I'm playing on Immortal and it seems to me that as cool as the Kasbah seems at first it really isn't a great improvement at high difficulty. Because, sure, it's nice on flood plains or desert hills... but you can slop farms/mines on those tiles and they're more or less just as nice by the time Chivalry rolls around. So now you're left with non-hill desert. But a Kasbah only changes a non-hill desert tile from very bad to mediocre. Yes, it gives defense which makes the city difficult to attack but that's about it.
So you're left with the idea that if you can stack Petra with Kasbahs on a desert city it is very nice. Which is true... but at Immortal or Deity grabbing Petra is very problematic. Because it falls at Currency it's right in the middle of the part of the tech tree where you're very likely to be lagging, so the AI will almost certainly build it if there are more than a couple of them.
So... it seems like on lower difficulties the Kasbah is very cool because you can stack it with Petra and make a GREAT city but at high difficulty where you likely won't get Petra it is very underwhelming. Am I missing something? Does the defense bonus really make up for one of your two unique unit/improvements being such a mediocre tile improvement on flat desert?
So you're left with the idea that if you can stack Petra with Kasbahs on a desert city it is very nice. Which is true... but at Immortal or Deity grabbing Petra is very problematic. Because it falls at Currency it's right in the middle of the part of the tech tree where you're very likely to be lagging, so the AI will almost certainly build it if there are more than a couple of them.
So... it seems like on lower difficulties the Kasbah is very cool because you can stack it with Petra and make a GREAT city but at high difficulty where you likely won't get Petra it is very underwhelming. Am I missing something? Does the defense bonus really make up for one of your two unique unit/improvements being such a mediocre tile improvement on flat desert?