Advantages (if any) of founding city on river?

[Padmewan]

In Civ3 it was vital to found cities on rivers if possible, because it gave you a free aqueduct.

In Civ4, is there any advantage to founding a city on a river other than an automatic trade network with any other city on that river? It strikes me that founding a city 1 tile away from a river will give probably the same health benefits, and a road quickly fixes the connection issue.

Am I missing something with commerce or the like?

 

[Vardis]

It can help early if you don't have roads to resources that are also on a river. Also, the +2 health bonus helps a little in some cases.

 

[petey]

I'm usually pretty quick to build roads between all my cities and resources anyways, purely for the defensive advantages, so the fact that trade goes along a river is fairly meaningless to me. I just see rivers as a source of water and coins, think that any ancilliary benefits aren't really worth taking time to worry about, especially as it concerns city placement.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

In Civ3 it was vital to found cities on rivers if possible, because it gave you a free aqueduct.

In Civ4, is there any advantage to founding a city on a river other than an automatic trade network with any other city on that river? It strikes me that founding a city 1 tile away from a river will give probably the same health benefits, and a road quickly fixes the connection issue.

Am I missing something with commerce or the like?

one tile away from the river does not give any health benefits
(the health effects act like this)
Forest, Floodplains, Jungles....Health effects from all tiles in city radius summed
Fresh Water... Health effects only available if city is on Freshwater tile (+2 or nothing)

 

[Xerol]

Getting that trade route IMMEDIATELY after building your second city (if you find a good spot along the river) helps a bit with the gold - you can keep going at 100% science for a few extra turns before maintenance starts dragging you down.

 

[cleverhandle]

+2 health and an instant trade route is pretty nice. Not overwhelming or anything, but I consider river placement a pretty high priority. Of course it's situational, so resource availability (especially food bonuses) and overlap with other cities is relevant, but I would want a very good reason to settle one off a river.

 

[Myzenium]

Getting that trade route IMMEDIATELY after building your second city (if you find a good spot along the river) helps a bit with the gold - you can keep going at 100% science for a few extra turns before maintenance starts dragging you down.

Nice sig.

Are you sure trade routes reduce maintenance? On the City Screen, when I mouseover the maintenance count, I see only two modifiers: Distance from Capital, and Number of Cities. Are you saying there's a third modifier, a boolean?

Or were you thinking of Civ3, where cities connected to the trade network had less corruption and waste?

 

[cleverhandle]

Getting that trade route IMMEDIATELY after building your second city (if you find a good spot along the river) helps a bit with the gold - you can keep going at 100% science for a few extra turns before maintenance starts dragging you down.

Hmm... yeah, that doesn't exactly make sense as stated. If you're running 100% science, then the extra trade route isn't helping with maintenance, because it's all going to science! (Trade route commerce is "raw" unallocated commerce.)

But the principle is correct - an early trade route, even a small one, will help with maintenance in the sense that you'll have more commerce left for research after you take enough taxes off the top to pay maintenance.

 

[ZippyRiver]

One other added benefit to building next to a river is if you get attacked from the other side of it, the attacker takes a fairly large penalty hit.

I love it when you tick the AI off and then place your units so that a river is between you and the attacker.

 

[Myzenium]

Hmm... yeah, that doesn't exactly make sense as stated. If you're running 100% science, then the extra trade route isn't helping with maintenance, because it's all going to science! (Trade route commerce is "raw" unallocated commerce.)

But the principle is correct - an early trade route, even a small one, will help with maintenance in the sense that you'll have more commerce left for research after you take enough taxes off the top to pay maintenance.

Ha, now I understand what you two are saying. The trade route, or commerce generated by the connection along the river itself, compensates for maintenance. Of course, it's a short-lived benefit. Still, it may help in some situations on Prince or higher.

 

[ToastyAlbus]

I like rivers. If I find myself on a river at the start of a game, I tend to build cities up and down it as it really helps early civ uniting, since roads take a lot of turns to unite them with workers that I prefer to use making improvements!

 

[R3dKnight]

future watermills spots are always great AND financial leaders gets fast +1 commerce squares with cottage rivers.

 

[Padmewan]

Fresh Water... Health effects only available if city is on Freshwater tile (+2 or nothing)

Cr*p! I thought you got this benefit simply by having those tiles. Oop, I really should look at my cities more closely (one disadvantage of this new "no need to leave the main screen" UI).

So when faced with floodplains, ALWAYS found on the river to counteract the negative effects of floodplains?

What about lakes -- do those also count?

 

[Shillen]

What about lakes -- do those also count?

Yes, and so do oases. When you hover the cursor over the tile it will say fresh water if founding on that tile will give you the +2 health benefit.

 

[Dairuka]

That +2 health benefit is equal to a free citizen unhindered by healthiness in the early game. Thats a big benefit.

In a sense, the fresh water counts as an aquaduct. Only, you can build another aquaduct to get even more health.

 

[Mon Mauler]

In my current game I'm playing a Terra map, Noble. Ended up getting to the New World, and founding a city. Fortunately for me, I founded the city between the coast and a river. The river cut through a decent portion of the New World, so I intended to use it for its trade route benefits as I moved settlers inland.

Unfortunately for me I became embroiled in a war against all four of the remaining Civs in the Old World (I had eliminated the first two) so I was unable to bring any more units from the Old World to the New. I just couldn't sacrifice any units.

I'm not sure I would have been able to hold my city in the New World in the face of barbarian attacks without the defensive bonus provided by the river. For some reason they rarely decided to cross the river before attacking.
MM

 

[dar]

The trade route rivers provide is not restricted to cities. Any improved resource beside a river is automatically connected to your trade network whether you build a road on it or not. Eg: cow on a river, city on a river. You only need to build a pasture and its automatically connected to your city, no need to build road.

 

[Artanis]

So when faced with floodplains, ALWAYS found on the river to counteract the negative effects of floodplains?

It depends

Yes, in an area with Flood Plains, the best spot will usually be on the river. However, moving off the river can sometimes be worth it if it gets you some sort of other benefit, such as access to the sea or better tiles. For example, it might be worth it to give up a couple points of health if doing so will get an Iron-bearing Plains Hill in your "fat cross"

 

[jrice77]

Summarizing this thread rivers give you:

-A defensive bonus
-A health bonus
-Additional Commerce
-Watermill positions
-Connects resources/cities

What's not to like! Rivers are the straight poop!

 

[AndrewDJ]

Another advantage to founding a city right next to a river is that doing so appears to be a requirement for building hydro plants and the Three Gorges Dam. I had a game where none of my cities had a river running right next to them (although IIRC there were some that touched at corners), and none of the cities could build hydro plants or the Three Gorges.