How do you manage on desert?

[monster]

How can I make a city that is completely surrounded by dessert grow? My city sits on one grass spot. Irrigation won't do it. What can I do?

 

[Ohwell]

Irrigate and railroad will do, but even then you'd only have a growth of one or 2 food from the grassland, it would take forever to grow.

Why are you making cities in desert anyway??

 

[monster]

But irrigation will only give you one food for each irrigation. If there are 2 people in the city and two irrigations around the city that will give you a total of 4 foods. Which is enough only for two people. This leaves no extra food for zero growth. Does this mean it is impossible to grow a city bigger than two in the dessert?

 

[Ohwell]

With railroad, you get 2 food from desert.

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by monster
How can I make a city that is completely surrounded by dessert grow? My city sits on one grass spot. Irrigation won't do it. What can I do?

Next time build the city on a desert square. That will give you two food on that square and you will still have the grassland square.

If that is your capital, you should now be able to build a settler to start your expansion. In any case, you will need to import the garrison and gold for improvements.

 

[Perfection]

Put more cites on it. Its counter-intuitive but it works, see you can never build a city of more than two on pure desert. So build more and more and more. The density makes all the the resources used.

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Perfection
Put more cites on it. Its counter-intuitive but it works, see you can never build a city of more than two on pure desert. So build more and more and more. The density makes all the the resources used.

That's a very good point. Population density is low in desert areas. Spread your population out -- lots of little cities.

 

[Perfection]

I ussually do it in a grid like fashion for deserts

D=Desert
C=Cities

DDDDDDDDDDD
DCDCDCDCDCD
DDDDDDDDDDD
DCDCDCDCDCD
DDDDDDDDDDD
DCDCDCDCDCD
DDDDDDDDDDD

 

[Mephisto]

i don't.

i hate desert.

 

[WillJ]

Originally posted by Perfection
...see you can never build a city of more than two on pure desert.

Well, like Ohwell said, when a desert square is irrigated and railroaded it produces two food, so it would be possible to have a size 21 city on all desert.

 

[MAS]

The beauty of a dense city layout is that once you have railroads you can abonden the overlapping city's and have the settlers join the ones that are allowed to continue to exist!
Those small towns will grow instandly to productive city's! And When you abonden a city after you discovered railroads it will leave a railed tile behind, so you need less time to rail the whole dessert!

 

[Marx]

Hmm the desert is for my rivals. I`ll take the other terrains. I hate desert :R

 

[Hades]

Many strategic resources are located in the deserts. They also make good strategic location. They are also better than tundras.

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Marx
Hmm the desert is for my rivals. I`ll take the other terrains. I hate desert :R

It's all France; deserts, forests, mountains, every dot and tittle, all of it.

http://www.zachriel.com/gotm10/ad0590-France.htm

 

[Hellfire]

I concentrate on getting the good territory for myself. I let my foes start placing cities on deserts and let them try to grow them, then easily conquer them. By the time I do, I'm at or near getting railroads which make it a lot easier for cities to grow. Also, placing cities on a coastal area near a desert works too, as a harbor will bring in food from the water.

 

[Perfection]

I like to use the ICS culture strat. so high density deserts work the best for me.

must grab it all

MUST GRAB IT ALL

MUST NOT STOP TELL THE WORLD IS MINE