Kasbah - high difficulty q

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?

If you put Kasbahs on all of your flood planes and hills you will probably end up with about the same food and production, but something like +10 base gpt. I would say that is much better than many unique buildings. It also allows you to get a bit more production in a desert start which is often low in production.

What? Just get Petra. Have I just been lucky? I've never missed Petra on Deity w/ Tradition if I start next to a desert and wanted it. Go Scout, Grainery, Shrine, Library, Worker . . . Petra. Pick a hammer-based pantheon when it pops.

I mean, after that start you' need to go into full recovery mode and you'll be behind in tech for a long time, but between trade routes (which you now have an extra one) and your eventual use of the Petra lands... a nice recovery is in your future.

Whenever I've tried beelining Petra like that I've had some jerk AI civ near me decide to DoW my weak ass. But the AI does seem less aggressive with the new expansion, maybe I'll give it a try.

Svest said:

If you put Kasbahs on all of your flood planes and hills you will probably end up with about the same food and production, but something like +10 base gpt. I would say that is much better than many unique buildings. It also allows you to get a bit more production in a desert start which is often low in production.

Click to expand...

This.

I agree with the OP a little, though, in saying that there are some positions where a Kasbah is not quite so necessary. Most notably, desert/hill/river tiles are a spot where I don't always build Kasbahs. After all, on that particular tile combination, you can get 2 food and 2 hammers pretty quickly once you get civil service and a farm. Which is already one more food than if you'd put a Kasbah, and you can improve the tile immediately if you just put the farm.

What limits the Kasbah is that it doesn't get irrigation bonuses or Fertilizer bonuses. If it got these, it'd be hands-down the improvement you want when considering desert. But because it doesn't get these, it's not always the best decision at least in terms of improving desert food yield.

Yes, you do want the extra food until late game. But, kasbahs gives you +3 resources... (and gold is a great resource on tiles now, at least for one of your cities) a farm gives you +1 then +2. At some point after you have a good sized population, probably between Hospitals and Medical Centers, you should be switching those tiles.

it could also be luck based because I've had plenty of times none of the AI's really started with desert and I had an easy roll in petra. It happens sometimes by luck with machu pichu and Neuschwanstein Castle also.

Also for extremely key wonders the AI never seems to be good about saving a great engineer or moving trade routes for the hammers when you absolutely need to rush as fast a possible on something.

If you have a lot of floodplains and possibly a religion to use for the desert panthon. (maybe you found a faith giving world wonder) then you have some pretty key tiles. You'd probably still farm the floodplains but you'd kasbah near your city for the defense and have a hard to touch capital.

I could see without some lucky situations it feeling a bit of a waste though. I prefer both the brazil wood camp and the Chateau to it.