Starting new cities on a desert

[Wlauzon]

From what I understand, a new city started on ANY square will get the minimum amount of food and hammers to grow to about size 3 at least. Since desert squares are essentially useless otherwise, unless they have a resource, does it make sense to NOT build on a good square that is next to a desert square?

 

[Lord Chambers]

I'm big and wrong.

 

[Wlauzon]

Duh.

I guess I should have noticed that minor detail before.

 

[brokguitar]

Click the link below, it should give you a good idea on terrain and city placement values. Good luck

 

[Heroes]

City squares produce 2 food, 1 hammer, and 1 coin. Always. That's not enough to reach population 3.

Cities can not be founded on squares which produce 0 food, 0 hammers, and 0 coins.

So since those're true, your question is invalid. But on a related note, since your city square will only produce what I've already mentioned, you should try to avoid building them on top of special resources, because the extra production from them is lost. Although, their special resource benefits for your civ are not lost.

No, you can build city on any passable tile, including desert, tundra, hill, ...
Since you get 2 food and 1 hammer from desert, that is clearly an advantage. So if other things being equal, settling on desert is better than on productive land.
A difference from civ 3 is that you could get 2 hammers in a city tile: plain + hill. This makes them good city spots.

 

[Yoshua]

Building on deserts is awful. Cities built on desert tiles suffer production problems in my experience.

Course if it is the only way to secure or deny a resource, then by all means. But such a city is never going to be terribly useful for anything else.

 

[Heroes]

Building on deserts is awful. Cities built on desert tiles suffer production problems in my experience.

Course if it is the only way to secure or deny a resource, then by all means. But such a city is never going to be terribly useful for anything else.

Why? The desert tile itself becomes having 2 food and 1 hammer, which is already a gain. Of course, if there are many other desert tiles around so that you have few good tiles to use, then that's a problem. But if there are floodplains around, it's again good.

 

[incubuspawn]

too bad ther eisnt a tech called plumbing or somethign that at least lets you place villages and workshops on desert tiles

 

[narmox]

too bad ther eisnt a tech called plumbing or somethign that at least lets you place villages and workshops on desert tiles

oh yeah, last time I went to the Sahara desert it was this very nice productive place full of working people and factories and farms and houses and... oops..

 

[Pinstar]

Sometimes you get a lone rogue desert tile in the middle of otherwise productive plains and hills. If you place the city in the desert, you make that one piece of unproductive land, productive...thus making the whole city plot productive.

 

[hunterw]

oh yeah, last time I went to the Sahara desert it was this very nice productive place full of working people and factories and farms and houses and... oops..

he's not as as you think.

http://www.eorc.jaxa.jp/en/imgdata/topics/2005/tp050516.html

no, not sahara, which is the earth's most fierce desert and has no real economic power driving development. saudi arabia is definitely a desert though - there are no rivers in that entire country.

 

[Percinho]

Thank you hunterw, you have solved something I've been wondering about since January. I had to work in Oman anf when I flew over saudi I saw these farms, but had no idea what they were!

I'll sleep a little better tonight after that. Once I've played jost one more turn...

 

[Gufnork]

Some resources gives a bonus if you build a city on them as well. I remember building a city on one once (I would gain a sea resource if I built on that square, which is better) and the city square produced 3 food. I think it was wheat. Maybe it requires grasslands as well, not sure.

 

[CrackedCrystal]

City squares produce 2 food, 1 hammer, and 1 coin. Always.

Not true. A city will produce 2F 1H 1C unless the unenhanced amount of the tile is greater in any of the categories, then it will produce the greater of the two.

For example, a plains/hill produces 2 hammers. If you settle on a plains/hill you will get 2F 2H 1C from the city. Settling on a flood plain will net 3F 1H 1C from the city.

 

[narmox]

he's not as as you think.

http://www.eorc.jaxa.jp/en/imgdata/topics/2005/tp050516.html

no, not sahara, which is the earth's most fierce desert and has no real economic power driving development. saudi arabia is definitely a desert though - there are no rivers in that entire country.

Yeah I saw a FEW circular things like that in the Sahara desert too (well I wasn't there, I saw them on google maps' satellite images ). But the major part of the desert is still desert... and unfertile/unproductive.

 

[vinstafresh]

you should try to avoid building them on top of special resources, because the extra production from them is lost. Although, their special resource benefits for your civ are not lost.

I haven't tried this yet, but it might work:

Before calendar, build a city on silk or incense. An even better resource is oil.

You need to research Industrialism to reveal oil (might be a different tech) and Combustion to make a well. Build a city on oil and you can start rolling out those tanks and bombers immediately without researching the worker action!

 

[Shillen]

That doesn't work. Even if you settle on it you still need the tech to gain access to the resource.

 

[vinstafresh]

Nice try though It does save you building a well, you can start rolling out tanks as soon as you have researched combustion...

 

[Nilrim]

oh yeah, last time I went to the Sahara desert it was this very nice productive place full of working people and factories and farms and houses and... oops..

Ever hear of a place called Las Vegas? Ok so you think it's all geared around entertainment even though its non gambling industry is growing like crazy. Then try Phoenix one of the fastest growing cities in the South West and I don't know if you ever been there but you can't get much more desert then either of those two places

This brings me to one of the major flaws with the Civ line of games, resource sharing. Could either of those cities be possible if they had to grow and supply their own food? I would think that without resource sharing many modern cities would not be possible. After a certain point in the game, after roads and trade systems are in place your cities should be able to share resources with your other cities or with other Civs. That way cities that are in lush farm lands could supply food for your Civ, cities in good mining areas could supply raw materials, cities in large forest areas could supply lumber etc. Now you could really specialize your cities

 

[narmox]

Yeah if we could send food to those cities, or if positive health would increase food just like negative health decreases it...