Big Fat Cross - How does it exactly works?

[WRobN]

I know the BFC (Big Fat Cross) is a thing mentioned a lot of times.
I know what it is but thats it...

If you look on the city screen you see all the tiles your city can work on.
The max number of tiles your city can work on is 20+1 (20 for tiles 1 for initial city-tile)
Like this;

[FONT="Lucida Sans Unicode"][][COLOR="Red"][][][][/COLOR][]        [COLOR="DarkOrange"]__[/COLOR][COLOR="Navy"]Imp[/COLOR]                            The [COLOR="red"][][/COLOR] are the tiles that make up the Fat Cross.
[COLOR="Red"][][][][][][/COLOR]       [COLOR="DarkOrange"]|[/COLOR]                                     The [COLOR="Green"]C[/COLOR] in the middle is the city.
[COLOR="Red"][][][/COLOR][COLOR="Green"]C[/COLOR][COLOR="Red"][][][/COLOR][COLOR="DarkOrange"]____|[/COLOR]                                     [COLOR="navy"]Imp[/COLOR] = Improvement
[COLOR="Red"][][][][][][/COLOR]       [COLOR="DarkOrange"]|___[/COLOR][COLOR="navy"]Res[/COLOR]                          [COLOR="Navy"]Res[/COLOR] = Resource
[][COLOR="red"][][][][/COLOR][]                                             The [COLOR="DarkOrange"]lines[/COLOR] from the Fat Cross to the Imp and Res are roads
[/FONT]

It is told that the fat cross is the area where the city can take benefits from.
So building a farm or cottage or other improvement here, counts up to the city productiveness/commerce/food supply.

Also its told that a Resource outside the BFC can be connected to the city using roads and castles. A resource can always be connected to your empire trough roads and castles.
But a resource outside the BFC only produces its materials if a Castle is on top of it. The normal indicated improvement doesnt work.

BUT... it is also told that normal improvements without resources are wasted outside the BFC area.
They dont add up to the city. In fact building a farm on a non BFC tile does nothing at all. The only thing to add this farm to a city is building another city near it so its BFC falls over the spot.

So i have a few questions;

1. Is this all true? Can someone check this and verify if its all true?
2. In the example above (the fat cross), does the improvement have any function?
3. In the example above (the fat cross), does the resource only provides with a castle on top of it?

Any help would be great on this. I normally thought i can use all tiles in my border so i'm confused right now.
The game isn't good in explaining things. They don't tell this kind of information.
And if they did, i missed it.

 

[ChrisH]

Each city can only work the tiles in the BFC.

not castles, forts. or you could build the improvement necessary (plantation, winery, etc) to still give you access to the resource (health, happiness etc..)

also, another reason for improving outside of BFC is to chain irrigate farms, if a city has no fresh water source, so the city can grow.

Otherwise, don't waste worker turns improving them (aside from road/rail connections) - unless they've nothing to do and you plan on adding a city to work them. hope this helps.

 

[madscientist]

This is an example of the BFC

Each tile with the food/hammer/commerce tiles can be worked by a citizan (1 population) in your city. I have 6 population, thus I have 6 citizans that can work either tiles or specialists, the total tiles worked are what you city gets (in food/hammers/commerce).

Any resources go the theentire empire (here onlt 1 city since that is all I got) providing there is a route (road or river) to the resource. In this case cows, sheep, wheat, stone. While I do have insense available, I do not have a plantation (I do not know calander yet) thus I do not get the happiness but I get the extra commerce from that tile if my citizan works it. A plantation removes the extra hammers from the mine but would give me the extra commerce, which if worked gives my city and empire extra comemrce.

 

[Bibor]

Its pretty simple:

1. A workable tile means you can assign a city citizen to work on that tile, directly.
2. Tiles that are within your cultural borders AND within a BFC of one of your cities are workable tiles.
3. Workable tiles give you their benefit only if you assign a citizen to work them. (for example, an irrigated riverside grassland will grant you +3 food, +1 commerce only if you assign a citizen to it).
4. A resource is a special workable tile - it's secondary benefit (for example, +1 health for PIG) is applied even if the tile is not workable (i.e. outside your city BFC), but within your cultural borders, while its primary benefit (+4 food) applies only if its within your cities' BFC.
5. secondary benefits (in this case +1 health in all your cities connected to trade network) require a connection to the trade network (road, river etc.), but primary benefits require only a working citizen.

So, a worked grassland Pig with a pasture but without a road will give extra +6 food to your city, but will not give +1 health to your empire.
An unworked grassland Pig with a pasture and a road but no citizen working on it will just give +1 health to your empire.

 

[WRobN]

So if i get it right;

INSIDE THE BFC
Citizens can work on the BFC tiles like workers can on all tiles so you can improve tiles in BFC without workers.


OUTSIDE THE BFC

SHEEP
Terrain		: Grassland
Improvement	: Pasture (Animal Husbandry)
Bonus		: +1 Food (+2 Food, +1 Commerce)
Effect		: +1 Health with Pasture
		  +1 Health with Supermarket

Sheep outside the BFC but connected with a road and a FORT on it add food bonus but not the + effect.

Sheep outside the BFC but connected with a road and a PASTURE on it doesnt add food bonus but adds the + effect.

 

[WRobN]

But what is the purpose of improvements NOT in BFC and NOT on a resource.

If i make a farm outside the BFC thats NOT on a resource, will it produce any benefits like tile improvement +1 something. Or is this farm a waste of time?

 

[madscientist]

But what is the purpose of improvements NOT in BFC and NOT on a resource.

If i make a farm outside the BFC thats NOT on a resource, will it produce any benefits like tile improvement +1 something. Or is this farm a waste of time?

It is a waste of a farm unless you plan on building a city later that would have it in the BFC. The only non-resource improvements outside of your cities BFC worth build are Forts (for defense and staring your airforce) and roads/railroads.

One other point, if there is a forrest outside the BFC and you chop it down you get the hammer bonus to the nearest city.

In my example city (it's from the Dalai Lama posted game thread) there is a forrested hill outside the BFC. I would never consider chopping it for a mine, although I might put a fort on it later on.

 

[WRobN]

Ok thank you for explaining.
I have 1 thing left to be verified...

Sheep outside the BFC but connected with a road and a PASTURE on it doesnt add food bonus but adds the + effect.

Is this true?

 

[madscientist]

Ok thank you for explaining.
I have 1 thing left to be verified...



Is this true?

CCorrect. Sheep outside the BFC with a pasture and conencting road will add 1 health to every city in your empire. Every city that has a supermarket get a bonus +1 health from the sheep for a total of +2 health. If you had no deer but traded for it, then each city in your empire with a supermarket would get +2 health from the deer.

 

[WRobN]

Thank you very much, your help is appreciated a lot.

 

[UWHabs]

So if i get it right;

INSIDE THE BFC
Citizens can work on the BFC tiles like workers can on all tiles so you can improve tiles in BFC without workers.


OUTSIDE THE BFC

SHEEP
Terrain		: Grassland
Improvement	: Pasture (Animal Husbandry)
Bonus		: +1 Food (+2 Food, +1 Commerce)
Effect		: +1 Health with Pasture
		  +1 Health with Supermarket

Sheep outside the BFC but connected with a road and a FORT on it add food bonus but not the + effect.

Sheep outside the BFC but connected with a road and a PASTURE on it doesnt add food bonus but adds the + effect.

No, you're getting confused.

Inside the BFC, you need workers to improve the lands. So, if you have grassland, you need a worker to farm it. Citizens in the city can work the tiles, so that the yields are useful to your city.

For resources (doesn't matter if they're in the BFC or outside of it), you need either the improvement (pasture, etc...) OR a fort to get the resource (the health benefit for pigs, for example). EITHER one will provide that (provided they're connected to your network.

However, only if you decide to pasture (or farm or mine or camp) it will you actually get the food (or commerce or hammer) bonus for the tile. This also doesn't matter if the resource is inside a city or not.

HOWEVER, since citizens can only work tiles within the BFC of the city, having a pastured cow that is not in the BFC of any city really doesn't matter what it's yield is (the +3 food you'd get for the pasture), since nobody can work it.

Building a fort on a resource DOES NOT give the food (or commerce or hammer) bonus listed. It still gives the health, though.

The main points are if it's still confusing, play around on a map. Look at your city's food and hammer output and you move citizens around (they're working the highlighted squares in the city view). Turn on tile yields when playing to see the tiles. It can be confusing, but once you learn it, it's fairly simple.

 

[WRobN]

Damn i thought i know the game by now, i wonder why i managed to hold position on monarch while i didnt knew of the BFC system exactly.

So resources always give their effect (+2 health for example) when a fort or the needed improvement is build upon it. But they dont give the plots bonus (+1 hammer for example) unless its within the BFC.

Inside the BFC workers improve tiles where workers "collect" the output of the tile.

Outside the BFC when building improvements on non-resource plots the output of the plot is lost until a new city is build where its BFC overlaps the improved plot.

I hope i get this right now..

 

[UWHabs]

Yeah, sounds about right. Thankfully the governors aren't horrible at picking tiles that won't be horrible.

As mentioned, improvements outside of a BFC and not on a resource are usually useless, but there are a couple times they're useful:
1. roads/railroads obviously to connect around
2. farms spread irrigation with civil service, so often I'll build farms not in a BFC to spread it to other tiles that can use it.
3. forest preserves help spread forests. So if I have land without much else to do, I'll often just preserve the forests so they can grow (and so I'll have more to chop down later when i need it).

 

[WRobN]

Ok thanks, i will pay some attention to the output to monitor it myself.

Lol i thought there always were lots of things to improve so i build more workers.
But there are only 20 main tiles to improve per city and of course the resources, roads and forts.

So in future i can make other use of those lost turns to build something else.

Thank you all.

I wonder why this is so bad documented.
In the manual or in the tutorial is not many reference to this system.

 

[Bibor]

I wonder why this is so bad documented.
In the manual or in the tutorial is not many reference to this system.

Actually you're wrong. It's reasonably well documented in the Civilopedia, as well as the manual.
Civilopedia > Game Concepts > Cities,
Civilopedia > Game Concepts > Improvements, and
Civilopedia > Game Concepts > Resources

 

[lymond]

3. forest preserves help spread forests. So if I have land without much else to do, I'll often just preserve the forests so they can grow (and so I'll have more to chop down later when i need it).

Whoa! I did not know that. Obviously, I build preserves in my National Park city if I'm so lucky to have a city with a lot of forests still. Otherwise, I've found no use for them. If they really spread forests, that's great for some later game choppage. Question: It still only spreads forests to completely blank tiles, i.e., no improvements or roads.

 

[vicawoo]

BFC is everything less than a civ distance of 3. Posters have referred to that as the Pythagorean distance, but I've yet to see Pythagorean distance defined that way.

 

[Bostock]

Whoa! I did not know that. Obviously, I build preserves in my National Park city if I'm so lucky to have a city with a lot of forests still. Otherwise, I've found no use for them. If they really spread forests, that's great for some later game choppage. Question: It still only spreads forests to completely blank tiles, i.e., no improvements or roads.

Forests in preserves can, as usual, only spread to tiles without improvements. They also, as usual, *can* spread to tiles with roads. However, roaded tiles still have the usual halved chance of receiving forest spread.

 

[MrWhereItsAt]

Ok thanks, i will pay some attention to the output to monitor it myself.

I wonder why this is so bad documented.
In the manual or in the tutorial is not many reference to this system.

In the days of Civ (1) and Civ 2 the manuals were AWESOME. It was the first Civ that set up the BFC tiles for city use, and I can imagine that a lot of us got used to the concept then and have since simply relied on past Civ practices as our base point when the latest game came out. I've not often looked to see what is in the Civilopedia of more recent games about the game dynamics.

 

[Bibor]

Basic city = center + 8 tiles surrounding the city (9 total tiles).
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BFC = basic city + 1 extra tile from the city, in every direction except diagonally (21 total tiles).

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