Flat Desert Tile Buff

[peterw1987]

If you spawn at huge flat desert, your civilization is destined to become something like north african country nowadays. Just accept it. Little food, little production, little culture( i wanted to say none, but maybe it is too harsh).

 

[CrazyG]

If you spawn at huge flat desert, your civilization is destined to become something like north african country nowadays. Just accept it. Little food, little production, little culture( i wanted to say none, but maybe it is too harsh).

I don't think I've started on a big desert and not had a river nearby

 

[Owlbebach]

I don't see the reason for this. Frankly I don't find deserts weak, at all. The only luxuries they can roll are mines, marble, and incense (which is awesome when it pops up on floodplains) all of which are very strong. I'm guaranteed a river system where all the tiles start at 3 food, that matches or beats what some luxuries do in plains or grassland. You get access to floodplain wheat and Oases, two of the best starting tiles in the game. Maybe I do have to work an iron mine or oil well that earns 2 food less than it would on grassland, but I'm earning at least 2 extra food from having floodplains, and that comes into play much later.


I completely agree with your bolded statement, but keep in mind you can have a mine on a hill without freshwater, and flat desert which is fresh water via Oasis. "+2 faith and +2 gold on desert tiles with improved resources. Additional +2 food if the tile isn't hills or floodplain" is the wording I suggested in another thread, I think it achieves the goal of making inhabitable desert habitable.

Well we are basically talking about almost the same thing. I may mislead you, but i meant additional +2 food on desert tiles with improved resources but without fresh water . Anyway that will lead to mostly equal result

 

[peterw1987]

I don't think I've started on a big desert and not had a river nearby

The only time i will reroll if i got desert start, is when after i scout my surrounding area, i see a lot of wheat and incense lying on that flat desert with 1 yield only(1culture /1 food). Ouch, that hurts. Better reroll. Otherwise, usually desert start had enough flood plains and sheep hills to justify for it.

 

[Gazebo]

Plain desert tiles should be bad. Inflating yields by giving them base yields, even through buildings, won't help gameplay and will (frankly) just hurt the AI's settling logic.

G

 

[CrazyG]

Its not like you would work a 1 food tile in industrial anyways

The only time i will reroll if i got desert start, is when after i scout my surrounding area, i see a lot of wheat and incense lying on that flat desert with 1 yield only(1culture /1 food). Ouch, that hurts. Better reroll. Otherwise, usually desert start had enough flood plains and sheep hills to justify for it.

Don't reroll, just pick spirit of the desert and work them. If you reroll every start you don't like you are going to get a really warped perception of this game

 

[Funak]

Agreed. Deserts and ice should be useless.

Snow, not ice, right? I mean technically Ice is useless as well, but ice isn't really terrain, it's a feature, and it isn't workable either way

 

[vyyt]

I like my deserts useless - it's in their job description.

 

[Gazebo]

Snow, not ice, right? I mean technically Ice is useless as well, but ice isn't really terrain, it's a feature, and it isn't workable either way

Snow yes. Also ice. But snow.

 

[Strigvir]

If Desert is as useless as Snow, explain Africa having more people than all Tundra (which is better than Snow) areas combined.

 

[Gazebo]

If Desert is as useless as Snow, explain Africa having more people than all Tundra (which is better than Snow) areas combined.

Africa is not entirely desert.

G

 

[peterw1987]

If Desert is as useless as Snow, explain Africa having more people than all Tundra (which is better than Snow) areas combined.

"Northern" Africa has it fair share of river (which translate into flood plains in Civ 5).
All they have is just food if they stick near the river. Hence why huge population is just what they have. Sometimes the population is too much, that there is no more workable area for food to feed all of them.

Southern part of Africa is more of plain than desert. and also rich on resources.

 

[tu_79]

I believe that a desert tile is not just something completely arid like the Sahara Desert. It can be, yes, but we've got desert in Almería, Spain, where irrigation has arrived and greenhouses have covered the landscape, that is the most productive region in vegetables. Warm climate helps with growth, and fertilizers and water are provided by the farmers, so plants thrive. I think in Israel they do some like this too.

 

[Starrynite120]

What if farms were enabled next to other farms in desert? To resemble irrigation. Could at least allow better farm triangles for fresh water farms.

 

[Owlbebach]

Could also at least allow better farm triangles for fresh water farms.

And get 7-food farms on flood plains...

 

[Starrynite120]

And get 7-food farms on flood plains...

It could be tech related, so only enabled in say the industrial era or something. But I also don't see a problem with 7 food flood plains. Grassland can have 6 pretty easily, and those farms surrounding it would provide a lot more food than the ones surrounding the flood plain. I do think there should be something in the mid game to make deserts more habitable. Its silly that deserts stay useless, because in reality they're not.

 

[Lanstro]

I also agree that deserts should stay useless. Tiles that are hard to move through and with few yields makes the map at large more interesting.

 

[tu_79]

It could be argued that jungles are quite uninhabitable too. Theorically there's plenty of food, but inhabitants of the jungles are few and sparse. They're too dangerous to let people thrive. But you build an herbalist, a workshop and an university and suddenly jungles aren't that bad.
I'm convinced that deserts can be useful with irrigation and fertilizer. Perhaps construction allowing farms to provide fresh water for adjacent tiles could help, but probably many resources would get in the way.

 

[Starrynite120]

I also agree that deserts should stay useless. Tiles that are hard to move through and with few yields makes the map at large more interesting.

It does make the map more interesting to have tiles with few yields and little potential. But that's not what desert is. Desert is useless and never becomes of any use, which in my opinion is boring and not representative of deserts in reality, which technology has the ability to make at least minimally useful.

It could be argued that jungles are quite uninhabitable too. Theorically there's plenty of food, but inhabitants of the jungles are few and sparse. They're too dangerous to let people thrive. But you build an herbalist, a workshop and an university and suddenly jungles aren't that bad.
I'm convinced that deserts can be useful with irrigation and fertilizer. Perhaps construction allowing farms to provide fresh water for adjacent tiles could help, but probably many resources would get in the way.

I agree with you on this, its a good point. Its true, resources would probably get in the way. But its better than nothing.

 

[Workerspam]

It does make the map more interesting to have tiles with few yields and little potential. But that's not what desert is. Desert is useless and never becomes of any use, which in my opinion is boring and not representative of deserts in reality, which technology has the ability to make at least minimally useful.

Deserts can grant coal and oil as technology improves. Desert improvements (mines, pastures, quarries, oasis/lake adjacent farms, villages) increase their yields apace with their non-desert kin. Much of the desert in Civ is already useful. But flat, featureless desert that is not adjacent to a source of fresh water? That is the Civ equivalent to the barren, middle of the Sahara. And with the possible exception of small, nomadic tribes, there's no human activity there.