How to build cities.

The next time I played Civ I learned a lot about the importance of where cities are built. As the saying goes, "Location, Location, Location." The big key to where you build your cities is water. You have to form a city where water is plentiful. This allows for the ability to make a multitude of farms. You need to have several farms because the key to a great society is food surplus, and the way to food surplus is farming in the civ game. The next big idea of water is for ports. This is very important not only in the Civ game, but also very much so in the real world. This part actually gave me a run for my money the last time I had played CIV. I was decently far into the game, and I was at the point where I wanted to try and discover America. I knew I had researched the ability to create boats, but for some reason none of my cities had the ability to build boats. I finally realized that I had not built any cities actually on the water. Many had land on the water, but the city was not on the water. This was a big problem and there was very little real estate left for cities with ports. Not having ships keeps you from many things. The first hindrance is that you do not have the ability of sea exploration. Although this is not absolutely necessary, it can help a lot in the scheme of things. Next, it hinders your trade possibilities. Without ports you can only trade by land, and when you can trade by sea you open yourself to a whole new world of trading. Finally, without a port you don't allow yourself a Navy. Without a Navy you just leave yourself vulnerable in a time of war. A navy is a necessity in times of war. When you look out into the United States and where the biggest cities are these things don't surprise you in the least bit. The major cities lie right on the ocean. This allows for everything I explained earlier. When you have many different cities on the Ocean and many ports it just helps your country become that much more successful.