City location and Resources

[JonBrave]

I have been dying to know this, ever since early Civ, but let's stick to Civ IV...

The question is: difference between building a city on a Resource, compared to building it next to a Resource.

I have never been sure whether you lose (or gain) by building on a Resource. I always build next to it. But I would really like to know the facts.

First, the "rules". It seems to me that if you build on a Resource you may not get the full effects? For example, let's say it's Cows. You need a Pasture for the effects. You cannot improve your city square and I don't think it "Paturises" the city automatically when you discover it (or does it?):

• Do you get the pasture improvement, ever?
• Do you get the Cow (trade) resource without it, because it's in your city?

Second, the "strategy". If you build on the Resource, you always "work" the resource, plus you get some bonus (+1 food?) on whatever the city square is

• Should you build on the resource, or always next to it?
• Does it matter whether the +1 food bonus for the city is gained from the Resource square or some worse square next to it?
• Does anything depend on resource?

 

[P_T_Bando]

I think you get it. I planted a city on furs yesterday and it gave it to me. Normally I don't but it was the only place because of the other borders.

 

[Verge]

First, the "rules". It seems to me that if you build on a Resource you may not get the full effects? For example, let's say it's Cows. You need a Pasture for the effects. You cannot improve your city square and I don't think it "Paturises" the city automatically when you discover it (or does it?):

• Do you get the pasture improvement, ever?
• Do you get the Cow (trade) resource without it, because it's in your city?

If you build on a resource like cows, you are correct, you cannot improve it, and therefore (in this case of the cows) you won't get the +1 and +2 that you would get if you could build a pasture on it. You will, however gain the cow resource to trade as well as to gain benefits from.

Second, the "strategy". If you build on the Resource, you always "work" the resource, plus you get some bonus (+1 food?) on whatever the city square is

• Should you build on the resource, or always next to it?
• Does it matter whether the +1 food bonus for the city is gained from the Resource square or some worse square next to it?
• Does anything depend on resource?

I'm not positive as to what you're trying to say here, but I will say that in general, you should always try to settle next to a resource instead of on top of it. Yield-wise, it will always offer the better gain. See, it doesn't matter if you have a citizen working the resource tile or not; as long as you have the necessary improvement and a road hooking up the resource to your trade network, you derive the benefits whether or not a citizen is working on the tile.

 

[Thedrin]

Additional;

Every city tile produces 2 , 1, and 1. But if the produce of the tile, excluding the affects of features, the city is built on exceeds one of these three values then the city tile will be slightly more productive.

A city built on grassland sugar will provide 3 .
A city built on a plains hill stone will provide 3
A city built on riverside dyes will produce 2 .

But;

A city built on flood plains will not produce 3 .Flood plains are a feature and are destroyed by building a city.
A city built on jungle grassland sugar will not produce only 2 (3 instead). Jungle is a feature and is destroyed by placing a city.
A city built on plains forest will not produce 2 . Forests are a feature and are destroyed by placing a city.

Verge:
I'm not positive as to what you're trying to say here, but I will say that in general, you should always try to settle next to a resource instead of on top of it. Yield-wise, it will always offer the better gain.

Whether or not you should build on top of a resource is almost always situaion specific. There are only a handful of cases where I can't imagine that I would build on a resource - gold, silver, gems - but even for these there might be exceptional cases where building on a resource is better.

 

[Verge]

Whether or not you should build on top of a resource is almost always situaion specific. There are only a handful of cases where I can't imagine that I would build on a resource - gold, silver, gems - but even for these there might be exceptional cases where building on a resource is better.

I absolutely agree, but those situations usually emerge out of subjective strategic considerations that eschew the superior single-tile yield in favor of an enhanced city location with offers some other advantage. Hence, "in general."

 

[JonBrave]

Thank you all for replies --- very interesting.

I guess my original question was, in part, aimed at where to found your first city. Leaving aside "strategic location" issues, one is trying to get the "best start", and you are going to have very limited population for quite a while, both for city radiius working tiles and no workers for doing improvements.

Would that influence anyone to change to building on a resource? Purely as an example, you start with the city square worked plus one pop point for a second tile. Now, suppose there are two resource tiles in proposed city radius. If you don't build on one of them, your one pop point can only work one of the two tiles, the other will lie fallow? (Or perhaps resources are so far spaced away that that can't happen...)

 

[CyberChrist]

A city built on riverside dyes will produce 2 .

... or 3 with Financial trait.

 

[Benford's Law]

JonBrave,
You may want to give this thread a good look, I found it very helpful for me:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=144029

~Benford's Law

 

[6K Man]

Thank you all for replies --- very interesting.

I guess my original question was, in part, aimed at where to found your first city. Leaving aside "strategic location" issues, one is trying to get the "best start", and you are going to have very limited population for quite a while, both for city radiius working tiles and no workers for doing improvements.

Would that influence anyone to change to building on a resource? Purely as an example, you start with the city square worked plus one pop point for a second tile. Now, suppose there are two resource tiles in proposed city radius. If you don't build on one of them, your one pop point can only work one of the two tiles, the other will lie fallow? (Or perhaps resources are so far spaced away that that can't happen...)

The other will lie fallow only until the city grows to size 2. Then you can work both. IMO, getting the extra +1 hammer/food/commerce from your city square for a couple dozen turns extra (before the city grows) isn't worth the loss of the hammers/food/commerce the tile would provide if improved.

In rare situations, it can make sense to build a city on a resource:
- to prevent the AI or a human enemy from pillaging it (especially strategic resources like Iron)
- when the resource doesn't provide a lot of benefit when improved (like Stone) and the site is otherwise good, and/or
- where the city location is perfect on top of that resource, and putting the city somewhere else would require you to sacrifice access to other resources in the BFC.

 

[JonBrave]

JonBrave,
You may want to give this thread a good look, I found it very helpful for me:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=144029

~Benford's Law

Invaluable. Thank you. Is this sort of article "centralised" somewhere on this site?

 

[Benford's Law]

You can find that article listed amongst many strategy articles in the Civ IV War Academy:
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/

Also, many of these War Academy articles are posted in the "Strategy Articles" forum. The difference being that reader feedback to each of the strategy threads are also presented:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=156

~Benford's Law