Immortal--What tiles are best for my capital?

I would like to hear what your thoughts are as far as what kind of tile to settle my first city on. Would you ever settle on a tile that has zero production? What about 1 food + 1 production? I know that lakes/rivers are good, as are hills and nearby resources. I'm not talking about the absolute newbie basics, just the actual tile where my capital goes.

I've played over 1,300 hours and solely play on Immortal now. Lately I've been playing a small map with Domination as the only victory condition and adding in a 7th random AI opponent. I have a lot of experience but I'm really curious as to what tile yields you would consider best for my first city in the type of game I am playing. Thanks for your advice.

Salt, stone, wheat

Magma_Dragoon said:

Salt, stone, wheat

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I should clarify. I meant how much food/gold/production a tile has, unimproved since my settler will pop up a city there. The specific resource salt, stone, gold, etc. is not what I'm referring to, just the amount of food, gold, or production one would want to have on an unimproved tile to found one's capital city.

IslandBlue said:

I should clarify. I meant how much food/gold/production a tile has, unimproved since my settler will pop up a city there. The specific resource salt, stone, gold, etc. is not what I'm referring to, just the amount of food, gold, or production one would want to have on an unimproved tile to found one's capital city.

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2+ food, 1+ production is the sweet spot. At this very early stage production is more valuable than gold - that's 3 turns shaved off your scout, two off the Monument, etc., and for domination you want to be able to build units quickly at need (sure you also need to maintain them, but you're not going to be getting most tile output from gold). Since the city tile itself will always produce 2 food, you pretty much want hills or plains (assuming suitable terrain in the vicinity).

The ideal tile to found a city would be on a hill, with a river, next to a mountain, and on the coast.

The mountain will let you build observatories later on, the hill will let you build windmills or something like that, the river lets you build a number of things, and the coast does the same thing. Plus the hill start will really help your early production.

I've only had that dream setup on 1 game out of 100 though. Plus the only land way to get to it was through a string of hills which allowed my archers to pick off anything before they got to the city.

The hill is the most important imo though. Find a hill next to one of the other 3 and you'll be doing fine.

Agree with Magma_Dragoon on what you want your surrounding tiles to be, but you are asking about what tile to settle your city on. Founding a city will always provide a minimum of 2 food and 1 hammer, but may yield more depending on the nature of the tile. So, for example, if you settle on a regular grasslands tile (2 food base yield), you get +1 hammer when you settle, for total 2 food and 1 hammer. Conversely, if you settle on a plains tile, you get +1 food, for total 2 food and 1 hammer). Finally, if you settle on a hill (2 hammers base yield), you always get +2 food, for a total of 2 food and 2 hammers. If you settle on desert (no tile yield), the city center will still yield 2 food and 1 hammer.

Taking Magma_Dragoon's list:

• if you settle on a grasslands salt tile (base yield 3 food and 1 gold), you get +1 hammer (for total of 3 food, 1 hammer and 1 gold; in contrast, if you settled elsewhere and improved the salt, the improved tile would yield 3 food, 2 hammers and 1 gold -- pretty sweet)
• if you settle on grasslands stone (base yield 2 food and 1 hammer), you get no incremental yield (still just 2 food and 1 hammer)
• if you settle on grasslands wheat (base 3 food), you get +1 hammer (total 3 food and 1 hammer)

A few others:

• if you settle on a gold hill (base 2 hammers and 2 gold), you get +2 food (for total of 2 food, 2 hammers and 2 gold)
• if you settle on a jungle citrus tile (base yield 3 food and 1 gold), you get -1 food and +1 hammer (because the jungle is gone, leaving just a plains tile with citrus)
• if you settle on a grasslands deer tile with a forest (base yield 2 food and 1 hammer), you get +1 food, for total 3 food and 1 hammer (because the forest (1 food and 1 hammer) is gone, leaving a grassland tile (2 food) with deer (1 food) plus 1 hammer from the city minimum)

So as PhilBowles said, hills or plains seem to be the way to go for min-maxing food/production output. Finding a desert or tundra tile to settle with a lot of good tiles nearby would also be good, right?

Only, hill cities can't build windmills IIRC; that's a slight problem.

Slight, to the point of near invisibility.

It depends a lot on what the overall land looks like. If the only production you see are two hills, it is often smarter to purposely not settle on top of them, to squeeze more overall production, as counter intuitive as that may sound. On the other hand, if you have enough production available, it's always advisable to settle on a hill for the extra early production and city defense.
Desert incense or non-hill gold has horrible yield for working with a citizen, but settling a city on top would give you easy gpt on your city tile.
Cattle would give you a nice 3f1p "jump start" city tile yield, but you'd almost certainly be working that tile anyway, so there's no real benefit to it.
Like said, city tile yield is always at least 2f1p, so if all other things are equal, you'd "gain" the most by settling on a tile with terrible yields like flat desert or tundra.

Settling on top of a luxury is better in most situations, expect Salt, which gets you huge tile yields when it's improved, but not that great over a city tile yield if settled on.

For faith generating pantheons, you can settle on top of all the luxuries except marble (and the bonus resource stone), as the faith is granted for a quarry, not for the resource itself.

Browd said:

if you settle on grasslands wheat (base 3 food), you get +1 hammer (total 3 food and 1 hammer)

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Do you mean floodplains wheat (is there such a thing as grasslands wheat?)? That gets converted to plains wheat when settled on top of iirc, and your city tile yield will be the normal 2f1p, making it one of the worst places to settle on.

I have learned quite a bit from all the responses thus far. Thanks to everyone who took the time to share their knowledge. I now feel much more confident with the subject and am going to start a new game on level 7, as Indonesia, right now. Any other responses that can add to what's been provided thus far will certainly be appreciated as I'll be checking back over the next few days.

Hpuk said:

Do you mean floodplains wheat (is there such a thing as grasslands wheat?)? That gets converted to plains wheat when settled on top of iirc, and your city tile yield will be the normal 2f1p, making it one of the worst places to settle on.

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No, grasslands wheat. It's rarer than plains wheat or flood plains wheat, but I've gotten it before.

IslandBlue said:

I have learned quite a bit from all the responses thus far. Thanks to everyone who took the time to share their knowledge. I now feel much more confident with the subject and am going to start a new game on level 7, as Indonesia, right now. Any other responses that can add to what's been provided thus far will certainly be appreciated as I'll be checking back over the next few days.

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Just remember that as Indonesia you DO NOT want to settle on top of anything when you settle on a separate land mass. The first three cities settled on a separate land mass will overwrite the tile they are on with one of their unique spices. One time I settled on an island on top of furs and the furs were gone.

KmDubya said:

Just remember that as Indonesia you DO NOT want to settle on top of anything when you settle on a separate land mass. The first three cities settled on a separate land mass will overwrite the tile they are on with one of their unique spices. One time I settled on an island on top of furs and the furs were gone.

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Good to know!

I do the math in my head this way: +2 food and +1 production, add one extra production if is hills. If is luxury, add the luxury bonus on the +2 foor +1 production, again adding the extra production if is hills.

I find that the best tile to put your Capital on is a hill with Gems. Gems are the only luxury that adds +3 gold to a tile, so it gives you a 2 2 3 city tile. Having that extra /turn accumulating since turn 1 greatly speeds up any crucial purchases in the early game (settler, archer, what have you).