other resource. I could place my city closer to the forest and get a higher production that would allow me to have quicker access to the river, but I really do need to make this choke point before the enemies can get through. So, I really need to decide to place my city close to the chokepoint, but I don't have the production power to get to the forest and cut off my enemies at the same time.

But wait I realized that I see a better option at the moment. I notice some more fertile land that would provide a great bonus to my production and so I don't need to have my city grow to the forest anymore, as this would be a good high level city with good food. I will change my tatic with the city and instead proceed to the river. Thus, I can dynamically change my city creation in the middle of production. Allowing me to switch what my initial strategy to which I was beginning to do.

This is the reason I purchased the game in the first place. Multi-tile cities appealed to me and I thought that this would be a great breath of fresh air from the multitude of 4x games out there. The mechanics that go with multi-tile cities may need more balancing, as I do not agree that one should teleport through a city immediately (although I understand why this mechanic is there). But we should be able to have access to resources on the map via a snaking process. I for one do not mind if the mechanic forced a requirement that the resource must be within 2 or 3 tiles away city hub.

There is strategic depth to both a single city tile and a multi-tile city. I do not want the mechanic to go completely away, but I also don't want it to be abused.

Only problem I can really see with snaking is the teleporter highwayline the flat or broad or whatever cities tend to create, but that doesn't mean I don't like the mechanic, I love having to consider which cities have to snake over to which resource, although I would wish there would be more of an incentive to full squares with buildings.
Its tough, I will live with the current system as I think its way more fun than single tile cities with a seperate city-window to show what I have built.
And I really really love the way cities show off all the buildings constructed in them.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

^This is a great counter-mechanic to balance snaking, removal not required!  There are certainly others.

Satrhan, you are so correct. I will have to give you some karma. Snaking involves little strategy, but lots of abuse. At least city placements means something now if you have to choose not only between what the tiles themselves you place your city upon gives you, but also consider the benefits of building next to a river or forest.

I think a nice nail the coffin would be to only allow city improvements to be places in a radius of one around the city. That way the limitation makes more sense and snaking is stopped to a reasonable degree. 

And would limit most of my cities to not building all the buildings...

I don't like this idea, would make building wonders, and building next to a river a real pain.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Expanding cities via tile-buildings make this game unique and enjoyable.  But like all good things it can be abused.  Plus, I don't feel that it is immersion killing, but quite the opposite since cities take more organic shapes.  As for Civ games, Civ V also allowed some snaking by being able to purchase tiles, which can be a critical part of of game play when bordering a rival civilization.  That said, there should be a curb to its abuse.

One such fix, which has already been mentioned, is to only be able to build off of tiles that are already completely filled.  This definitely will allow more dense cities and definitely would avoid the checkerboard cities, but I think that can even be relaxed a little.  I think being able to build off a tile that has the side that will be built off completely filled should be sufficient.

For example:

A= Previously Built

Y= Buildable

N= Not buildable

NN  NN  NN

YY  YY  NN

AA  AA  YN

AA  YA  YN

YY  NN  NN

NN  NN  NN

I think this tries to keep the best of both worlds.  It is still important to pick where you place a city but it still allows some snaking.

That said, I think the city-highway problem still remains, and I would like to see units treating city tiles merely as road tiles, and for them to only garrison in the city when they are on the initial city tile.  i do foresee a problem with this because this it may unbalance defensive and offensive city attacks.

I think making cities require that a given terrain square be fully filled (all four small improvement squares) before new improvements can be built off it in any direction would help contain the snaking issue to a good extent. You would still be able to stretch your city a couple squares to reach a river/forest, but you wouldn't be able to make ridiculous 10+ tile stretches.

And whoever said that snaking "ruins immersion"? That is bunk. Having my city utterly envelop and swallow vast tracts of river and forest land without the ability to construct a pier or logging camp "ruins immersion".

If your post was a petition I wouldn't hesitate a second to sign it.

I haven't been a round long enough to argue about 'snaking'. What I do care about is that if/when my city grow enough that I start bumping into forests or rivers, I should be able to build the appropriate natural resource. It just makes sense. Heck, why can't I build piers when I'm up against the ocean tile? Oh, and I auto place buildings.

So, 0.981 has been released and I've been playing...

Had a city where a forest was located diagonal to it. I was unable to build a lumber mill right away. However, once a few other buildings were placed adjacent to the forest, the option eventually showed up to build the lumber mill.

I have not tried to 'snake' more than this distance yet. Has anyone had successful snaking experiances such that we can confirm Stardock reintroduced this mechanic back into the game?

(it would make me soooo happy. )

That was possible even when snaking wasn't... so I don' t know for sure.