Plains and Hill with City = +1 Production

[Sunstone]

As Stuporstar points out here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3273546&postcount=17

PLAINS Hills with a city built on it, receive ONE EXTRA Hammer.

This must be a bug.

 

[seasmath]

I don't think it's a bug because a Plains Hill is the only terrain that produces 2 hammers. (Discounting forests, because forests (and jungles) disappear when a city is built on top of them.)
Therefore, I think that the base city square production is based (no pun intended) on the production of the square after the forests and jungles are removed from the square. Note that this theory of mine only works for production.

 

[Smirk]

Its the only base terrain that gives 3 production unimproved. There are lots of other cases where you can get more than the base 2/1/1 in your city. Plain hill with stone for instance will give you 3 production in your city square. Lots of them give extra gold and extra food. All of them give you less than you would get improving and working them normally, it a strategic tradeoff and has been present in all Civs up to this point, in varying degrees.

 

[MrCynical]

I think it is supposed to work like this, but I regard it as dubious for the simple reason that floodplains do not give a bonus food when founded on. I have no objection to bonuses from the founding tile, but it needs to be consistent.

 

[Sunstone]

Considering only BASE Terrains and "where to built" a city: there simply is no better place to build a city than on plain/hills (and river). I just ask : why? All the base terrains lack any bonus on the city square EXCEPT Plains/hill.
This has never been the case in other civs.

 

[N3pomuk]

hmm I remember that in civ 3 you got the minimum amount of food requierd to support one population (as found in the citizen eats in the editor) and ONE from each production and trade plus CIvilization specific boni nothing more ALL terrain speciffic atributes except defensbonus was lost, try it and see that you always start with the same base production in a city. So yes this would be something new in CIV4 and good thing too, why would you get less meat (food) from a cow just cause the cow is inside the city... or an iron mine, if anything, that would be more productive, cause of the closer proximity of the labor force.

 

[Smirk]

Clearly there was much that the last two posters didn't know about Civ3. And either way using an older game for support of how you want the newer game to work is suspect and unlikely to happen. Civ3 didn't have plain hills, just hills.

I suspect it has to do with having 4 of something once imporved which is why plain hill gives 2 and stone on plain hill gives 3. However, floodplain also gives 2, but the base food is two always so you never benefit from it. Try settling on pigs or wheat near rivers you'll see the extra food.

 

[Sunstone]

It seems to me, you don't get my point:

I don't want civ3. I just want coherence in boni:

Take a look at my link in my first posting.
Comparing just the general base terrain types (without specials), there is a discrepancy between plain/hills and every other terrain type. I am just talking about the CITY SQUARE.
I repeat : All the base terrains lack any bonus on the city square EXCEPT Plains/hill. It simply is the BEST place to start a city (a river would be a bonus too), because this city even receives a defence bonus.

I quote Stupostar again:

Actually, I have figured that out, and the extra 1P on a hill has nothing to do with railroads or mines. You get an extra 1P for building a city on a Plains/Hill and it has nothing to do with tech, civics, resources or anything else. This extra 1P is inexplicable, it just is. I think it could have do with the fact that a Plains/Hill has the greatest amount of natural production that a bare tile can have, but why other types of terrain wouldn't have modifiers as well is beyond me. Perhaps it is a bug? Anyway, I have added this note to the guide in the City Placement section.

 

[Carewolf]

Actually it is flood plains that stands out. You get the best of the natural unimproved bonus of the square and the city minimum of 2F+1H+1C

Stone on plains also give 2H if founded upon, and rice on grasslands gives 3F.

 

[Sunstone]

Founding a city on flood Plains gives 2f+1p+1c like all other terrains EXCEPT plain/hills.

I again quote Stupostar:

A city square always gets 2F 1P 1C. There seems to be ONE exception. You get an additional 1P when you build a city on top of a plains/hill. This seems to be the only time you get any bonuses for city placement. You get no bonus for any other kind of hill, and no bonus for a flatland/plains square. It must be a plains/hill. The other major advantage to building on a hill is of course the defense bonus. Hills get a defense bonus of 25%

And I repeat, I am not talking about special features like stone or rice. Thats all fine concerning the game mechanics.

But the base terrains are unbalanced. (plains/hill is just standing out as a city foundation place). Why!

 

[MrCynical]

I'm not convinced plains/hills are the exception. The city tile gives the food, production and commerce of the base tile, but is set to give a minimum of 2 food, 1 hammer and 1 gold. Plains/hills fits this as it give 2 hammers by default and the food and gold are pushed up to meet the minimum. The same goes for resources on the tile. This fits for every tile except one: floodplain, which by this logic should give 3 food not 2, and so would be a good founding site. However this isn't how it works in the game, and is the inconsistency which I think is the problem.

 

[Shades]

I just did some testing using the Worldbuilder. When a city is built on flood plains, it removes the flood plains descriptor. So, putting your mouse over the terrain, it will no longer list flood plains. It will instead just note that you have fresh water. Now, if you go and add flood plains AFTER the city is built, you will get the full effects from flood plains and it lists flood plains as a descriptor. So, it is programmed to remove the effects of the flood plains except for the fresh water effects when city is built.

Hills/Plains, on the other hand, doesn't change when a city is built. Thus, why it gives the additional +1 production. Not sure if this was intentional or not. But, it has been discussed quite often in threads about best starting locations for cities. The Developers obviously know it is working this way. It had to be working this way throughout much of beta. I seems likely to me that it is there by design. But, I admit that is still just my opinion. I do agree that flood plains should add some food to a city that builds on it. But, I am fairly sure they didn't want to give you the full effects which is actually +3 food. Might be why you get no added benefit instead.

 

[Sunstone]

I just did some testing using the Worldbuilder. When a city is built on flood plains, it removes the flood plains descriptor. So, putting your mouse over the terrain, it will no longer list flood plains. It will instead just note that you have fresh water. Now, if you go and add flood plains AFTER the city is built, you will get the full effects from flood plains and it lists flood plains as a descriptor. So, it is programmed to remove the effects of the flood plains except for the fresh water effects when city is built.

Hills/Plains, on the other hand, doesn't change when a city is built. Thus, why it gives the additional +1 production. Not sure if this was intentional or not. But, it has been discussed quite often in threads about best starting locations for cities. The Developers obviously know it is working this way. It had to be working this way throughout much of beta. I seems likely to me that it is there by design. But, I admit that is still just my opinion. I do agree that flood plains should add some food to a city that builds on it. But, I am fairly sure they didn't want to give you the full effects which is actually +3 food. Might be why you get no added benefit instead.

Thank you Shades for this test. This clears up some clouds.

As far as I can see, they intended to give each city built on a base terrain a 2/1/1 . I think they just forgot the change Shades is talking about on hills/plains. Of course a +3 Food on flood plains would be against the game structure.

If it is there by design: why only give a bonus to hills/plains terrain ? This is just unexplainable and uncoherent.

 

[salty]

I just did some testing using the Worldbuilder. When a city is built on flood plains, it removes the flood plains descriptor. So, putting your mouse over the terrain, it will no longer list flood plains. It will instead just note that you have fresh water. Now, if you go and add flood plains AFTER the city is built, you will get the full effects from flood plains and it lists flood plains as a descriptor. So, it is programmed to remove the effects of the flood plains except for the fresh water effects when city is built.

Hills/Plains, on the other hand, doesn't change when a city is built. Thus, why it gives the additional +1 production. Not sure if this was intentional or not. But, it has been discussed quite often in threads about best starting locations for cities. The Developers obviously know it is working this way. It had to be working this way throughout much of beta. I seems likely to me that it is there by design. But, I admit that is still just my opinion. I do agree that flood plains should add some food to a city that builds on it. But, I am fairly sure they didn't want to give you the full effects which is actually +3 food. Might be why you get no added benefit instead.

It makes sense - flooded library = not good

 

[angeleyes]

If it is there by design: why only give a bonus to hills/plains terrain ? This is just unexplainable and uncoherent.

I don't want to be cynical or sarcastic, but i think the people of Firaxis don't mind
to be incoherent. There are a lot of incoherent items in the game and they know it.
Do you remember in civ3 the extra shields you got when the city did grow?
Or the extra gold you get researching a tech in civ4?
It's all inexplainable, incoherent and with purpose.

Asperge

 

[Smirk]

If it is there by design: why only give a bonus to hills/plains terrain ? This is just unexplainable and uncoherent.

I explained it, you just don't care to listen to any explaination and have an issue with it for some unknown reason.


Here is how it works for food and hammers (I didn't check gold):

floor(improved total / 2) = city value


Simple.


What this means is that most all metals end up giving you a bonus hammer on any plains and also on grass hills, while pigs and sheep only give you a bonus food when on grass. As I said previously you may see a bonus in many other cases but since the minimum is 2/1/1 you never notice these cases.


This is basically how it worked in Civ3 except since there was no plain hill so you never got anything without settling on a bonus resource. But settling on bonus resources gave you a bonus.



Now, even ignoring what the other poster stated about floodplains dissappearing, floodplains would NEVER give you 3 food, as 4 divided by 2 is never greater than 2!

 

[onedreamer]

I explained it, you just don't care to listen to any explaination and have an issue with it for some unknown reason.


Here is how it works for food and hammers (I didn't check gold):

floor(improved total / 2) = city value


Simple.

Simple my pants... this theory just doesn't hold water. Improved by what ? A mine is not the only thing you can build on a hill.
Also, at some point a plains with workshop give 4 hammers, but does a city founded on plains yeld 2 h. ? nope.
Morover, according to your theory a city on ice should give 0 food, which is not the case.

I think instead that it works as someone else described:
in the city center square, food is set to 2 whatever the terrain.
hammers depend on the base production, obviously without improvement. BUT there is inconsistency and the above posters are right to complain: on MANY tiles, there should be zero production, instead this is not the case, so why does plains hill take in account the base production, but many other tiles don't ? Makes no sense.
gold, not sure. The only square I can think of that gives a base yeld of 2 gold is oasis. Someone should test building a city on a oasis.

 

[angeleyes]

floor(improved total / 2) = city value


Simple.

Plains + Ivory + camp = 3 hammers,
plains + Ivory + city = 2 hammers;

plains + hills + ivory + camp = 4 hammers,
plains + hills + ivory + city = 3 hammers.


too simple.

I think there are too much ad hoc solutions made for the game.

Asperge

 

[Smirk]

This is my point: its not one big conspiracy to get you to settle only on plain hills.



onedreamer: Not sure where you are getting your info but its wrong. First improvements obviously are taken into account since if you settle on a resource it will become available once you have the required tech. And had you read my post you would have heard me say pigs and sheep only give you a food bonus on grass. Thus, not sure how much clearer I can state this, the base terrain *is* taken into account for *all* cases, its just they turn out to irrelevant for most. Only with the 2 base food of grass will you see 3 food in the center with pigs and sheep.

 

[angeleyes]

This is my point: its not one big conspiracy to get you to settle only on plain hills.

It's not a conspiracy, it's 'encouragement'.

Why don't you react on my clear falsifications?

Asperge