Gems on Grassland; possible bug?

[Kaboth]

I have been playing a conquests epic game and one of the dutch cities I recently captured is built upon a grassland square with gems on it. Upon abandoning the city and building a colony sure enough I get the gems luxury. Is this a bug? The civilopedia states gems cannot be found on grassland and I've never seen it happen before.

Is the computer not programmed to avoid building on luxury tiles?

 

[Turner]

Very possible, not a bug at all.

Keep in mind that gems also appear on jungles. And when you cut down the jungles, what do you get? Grassland.

Samething took me by surprise one game when I saw the AI had a grassland square with oil in it. The oil was in a marsh, and the AI cleared the marsh leaving a grassland.

 

[Commander Bello]

Originally posted by Kaboth
I have been playing a conquests epic game and one of the dutch cities I recently captured is built upon a grassland square with gems on it. Upon abandoning the city and building a colony sure enough I get the gems luxury. Is this a bug? The civilopedia states gems cannot be found on grassland and I've never seen it happen before.

Is the computer not programmed to avoid building on luxury tiles?

IIRC, gems might be found in jungles as well. So, that given tile could have been a jungle tile in the past, that is, prior to the settlement of that city.

 

[Kaboth]

Ok Is the computer stupid enough that it often builds on top of luxuries. I hate having to abandon towns because of the rep hit.

 

[Commander Bello]

Originally posted by Kaboth
Ok Is the computer stupid enough that it often builds on top of luxuries. I hate having to abandon towns because of the rep hit.

As soon as you own the town (that is, the majority of citizens in that given town is of your nation, not of the other one's) there is no reputation hit for abandoning anymore.

 

[Turner]

And yes, it is that stupid as to build on top of a resource. Even more so, as it knows the locations of the resources before they're revealed.

 

[globester]

the road goes to the city, so also to the luxury, shouldn't that connect it to your capital?

got a city with luxury in it before and i believe it wasn't a problem. could be i'm mistaken, had lots of luxuries :/

 

[Capt Buttkick]

Is it really stupid to build on top of gems? Iirc you do get the gc and shield bonus in the city.
You don't get food bonuses under cities however.

 

[DaleSwanson]

Why is it stupid to build ontop of a resources? You get the resource, and it can't be taken without taking the city.

 

[Turner]

Originally posted by DaleSwanson
Why is it stupid to build ontop of a resources? You get the resource, and it can't be taken without taking the city.

Because you can't improve upon it, and you only get x amount of food and y amount of commerce, plus a shield or two. So if you found a city on a hill, and you suddenly get coal under it, you can't mine the coal to get extra shields. You can't irrigate the cow to get more food. Basically, you can't improve the tile if a city is on it.

 

[Longasc]

How is it - is the ressource wasted or only food bonus ressources like cattle/wheat?

Will Iron or Gold be lost when I built a city directly over them?

 

[Turner]

I wish the search function was enabled, because this came up a couple of months after civ3 was released. The prevailing opinion when it was first released was to build on it, so you'd get the resource. But the tiles don't improve.

Do this. Go into the editor, and make a city on a resource. Then put a settler near some other resources that give the same bonus'. Then compare the two.

I can't do this now, but I may set this up when I get home.

 

[Commander Bello]

Originally posted by Longasc
How is it - is the ressource wasted or only food bonus ressources like cattle/wheat?

Will Iron or Gold be lost when I built a city directly over them?

With standard game settings, only strategic ressources (iron, oil, coal, aluminium, uranium, rubber[?] - but not the horses) might get lost, determined by a random factor.
All other ressources (luxuries and bonus) will stay forever.

 

[TheNiceOne]

To clear up some of the misunderstandings:

1) There is grassland under most terrain that can be removed, so gems on jungle that is cleared becomes gems on grassland.

2) If you build a city on a strategic or luxury resource, you will get the benefit of that resource as if having built a road to it normally.

3) The bonus part (food, shields, gold) of resources are partly wasted when you build a city on them. Most importantly, the food part is totally wasted, since a city square always produce 2 food (3 if agricultural).

 

[Kaboth]

Thanks for that people, it's very clear now

 

[Yeti]

Two comments on things in this thread:

On building cities on resource:

With bonus resources it's a pretty big waste because your city center has fixed production.

It is less of a waste on luxuries since it provides instant connection and they don't give much in bonuses.

Strategic resources are in the middle - you get instant connection, but some of them would give decent bonuses if you weren't built on top of them.


On abandoning cities:

It is my understanding that if the city's population isn't at least one half your people, then you still take the rep, even if abandoning instead of razing.

 

[TheNiceOne]

Originally posted by Yeti
Two comments on things in this thread:

On building cities on resource:

With bonus resources it's a pretty big waste because your city center has fixed production.


It is less of a waste on luxuries since it provides instant connection and they don't give much in bonuses.

Strategic resources are in the middle - you get instant connection, but some of them would give decent bonuses if you weren't built on top of them.

This is only partly correct. It is completely correct for the food part - any bonus food is wasted if you build on it. But a city tile doesn't have fixed shield/gold income. There is some minimum calculation (ex.: a city center always produce minimum 1 shield), so you may waste part of the bonus until late in the game, but it's not a total waste.
You should keep away from tiles that gets additional bonus from mining, since you cannot mine the city tile though.

On abandoning cities:

It is my understanding that if the city's population isn't at least one half your people, then you still take the rep, even if abandoning instead of razing.

That's correct

 

[Capt Buttkick]

Sorry for double posting. I couldn't delete either.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

Iirc you don't earn shields by building a city on a hill without any resources compared to building on the next hill with iron for instance (gov issues etc. apart). You loose the possibilty to mine for an additional two shields in either case. Building a city on a hill with iron should give a base shield value of two. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Chieftess]

IIRC, you do get all of the gold bonuses when you found a city on a commerce-based resource. It's a government like despotism that knocks the food/shield/commerce down by 1.