Mysterious food bonus on central square of first City

[glee]

I am running Civ 5 'Brave New World' through Steam.

In my latest game (playing on Prince as Egypt), I built my first City on a 'plains, hill, river' square, receiving (as expected) two food and two hammers on that central square. (There is no resource on the square.)

I haven't gone much further in the game since:

- I've got Honour and Tradition as Social Policies (but not yet got any further choosing within either)
- I've got a few scientific advances
- no religion so far

Suddenly I have four food and two hammers on the central square!
What have I done?!
How did this happen?

Your help gratefully received...

 

[Sarin]

I am running Civ 5 'Brave New World' through Steam.

In my latest game (playing on Prince as Egypt), I built my first City on a 'plains, hill, river' square, receiving (as expected) two food and two hammers on that central square. (There is no resource on the square.)

I haven't gone much further in the game since:

- I've got Honour and Tradition as Social Policies (but not yet got any further choosing within either)
- I've got a few scientific advances
- no religion so far

Suddenly I have four food and two hammers on the central square!
What have I done?!
How did this happen?

Your help gratefully received...

Been a while, but IIRC the bonuses from stuff like buildings and caravans get added to the central tile. What did you build?

 

[glee]

Thanks for replying!

I have no caravans (it's very near the start of the game) and I've only built a Shrine.
I have just discovered horses - but I can't see them on the central square (if the central square gets a bonus resource, does the game show it?)

 

[Sarin]

Have you met and befriended a maritime city state? That might also be the source. Or religion, social policy...

Resources on city tile can be IIRC obscured by city graphics, but should show if you turn on resource icons.

 

[Browd]

You can mouse-hover over the central tile to see if the tooltip shows horses, but since horses only add 1 production to the tile on which they appear, that will not be the source of the additional food (horses do add 1 food after you research Fertilizer, but it's way too early in your game for that).

In addition to showing the granary bonus (once you build a granary), the central tile is also where other city-wide or empire-wide bonuses (like the Tradition/Landed Elite food bonus or the food bonus from taking certain pantheon beliefs (such as Sun God)) appear.

 

[glee]

First, thanks again for the replies.
It may only seem a small thing - but it was bugging me a lot.

Anyway Sarin 'wins the thread', because I finally discovered that I had done a City-State a favour (thrashing Barbarians) and they were sending me 2 food / turn.

This thread and site has really increased my enjoyment of the game.