Bad terrain - worth settling?

[Avatarz]

There are no such maps, normally, where you don`t see tundra + ice tile combinations together with deserts and peaks and what else not, that really is not the most convenient terrain to settle in. Then again, quite often such terrain offers some resources, that are rarely found anywhere else. The question is - is a junk city worth the cost for some, perhaps, irrelevant resources?

For example, I`ve got a terrain like this in my present game -



Do I want to use this land in the near or far future?

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Hi ,

this kind of terrain calls for some specialit cities... work dear and fish, and run scientists...
A more powerfull play could be exploring and conquering (potentially better) Persian lands though
edit: it doesn't seem like there is more land east of Persopolis ... so beeline optics and astro to find more friendly lands (after killing Cyrus)

Cheers,
Raskolnikov

 

[TheMeInTeam]

That's some fail territory.

I'd make a fish/deer city. That can whip in some buildings then run specialists. Put 1 more 1E of the marble, which will again run specs but also grant you a lot of resources you can trade around.

Finally, if you need copper, there's some copper . That could be a decent early production city, and unless the persian land is equally terrible I'd hold off on those tundra cities until after you take care of the east. Even if you don't want to rush him, you then want to settle in his direction first and block him. This will limit his power and grant you more land.

Usually anytime you have good resources in otherwise terrible land, claim them with as few cities as possible. Resources are usually worth it and both the sites I suggest can whip in important infrastructure like monument (if needed)/granary/courthouse so that the cities themselves aren't super costly. Settling that region isn't a priority though. Maybe if there were silver and you had cap pressure you'd settle a silver city somewhat early (but still after blocking), but I don't see any of that goodness here. Same goes for the marble though depending on what wonders you want.

 

[oyzar]

There are two deer + fish sites(5 specialists) and one deer + sheep(4 specialist) cities. Those cities are gonna contribute at some point, however as other pointed out settling other cities first might be more beneficial in the short term. These cities are not that bad though (you can probably squeese in another marginal production city with sheep and copper as well).

 

[Avatarz]

So generally, this is the kind of a part of an island that you would want to civilize only after settling everything else, right? For instance, there is better terrain to the north. I guess I should head to that direction. (after blocking cyrus, off course)

 

[dubrown]

Yes, in most cases I delay such terrain, but it all in what you need, for instance, if you need marbe, settling 1E of Marble will net a pretty decent city, it'll have 3 foodsources, forrests+marbe for production so it'll probably be able to hold it's own value even early, and if you don't chop the forrests, it could get some decent production when you can build lumbermills or even a decent lategame specialistfarm with National park + forest perserves.

The rest though is better to wait for later, though fish+deer could make for some specialists early as well, but not be good for much more.

 

[azzaman333]

Get the great lighthouse and these marginal cities instantly get at least 3gpt from trade routes.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Get the great lighthouse and these marginal cities instantly get at least 3gpt from trade routes.

I'd rather get the AI capitol and some cottages on a map like this to be honest.

It's unlikely he'll be getting much more than that base 1 commerce/trade route for a good part of this game. On the flip side, a single riverside hamlet or village will net the exact same commerce in other cities. Building the lighthouse just to settle marginal city sites earlier when there's plenty of good land around seems a little suboptimal to me.

If he isn't roosy (IMO the weakest of America's 3 leaders) he probably has the cap and military potential to do quite well until monarchy. If he is he might want a wonder, but GLH on a map like this is far from a forgone conclusion in terms of whether its really best.

 

[Airefuego]

^Agreed. If you already had the lighthouse anyway, it would make some of these marginal cities more viable. But building the lighthouse JUST to make them viable is a rather desperate strat - one for when you really have no other land or options...

in this case it seems like you have other choices.

 

[UncleJJ]

You might be able to do something special with national wonders.

Moari Statues might do well either in the east 2N of the whale (12 coastal tiles) or in the west 2E or 2E1S of the fish (10 coast and ocean tiles). Depends if you have a better site elsewhere but the whale site looks good.

The spot 2S of the copper could eventually become a very powerful National Park city (if you can wait that long ) It has 8 forests already and another 8 tiles that could pick up forests over time if you carefully develop the surrounding land (be very sparing with roads and tile improvements). The copper, sheep and deer would provide a powerful little city in the meantime, that could build all the basic infrastructure and a few specialaist slots, although perhaps not enough for a fully developed National Park city with 16 free specialists

 

[Stolen Rutters]

So generally, this is the kind of a part of an island that you would want to civilize only after settling everything else, right? For instance, there is better terrain to the north. I guess I should head to that direction. (after blocking cyrus, off course)

That's it. Better terrain goes first. Normally, you really want to push towards the AI to block them from good sites first (or if you are a warmonger, you still push, but to take the good sites from them! lol).

If you eventually need the resources down there, do what the earlier posters said and try to get the most resources in the fewest cities that you can.

Now really late game, once you get Sid Sushi corp, these cities will be easy to maintain, but then again almost any city with a marginal benefit can be supported by that stage of the game.

 

[feralminded]

I think the marble/deer/deer/sheep city is pretty damned good to be honest. That riverside deer tile is pretty strong (4 , 1 , 1 right?). The sheep are solid. The tundra deer and ice marble aren't hot but I think the ice marble will still be 3 , 2 ... but I might be wrong on that one.

The ice fish/deer city is crap but worth settling at some point or if you have GLH worth doing a bit sooner but I'd look elsewhere first.

The Whale/deer city is ok but definitely nothing to write home about and requires optics so it should wait.

The sheep/copper is ok ... but yeah ... nothing special. If you really needed copper it might be worth settling to get copper/sheep/deer and that pretty much eliminates the marble city ... or forces you to shift it to the west of the marble (which gives you water access for harbor and GLH trade routes) and that makes it something you can wait to build.

But yeah ... block Cyrus the Virus first.

 

[Pacifist46]

I wouldn't say that city is good, it has a few good tiles but otherwise . . .

The only reason I'd settle it was if I was going for domination, to meet the land requirment. If only there were silver down there.

 

[feralminded]

eh ... it can get to size 4 very fast and have some hammers and commerce to boot on top of the specialists ... that's not bad in my book. Actually it will grow to 6 pretty fast for whipping purposes as well. Better than most pure seafood cities. That said I play SE a lot so I guess it looks more attractive to me than when I play CE. Still you can build and support 3 cottages on those plains tiles if you like so its not that bad really ... heck that would be 6 from the brown towns, 4 from the marble with railroad , 1 from the tree deer, and a mess of commerce all around. Not bad at all ... sure I wouldn't want it as one of my first 4-5 cities but its not bad.

Actually I'd probably make this my National Park city under SE ... it'd be a killer park city ... I believe it supports 5 parks (if you take the plains parks and don't use the marble), pre-corp. That's pretty good.

 

[Monsterzuma]

One benefit of not settling bad terrain, is that the AI will settle the terrain in question and pay settler-hammers, maintenance and unit defense costs on cities they don't know how to operate properly.

 

[Dirk1302]

@Feralminded, agree that the marble city is pretty good. if i were playing on a level where rushing Cyrus isn't that obvious i'd some cities there pretty soon. Not prime land but good chance for a monopole on deer/whale. I'd settle marble/sheep/2deer first, then sheep copper.Sheep/copper has good value as an early game production city. you can chain irrigate to it after cs. those cities are not bad at all.

In the far future all the land is good enough to settle whatever you do. A site with a fish is always worth settling late game.

 

[mirthadir]

Eventually you want to settle pretty much all of that. The resources are valuable enough for health or trade that you can make the cities pay for themselves alone by that. You have good spots for Stats and NP. Late game you will be running SP and can mill up the tundra rivers for decent resource counts or you will be running corps; which will demand all the resources down there (either direct or in trade).

Now the question of when to settle, that is just a bit harder.

 

[azzaman333]

One benefit of not settling bad terrain, is that the AI will settle the terrain in question and pay settler-hammers, maintenance and unit defense costs on cities they don't know how to operate properly.

In my experience, the AI refuses to settle "bad" terrain, even when it's got important resources, or they'd be running the city at a profit.

And with TGL, I didn't say anything about basing the entire strategy on it... (although I'd suspect Persepolis would be a good city to try to build it in after a rush). But with that much coastline, a majority of the cities will be coastal, so it'd give quite a big benefit.

 

[Kietharr]

Settle 1NW of the southernmost deer tile, 1E of the marble, 2N of the whale and one more city for the bronze/sheep up north. That makes optimal use of the land you've got there but if there's better land to be had settle that first. You can run all of the cities I listed at a profit by using specialists and whipping buildings, plus whales are a pretty uncommon resource so you'd benefit from that by having an extra working citizen in every city. Deer would make good trade fodder as the AI has no qualms about trading for health resources when they don't even need them. You can even wheedle a lot of GPT out of them using this technique, with that many deer down there there can't be that many more tiles of them in the world. If only you had a few furs down there.

 

[UncleJJ]

I guess that he doesn't have Iron Working, so the appearance of iron could significantly change the settlement plan, particularly if it's the only convenient source. Also later in the game an area this big is very likely to have one or more of the hidden resources; oil, uranium or aluminum. Settling several widely spaced cities will allow most of the area to be claimed by culture even if outside their BFCs.

Given the situation on this island I would anticipate the defeat of Cyrus. Following that there is the need to build a decent navy to conquer the rest of the world and several cities could be built in this area that would help with that. The discovery of iron might change things but given that proviso here is how I would develop cities here

City 1 Moari Stautes in city 2N of the whale. This has 12 coastal tiles including the whale plus a deer and grassland hill to build the national wonder in good time. This will be a powerful naval city with a forge and drydock.

City 2 National Park in a city 2S of the copper. That will have copper, a forested deer and a sheep to build basic infrastructure and a lot of buildings with specialist slots. There are 8 forests that can be turned into lumbermills (temporarily and then forest preserves and 8 tiles that more forests can spread to. Some more forests will almost certainly grow and once forest preserves are placed this chance will increase 8 fold (IIRC). This could become a late game powerhouse with as many as 16 free specialists and provide enough GPPs to fuel one or two golden ages. Consider putting the NE here.

City 3 Fish and deer city (in the west) that can be used to run specialists and whip out a navy. Could run 5 specialists.

City 4 Marble city, founded on the coast 1W of marble. That would have a sheep and deer plus a grassland and 2 plains tiles. It is likely that chain irrigation can be brought down from the northern edge of the map and this city will be a modest naval producer

City 5 Southern Fish city. Built 2N1E of the southern fish this will be a weak city that just claims land and hopefully hidden resources. Could run 3 specialists. If the tundra forests spread, then railroaded lumbermills might allow slow building of a navy in the late game.

City 6 NE city. It is difficult to tell where without seeing more tiles to the North and East, but a junk production city should be built on that river. With watermills, Biology farms and a levee it could be mildly productive in the late game. In the early game it could be a whipping and drafting city.