Posts: 7,902
Threads: 13
Joined: Aug 2006
Maybe the limit is just there to reduce infinite city spam, which isn't deemed to be a problem if you settle on another continent. But I have a pet theory that it relates to bombardment from siege units. You don't explicitly choose which city to bombard with a catapult, which isn't a problem, since cities are at least 3 tiles apart. Of course, it's also possible to bombard with certain boats, and you could then be in range of two (or even three or four) different coastal cities. So actually, what happens then is that you automatically bombard the city with the highest defense, using city order as the tie-breaker. These cases are rare, though. By enforcing a minimum distance between cities, this aspect of the user interface could be simplified. (Though even if this theory is correct, I'm sure it was just one out of several good reasons.)
If you know what I mean.