A Comprehensive Guide to Terrain, Improvements, Resources, and City Placement.

Contents:
The links within the contents list will take you to each individual section.

Introduction

Terrain Values (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3376008&postcount=2)
The Basics about Terrain
Base Terrain and Terrain Features
Cumulative Tile Values

Worker Improvements (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3376014&postcount=3)
The Basics about Workers
Basic Worker Actions
Worker Turns for Improvements
Terrain Specific Improvements
Base FPC Values for Improvements
Other things to note about Improvements
Chopping Forests
How Terrain Modifies Improvements (detailed charts)

Resources and Improvements (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3376021&postcount=4)
The Basics about Resources
Resource Improvements
Added Bonuses Through City Improvements
Resources and Terrain Types

City Placement (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3376024&postcount=5)
The Basics about City Placement
Resource Bonuses for Cities
Other Important Factors when Placing a City

Miscellaneous (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3376027&postcount=6)
How Civics and Traits effect FPC
Links to related guides

Downloads for pdf and text versions of this guide (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3376044&postcount=7)


Introduction:

The guide will give you a complete breakdown of the types of terrain and their food, production and commerce values (FPC). There is a lot more to it than what is avaliable in the manual or Civilopedia, and this guide is an attempt to cover as much of it as I can. There are five factors involved when using terrain effectively: terrain values, terrain feature values, improvement values, bonus resource values, and civics and tech bonuses--all of which accumulate. I've also made a list of worker improvements and their value modifications for each type of terrain. I've included the bonus value of resources as well; though the information is already in the manual, the way they calculated the values are unusual. I've recalculated them to make them more compatible with the other values in this guide. Having a more in-depth understanding of these terrain values can really help your strategy when deciding where to build your cities, and so I've also added a section on city placement strategies.

This guide was compiled by Stuporstar. I hope that people will find this guide useful. I will continue adding/correcting info as it comes. Special thanks goes to: Heroes for his best income breakdowns and added civics; EridanMan for his excellent guide on forest chopping; and Brokguitar for the most contributions so far, with his screenshots and much added info about terrain, resources and city placement.

PDF and text versions of this guide are available for download in the last section here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3376008&postcount=6).

Starting with the Basics: Yields (FPC)

There are three basic types of bonuses that terrain can give to your city: Food, Production, and Commerce. There are also two secondary bonuses, happiness and health, that are given by specific resources (and are a factor in trade) and some types of terrain features. For the moment we will focus on base FPC value. In the game, food is represented by bread slices, production is represented by hammers and commerce is represented by coins. For the purposes of this guide, food, production and commerce will be referred to as FPC.

http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/3717/fpc6ct.gif

In the game, FPC value is referred to as Yields. You can see the FPC value for terrain automatically when you click on a Settler unit. On your main screen you can toggle the Yields Display, which will reveal the FPC for every visible tile by either pressing Ctrl-Y,
or by clicking the Yeilds Display button on the bottom right-hand of your screen ==> http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/9895/yeilds4tc.jpg

The Difference Between Commerce and Gold: I thought I'd mention this here because the two are easily confused. Both are represented by the coin symbol (which can be fairly easily modded into two seperate symbols - I've created a mod for Gold myself which can be found here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3370089&postcount=6)). Commerce comes from terrain, trade routes and your Palace, which is then divided amongst your sliders into Science, Culture (enabled with Drama tech) and Gold. The Gold then goes into your treasury or is used for city maintenance and civic upkeep. Because this guide deals primarily with terrain, we will mostly be referring to Commerce and not Gold values.

Terrain Values

The Basics about Terrain:

The first thing we will discuss in this guide are the basic terrain, and terrain feature FPC values. Terrain features are things like forest, hills and floodplains which have cumulative values when added to the base terrain types underneath. Below is a screenshot showing the types of terrain and how these FPC values will appear over the tiles. Click the thumbnails for the larger version (saves on bandwidth):

http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/9722/fpc5kr.th.jpg (http://img505.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fpc5kr.jpg)

As you can see, the best food producers are floodplain and oasis tiles, with 3 food; the best production tiles are plains/hill, with 2 production (3 with forest); and the best commerce comes from oasis and coastal tiles (including inland sea), with 2 commerce. Others, such as desert, and snow (and ocean) have no FPC value whatsoever, but can be modified by terrain features.


Base Terrain and Terrain Features

Below is a detailed list with all the FPC values listed for terrain types, as well as any health bonuses or penalties for cities, and movement costs and defense bonuses for units (base movement cost is 1mp).

F = food : P = production : C = commerce : mp = movement cost for units

Base Terrain

Peak 0 impassible
Snow 0
Desert 0
Tundra 1F
Sea 1F 1C (Ocean = 0)
Coast 1F 2C (Inland Sea = 2F 2C fresh water source)
Grassland 2F
Plains 1F 1P

Terrain Features

Ice 0 impassible
Jungle -1F (-0.25 health) always on grassland; 2mp; +50% defense bonus
Hills -1F +1P +25% defense bonus; 2mp
Forest 1P (+0.4 health) do not grow on desert/snow; 2mp; +50% defense bonus
Floodplains 3F (-0.4 heath) always on desert
Oasis 3F 2C (+2 health) fresh water source; always on desert; 2mp; cannot build cities
Rivers 1C (+2 health) fresh water source; +25% defense bonus
Rivers give no commerce bonus to Snow, Jungle or Forest tiles.

Note that when it comes to fresh water sources, they must be adjacent to your city for that city to get the health bonus, and you only get a total +2 health bonus to your city. It is not cumulative as it is with forest tiles.
Though forests will not grow on a snow tile, I have seen them randomly generated on the map so they will be covered in the next section.


Cumulative Tile Values
Listed below are the cumulative FPC value calculations when terrain features are added to base terrain types.

Grassland + Jungle = 1F (2F - 1F)
Snow + Forest = 1P (0 + 1P)
Tundra + Forest = 1F 1P (1F + 1P)
Grassland + Forest = 2F 1P (2F + 1P)
Plains + Forest = 1F 2P (1F 1P + 1P)

Desert + Hill = 1P (0 + 1P (-1F))
Snow + Hill = 1P (0 + 1P (-1F))
Tundra + Hill = 1P (1F + 1P - 1F)
Grassland + Hill = 1F 1P (2F +1P - 1F)
Plains + Hill = 2P (1F 1P + 1P - 1F)

Grassland + Hill + Jungle = 1P (2F (- 1F + 1P) - 1F)
Snow + Hill + Forest = 2P (0 ((- 1F )+ 1P) + 1P)
Tundra + Hill + Forest = 2P (1F (- 1F + 1P) + 1P)
Grassland + Hill + Forest = 1F 2P (2F (- 1F + 1P) + 1P)
Plains + Hill + Forest = 3P (1F 1P (- 1F + 1P) + 1P)

These are the terrain/feature combinations that you will find on a randomly generated map. It is possible to add any terrain feature (and any improvement) to any kind of terrain in the World Builder, and they have corresponding cumulative values. These will not be covered however (for example putting a floodplain on a grassland tile will net you 5 food without improvements, which is so overpowered it might as well be cheating).

Worker Improvements

The Basics about Workers:

When you click to move a worker and mouse-over the terrain, you get a list of the types of improvements the worker can build on that square. In this example, the only option currently available on the highlighted square is a farm. The blue glow around the icon represents the AI's recommendation. The improvements that are greyed out are those that are available to that terrain (or resource) type, but have not yet been researched. When you mouse-over a tile it will also give you terrain info near the bottom left-hand corner, and in the case of a resource, will tell you which technology you need to research if you don't have it. A worker has two moves on flat terrain instead of one, but movement costs for forest, hills and jungles still apply. Moving onto the nearest flatland square means the worker can start working that tile right away.

http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/2313/workermouseover3yo.th.jpg (http://img515.imageshack.us/my.php?image=workermouseover3yo.jpg)

Basic Worker Actions

Chop Forest: Chopping a forest becomes available with Bronzeworking, and chopping Jungle becomes available with Ironworking. It will not only clear land for other improvements (except Lumbermills) but will also give a production bonus to your nearest city. More about forest chopping and how it applies to strategy will be discussed later in this article.
Build Road: Workers can build roads on any tile (except impassible terrain) once the Wheel is researched. Unlike previous Civ games, roads do not give any FPC bonuses to tiles. They decrease unit movement costs by 1/2 (except in enemy territory), and decrease further to 1/3 with the Engineering tech. This effect of roads is negated across rivers until you get the Construction tech (little bridges appear). Roads are also used to establish trade routes between cities (rivers also work like roads in this aspect).
Build Railroad: Like roads, railroads can be built on any workable tile once Railroads is researched. They decrease movement cost by 1/10, and give a +1P bonus to mines and lumbermills.
Build Fort: Forts can be built on any workable tile once Mathematics is researched. They give units a +25% defense bonus. The disadvantage of forts is that they cannot be built on top of existing improvements. They destroy previously existing improvements and remove forests (kind of pointless when forests give a +50% defense bonus.
Scrub Fallout: This action becomes available with Ecology. Workers can remove fallout from nuclear strikes and nuclear plant meltdowns. Fallout make tiles unworkable and removes their FPC value. It also destroys forest and jungle tiles.

Worker Turns for Improvements

Improvement-----Base # turns-----Forest (Chop+3 turns)-----Jungle (Chop+4 turns)
Road-----------------2--------------------2 (no chop)--------------2 (no chop)
Railroad--------------3--------------------3 (no chop)--------------3 (no chop)
Fort-----------------6--------------------9------------------------10
Farm----------------5--------------------8------------------------9
Cottage--------------4--------------------7------------------------8
Mine-----------------4--------------------7------------------------8
Workshop------------6--------------------9------------------------10
Windmill--------------5--------------------8------------------------9
Watermill-------------8--------------------11-----------------------12
Lumbermill------------8--------------------8 (no chop)------------- --
Camp----------------4--------------------4 (no chop)--------------4 (no chop)
Quarry---------------6--------------------9------------------------10
Pasture--------------4--------------------7------------------------8
Plantation------------5--------------------8------------------------9
Winery---------------5--------------------8----------------------- --
Well------------------7-------------------10-----------------------11
Scrub Fallout---------4------------------- -- --------------------- --

Improvement---Tundra---Tundra/Forest------------Snow ---Desert/Floodplain
---------------(+25%)---(+25% +3 turns chop)---(+50%)-------(+25%)
Road-------------3---------3 (no chop)--------------3------------3
Railroad----------4---------4 (no chop)--------------5------------4
Fort-------------8---------11-----------------------9------------8
Farm------------7---------10---------------------- -- -----------8
Cottage----------5---------9---------------------- -- -----------6
Mine-------------5---------9------------------------5------------6
Workshop--------8---------11----------------------- -- ----------9
Windmill----------7---------10------------------------8-----------7
Watermill--------10--------14-----------------------12----------10
Lumbermill------- -- -------10 (no chop)------------- -- -------- --
Camp------------5---------5 (no chop)--------------6------- --- --
Quarry---------- -- ------ -- -----------------------9------------8
Pasture----------5-------- -- ---------------------- ------------ --
Plantation------ -- ------ - -- ----------- ---------- -- -----------7
Winery--------- -- -------- -- --------------------- -- ---------- --
Well-------------9---------11-------------------- --10------------9
Scrub Fallout----5--------- -- -----------------------6------------5

Factors that increase worker speed are:

Civilizations: India - Unique Unit, Fast Worker - movement 3 instead of 2
Techs: Steam Power - workers build 50% faster
Civics: Serfdom - workers build 50% faster
Buildings: The Hagia Sophia (World Wonder) - workers build 50% faster.
+8 culture, +2 Great Engineer. Tech required Engineering; Obsolete with Steam Power.

The tech and civic bonuses are cumulative, so it is possible to have your workers build 100% faster.
This chart was modified from Brokguitar's guide.

Terrain Specific Improvements

The list below lists the basic types of improvements you can build that are specific to terrain (resource specific improvements will be covered later in the resources section).

Desert = No improvements except Roads/Railroads

Flatlands: Grassland, Plains, Floodplains, Tundra (only with River) = Farm (only near river until Civil Service tech), Cottage, Workshop

Hills: (all terrain) = Mine, Windmill, Cottage (only on Grassland Hills)

Forest: (all terrain) = Lumbermill, Chop Forest (whatever you can build on the base terrain)

River: (all flatlands) = Watermill

Snow and Tundra = No improvements except Road/Railroad without River, Hills or Forest

Here is another screenshot by Brokguitar showing how the basic terrain-based improvements appear on the map and a comparison with the base terrain FPC values. Lumbermills on forested hill tiles and Workshops on floodplains are not depicted.

http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/3936/improvementyields2dl.th.jpg (http://img515.imageshack.us/my.php?image=improvementyields2dl.jpg)

Base FPC Values for Improvements

Farm (flatlands, can only be built near rivers until irrigation; can build on resources)
Tech Required: Agriculture
FPC Value: 1F
Tech Modifier 1: Civil Service (spreads irrigation)
Tech Modifier 2: Biology (can build without irrigation) + 1F, only base 1F without irrigation
Best income: 2F (Biology with irrigation)

Mine (hills; can build on resources)
Tech Required: Mining
FPC Value: 2P
Tech Modifier 1: Railroads +1P with railroad
Best income: 3P (with railroad)

Cottage (flatlands, and grassland/hill)
Hamlet (10 turns)
Village (20 turns)
Town (40 turns)
Tech Required: Pottery
FPC Value:
Cottage = 1C
Hamlet = 2C
Village = 3C
Town = 4C
Tech Modifier 1: Printing Press Village +1C, Town +1C
Civic: Universal Sufferage (Democracy) +1P for Town
Civic: Emancipation (Democracy) +100% growth for Cottage, Village, or Hamlet
Civic: Free Speech (Liberalism) +2C for Town
Best income: 1P 7C (Printing Press, Universal Suffrage, Free Speech)

Workshop (flatlands)
Tech Required: Metal Casting
FPC Value: -1F 1P
Tech Modifier 1: Guilds +1P
Tech Modifier 2: Chemistry +1P
Civic: State Property (Communism) +1F
Best income: 3P (Guilds, Chemistry, State Property)

Windmill (hills)
Tech Required: Machinery
FPC Value: 1F 1C
Tech Modifier 1: Replaceable Parts +1P
Tech Modifier 2: Electricity +1C
Best income: 1F 1P 2C (Replaceable Parts, Electricity)

Watermill (only near rivers)
Tech Required: Machinery
FPC Value: 1P + 1C from river
Tech Modifier 1: Replacable Parts +1P
Tech Modifier 2: Electricity +2C
Civic: State Property (Communism) +1F
Best income: 1F 2P 2C (Replaceable Parts, Electricity, State Property)

Lumbermill (forest)
Tech Required: Replaceable Parts
FPC Value: 1P +1C to rivers
Tech Modifier 1: Railroad +1P with railroad
Best income: 3P 1C (1C from river, 1P from railroad, 1P from forest)
Note that the +1C to river tiles from Lumbermills is only returning the river bonus that you do not get on forest tiles.
Best income breakdowns were contributed by Heroes.

Other things to note about some improvements:

Farms: As you can see from the previous chart, even with Biology, it is better to just chain your irrigated farms if you can, because the non-irrigated farms that this gives you the ability to build do not get the +1F irrigation bonus; however it may be useful if you are on a particular landmass that has no way of reaching fresh water and you desperately need to increase your food production. Once Civil Service is discovered, you can chain your farms if they are connected to a river or irrigated farm. You can in fact chain irrigation through cities; a city built on fresh water spreads irrigation to all adjacent tiles, provided it is built on flatland and not a hill. The only exception is on Tundra, which cannot have a farm built on it without being directly adjacent to a river.

Watermills: There are two exceptions where you cannot build a watermill on a river adjacent tile. When there is a bend in the river, you cannot build a watermill on the tile near the point on the bend (highlighted by the blue circle). You can still build watermills on the three other river adjacent tiles, however you also cannot build two watermills on opposite sides of the river. This means, that in this example, the tile directly below the workers cannot be turned into a watermill either because there is already one on the other side of the river.

http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/5733/nowatermill1ww.th.jpg (http://img515.imageshack.us/my.php?image=nowatermill1ww.jpg)

Cottages: Cottages grow to produce more commerce. It takes 10 turns for a cottage to grow into a hamlet, 20 to grow into a village and 40 to grow into a town. It is a good idea to build these early to take advantage of their growth. However, this improvement will only grow if the tile is being worked by a citizen in your city. Normally you can see a little hut icon on the tile that is being worked, but with improvements those icons dissapear, so if your cottages aren't growing, you may need to check which tiles are being worked in your city screen.

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/7836/brokguitarcottage5zy.jpg

Chopping Forests:

Chopping forests is a very useful strategy, especially early in the game. The production bonus you get from chopping a forest can help get your civilization to an early head start. However, keeping the forest will give you better production in the long run than if you chop it down to replace it with farms or cottages. The health bonus from forests is also useful. But it will take a while before you can research Replaceable Parts and build lumbermills. Here are some things to consider before you start deforesting your empire. Plan ahead, and think strategically.

Health Bonus: Keeping a few forests around have long term benefits to your cities health. You get a 0.4% health bonus to cities for every forest tile inside it's radius. You will also get +1 happiness in your cities with the Environmentalism civic (also for jungles).

Hills: On a forest/hill tile you only stand to gain 1P from replacing it with a mine, which you would eventually get back when you can build lumbermills. However that extra early production and the city production bonus you get from the chop is something to consider in exchange for waiting too long for equal production and added health benefit. I'll often leave hills forested until I've built more critical improvements first (unless I really need the bonus hammers fast and there's nowhere better to get them), but hills are a high priority for chopping once I find the time to build mines.

Rivers: Forests also take away the commerce bonus from rivers, which you will also eventually get back with lumbermills. Because you need as much commerce as possible, and the earlier the better, forests near rivers are usually on my high priority chopping list. There are too many better ways to use river tiles such as farms (early in the game) and watermills (much later).

Try to chop outside of your city borders (you can even chop outside your cultural borders!). The bonus hammers will go to the nearest city. There are distance modifiers, which means a forest chopped too far outside your borders will result in less hammers, but sometimes it's more worthwhile to keep those few forests within your city borders for the health effects.

The number of hammers you get from chopping will vary. The most consistent factor is game speed. A Quick game will average you about 20 hammers per chop, at Standard speed you will average about 30, and at Epic you will average about 45. Another factor is distance from your city; you will get less hammers the further away you chop. But what has the greatest effect on the number of hammers is production bonuses in your cities. Forges, factories, etc. and production increasing civics will all increase the amount of hammers you get by the percentage bonus you get for that city's production. The Industrious trait will also increase the number of hammers you get from chopping while building a wonder, because your wonder production is +50%. Having the right build materials for wonders (such as quarried marble to build the Oracle) will also double the amount of hammers you get from a chop while building it. Having the right building material for a wonder, plus any other production bonuses due to certain buildings and civics, will accumulate the number of hammers you get. I've heard it's possible to get 90 hammers from a single chop!

Chop before you improve. You get no turn penalties for chopping then improving, and you will get your bonus hammers that much earlier (3 turns). If you build an improvement on a forest tile, it will take you the time to improve the tile PLUS the time for the forest chop before you get your bonus hammers.

Forests (and jungles) will grow only on UNIMPROVED tiles as long as there is a forested square nearby. They do however grow over roads. I've tested and verified this by bumping up the forest growth percentage to something ridiculous and watching the forests grow all over the map. The chance of regrowth being calculated by the number of adjacent forest/jungle tiles is still up for debate, but it seems pretty random. There is currently no way to plant forests later in the game as there was in Civ III.

Defensive positions: The last thing to consider is the defense bonus and whether or not it is of strategic value to chop a forest or jungle. The defense bonus for both is 50%, and if that's on a hill (25%) you get a cumulative 75%! Because unit movement is also decreased, having a few forests in strategic positions around your empire can slow an enemy advance to a crawl. If you have a forest on a hill, in a good position for a fortification, DO NOT CHOP IT DOWN TO BUILT A FORT. A fort only has a 25% defensive bonus.

Much of this info I learned thanks to EridanMan's excellent guide in the CivFanatics forums.


A detailed breakdown of how worker improvements modify terrain values:

http://img400.imageshack.us/img400/3183/terraintablefarm3fa.gif

http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/8798/terraintablemine1ry.gif

http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/3968/terraintableworkshop2gu.gif

http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/5727/terraintablewindmill5il.gif

http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/651/terraintablewatermilll4yo.gif

http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/2378/terraintablelumbermill7tz.gif


Summary: a breakdown of which terrain improvements maximize income/production/food best would be:

Food: Farm +2F (5F 1C best terrain) (+2F 1C with resource)

Commerce: Cottage +1P 7C (+1P 8C with river)

Production: Workshop +3P (1F 4P 1C best terrain)
Mine +3P (5P 1C best terrain) (+2P 1C with resource)
Lumbermill +3P (5P 1C best terrain) + health bonus from forest

General: Windmill +1F 1P 2C (2F 2P 3C best terrain) (1F 3P 3C best terrain)
Watermill +1F 2P 2C (2F 3P 3C best terrain) (4F 2P 3C best terrain)

Resources and Improvements

The Basics About Resources:

First off we will look at the different types of resources available using more of Brokguitar's screenshots. On top of the tile bonuses (FPC value) they provide, these resources also provide bonuses to your civilization which can be accessed through trade. In order to benefit from the trade bonuses they need to be within your cultural borders, connected to your trade network (via roads or rivers), and have their corresponding improvement. They can also be traded to you by another civ. These trade bonuses come in three categories:

Luxury Resources: provide +1 happiness (for only one of each type) to all cities connected to your trade network. These resources are: Dyes, Furs, Gems, Gold, Incense, Ivory, Silver, Spices, Sugar, Wine and Whales. These also add commerce to your cities. Of these, Ivory, Furs and Whales eventually become obsolete. They retain their FPC value but lose the happiness bonus to your cities.

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/7283/resourcesluxury4wt.th.jpg (http://img507.imageshack.us/my.php?image=resourcesluxury4wt.jpg)

Food Resources: provide +1 health (for only one of each type) to all cities connected to your trade network. This health benefit can be further increased by certain city improvements (such as granaries, grocers, etc.). These also add food to your cities. These resources are: Bananas, Clam, Corn, Cows, Crab, Deer, Fish, Pigs, Rice, Sheep, and Wheat.

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/1606/resourcesfood3vr.th.jpg (http://img507.imageshack.us/my.php?image=resourcesfood3vr.jpg)

Strategic/Production Resources: Most of these resources are essential, as they allow you to create certain unit types or increase wonder production. They also add production value to your cities (Uranium being an exception, which adds more commerce). These resources are: Aluminum, Coal, Copper, Horses, Iron, Marble, Oil, Stone, and Uranium.

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/4683/resourcesproduction3xy.th.jpg (http://img507.imageshack.us/my.php?image=resourcesproduction3xy.jpg)


Resource Improvements:

The following improvements can be built wherever their specific resource is found. The improvements are non-terrain specific, though on a random map the resources tend to generate only on certain types of terrain. All these terrain values and bonuses are cumulative. This means that the 2P bonus with the improved resource iron, copper, coal or aluminum + 2P for the mine + 1-2P on a hill can equal up to a maximum of 7P on a single tile.

You will notice these values are different from the manual. The manual seems to calculate what is added to the base bonus (so corn = base 1F and improving it adds and additional 2F rather than just stating that improved corn = +3F on top of the base terrain). I've recalcuated the values so that the base bonus is calculated into the improved value and reflect what you will actually get added to the base terrain. In the case of mines and farms I have NOT included the added value from the mine or farm because they can be modified by tech/civics.

Farm: Agriculture
Base Tile Bonus-------Improved Tile Bonus
Corn-----1F-------------3F +1 Health (base bonus 1F + improved 2F)
Wheat---1F-------------3F +1 Health
Rice-----1F-------------2F +1 Health
*not included is the value added by the farm, so what you will actually see is that improving corn, wheat or rice adds an additional 1-2F on top of the improved value given. Farms can be built on top of resources without irrigation, however you get no bonus for the farm until it is irrigated.

Pasture: Animal Husbandry
Base Tile Bonus-------Improved Tile Bonus
Horse----1P-------------3P 1C Revealed by Animal Husbandry (as of patch 1.09)
Cow-----1F--------------2F 2P +1 Health
Pig------1F--------------4F +1 Health
Sheep---1F--------------3F 1C +1 Health

Camp: Hunting
Base Tile Bonus-------Improved Tile Bonus
Deer----1F-------------3F +1 Health
Furs----1C-------------4C +1 Happiness (obsolete with Plastics)*
Ivory---1P--------------2P 1C +1 Happiness (obsolete with Industrialism)*
*note, when these go obsolete you still get the tile bonuses from them.
Camps, like Lumbermills, do not remove forests when you build them.

Quarry: Masonry
Base Tile Bonus-------Improved Tile Bonus
Stone----1P-------------3P (speeds production of some wonders)
Marble---1P--------------2P 2C (speeds production of some wonders)

Mine: Mining
Base Tile Bonus-------Improved Tile Bonus
Silver-----1C---------- -1P 5C +1 Happiness
Gems-----1C---------- -1P 6C +1 Happiness
Gold------1C---------- -1P 7C +1 Happiness
Copper---1P------------2P Revealed by Bronze Working
Iron------1P------------2P Revealed by Iron Working
Coal------1P------------2P Revealed by Steam Power
Aluminum--1P----------2P 1C Revealed by Industrialism
Uranium----0-----------3C Revealed by Physics
*these values do NOT include the added 2P from the mine, so what you get from improved copper, iron, coal or aluminum is actually +4P. Silver, gems and gold are an unusual case since they actually reduce the production from a mine by 1, however they do not reduce the production of the base tile (which is why -1P is added to the improved bonus), so adding a mine will only give you +1P instead of 2P.

Plantation: Calendar
Base Tile Bonus-------Improved Tile Bonus
Bananas---1F---------3F +1 Health
Dye-------1C---------5C +1 Happiness
Incense---1C---------6C +1 Happiness
Silk-------1C---------4C +1 Happiness
Spices----1C---------1F 3C +1 Happiness
Sugar-----1F---------2F 1C +1 Happiness

Winery: Monarchy
Base Tile Bonus-------Improved Tile Bonus
Wine---1C------------1F 3C +1 Happiness

Well: Combustion and Offshore Platform: Plastics (built on sea sqaures - requires Work Boat)
Base Tile Bonus-------Improved Tile Bonus
Oil-----1P---------------3P 1C

The following improvements exist only on coast or sea squares and require a Work Boat to improve them (this includes Offshore Platforms as well, mentioned above). As mentioned in the manual, a work boat can only be used once to improve a tile. It is then destroyed upon completion of the improvement and you must create a new one to improve further water tiles.

Fishing Boats: Fishing
Base Tile Bonus-------Improved Tile Bonus
Fish----1F-------------4F +1 Health
Clam---1F-------------3F +1 Health
Crab---1F-------------3F +1 Health

Whaling Boats: Optics
Base Tile Bonus-------Improved Tile Bonus
Whales---1F-------------1F 1P 2C +1 Happiness (obsolete with Combustion)
*note, when this luxury becomes obsolete you still get the tile bonus.


Added Bonuses through City Improvements:

There are certain city improvements which will either add one health or one happiness for every resource of a certain type connected to your trade network (only one bonus for each). Other improvements can increase the FPC value of all the tiles in your city, or all your cities.

The following buildings give health or happiness bonuses:

Granary: (Pottery)
stores 50% of food after growth
60H
+1 health from Corn, Rice, Wheat

Harbor: (Compass)
+50% trade route yeild (commerce)
80H
+1 health from Clam, Crab, Fish

Market: (Currency)
+25% gold, can turn 2 citizens into Merchant
150H
+1 happiness from Fur, Ivory, Silk, Whale

Grocer: (Guilds)
+25% gold, can turn 2 citizens into Merchant
150H
+1 health from Banana, Spices, Sugar, Wine

Theatre: (Drama)
+3 culture, +1 happiness per 10% culture rate, can turn 2 citizens into Artist
50H
+1 happiness from Dye

Supermarket: (Refrigeration)
requires Grocer, 150H
+1 health from Cow, Deer, Sheep, Pig

The following improvements increase yields (FPC value):

Lighthouse: (Sailing)
required to build The Great Lighthouse
60H
+1F on all water tiles in city

The Colossus: (Metal Casting) World Wonder
+6 culture, +2 great merchant
requires Forge, 250H (double production speed with Copper)
+1C in all water tiles (in every city)
obsolete with Astronomy


Resources and Terrain Types:

These are the types of terrain on which certain types of resources are randomly generated (as derived from the CIV4BonusInfos.xml). The base terrain types are highlighted in bold text. In some cases terrain features are optional and in other cases they are required. It may be possible for resources to be generated on other terrain types not listed, but this is something I cannot verify, so I am going to stick to the lists as defined inside the original xml file.

Aluminum: Hills - Plains, Desert, Tundra
Coal: Hills - Grassland, Plains
Copper, Iron: Hills or Flatlands - Grassland, Plains, Desert, Tundra, Snow (no river)
Marble: Hills or Flatlands - Plains, Tundra, Snow (no river)
Stone: Hills or Flatlands - Plains, Desert (no river)
Uranium: Hills or Flatlands - Grassland, Plains, Desert, Tundra, Snow, Jungles (optional) (no river)
Oil: Flatlands: Desert, Tundra, Snow, Ocean (no river)
Horses: Flatlands - Grass, Plains, Tundra (no river)

Clam, Crab, Fish: Coast (Fish also on Ocean)
Corn: Flatlands - Grassland (no river)
Cow: Flatlands - Grassland, Plains (no river)
Wheat: Flatlands - Plains (no river)
Rice: Flatlands - Grassland, Jungle (optional) (no river)
Pig: Hills or Flatlands - Grassland, Jungle (optional) (no river)
Sheep: Hills or Flatlands - Grassland, Plains (no river)
Deer: Hills or Flatlands - Tundra, Forest (optional)

Banana, Dye, Sugar: Flatlands - Grassland (only with Jungle)
Spices: Flatlands - Plains, Grassland (only with Forest or Jungle)
Silk: Flatlands - Plains, Grassland (both only with Forest)
Ivory: Flatlands - Plains, Grassland (only with Jungle)
Incense: Flatlands - Desert
Wine: Flatland or Hills - Plains
Fur: Flatlands or Hills - Tundra, Snow, Forest (optional)
Gems: Flatlands or Hills - Grassland (only with Jungle)
Gold: Hills - Plains, Desert
Silver: Hills - Tundra, Snow
Whales: Ocean

* no river indicates that the <bNoRiverSide> tag is set to 1 in the xml file. I can only assume this means the bonus is not supposed to generate next to a river. This possible effect is currently unconfirmed.

City Placement

The Basics about City Placement:

When you first settle your city you will see a border surrounding it. Your workers can improve any tiles that are within these cultural borders (only roads/railroads can be built outside). The citizens within your city can only work within your city boundary. In the beginning you will only have a 9 square boundary. As culture in your city develops, these borders will expand. It takes 10 culture points for the first expansion. Known as the 'fat cross' once it expands to 21 squares (the 21st being the city itself, which is automatically worked), your citizens will only be able to work these 21 squares surrounding your city, even though your cultural borders will continue to expand well beyond that. Here is another screenshot from Brokguitar showing these city boundaries (notice that the cultural borders have expanded beyond the city boundary):

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/4048/cityboundary8dr.th.jpg (http://img507.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cityboundary8dr.jpg)

A city square nearly always gets 2F 1P 1C. This includes normally useless tiles such as Desert or Snow, which is something to consider; because of this, try to build cities ON them instead of near them if you can. There are some exceptions where you can get more than the base 2F 1P 1C for a city. The only exception for terrain is an additional 1P when you build a city on top of a plains/hill. This seems to be the only time you get any bonuses for city placement (without building on top of resources). You get no bonus for any other kind of hill, and no bonus for a flatland/plains square. It must be a plains/hill. The other major advantage to building on a plains/hill is of course the defense bonus. Hills get a defensive bonus of 25%.

Resource Bonuses for Cities:

When you build a city on top of a resource, you can, under specific circumstances, get a small bonus for that resource. That bonus is not equal to the value you would get by improving the tile, but it can have great strategic worth and give an early boost in production. You will be able to use that resource once you research the appropriate tech. If you build a city on top of stone, you will not be able to use it until you discover masonry, but once you do, it will be immediately available to that city (and others connected to your trade network).

The advantages to building a city on top of a resource are: quick access to resources (your worker won't have to use turns to improve that tile); easy defense from enemy civs; and an early production boost to that city. The disadvantage is less production in the long run, since the production from improved resources is much greater. For this reason, consider building on only strategic resources (which give production bonuses under certain conditions) in order to protect them, and other resources only early in the game when that one extra FPC bonus is going to make the most difference.

One thing I have noticed is that the AI is notorious for pillaging Oil Wells with their spies. This is one case where I would definitely try to settle on a late game resource just to protect it.

Here is Brokguitar's list of the types of the bonuses you get for settling on top of a specific resource. You do not need the required technology to gain the extra FPC bonus provided by these resources.

Commerce Resources: When Dye, Gold, Gems, Incense, Fur, Silk, Silver, Spice, and Wine are next to a river, you will receive Two Extra Commerce when you settle on top of them.

http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/7141/commercebonus2no.th.jpg (http://img516.imageshack.us/my.php?image=commercebonus2no.jpg)

Food Resources: When Bananas, Rice, Sugar, Sheep, Corn, Cows, and Pigs are on Grassland Tiles Only (no hills) you are able to produce One Extra Food when you settle on top of them.

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/3301/foodbonus8sd.th.jpg (http://img507.imageshack.us/my.php?image=foodbonus8sd.jpg)

Production Resources: When Coal, Copper, Iron, Marble, Oil, Stone, Aluminum, Horses, and Ivory are on Plains Tiles Only (not hills) you are able to produce One Extra Hammer when you settle on top of them.

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/7725/hammerbonus5ww.th.jpg (http://img507.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hammerbonus5ww.jpg)

Now if these same resources are on a Plains/Hill tile you can produce Two Extra Hammers.

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/8819/hammerbonus28at.th.jpg (http://img507.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hammerbonus28at.jpg)


Other important factors when placing a city:

Terrain will determine how a city specializes: a city with more food will grow faster, which can become a Great Person generator; a city with a lot of commerce can support your entire empire; and a city with high production is probably best used as a unit factory. Having at least one of each type is a good idea, while most of your other cities will be more generalized. Have a good look at your surrounding terrain and you'll have a good idea, even before improvements, of how your cities should be best utilized.

Jungle/Floodplain: Health value is can be a big deal when placing your cities. A city surrounded by jungles or floodplains will become unhealthy very quickly. Researching Iron Working will give your workers the ability to cut down jungles. The other advantage/disadvantage to building on a floodplain is the very rapid growth. In the early game, this can lead to unhealthiness and unhappiness very quickly. It's always great to have 2 or three floodplain tiles near your city, but settling right in the middle of a large stretch of floodplains will not only cause your cities to grow out of control, but will be very poor on production. Consider not building farms on floodplains right away if you need to control your growth. In the later game, these cities will make great GP (great people) generators.

Rivers and Fresh Water: Building on a river will not only give you extra health (+2 for a city adjacent to fresh water), but will automatically connect any cities on that river. You won't need to build roads to get that essential trade route early on. I always try to found my second city on the connecting river to my capital if I can. A resource tile directly linked to a river does not need a road built on it in order to connect it to your trade network. The only requirement is that the river somehow links directly to your trade network. Remember that for the purposes of trade Rivers = Roads. Oasis and Inland Seas also count as fresh water sources and give the +2 health bonus, though it is not specifically stated in the manual. As mentioned in the section about farms, cities built adjacent to fresh water sources also spread irrigation to all adjacent tiles, so that once Civil Service is discovered, you can chain your irrigation through cities (provided they are built on flatland and not a hill). Another benefit to rivers is the defense bonus (+25%) and you may find that some cities have rivers on three sides, almost surrounding it like a moat. This, on top of a hill can make your city nearly impenetrable. Also consider, if you are going to ride out on the offensive from within your city, your units take the same penalty for crossing that river.

Coastal Cities: There are a number of factors to consider when building a city on coastal terrain. The first is of course access to the sea and an extra trade route. A coastal city can become an economic powerhouse, especially with the Colossus wonder, which provides an extra commerce for every cities' water tiles. Building a lighthouse will also provide an extra food for every water tile within that city's borders. Though water tiles provide no production value, this can usually be balanced with worker improvements on the surrounding land tiles. Try to focus on getting production up to reasonable levels on coastal cities, because the coast and sea will take care of your commerce and food.

Strategic Positioning: You may want to build a city just to block another civ from gaining access to land you want to settle in the future. Without an Open Borders agreement, a civ cannot pass through your territory, or even enter your cultural borders. (All hail Civ IV! This was my one biggest beef with all the previous versions of the game.) A city also can be built to serve as a canal or port to pass between two seas or a sea and an ocean. This allows you to bring ships to areas others cannot; though other civs CAN pass through these cities and use them as ports if you have an Open Borders agreement with them.

Try to build towards other civilizations and block them off if you can.

Mentioned before was defensive positioning. Building on a hill will give you a 25% defensive bonus to your city, and a river gives a 25% attack penalty to units crossing it. This is very important for border cities. Here is a screenshot of a city with all the strategic elements mentioned above (yes, made in the WorldBuilder for example purposes. You'll rarely get this lucky):

http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/1866/stratposition8jg.th.jpg (http://img300.imageshack.us/my.php?image=stratposition8jg.jpg)

Founding your early cities: Distance and City Upkeep (a very brief explanation). After your first founding city, you will need to consider city maintenance, which is affected by the distance to your capital. Founding your first few cities close is a good idea, but this has to be balanced by several factors. If your cities have overlapping tiles, this will severely cripple their growth and production later in the game. Remember that Civ IV tends to favour city quality over quantity. Founding you cities just outside of your capital's city boundary will incur you only a minimal upkeep penalty. You will also want to consider the resources nearby, connecting rivers, and any strategic positions that can limit the growth of other civs. For example, if you find that your only source of iron is too far away, you will still want to grab it as soon as you can despite any heavy penalty for city maintenance. However, you should not do the same for less important resources.

How Civics and Traits Effect FPC and City Growth

Civics choices may effect the FPC of an improved tile or the way a worker produces. Many of these have been mentioned previously, but here they are again for quick reference:

Universal Suffrage: +1 hammers gained from a Town
Bureaucracy: +50% hammers, +50% gold in capital
Free Speech: +2 gold gained from a Town
Serfdom: workers 50% faster
Emancipation: +100% growth for Cottage, Hamlet, Village
State Property: +1 food from Workshop & Watermill
Environmentalism: +1 happy from Jungle & Forest, +5 health in all cities

There are Leaders that effect the financial earnings of your cities by use of their traits.

Financial leaders such as: Catherine, Elizabeth, Huayna, Mansa, Qin, Washington, and Victoria all receive a +1 Commerce bonus to all tiles already receiving 2 Commerce.

Expansive leaders are: Bismark, Cyrus, Genghis, Isabella, Julius, Peter, and Victoria. Having this trait gains a +2 health bonus to all cities.

That pretty much covers it. Feel free to post comment/suggestions/corrections or just talk about related strategies. Without the input of many of the members here, this guide would not have been half as complete as it is now.

Here are some links to some other threads that helped contribute to the info found in this guide:
Photo Guide to Terrain, Improvements and City Placement (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=138526) by Brokguitar
Worker Chop - the (preliminary) Guide (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=138682) by EridanMan

And for more on chopping, which seems to be the most popular discussion in this thread:
Which Forest tiles do you chop? - Some Guidelines (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=144564) started by TheDifficult3rd

I only briefly touched on City Maintenance, but an excellent guide exists here: The Curious Cat - City Upkeep Explained (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=138473) by Gato Loco

Finally, here are text and pdf versions of this guide available for download:
CivIV_terrain.zip contains an rtf text version of the file plus a pdf version of the detailed terrain/improvement modifier tables (because trying to translate those into plain text was a mess).
Full pdf versions are currently in the works and almost complete.

Under Resources and Improvements, you should mention that you can build a farm on Corn/Rice/Wheat even if the tile is not irrigated, but you don't get the base +1 food for the farm until you irrigate that tile.

The Hagia Sophia also adds to worker speed doesn't it?

Dusty4prez: Thank you, yes. I missed that one. It's been added.

DaviddesJ: I made that addition to resources and improvements. I thought I had mentioned that somewhere, but it seems I didn't.

Under City Placement, you should mention that if a city is built on a tile that has access to fresh water and that can be irrigated (i.e., plains, grassland, desert with floodplains, or tundra with river), then the city provides irrigation to adjacent tiles (even without Civil Service).

This doesn't seem to work. I tested it and, as you can see from the screenshot I took below, You cannot chain irrigation through a city until Civil Service is discovered. In the screenshot, the option to build a farm is greyed out, and in the roll-over it very distinctly says that it requires Civil Service in order to build it.

http://img452.imageshack.us/img452/9687/nofarmbuild2cz.th.jpg (http://img452.imageshack.us/my.php?image=nofarmbuild2cz.jpg)

This game I could build a farm on a non water tile.
I do believe it was next to an irrigated one though.
Of course without civil service.
I didn't pay attention to whether it gets any bonus.
I don't want to exploit if it is a bug.

Last game I could do it too.
I might have even had civil but I am almost positive it
wasn't next to another farm.

This is in the patch(1.09)
I will try to check on those.

Stuporstar thanks for this wonderfull documentated and detailled guide!
LeSphinx

In regards to rivers, does the city have to be adjacent to the river to get the health bonus or does the river simply have to be within the city radius?

Great guide, thanks!

In regards to rivers, does the city have to be adjacent to the river to get the health bonus or does the river simply have to be within the city radius?
Well, let's see here...

Note that when it comes to fresh water sources, they must be adjacent to your city for that city to get the health bonus, and you only get a total +2 health bonus to your city. It is not cumulative as it is with forest tiles.
Yep, adjacent only.

I'm mystified. I'm sure there have been cases when I was able to build a farm on a space without water, but next to a city that has water. But now when I test that, it doesn't work.

Maybe this was a bug that was fixed in 1.09? And I'm remembering the pre-patch behavior?

Also, I can't confirm Dave McW's comment: I started a game, and built a farm on a rice tile that did not have fresh water but that was adjacent to my capital which did have fresh water. And I got +1 food for the rice but I didn't get +1 food for the farm.

There's something weird that's causing different people to observe different things (or even the same people to observe different things in different test games), but I'm not sure what it is!

Base FPC Values for Improvements

Farm (flatlands, can only be built near rivers until irrigation; can build on resources)
Tech Required: Agriculture
FPC Value: 1F
Tech Modifier 1: Civil Service (spreads irrigation)
Tech Modifier 2: Biology (can build without irrigation) + 1F, only base 1F without irrigation
Best income: 2F (Civil Service)

Shouldn't that be: "Best income: 2F (Biology)"?

I'm mystified. I'm sure there have been cases when I was able to build a farm on a space without water, but next to a city that has water. But now when I test that, it doesn't work.

Maybe this was a bug that was fixed in 1.09? And I'm remembering the pre-patch behavior?

I'm playing with the 1.09 patch, and cities *still* spread water - provided it is not built on a hill. I don't know if cities on hills were spreading water as well in 1.0 - which would indeed be a bug they've fixed.

The number of hammers you get from chopping will vary. The biggest factor is game speed. A Quick game will average you about 20 hammers per chop, at Standard speed you will average about 30, and at Epic you will average about 45. Another factor is distance from your city; you will get less hammers the further away you chop. But what has the greatest effect on the number of hammers is production bonuses in your cities. Forges, factories, etc. and production increasing civics will all increase the amount of hammers you get by the percentage bonus you get for that city's production. The Industrious trait will also increase the number of hammers you get from chopping while building a wonder, because your wonder production is +50%. Having the right build materials for wonders (such as quarried marble to build the Oracle) will also double the amount of hammers you get from a chop while building it. Having the right building material for a wonder, plus any other production bonuses due to certain buildings and civics, will accumulate the number of hammers you get. I've heard it's possible to get 90 hammers from a single chop!

I believe the biggest factor is not speed, but difficulty level. I've gained more than 100 hammers (101 just recently) from a single chop playing chieftain.

Forests (and jungles) will grow only on UNIMPROVED tiles as long as there is a forested square nearby. This includes roads as a barrier for forest growth. The chance of regrowth being calculated by the number of adjacent forest/jungle tiles is still up for debate, but it seems pretty random. There is currently no way to plant forests later in the game as there was in Civ III.

This is definitely not true. I've seen a forest graw a tile with road with my own eyes - not just the before-after difference, but the whole animated growing process.

[SIZE="5"]The following buildings give health or happiness bonuses:

Granary: (Pottery)
stores 50% of food after growth
60H
+1 health from Corn, Rice, Wheat

I believe the granary doesn't have that effect immediately after it's built, but needs to *filled* first. For example, if our granary has been finished last turn, and in this turn the city population grows, then the granary will not be half-full, but empty. However it starts to fill up, and when the city population grows *again*, it will remain half-full then.

Can anyone varify this?

I'm playing with the 1.09 patch, and cities *still* spread water - provided it is not built on a hill. I don't know if cities on hills were spreading water as well in 1.0 - which would indeed be a bug they've fixed.

Can you post a screenshot? Article #10 in this thread shows that it's clearly not working in all cases.

Can you post a screenshot? Article #10 in this thread shows that it's clearly not working in all cases.

That screenshot must be made in a game where Civil Service has not be researched yet. Cities on flatlands carry irrigation the same way farms do - only when Civil Service is available.

Screenshot from my game:

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/1139/civ4screenshot00001vq.jpg

As you can see, the worker can build a farm where he is standing, which is only linked to fresh water via the city Samaria. Note also that a farm has already been built north east of the city, which was also only possible because the city carries on fresh water.

The fact that my game version is 1.09 is not visible in the screenshot - you have to take my word for it. :)

That screenshot must be made in a game where Civil Service has not be researched yet. Cities on flatlands carry irrigation the same way farms do - only when Civil Service is available.

This is where the confusion is Blkbird. The claim is that people are seeing cities spread irrigation without civil service. That last screenshot I took was without civil service, which was the point to show that the irrigation does not spread without it, at least not in any games I've played.

Shouldn't that be: "Best income: 2F (Biology)"?

Yes, thank you, I've changed that to "Best income: 2F (Biology with irrigation)".

I believe the biggest factor is not speed, but difficulty level. I've gained more than 100 hammers (101 just recently) from a single chop playing chieftain.

Actually I've found that game difficulty has little bearing on the number of hammers you get from a chop; HOWEVER you do get bonuses for production in your cities on the low difficulty levels and this is what may be modifying the number of hammers you get. I've heard it's possible to get over 100 hammers on a Diety level game as well under the right conditions. I've changed my wording to "the most consistent factor is game speed" since a normal game's base hammer bonus is always 30 and epic is 45 and so on. Game difficulty does not change this by itself. I've played on all difficulty levels just to test this out, and the base bonus doesn't change at all.

This is definitely not true. I've seen a forest graw a tile with road with my own eyes - not just the before-after difference, but the whole animated growing process.

I'll take your word on that. It's been generally assumed (by many people) that they don't grow on roads just because no one has ever mentioned seeing it happen in those discussions before. I've simply removed the reference to them not growing on roads for now. It makes sense that they could though, because a road does not destroy a forest when it is built like other improvements do.

I believe the granary doesn't have that effect immediately after it's built, but needs to *filled* first. For example, if our granary has been finished last turn, and in this turn the city population grows, then the granary will not be half-full, but empty. However it starts to fill up, and when the city population grows *again*, it will remain half-full then.

Can anyone varify this?

I just took the info for that one directly out of the Civilopedia. I haven't varified it, but what you say makes sense.

This is where the confusion is Blkbird. The claim is that people are seeing cities spread irrigation without civil service.

Well *that* needs a screenshot proof, me thinks. I rather believe someone overlooked a fresh water source, like a "bending river" touching the tile.

I'll take your word on that. It's been generally assumed (by many people) that they don't grow on roads just because no one has ever mentioned seeing it happen in those discussions before. I've simply removed the reference to them not growing on roads for now. It makes sense that they could though, because a road does not destroy a forest when it is built like other improvements do.

Actually I've disputed the myth before in an earlier discussion:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3263314&postcount=44

I've now verified this. I set the forest growth to an insane percentage just to test it and found that they do indeed grow over roads. Thanks for pointing that out Blkbird! :)

Well, I can't reproduce it, so I'll just retract my claim that cities can spread irrigation without Civil Service. If I discover any actual evidence for that, then I'll post it here. Sorry for the mistaken claim.

One more remark regarding forest chopping: You can actually start chopping "in advance", e. g. before the city has been founded. If after you've started but before you've finished chopping, a city is founded (or acquired) by you which would deserve the hammers due to a close distance, the hammers will go to your new city, and the amount of hammers will also be adjusted as if the chopping had started after the city's founding.

Of course, it's because the game calculates how many hammers you get on the turn you finish chopping. If you start chopping while building, and then switch to a wonder before you finish chopping, and have double wonder production, then you get double the hammers from the chop even if you started the chop before starting the wonder. It's the same reason; the bonus is calculated at the end of the chop. That "30 hammers for _______" in the rollover before you start is just an estimate based on the calculations for that turn. It can always end up being different if the conditions change.

This is an outstanding piece of work Stuporstar, and will no doubt be among the first references included when the Civ4 War Academy opens its doors. Thanks for your hard work.

Jungle/Floodplain: Health value is can be a big deal when placing your cities. A city surrounded by jungles or floodplains will become unhealthy very quickly. Researching Iron Working will give your workers the ability to cut down jungles. The other advantage/disadvantage to building on a floodplain is the very rapid growth. In the early game, this can lead to unhealthiness and unhappiness very quickly. It's always great to have 2 or three floodplain tiles near your city, but settling right in the middle of a large stretch of floodplains will not only cause your cities to grow out of control, but will be very poor on production. Consider not building farms on floodplains right away if you need to control your growth. In the later game, these cities will make great GP (great people) generators.

In my previous game I had a couple of cities with 4-5 flood plains each. I irrigated them all and set the city to maximize food production. I went into slavery and the cities became production centers. I believe the unhappiness is cumulative but only in the length of time the 1 citizen stays unhappy, i.e. if you rush two things one citizen is unhappy for 2x whatever turns, 2 are not unhappy for x turns. Luckily I had a few hills to mine so once I left slavery the city wasn't too poor at hammers.

I've now verified this. I set the forest growth to an insane percentage just to test it and found that they do indeed grow over roads. Thanks for pointing that out Blkbird! :)

I've been asked by someone if the road is destroyed when a forest grows on the tile. The answer is of course no, but I can see why it's not obvious. Maybe you want to add this information to the guide.

This article is absolutely amazing. Thank you so much!

I was trying to chop-rush a library for a newly captured city, and the chopping ended at the same time as the resistance (both at the end of the same turn). To my complete shock, the hammers were not added to the city's production, they were done - to nowhere! So I know now, never finish chopping before the resistance ends. I retried with chopping one turn later (still starting during the resistance), and everything was fine then.

You may want to add this particular info to the guide.

Speaking of resistance, there is another trick I've learned: Specify what you want to build in a city *before* the resistance ends, don't wait for the game to prompt you. That way, in the turn the resistance ends, it will start producing already. You get one turn of production more for that city.

I was trying to chop-rush a library for a newly captured city, and the chopping ended at the same time as the resistance (both at the end of the same turn). To my complete shock, the hammers were not added to the city's production, they were done - to nowhere! So I know now, never finish chopping before the resistance ends. I retried with chopping one turn later (still starting during the resistance), and everything was fine then.

Chopping never happens at the end of a turn: it happens during the turn, when your workers perform their action. If you have ordered all of your other units to move, and you click the end-turn button, then the remaining workers with pending orders do their actions at that time, but this is before anything else.

I believe the granary doesn't have that effect immediately after it's built, but needs to *filled* first. For example, if our granary has been finished last turn, and in this turn the city population grows, then the granary will not be half-full, but empty. However it starts to fill up, and when the city population grows *again*, it will remain half-full then.

Can anyone varify this?

From what I've read elsewhere, when a granary is completed, it starts accumulating half of the food produced from that point in time, until the first population growth, and that much is rolled over. So if you complete the granery right after a growth, after the next growth it will retain 50%. If you complete it halfway through a growth, after the first growth the granary will just rollover 25%. If you complete it just before a growth, nothing will rollover (or very little). After that first growth, then the granary will always rollover 50% of the food in future growths, as expected.

This makes it less critical to get the granary finished before the city grows, so there is less need for micromanagement.

Keith

From what I've read elsewhere, when a granary is completed, it starts accumulating half of the food produced from that point in time, until the first population growth, and that much is rolled over. So if you complete the granery right after a growth, after the next growth it will retain 50%. If you complete it halfway through a growth, after the first growth the granary will just rollover 25%. If you complete it just before a growth, nothing will rollover (or very little). After that first growth, then the granary will always rollover 50% of the food in future growths, as expected.

This makes it less critical to get the granary finished before the city grows, so there is less need for micromanagement.

Yes, meanwhile I can confirm this is what I've been experiencing in my game. Right after the completion of the granary, every food produced is stored in half, regardless when the next growth will be happening.

Great article. One thing seems to be missing, I don't see the possible terrain types for Gems listed in the "Resources and Terrain Types". Am I just not seeing them, or are they missing?

Keith

Thanks for pointing that out Keith, I completely missed them. Gems have now been added to the list.

Excellent article, Stuporstar! You (with imput from others) have answered a lot of my questions, and I'm sure my management skills will improve. Looking forward to putting this useful info into action.

Thank you very much for this guide. It helps me a lot.

I have some questions about resources and their improvements.

1.
Gold------1C---------- -1P +6C +1 Happiness
Gems-----1C---------- -1P +7C +1 Happiness

Should it not be:
Gold +7C
Gems +6C

2.
Bananas---1F---------3F +2 Health

Do bananas really provide +2 Health??

3.
Whales---1F-------------1P 2C +1 Happiness

I guess the whaling boats still provide +1F


It took me a while to figure out how farms interact with resources.
Probably it could be explained like this:

Farms unlock fresh water / irrigation "resource" providing +1F. Biology also gives +1F. Farms also unlock wheat, corn and rice resources.
So e.g. grassland + rice + farm = 2F + 2F + 0F = 4F.
With irrigation on that tile: 2F + 2F + 1F = 5F
With Biology tech: 2F + 2F + 1F = 5F
With Biology tech AND irrigation: 2F + 2F + 2F = 6F

Am I correct?

Best regards

Vladas

Hi Vladas, to answer your questions:

1. The values for gold and gems given are correct. It's explained below the chart that when mined they actually reduce the normal production value from a mine so it is -1P. That is -1P from the +2P you get from a mine, so what you will actually see on the tile is an added 1P. I used the values that would modify the mine value in the chart so you have to do the math resource+mine in that chart. One other thing I didn't do was add the base resource bonus to those particular values, which is why I wrote +6C for gold rather than a total of 7C. I guess I should include the total values as well just because it can get confusing that way.

2. +2 health is incorrect and I think that mistake came from the manual. I thought I caught all those early corrections, but I guess I missed that one. It'll be fixed in the guide now.

3. Yes that +1F is not taken away from whaling boats. I thought this would be pretty obvious since I didn't mention it being taken away, but I'll go ahead and include the total value just to be extra clear.

4. Irrigation does not provide +1F, the farm does. Biology adds +1F only to irrigated farms. Your math is correct though.

1. The values for gold and gems given are correct.

I don't think so. Gems should be 6C and Gold should be 7C. You have the reverse.

Hello,

Thank you for clarifications.



One other thing I didn't do was add the base resource bonus to those particular values, which is why I wrote +6C for gold rather than a total of 7C. I guess I should include the total values as well just because it can get confusing that way.


My point is that the values of gold and gems should be reversed. Gold +7C and gems +6C (or without the base bonus: gold +6C, gems +5C).


3. Yes that +1F is not taken away from whaling boats. I thought this would be pretty obvious since I didn't mention it being taken away, but I'll go ahead and include the total value just to be extra clear.


You have stated earlier:
"I've recalcuated the values so that the base bonus is calculated into the improved value and reflect what you will actually get added to the base terrain."
In the instance of whaling boats it looks like you stated improved value without the base bonus. It might be misleading.


4. Irrigation does not provide +1F, the farm does. Biology adds +1F only to irrigated farms. Your math is correct though.

If the farm is on bonus resources without irrigation, it provides no food by itself, just the resource value. Then irrigation adds +1F, and Biology again +1F. That was confusing me. I hope I understand it correctly now.

Best regards,

Vladas

My point is that the values of gold and gems should be reversed. Gold +7C and gems +6C (or without the base bonus: gold +6C, gems +5C).

Ah, I see what you mean now. You are quite correct.

You have stated earlier:
"I've recalcuated the values so that the base bonus is calculated into the improved value and reflect what you will actually get added to the base terrain."
In the instance of whaling boats (and also it looks like you stated improved value without the base bonus. It might be misleading.

When you put it that way I can see how what I did is so confusing. I should probably change all of them so they follow the same standards.

If the farm is on bonus resources without irrigation, it provides no food by itself, just the resource value. Then irrigation adds +1F, and Biology again +1F. That was confusing me. I hope I understand it correctly now.

I had forgotten completely about that effect, and didn't quite get what you meant when you first asked the question. I'll have to mention how it works that way in the guide.

Thanks for the clarifications to your questions Vladas. I get what you mean now, and have made all the necessary corrections

I should probably change all of them so they follow the same standards.

That would be the best way.

And thanks again for the great guide, I am reading it every day
:goodjob:

Vladas

Hello Stuporstar, the guide is looking great :goodjob:

Resources and Terrain Types:

These are the types of terrain on which certain types of resources are randomly generated (as derived from the CIV4BonusInfos.xml). The base terrain types are highlighted in bold text. In some cases terrain features are optional and in other cases they are required. It may be possible for resources to be generated on other terrain types not listed, but this is something I cannot verify, so I am going to stick to the lists as defined inside the original xml file.

Aluminum: Hills - Plains, Desert, Tundra
Coal: Hills - Grassland, Plains
Copper, Iron: Hills or Flatlands - Grassland, Plains, Desert, Tundra, Snow (no river)
Marble: Hills or Flatlands - Plains, Tundra, Snow (no river)
Stone: Hills or Flatlands - Plains, Desert (no river)
Uranium: Hills or Flatlands - Grassland, Plains, Desert, Tundra, Snow, Jungles (optional) (no river)
Oil: Flatlands: Desert, Tundra, Snow, Ocean (no river)
Horses: Flatlands - Grass, Plains, Tundra (no river)

Clam, Crab, Fish: Coast (Fish also on Ocean)
Corn: Flatlands - Grassland (no river)
Cow: Flatlands - Grassland, Plains (no river)
Wheat: Flatlands - Plains (no river)
Rice: Flatlands - Grassland, Jungle (optional) (no river)
Pig: Hills or Flatlands - Grassland, Jungle (optional) (no river)
Sheep: Hills or Flatlands - Grassland, Plains (no river)
Deer: Hills or Flatlands - Tundra, Forest (optional)

Banana, Dye, Sugar: Flatlands - Grassland (only with Jungle)
Spices: Flatlands - Plains, Grassland (only with Forest or Jungle)
Silk: Flatlands - Plains, Grassland (both only with Forest)
Ivory: Flatlands - Plains, Grassland (only with Jungle)
Incense: Flatlands - Desert
Wine: Flatland or Hills - Plains
Fur: Flatlands or Hills - Tundra, Snow, Forest (optional)
Gems: Flatlands or Hills - Grassland (only with Jungle)
Gold: Hills - Plains, Desert
Silver: Hills - Tundra, Snow
Whales: Ocean

* no river indicates that the <bNoRiverSide> tag is set to 1 in the xml file. I can only assume this means the bonus is not supposed to generate next to a river. This possible effect is currently unconfirmed.

I've seen Oil appear in plains and in grassland/jungle

Also Uranium in grassland/forest and by a river

Might still have a game save, maybe.

I've seen Oil appear in plains and in grassland/jungle

Also Uranium in grassland/forest and by a river

Might still have a game save, maybe.

Confirm. Here are screenshots from a savegame of mine. (Please note this is an actually generated and unedit map, it's opened in the WorldBuilder only because oil and uranium haven't been revealed yet - victory has already been achieved though.)

Oil in Jungle:

http://img491.imageshack.us/img491/5175/oiljungle2wu.jpg

Uranium in Forest:

http://img491.imageshack.us/img491/5353/uraniumforest8dr.jpg

From Stuporstar's Guide

< Your workers can improve any tiles that are within these cultural borders (only roads/railroads can be built outside). The citizens within your city can only work within your city boundary. In the beginning you will only have a 9 square boundary. As culture in your city develops, these borders will expand. It takes 10 culture points for the first expansion. Known as the 'fat cross' once it expands to 21 squares (the 21st being the city itself, which is automatically worked), your citizens will only be able to work these 21 squares surrounding your city, even though your cultural borders will continue to expand well beyond that. >

First, thank you for this very helpfull guide.

Second, My question is: why would workers improve tiles wich are outside of city boundaries, wich citizens cannot work on?

Third Continue the good work, and please anxwer me as i'm going nuts on trying to figure that one out.

Lukas

Second, My question is: why would workers improve tiles wich are outside of city boundaries, wich citizens cannot work on?

That's simple. For example, you've just researched Iron Working, which reveals all the Iron on your map. As it happens, the only Iron you can see is right outside of your capital's city boudaries, but within its culture border. Now you naturally want to build a Mine on the Iron and Roads to connect it to your capital. Since even if you can't work on that tile, you still get the Iron resource and can start to train Swordsman now.

Every resource brings extra benefits besides tile improvement. Strategic resources enable or accelerate the construction of certain buildings and the training of certain units, luxury resources give you Happiness, food resources give you Health. For all that you want to improve and connect resources within your culture borders even if your cities can't work on it.

Based on the info from this thread, I created an Excel chart for total yield of each type that might be useful for strategizing (maximizing your city's yield based on the nearby terrain)
It probably isn't news to anyone, but I thought I'd post it nonetheless, in case someone is interested. (hopefully the formatting will work out right)
I intend to use it to roughly calculate the 20-tile yield potential around a settlement site and mark out how to optimize the site.


Terrain Base F P C Yield Notes
Peak 0 0 0 0 Impassible
Desert/Snow 0 0 0 0
Tundra +1 0 0 +1
Sea +1 0 +1 +2
Coast +1 0 +2 +3
Inland Coast +2 0 +2 +4 Fresh Water
Grasslands +2 0 0 +2
Plains +1 +1 0 +2

Terrain Features F P C Yield Notes
Ice 0 0 0 0 Impassible
Jungle -1 0 0 -1 2mp; +50% Defense, -0.25 Health
Flat 0 0 0 0
Forest 0 +1 0 +1 2mp; +50% Defense, +0.4 Health
Hill -1 +1 0 0 2mp; +25% Defense
Floodplains +3 0 0 +3 -0.4 Health
Oasis +3 0 +2 +5 2mp; +2 Health; Fresh Water
Rivers 0 0 +1 +1 +25% Defense; Fresh Water

Settlements F P C Yield Notes
Basic Value +2 +1 +1 +4
on Plain/Hill 0 +1 0 +1
next to River 0 0 0 0 +2 Health
on Commerce Resource 0 0 +1 +1 Need River
on Food Resource +1 0 0 +1 Need Grasslands/Flat
on Production Resourc 0 +1 0 +1 Need Plains/Flat
on Production Resourc 0 +2 0 +2 Need Plains/Hill

Improvements F P C Yield Notes
Farm +1 0 0 +1 Need Fresh Water
+Biology (Non-irrigat 0 0 0 0 Need Biology, no Fresh Water
+Biology (Irrigated) +1 0 0 +1 Need Biology + Fresh Water
Mine 0 +2 0 +2 Need Mining + Hill
+Railroad 0 +1 0 +1
Cottage 0 0 +1 +1 Need Pottery
Hamlet 0 0 +2 +2 10 turn from Cottage
Village 0 0 +3 +3 20 turn from Hamlet
Town 0 0 +4 +4 40 turn from Village
+Printing Press 0 0 +1 +1 Village and Town only
+Free Speech 0 0 +2 +2 Town only
+Unversal Sufferage 0 +1 0 +1 Town only
Workshop -1 +1 0 0 Need Metal Casting
+Guilds 0 +1 0 +1
+Chemistry 0 +1 0 +1
+State Property +1 0 0 +1
Windmill +1 0 +1 +2 Need Machinery
+Replaceable Parts 0 +1 0 +1
+Electricity 0 0 +1 +1
Watermill 0 +1 0 +1 Need Machinery + River
+Replaceable Parts 0 +1 0 +1
+Electricity 0 0 +2 +2
+State Property +1 0 0 +1
Lumbermill 0 +1 0 +1 Need Replaceable Parts + Forest
+Railroad 0 +1 0 +1

Resources F P C Yield Notes
Food (Base) +1 0 0 +1 Base unworked resource bonus
Production (Base) 0 +1 0 +1 Base unworked resource bonus
Commerce (Base) 0 0 +1 +1 Base unworked resource bonus
Corn +2 0 0 +2 +1 Health, Food Base, Need Farm
Wheat +2 0 0 +2 +1 Health, Food Base, Need Farm
Rice +1 0 0 +1 +1 Health, Food Base, Need Farm
Horse 0 +2 +1 +3 Production Base, Need Animal Husbandry + Pasture
Cow +1 +2 0 +3 +1 Health, Food Base, Need Pasture
Pig +3 0 0 +3 +1 Health, Food Base, Need Pasture
Sheep +2 0 +1 +3 +1 Health, Food Base, Need Pasture
Deer +2 0 0 +2 +1 Health, Food Base, Need Camp
Furs 0 0 +3 +3 +1 Health until Plastics, Commerce Base, Need Camp
Ivory 0 +1 +1 +2 +1 Health until Industrialism, Production Base, Need Camp
Stone 0 +2 0 +2 Production Base, Need Quarry
Marble 0 +1 +2 +3 Production Base, Need Quarry
Silver 0 -1 +4 +3 +1 Happiness, Commerce Base, Need Mine
Gems 0 -1 +5 +4 +1 Happiness, Commerce Base, Need Mine
Gold 0 -1 +6 +5 +1 Happiness, Commerce Base, Need Mine
Copper 0 +1 0 +1 Production Base, Need Bronze Working + Mine
Iron 0 +1 0 +1 Production Base, Need Iron Working + Mine
Coal 0 +1 0 +1 Production Base, Need Steam Power + Mine
Aluminum 0 +1 +1 +2 Production Base, Need Industrialism + Mine
Uranium 0 0 +3 +3 Need Physics + Mine
Bananas +2 0 0 +2 +1 Health, Food Base, Need Plantation
Dye 0 0 +4 +4 +1 Happiness, Commerce Base, Need Plantation
Incense 0 0 +5 +5 +1 Happiness, Commerce Base, Need Plantation
Silk 0 0 +3 +3 +1 Happiness, Commerce Base, Need Plantation
Spices +1 0 +2 +3 +1 Happiness, Commerce Base, Need Plantation
Sugar +1 0 +1 +2 +1 Happiness, Food Base, Need Plantation
Wine +1 0 +2 +3 +1 Happiness, Commerce Base, Need Winery
Oil 0 +2 +1 +3 Production Base, Need Well
Fish +3 0 0 +3 +1 Health, Food Base, Need Fishing Net
Clam +2 0 0 +2 +1 Health, Food Base, Need Fishing Net
Crab +2 0 0 +2 +1 Health, Food Base, Need Fishing Net
Whales 0 +1 +2 +3 +1 Happiness until Combustion, Food Base, Need Whaling Ship

Buildings Notes
Granary +1 Health from Corn, Rice, Wheat
Harbor +1 Health from Clam, Crab, Fish
Market +1 Happiness from Fur, Ivory, Silk, Whale
Grocer +1 Health from Banana, Spices, Sugar, Wine
Theatre +1 Happiness from Dye
Supermarket +1 Health from Cow, Deer, Sheep, Pig
Lighthouse +1 Food for all water tiles
The Colossus +1 Commerce for all water tiles, until Astronomy

Sample Combos F P C Yield Notes
Food - Corn/Wheat +8 0 +1 +9 +1.6 Health, Need Floodplains/River + Farm + Granary + Biology
Food - Corn/Wheat +7 0 +1 +8 +2 Health, Need Grasslands/Flat/River + Farm + Granary + Biology
Food - Pig +6 0 +1 +7 +2 Health, Need Grasslands/Flat/River + Pasture + Supermarket
Food - Fish +6 0 +2 +8 +2 Health, Need Inland Coast + Fishing Net + Lighthouse + Harbor
Food - Crab/Clam +5 0 +2 +7 +2 Health, Need Inland Coast + Fishing Net + Lighthouse + Harbor
Food +5 0 +1 +6 -0.4 Health, Need Floodplains/River + Farm + Biology
Food +4 0 +1 +5 Need Grasslands/Flat/River + Farm + Biology
Food +3 0 +2 +5 Need Inland Coast + Lighthouse
Commerce - Town +1 +2 +8 +11 Need Plains/Flat/River + Printing Press, Free Speech, Universal Suff.
Commerce - Town +2 +1 +8 +11 Need Grasslands/Flat/River + Printing Press, Free Speech, Univ. Suff.
Commerce - Gold 0 +4 +7 +11 +1 Happiness, Need Plains/Hills/River + Mines + Railroad
Commerce - Gems 0 +4 +6 +10 +1 Happiness, Need Plains/Hills/River + Mines + Railroad
Production - Aluminum 0 +7 +2 +9 Need Plains/Hills/River + Mines + Railroad
Production - Coal/Iro 0 +6 +1 +7 Need Plains/Hills/River + Mines + Railroad
Production - Lumbermi 0 +5 +1 +6 Need Plains/Hills/River/Forest + Railroad
Production - Mine 0 +5 +1 +6 Need Plains/Hills/River + Mines + Railroad

I intend to use it to roughly calculate the 20-tile yield potential around a settlement site and mark out how to optimize the site.

Definining "yield" as the equally weighted sum of food, production, and commerce, isn't very useful imho. Generally, food is worth more than production, and production is worth more than commerce.

Does this apply to food as well, like a city that has 2 fish nets being worked by citizens, and then a third fish ressource appears outside the city radius, inside the culture radius. Would there be any benefit to sending a work boat?
Or more simply, is there any reason to putting a farm, regular with no specific ressource, outside of city radius? Or mining a hill, again outside city radius, that has no ressources?

TTFN

Does this apply to food as well, like a city that has 2 fish nets being worked by citizens, and then a third fish ressource appears outside the city radius, inside the culture radius. Would there be any benefit to sending a work boat?

Yes, you can trade the extra food resource to another civilization.

Or more simply, is there any reason to putting a farm, regular with no specific ressource, outside of city radius? Or mining a hill, again outside city radius, that has no ressources?

Mostly no, unless you build a city to work that tile at a future time. When you build a mine on a tile with no resource, there's a small chance of discovering a resource, which could be useful. But the probability seems to be quite small, so I wouldn't suggest you do it just for that reason.

Great thread!

I never realized that if one city mines, say, Gems, that all others connected to the trade network realize the benefit.

Which brings up the question: Is there any reason to mine more than one, say, Gems? If you only have one and you trade it, do you loose the benefit?

Definining "yield" as the equally weighted sum of food, production, and commerce, isn't very useful imho. Generally, food is worth more than production, and production is worth more than commerce.

I'll have to take your word for it... I'm very amateur-hobbyist when it comes to Civ4, so I haven't got a clue on what would make sense for experienced stategists.
Maybe I'll throw in a multiplier for food and production? 2, 1.5, 1 yield-adjustment for FPC?

I was thinking that maxing out at 20 population per city (to fill up all the immediate plots) would be ideal, but maybe not.

Does this apply to food as well, like a city that has 2 fish nets being worked by citizens, and then a third fish ressource appears outside the city radius, inside the culture radius. Would there be any benefit to sending a work boat?

As I've already said before, all Food resources gives you Health. So for that reason you want to improve them even if you can't work on it. Plus you can trade extra Food to other nations.

If you play a low difficulty level, Health is usually not an issue. If you go higher however, it will matter a lot.

Or more simply, is there any reason to putting a farm, regular with no specific ressource, outside of city radius? Or mining a hill, again outside city radius, that has no ressources?

Regarding Farm, because they carry Irrigation once you've researched Civil Service, you will most likely want to build a chain of Farms outside your cities' working area to bring fresh water to some of your cities' working tiles. As of Mine, I don't see any reason to build them outside of your cities' working areas - the chance of discoverying something is really too small - it's not worth that trouble.

I'll have to take your word for it... I'm very amateur-hobbyist when it comes to Civ4, so I haven't got a clue on what would make sense for experienced stategists.
Maybe I'll throw in a multiplier for food and production? 2, 1.5, 1 yield-adjustment for FPC?

As a ballpark figure, I would suggest a 3:2:1 ratio of values for food, production, and commerce, respectively. But it is going to vary a lot, depending on the situation and what stage of the game you are in.

As a ballpark figure, I would suggest a 3:2:1 ratio of values for food, production, and commerce, respectively. But it is going to vary a lot, depending on the situation and what stage of the game you are in.

That's way too extreme in my opinion. Food might be that important in the early stage, but it cannot seriously be like 3:2:1 any more after, say, 1 AD.

Also, if you're playing a non-aggressive game, then commerce could be equally or even more important than production since your research depends on money.

That's way too extreme in my opinion. Food might be that important in the early stage, but it cannot seriously be like 3:2:1 any more after, say, 1 AD.

Yes, it can. One way of looking at it is that 2 food often gets you 1 specialist (maybe 3 food, if unhealthy), and the 1 specialist can generate up to 6 commerce (in Representation) plus 3 GPP (and 1 GPP is often worth at least as much as 1 commerce).

Another way of looking at it is that 1 extra food lets you replace a farm with a cottage, which gets you 3-5 commerce once the cottage grows a bit.

I think 3:1 for food:commerce is actually pretty conservative.

Also, if you're playing a non-aggressive game, then commerce could be equally or even more important than production since your research depends on money.

Sure, and you're going to control that by choosing commerce-oriented improvements vs production-oriented improvements. And those tend to trade off in approximately the 2:1 ratio (i.e., with the same number of citizens working improved tiles, you can typically generate either X hammers or 2X commerce, although this does fluctuate over the course of the game). No planning tool can tell you which of these to emphasize in a particular game.

(This is why the Kremlin is so overpowered, because, with it, it's much more efficient to do everything via cash-rush rather than via production, and you get more flexibility too. And that, in turn, tends to reward cottage-heavy strategies, because you're aiming for Universal Suffrage and so you want lots of towns. But that's a whole separate thread.)

I've seen Oil appear in plains and in grassland/jungle

Also Uranium in grassland/forest and by a river

What I have in the guide is only what I parsed from the xml file. I've seen some of those "no river" resources adjacent to a river in some of my games too, so the purpose of that tag in the game eludes me. I'm going to re-check the xml since the patch. There's a few other things I need to update as well. It seems they've changed the forest health bonus to 0.5, among other things.

Later though...I need sleep right now.

Thanks to help from u guys:goodjob: , I just completed (and won:) ) my first civ4 game.:king: : .
Of course, not all aspects of the game are yet clear to me, especialy the wise use of Great People, and Religion management, but at least I know more where to put my efforts on the terrain.
I sure will have to come back to this thread later when I need more rafined skills with terrain, ressources and improvements.
Keep up the good work guys!

While I'm grateful for the compilation of existing knowledge on terrain, I was a bit disappointed to find no analysis (or strategy guide) for how to improve the tiles.

A large city controls 20 tiles. If the 20 tiles are all plains, what's the best ratio of cottages to farms?

@Stuporstar: Here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=3497491#post3497491) is a hint about Forest chopping you may want to add to your guide.

I found some things that could be changed on your guide.


Civilizations: India - Unique Unit, Fast Worker - movement 3 instead of 2
This doesn't effect the speed that it works, only the speed that it moves. You didn't say it wrong (it does "increase worker speed") but it implies that it increases it's working speed. A clarifcation would be nice.

Production Resources: When Coal, Copper, Iron, Marble, Oil, Stone, Aluminum, Horses, and Ivory are on Plains Tiles Only (not hills) you are able to produce One Extra Hammer when you settle on top of them.
This also works with grassland/hills and desert/hills. It's better than plains because you get the defense bonus, too.

Environmentalism: +1 happy from Jungle & Forest, +5 health in all cities
It is currently +6. I think the patch may have changed it.



The rest is accurate and helpful. I wish I had this when I was starting Civ 4. :)

Thanks.

Non-surplus food (stagnant growth) is normally worth 1.5 hammers, which is the cost of switching from a grassland hill to a grassland farm.


Surplus food is worth (C/G), where C is the value of a new citizen and G is the food needed to grow.

C is affected by available tiles, tile improvements, specialist jobs available, health, and happiness. If the game is going to end soon, C is less valuable.

G is affected by city size and the presence of a granary.

Just a small note, don't forges give a +1 happiness bonus with gems, gold and silver? It should probably be mentioned in the section listing additional bonuses from resources.

Thankyou for this great article. It is so in-depth. Thankyou also to everyone who has been adding comments. I normally just go for a food-hammer 1:1 ratio in most cities and then have a few massive commerce coastal cities with workshops around em to give a reasonable hammer supply. This article is really helping me to expand quicker and get a lot of GP coming out. City placement really is such an important part of the game. You can have the best tech and military stratagies but it will go down the toilet if you have a poorly place city.

I believe that you are incorrect concerning the availability of irrigating tundra. I have, iirc, irrigated tundra squares that are next to lakes. Thus, it would be the availability of any adjacent fresh water that allows tundra/farms. I have not tried to build cottages, so I don't know about those.

Wow, that's great info for a newbie like me. I've been playing the game like CIV2 for a week now:crazyeye:

This is great info.:)

One big error I found: my tests show founding a city on a river commerce tile adds ONE commerce, not two. My guess is that you tested this using a Financial civ, which gets an additional bonus coin because the tile has two commerce.

Also Forges should be added for the extra happy on gold/silver/gems, as noted above. And cathedrals for incense (which stacks! a city with four catherdals gets +5 happy from incense).

Many thanks :drool:. This is the most comprehensive and slick strategy article I have seen so far on CIV-IV. This is of the same guality as the excellent and well read Academy articles on CIV-III. Well Done.

Cottages: Cottages grow to .....
.... Normally you can see a little hut icon on the tile that is being worked, but with improvements those icons dissapear, so if your cottages aren't growing, you may need to check which tiles are being worked in your city screen.

Improvements animate to show your citizens are working them. But it's still hard to see without a graphics mod.

Workers

As this is a comprehensive guide and aimed all newbies, it might be worth mentioning that if the worker has to leave a tile part way through the work the worker turns invested are not lost. Say a workler spends one turn moving to and building a road on flatland but a Barb approaches and the worker has to run away then when it comes back the road will be completed in 1 more turn not 2. This is useful for when you are waiting for an important tech say agriculture (farms) but already have mining but don't need any mines.

Say a workler spends one turn moving to and building a road on flatland but a Barb approaches and the worker has to run away then when it comes back the road will be completed in 1 more turn not 2. This is useful for when you are waiting for an important tech say agriculture (farms) but already have mining but don't need any mines.

Or sometimes you're 2 spaces away from the space you want to improve next, so you can move 1 space and improve the intervening space for one turn, then cancel that and move to the 2nd space and improve it. You get one extra turn of work on the intermediate space, and it doesn't cost you anything (because if you move 2 spaces on the first turn, that ends your turn).

whats glaringly missing is what makes a body of water a fresh water lake or not. simply, a lake has less than 10 contiguous coast and/or ocean tiles. this is important because you cannot build sea-related buildings like harbor if your city is by a lake. and you're not likely to find resources in lakes. furthermore, the body of water must be at 20 tiles big before you can build any type of naval units, including workboats.

This is a great article, Stuporstar. Thanks for sharing!

The biggest take I've gotten from this, which should been obvious is that a city has a maximum of 21 tiles its population can work on in its fat cross. The question I have is this: assuming you've improved all the other tiles already that contain special resources that are outside the fat crosses of all cities and build the appropriate improvements on the tiles within these fat crosses based on the terrain yield and your strategy, and finally assuming there are already connecting roads all over the place (pre-railroad), is it still okay to allow your workers to improve the other tiles, building cottages and mines (or mills) within your cultural boundaries? Or is it better to keep your workers idle?

In my last few games, I've just been giving workers order after order to build improvements that seem to never get used. Any advice on how you experts do it will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks for the guide. :)

I could be mistaken, but I think you might have the food and production calculations on grassland backwards for windmills. I think it's 2F, 1P, 1C with machinery, 3F, 1F for replaceable parts, 2F, 1P for electicity only, and 3F, 1P for replace parts + electricity.

Probably the most genuinely useful guide I have found in the forums. Very readable. I got a lot of very neat tips from it (and from some of the later posts, Davides just above for example). There is hardly any needless and boring maths, which is all to prevalent in other articles. Good job!

Great!!!! Lots of Help. Thanks!!

Hi everyone, you may (or may not) find this helpful.

I have taken the information in the original post and turned in into a Word document. I fixed some of the spelling and the formatting of some of the data to hopefully make it more readable. I also fixed the data error SKSmokes mentioned.

I also changed the images for the terrain improvements to be tables so that they are more easily edited (and can also be pulled into kroyms Civ IV Reference Charts http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=144897) That is all I did, I did not adjust any of the meaning of the text, or try to update it for patch information.

124257

Peace

Maybe this is answered elsewhere, but I haven't been able to find it:

I know that many resources connected to cities give health or happiness, but if you mouse over these resources in the trade diplomacy window they will also say +1 food/gold/hammers. Since the fpc values for these resources aren't neccessarily +1, what are these values in the mouseover talking about? I know it's not true that the +1 food resources add a food to every conneced city, even though I was hoping that was what it meant! ;-)

Thanks for any help.

Luxury Resources: provide +1 happiness (for only one of each type) to all cities connected to your trade network. These resources are: Dyes, Furs, Gems, Gold, Incense, Ivory, Silver, Spices, Sugar, Wine and Whales. These also add commerce to your cities. Of these, Ivory, Furs and Whales eventually become obsolete. They retain their FPC value but lose the happiness bonus to your cities.

(...)

Strategic/Production Resources: Most of these resources are essential, as they allow you to create certain unit types or increase wonder production. They also add production value to your cities (Uranium being an exception, which adds more commerce). These resources are: Aluminum, Coal, Copper, Horses, Iron, Marble, Oil, Stone, and Uranium.


Ivory doesnt add extra commerce, it adds extra production. But, as they do provide happiness (and certainly is not strategic), i guess its ok to keep it under the "luxury" category, adding a note for the exception (like Uranium)

Coming to think of it, maybe the categories for resources could be slightly changed...

When we are talking about tiles and terrain, we are interested in maximing (or at least evaluating) a city. And a city can only work the tiles within its radius, so we are interested in those 20 tiles (21 with the city itself).

So, for the sole concern of city and terrain evaluation, we are interested only in the FPC value of a resource. Happiness (and health) shouldnt matter that much, because you can benefit from these even if the resource is far away form the city workable radius (provided theres a trade route, improvement, tech, etc etc). As for the FPC base and improved bonus, they are only felt if the resource is inside the radius.

My point is: for the purpose of that specific section of the article, resources should be categorized by the FPC (base) bonus they provide. This mean we would have this cattegories: Food (because they provide food, not because of health), Production (no matter if strategic, required for units or speeds wonders) and Commerce (former Luxury, no matter if they also provide happiness)

This way, Uranium would fall into Commerce, and Ivory into Production, and categories would have no exceptions.

As for happiness, health, strategic, unit building and rushing wonders benefits, they will be granted for ALL cities, no matter where the resource is (as long as connected, improved, etc, etc). These benefits could (and should), however, be mentioned as side effect. But the way it is now, it looks like the commerce bonus is a side effect of the resource category that provides happiness (luxury). This may be true for the macro strategy point of
view, but when it comes to terrain evaluation, its the oposite! (imho, of course)

Oh, by the way... what an AWESOME guide!!! Wow... really comprehensive, absolutely astonishing! Congratulations! :goodjob:

Luxury Resources: provide +1 happiness (for only one of each type) to all cities connected to your trade network. These resources are: Dyes, Furs, Gems, Gold, Incense, Ivory, Silver, Spices, Sugar, Wine and Whales.

... and Silk :)

Thanks from a complete rookie. Most threads I try and read are overwhelming using acronyms and un-explained strategy assumptions that do not help a new player like myself. Just the expanation of the "Fat Cross" and a Cities workable tiles has helped me better stratigize my fledgling Civ IV experience. A great guide I will spend many hours absorbing.
Tom (an ol codger)

You can find the term "fat cross" in the manual, if you care to read it. As for other terms in articles here, i suppose someone should make a list of all Civ 4 specific slang with definitions (pop rushing, CS slingshot, etc.) and make that an article in its own right.

The only exception is on Tundra, which cannot have a farm built on it without being directly adjacent to a river.

Maybe i was dreaming, but in my current game, i'm pretty sure i saw the AI build a farm on a tundra tile that wasn't adjacent to a river. It was adjacent to a lake though, so it did have fresh water. I think you should ajust that statement in the article to reflect this.

You can find the term "fat cross" in the manual, if you care to read it. As for other terms in articles here, i suppose someone should make a list of all Civ 4 specific slang with definitions (pop rushing, CS slingshot, etc.) and make that an article in its own right.

I had the same idea and I am on the task already, any help is appreciated :)

Has Stuporstar abandoned this thread? This guide is awesome, and i would really love that the corrections on Ivory and Silk, for example, mentioned some posts ago, were incorporated on the main post.

Please, Stuporstar, dont leave us! This guide is my main reference every time i start a new game! Its handy for the entire game, but for the first cities, its vital!!! :)

Hi everyone. First off, I'd like to apologise to everyone for abandoning this guide for so long. I really haven't had the time to play Civ at all or visit these forums for months now.

I'd just like everyone to know that you don't need my permission to re-distribute or even alter or update this guide in any way. All I ask is a little acknowledgement in any such case. :)

I originally wrote this guide to help me understand the game better while I was playing it, and I'm glad it's helped a lot of other people too.

Unfortunately, it seems I won't have the time to do a proper update on this guide for at least a couple months yet. I'd like to thank everyone who's posted suggestions and omissions in this guide. Since I don't have the time to play the game right now, it's been left up to all of you to find out just what else needs to be in this guide. Back when I had the time, I used to rigorously test everything new that was pointed out to me. Since I haven't had the time, the discussions surrounding this article has become very important in keeping the information up to date.

Sometime within the next couple months I will make all the suggested corrections and update this guide. If there is anyone or any number of people who could aid me with this, perhaps by compiling all this new information, verifying it and pointing out anything that has changed with the patches since the first update, it would help me update this a lot sooner and I will add you to the list of authors for this guide. In the meantime, I will make sure to check in the forums, at the very least, once a week for any posts or PMs relating to this guide. :king:

Thank you all so much for your help in keeping this info coming, even in my absence. After all, it's not really my guide anymore. It's yours. :)

Quick question that I think I know the answer but would like confirmation...

Does a resouce have to be within a city's "fat cross" to use? I thought it only needed to be improved (ie within cultural borders) and connected by a road.

Am I correct, or does it have to be within the city proper?

You get the happiness or health benefits of an improved resource anywhere within your cultural borders. You can only get the production/commerce/food bonus' if the resource is within a city's "fat cross" and is being worked by a citizen.

You'll get faster answers to simple questions if you ask them in this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=134903).

Excellent guide.

Everyone should read it.
Then think about it.
Then read it again.

This guide needs a bit update for bts. :) (caste system giving +1 hammers to workshops)

Amazing. I was wondering what happened when you settled on top a resourse, and now I know!

Just thought I'd mention this since I didn't see it mentioned (maybe my search function decided to be lazy and not work though), but not only can cities act as canals, but forts can too. In fact, forts act as a city in every way possible except for providing culture, production, etc. They act as canals as cities do, an air base as cities do, and units with +city defense will get that defense in forts.

But my question is, if workers can build canals (through forts), why can't work boats build bridges? I want to be able to build a massive bridge connecting continents the way you can connect seas using forts.

This thread is quite old, but I saw a few posts about how certain resources with the noRiverSide tag set to 1 could be beside rivers. After testing, I can confirm that these resources cannot spawn ALONGSIDE rivers, but can spawn diagonal of rivers, such as a river bend, and receive fresh water, commerce or levee bonuses. I guess it was for balance purposes, as the stronger resources with a river would be overpowered.

I may be wrong, but I remember that forges give happiness if you have gems and gold or something like that? Sorry for resurrection and/or repost, Ifound nothing with search.

I may be wrong, but I remember that forges give happiness if you have gems and gold or something like that? Sorry for resurrection and/or repost, Ifound nothing with search.

+1 from Gems, Gold, Silver

It's often a good idea to have a look at the civilopedia before you search the boards.



Odd choice to post this question in here, anyway... but nevermind, welcome to the forum.

Excellent and very informative guide, I feel my IQ increasing already! :P

Defensive positions: The last thing to consider is the defense bonus and whether or not it is of strategic value to chop a forest or jungle. The defense bonus for both is 50%, and if that's on a hill (25%) you get a cumulative 75%! Because unit movement is also decreased, having a few forests in strategic positions around your empire can slow an enemy advance to a crawl. If you have a forest on a hill, in a good position for a fortification, DO NOT CHOP IT DOWN TO BUILT A FORT. A fort only has a 25% defensive bonus.

Reasons to leave the forest

Forts count as cities, so swordmen, trebuchets and all units with city raider promotions receive a bonus for attacking you there.
As Stuporstar pointed out, 75% defense on forested hills > 50% in hill forts. (Promotions aside: the only time hill/fort is better than hill/forest would be if you defend with Archers.)


Reasons to build a fort

Units stationed inside a fort heal like they do in a friendly city.
Aircrafts, missiles and paratroopers can be based there.