Building Cities On Hills/Tundra

[Bud2998]

Do you, personally, think it's a good idea to build a city on hills or tundra? I dunno about tundra, but sometimes hills I'll do. It gives you everything a grassland or plains would, besides no trade produced in the city, but the 100%+ defense makes up for it, though, those are all in my opinion. But, really, would you ever build a city on tundra or hills?

 

[sethos]

I take every interesting site, especially when it has got two or three specials. I also build cities on deserts, mountains and glaciers! You can improve the land later (option 'o') when you've got engineers.
Imagine a city on a mountain with 4 wheat - where's the problem?
And the defense bonus: A fortified mech inf on a mountain behind city walls can stand a howitzer!

 

[Marlos]

I fill all spaces, even desert and mountains. As a Power Democracy player, you can never have enough cities. :mutant: If the city in question would be near "the front", I may not build it until I can guarantee that I can defend it. The defense bonus may alter that, but it depends.

But I fill all available areas.

 

[Old n Slow]

Early in the game (monarchy), send a settlers to start mining a hill; then send a second settlers to build a city on that hill. After the appropriate number of turns, the first settler is done & the mined hill city is producing two foods & three shields -- compared to a grassland three food, one shield, one arrow. I do mined hill sites without a second thought.

 

[Ace]

If the hill is in the right location, and especially if it has coal or wine, I always mine it and build a city there.

 

[Marlos]

Originally posted by sethos
And the defense bonus: A fortified mech inf on a mountain behind city walls can stand a howitzer!

Don't howitzers ignore city walls?

 

[starlifter]

Do you, personally, think it's a good idea to build a city on hills or tundra?

Terrain type is almost irrelevant for me in relatiely late game (about Corporation onwards). As long as the city can gow one pop point per day, then all is well. Swamp, tundra, even Glacier.

In very early game, I don't build on difficult terrain... but I pretend I did, and build around it. Later, I come back and backfil it. What is important is not just the terrain you build on, but the surrounding terrain and what you want the city for. Every city I build, I also know how many trade it will produce and how many shields it will make and what it will be doing (in general) thousands of years down the road. Shields get the most attention. If you build on a hill, you build in teams or don't build there... one build a mine, and the other makes a city. That way, you get the shields. I built on lots of hills in GOTM017, because of the small island layout. I think 4 of my first 8 cities were on hills.


About Walls:

Howies ignore walls. Furthermore, fortification behind city walls is does nothing for land battles that consider walls. Said another way, if you have walls, the wall bonus supercedes the fortification bonus. Similarly, the Fortress bonus superceedes the fortification bonus. Might as well sleep in a fortress.

A fortified vet Mech Inf on a Mountain behind Walls gets:

6
+3 Vet
+0 Walls (Howie ignores walls)
+3 Fortification (No wall used)
+12 Mountain
===
24d Total... against a Howie


6
+3 Vet
+12 Walls
+0 Fortification (Superceeded by Walls)
+12 Mountain
===
33d Total... against Armor, e.g.




A fortified vet Mech Inf on a Mountain in a Fortress gets:

6
+3 Vet
+6 Fortress
+0 Fortification <--- Not a misprint.
+12 Mountain
===
27d Total... against anything


A SLEEPING vet Mech Inf on a Mountain in a Fortress gets:

6
+3 Vet
+6 Fortress
+0 Fortification
+12 Mountain
===
27d Total... against anything


See? In a fortress, there is no point in Fortifying. Unless you will destroy the Fortress with a different unit that turn.

 

[Marlos]

Hmm... starlifter's analysis is raising a question in my mind: Are fortresses still utilized in modern warfare?

I mean, read about the American Civil War and you will find that the soldiers built fortifications all over the place, and that it was very difficult to dislodge troops in them without suffering casualties. But do modern armies use fortifications? Isn't part of the idea behind modern weapons that they are a mobile, quick-striking force?

My point is this -- perhaps the game designers for Civ4 should allow certain modern units to ignore fortifications when they are attacking, or provide that a certain technological advance make fortifications obsolete. Am I off base here? Does this sound logical to any of you?

 

[starlifter]

We still use fortresses in the modern military. They are not big rock castle types, but usually bases. In a forward base, it would take a siginficant effort to overcome the defenders. We did this in the Persian Guld War, esp. when we were building in the August-December 1990. The base ("fortress") could be overrun, eventually, but it was a tough nugget. Ditto in other conflicts like the Central African Wars and Bosnia, and even Somalia. A base is more than an entrenchment, but less that an full city, and they can be constructed pretty fast. But we don't call them "fortresses" in practice, though .

 

[duke o' york]

This is like the tactical (as in, not to cheat for terrain improvement) airbase. I often do this if the continent I am attacking is so large that my carriers will not provide adequate support for my vast squadrons of stealth fighters. You can also build a fortress if you unload enough engineers onto a coastal tile and then a couple of mechs or whatever defensive units you want, but since it will have to be on the railroad to do much good then you are better off just attacking the AI directly. To negate the effects of fortresses thenI like to capture the city (or cities) supporting the units within.

 

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by starlifter
A fortified vet Mech Inf on a Mountain behind Walls gets:

6
+3 Vet
+0 Walls (Howie ignores walls)
+3 Fortification (No wall used)
+12 Mountain
===
24d Total... against a Howie

starlifter, this is not correct, bonuses are multiplied.

6
*1.5 Vet
*1 Walls (Howie ignores walls)
*1.5 Fortification (No wall used)
*3 Mountain
===
40.5 d Total... against a Howie

other computations dimilarly.

 

[starlifter]

Thank you for the correction, Slow Thinker! I know you and Sodak and some others have done extensive testing in this area, so I will defer to you, as I have not tested this part of the game myself .



My general experinece with the programming style of Civ2 would not indicate that the factors would be multiplied like that, but rather their contributions computed, and then added. The 40.5 seems almost outrageously high, but that's just a gut opinion.

Are the intermediate steps of the computation you posted truncated (or maybe rounded) along the way? Or is everything multiplied and then truncated (or rounded) at the very end?

Thanks, ST!!

 

[SlowThinker]

If they are truncated then to 1/8 (0.125).
But can you get less than 1/8? You would need multiply the 1.5 bonus four times (0.5*0.5*0.5*0.5=1/16). You can get veteran status + fortified + pikemen + river: yes, some truncation must occur. But I don't know if the truncation is done after each step (then the order of multiplication would be significant) or at the end...

I think the following link explains how it works: http://www.apolyton.net/forums/Forum1/HTML/001761.html . Read the debate between me and DaveV.

Testing is relatively easy: set hitpoints to 100 and then the randomness is very low.

 

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by starlifter
My general experinece with the programming style of Civ2 would not indicate that the factors would be multiplied like that, but rather their contributions computed, and then added.

starlifter,
I think the multiplying is natural. Otherwise the vet status would mean almost no advantage in the walled city on the mountains for example.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

Originally posted by starlifter
My general experinece with the programming style of Civ2 would not indicate that the factors would be multiplied like that, but rather their contributions computed, and then added. The 40.5 seems almost outrageously high, but that's just a gut opinion.

I'd have to agree with this.

 

[GaryNemo]

Building a city on a Hill, after a Settler has started to build the Mine, is very important. Like starlifter, I built on several hills in GOTM017, because of the small island layout.

Other than Wine, I do not generally build a city on a hill, because I'd rather have the extra trade and irrigation. The defense bonus is usually meaningless. But there is one important exception.

As Nuclear war looms, SDI defense is vital. And the AI may send a bomber, then paratroop. I'm generally terrified they will capture an SDI city, near two or more large cities. So, I tend to build such small SDI cities on Hills. And add SAM defense, or a fighter, because the SDI in the city is so valuable.

 

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by Duke of Marlbrough
I'd have to agree with this.

You can disagree but that's all you can do against it.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

Thanks.

 

[sethos]

I'll take every interesting site with 4 specials.

 

[Enforcer Talen]

I build a city 4 spaces away from my last city. always.