Building Cities on Resources

[HellboundHeathcliff]

Yes, but it's better to road the tile, which will make it produce 1 more Commerce, no?

Also - some people say that you get the shields if you build on top of a shield-boosting resource, while some say you don't - what's correct?

The city acts as a road and adds 1 commerce to the tile. Founding an early city on gold can be a huge boost to your science.

The base tile needs to produce 2 or more shields to show up in the city. Maybe it's 3... i haven't quite figured it out because i avoid the situation.

 

[thetrooper]

I advise NOT building a city on bonus resource. Why - you can not refine the resource
(r,i or m). It's ok if the placement fits your overall settlement.

 

[Cuivienen]

Building on the resource gives you the entire bonus (provided the resource is Tobacco, Saltpeter, Incense, Dyes, Spices, Ivory, Silks or Gems). The argument of building improvements on the resource is... err... Not fully thought out, as building on the resource will give you another tile to improve elsewhere. A mine on Ivory on Plains gives no more shields than the Plains-tile next to it that you might have otherwise settled on, and the gold from the resource is still available.

@Berrern -- At size 7, a city built on Bonus Grassland will get an extra shield. I'm not sure about cities built on Coal, Iron, Furs, Aluminum, Cattle or Uranium.

 

[thetrooper]

Cuivienen: "Building on the resource gives you the entire bonus (provided the resource is Tobacco, Saltpeter, Incense, Dyes, Spices, Ivory, Silks or Gems)."

And you are absolutely sure about this? There are still a lot of other resorces.
What about cattle, wheat (very common) and iron? I do not think you will get
the railed irrigation bonus of wheat in city centre square if you build on top of it.
My argument you are referring to might be shallow, but it is not completely
wrong...

 

[Pfeffersack]

The general rule is: Food is lost, shields and commerce bonus stay.For commerce its obvious, for shields I run some tests for a scenario-even if you create an ressource with +10 shields, they will still count if you place a city on it.
For industrial civs it is even an advantage to settle on shield-rich terrain...see here (post #30):

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=90528

 

[Cuivienen]

Cuivienen: "Building on the resource gives you the entire bonus (provided the resource is Tobacco, Saltpeter, Incense, Dyes, Spices, Ivory, Silks or Gems)."

And you are absolutely sure about this? There are still a lot of other resorces.
What about cattle, wheat (very common) and iron? I do not think you will get
the railed irrigation bonus of wheat in city centre square if you build on top of it.
My argument you are referring to might be shallow, but it is not completely
wrong...

That wasn't my point. My point was that there are a number of resources (Horses, which I left out, as well the ones above) which can be built on at no penalty, since their only bonus is to Commerce. Don't build cities on Wheat, that wasn't what I meant!

 

[Chieftess]

Production tiles are negated until you reach size 13, then it adds it on.

 

[toh6wy]

Well, that's good to know. Before reading this topic, I always avoided building cities on any bonus resource, but saw no problem building on any luxury or strategic resource.

 

[kb2tvl]

The city tile produces 2 food and 3 for an ag civ on freshwater...

You get 1 shield from size 1-6, +1 shield if the tile is bonsus grassland from size 7-12 and industrious get +1 shield from size 13+ irregardless of tile.

Commerce is 2 from size 1-6, From size 7-12, resource bonsus commerce, and river commerce are added on. Size 13+ cities get a +1 commerce for commercial civs.

 

[thetrooper]

Production tiles are negated until you reach size 13, then it adds it on.

Thanx!

Period. Nice to finally know. From source code or your own experience?

 

[Arvedui]

It is not entirely true that trade isn't lost on the city tile. The capital city will always produce the same amount of trade (3, normally; 4 if it is a seafaring civ and it is on the coast). Therefore, building your capital over a hill with gold would be a colossal waste.

 

[general_kill]

I lived in manhattan, bronx, brooklyn and am living in queens right in new york, and deers are definitely very common here. I have personally seen deers in the bronx and eastern queens, however, i have never heard of deers roaming around in manhattan. The only animal besides pets and humans that live in manhattan are rats maybe we can turn them into a food source?

 

[CyberChrist]

Ok, there seems to be a lot of people not understanding exactly how this works. Here are my observations of the workings of center city square resources in C3C.


Food
Any bonus resource is always totally wasted when city is build on top. Center square will always give food equal to what each citizen need to eat (+1 for agricultural civs).
In addition then Agricultural civs won't get reduction from government production penalties on food in cites founded on rivers or next to fresh water lakes and while this is common knowledge I feel I need to stress this point as it makes an even bigger difference in mods where citizens require 3+ food each - as only Agricultural civs will ALWAYS produce enough food for 1 population in center square in mods like that.


Shields
Any resource bonus shields are also added to base shield output of tile when founding a city on top of resource.

Center squares generate shields as follows for Town size cities (1-6 normally):
- tiles producing 1 or 0 shields unmined will always get only 1 shield
- tiles producing 2+ shields unmined will get the full bonus of 2+ shields

Center squares generate shields as follows for City size cities (7-12 normally):
- tiles producing 0 shields unmined will still only generate 1 shield
- tiles producing 1+ shields unmined will get +1 shields for all civs

Center squares generate shields as follows for Metropolis size cities (13+ normally):
- all tiles will generate their normal unmined shields +2 shields (+3 shields for Industrious civs)

Assuming terrain hasn't been mod'ed then founding cities on top of ...
- Jungles and Forests on Tundra and Grassland with a natural resource present will guarantee a center tile with an unmined 0 shield production (+ any resource bonus).
- Forests on Plains will guarantee a center tile with an unmined 1 shield production (+ any resource bonus).


Trade
All Center Square generate 1 trade as well as the following
- City size (7-12 normally) +1 (+3 for Commercial Civs)
- Metropolis size (13+ normally) +2 (+5 for commercial civs)
- cities at rivers gain +1
- + any trade producing resource
- coastal cities gain +1 for Seafaring civs (this is added after all other bonuses have been calculated)

Capitol produce an extra +3 trade that is NOT cummulative with either trade resource bonuses, city size bonus (incl. Commercial Trait bonus) or river bonus - it is cummulative with Seafaring bonus though. Effectively this means that all trade bonuses in Capitol needs to exceed 3 in order to have any noticeable effect.
Amount of Trade resource bonus needed to gain a trade boost of at least 1 are as follows:
- Town size: +4 trade resources or better (3 trade wasted)
- Town size at river: +3 trade resources or better (2 trade wasted)
- City size: +3 trade resource or better (2 trade wasted)
- City size at river: +2 trade resources or better (1 trade wasted)
- Metropolis: +2 trade resources or better (1 trade wasted)
- Metropolis at river: any trade resource is fine (full bonus from trade resource is gained)
- City/Metropolis size (Commercial civs): any trade resource is fine (full bonus from trade resource is gained)


Note
Don't forget that Governments like Despotism with reduced production also reduce output from center square of cities.


Conclussions
1. Avoid building cities on food resources unless other concerns absolutely demands it
2. Building cities on top of tiles that produce 2+ shields (Iron hills, Fur plain forests etc.) will give early production boost in city
3. Building non Capitol cities on any trade resource will give city an early trade boost
4. Building Capitol on trade resources is at best a long term strategy (that works best for Commercial civs as well).

 

[Masquerouge]

Thanks Cyberchrist ! You've settled the debate for me at least
No more cities on cows, then