City founding locations - Home tile yields

[Plumfairy]

I wanted to share something which makes a surprisingly huge difference: the yields that a city starting tile produces.

Now, in Civ 5 it was a fairly simple formula: founding a city on flatground yielded 2 food, 1 production, while founding on a city yielded 2 food & 2 production.... which made founding cities on hills a very high priority. Especially for your capital.

In Civ 6, it looks like the formula is a little more complicated. It looks like home tiles yield 2 food & 1 production on almost all tiles, with one major exception: plains hills. Plains hills yield 2 food & 2 production.

As I've just discovered, starting with that extra production is a *huge* boost. If you see any plains hills nearby when the game starts, I think it's well worth delaying founding your capital to move on top of the plains hills.

Anyways, just an observation. (and my two cents)

 

[DrMcKillenstein]

Thanks for posting this! I was just digging around to see if anyone had tested this.

To add to this, settling on a luxury or strategic resource gives you immediate access to those resources. However, I don't believe you can benefit from any later improvements on them (such as adjacency yields). I'm curious though if you've tested to see what happens if you settle on top of a bonus resource?

 

[Browd]

The reason settling on a plains hill does what you describe is due to the fact that the base yield of plains is 1 food and 1 hammer, while the hill adds +1 hammer. The city always tops you up to 2 food and 1 hammer, so the city will supply +1 food on founding, resulting in 2 food and 2 hammer city center. IN Civ V, all hill tiles, regardless of the underlying terrain type, was 2 hammers, so settling on a hill always resulted in 2 food and 2 hammers. Still works for plains hills, as you note, but not for grassland hills (2 food and 1 hammer) or desert hills (1 hammer) -- both result in a city that is just 2 food and 1 hammer.

If you settle on a bonus resource, whether you get more than 2 food and 1 hammer from founding the city depends on the base yield of the tile and the bonus yield from the bonus resource. So, for example, there is no advantage in settling on a grassland stone tile, because grassland stone is 2 food and 1 hammer, which is the same yield as the city, so no benefit (and you can't build a quarry or harvest the stone, so actually worse). Grassland rice or cattle, on the other hand, is 3 food (2 from the grassland and 1 from the rice or cattle), so a city founded there will yield 3 food and 1 hammer for the entire game. Settling on plains wheat, however, is a bad call -- plains wheat is already 2 food and 1 hammer, so settling there has the same result as settling on grassland stone -- no improved yield and no ability to harvest or farm the wheat.

 

[elitetroops]

Settling on some luxuries is also quite good. Many of those that are improved by plantations don't tend to be very good tiles to work. Getting +1 culture, faith or science, or +3 gold, in capital from t1 is quite big. You do get access to the luxury resource by settling on it, even without the irrigation tech, it seems.

 

[MyOtherName]

Settling on some luxuries is also quite good. Many of those that are improved by plantations don't tend to be very good tiles to work. Getting +1 culture, faith or science, or +3 gold, in capital from t1 is quite big. You do get access to the luxury resource by settling on it, even without the irrigation tech, it seems.

Especially since improving irrigation/camp luxuries only adds a puny gold to the yield!

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I wanted to share something which makes a surprisingly huge difference: the yields that a city starting tile produces.

Now, in Civ 5 it was a fairly simple formula: founding a city on flatground yielded 2 food, 1 production, while founding on a city yielded 2 food & 2 production.... which made founding cities on hills a very high priority. Especially for your capital.

In Civ 6, it looks like the formula is a little more complicated. It looks like home tiles yield 2 food & 1 production on almost all tiles, with one major exception: plains hills. Plains hills yield 2 food & 2 production.

As I've just discovered, starting with that extra production is a *huge* boost. If you see any plains hills nearby when the game starts, I think it's well worth delaying founding your capital to move on top of the plains hills.

Anyways, just an observation. (and my two cents)

That wasn't the formula in civ5....
the formula was

1. The city removes all features (marsh, forest, etc.)
2. the city produces the larger of tile food or 2 food....and the larger of tile production or 1 production

civ 6 follows the same formula.

[I was hoping they would do something like +1 production on tiles with 0 production...+1 food on tiles with production]

 

[Xylon666Darksta]

FYI, in CivV, settling on a plains hill w/ stone bonuse resource gave your city center +2 food +3 hammers.

 

[Browd]

But you rarely found stone on a plains hill.

In any event that was because all Civ V hills (plains, grassland, desert) gave 2 hammers and no food -- i.e., pre-settlement tile yields for hills ignored the underlying terrain. In Civ VI, the tile yield from a hill takes the tile yield from the underlying terrain and adds 1 hammer for the hill. So city settling in Civ VI uses the same "top up tile yields to 2 food and 1 hammer" formula as Civ V, but since tiles' pre-settlement yields are sometimes different in Civ VI from Civ V, post-settlement yields are also sometimes different.

 

[KmDubya]

I've settled on a plains hill ivory and gotten 3 cogs and 2 food

Oranges get you an extra food, dyes get an culture or faith and tea gets an extra science which is rather nice to start.

If I have a plantation resource on a river tile I'm probably going to move there to settle.

 

[Browd]

I've settled on a plains hill ivory and gotten 3 cogs and 2 food

And +1 gold