How does the home city tile work?

[mystikmind2005]

(vanilla)

Heres an idea - Open worldbuilder and drop a road on every hidden recource so you know not to place a city on it when you close worldbuilder and continue the game!

Apart from that above idea, the way to make the game truely fair is to allow mines/oil wells inside cities. Since it is possible to do that in the real world, why not? Include a little unhappiness effect as well for that extra realistic touch.

 

[Willem]

1. I have a futher question... I love the wonders as they give major boosts to my civ and I tend to be a more culture winner than anything... so I have always built cities on 3 hammer spots... near fresh water or coast if I can but always 3 hammer so that my city really gets that production boost...

That's really not a good idea. You'll end up with alot more Hammers if you build your city nearby and have one of your citizens work it, with the proper improvement in place. You're actually reducing the number of Hammers you can get by doing it the way you are now.

do I get the same boost if my city is just near a 3 hammer spot?

No, you'll get more.

And if so are there any improvments that can help/hinder those spots?

It all depends on what the resource is that you're building over. If it's Copper or Iron, than you can build a mine on it. If it's Stone or Marble then build a Quarry.

 

[wrex]

Yes but cities that I build on 3 hammer spots seem to build things a lot faster with the early on items... a grainery in 15 turns rather than 30 or 60... walls etc. and I can usually find 5 or 6 such spots, none that have resources on them for my first few citys to start building the early wonders ex Stonehenge... I did start playing with this stuff today... building near 3 hammer spots with mixed results.

Id also like to really thank everyone regarding the info about not building a city on a resource (I had been doing this) and it has helped a lot - thank you for improving my game play... now if I could only win on Noble setting...... hehe, Thank you!

 

[wrex]

I'm speaking of strictly non resource spots... 3 hammer spots with no resource on the 3 hammer tile... I think after I place the city it turns into 2 food, 2 hammer, 1 coin...

 

[wrex]

It all depends on what the resource is that you're building over. If it's Copper or Iron, than you can build a mine on it. If it's Stone or Marble then build a Quarry.

I'm speaking of strictly non resource spots... 3 hammer spots with no resource on the 3 hammer tile... I think after I place the city it turns into 2 food, 2 hammer, 1 coin...

 

[Clam Spammer]

You must be talking about plains hills with forests - these are the only tiles that produce 3 hammers with no resources or improvements. When you place a city on this tile, the forest is removed, so the tile becomes a regular plains hill which produces 2 hammers. You will get the same benefit by founding the city on any plains hill whether it has a forest or not. The special case (and the one that everyone else was talking about) is a plains hill with a resource like stone or marble. Unlike forested hills, these will still produce 3 hammers if you found a city there. However, these are extremely rare and in most games you won't find them.

As for your question: Early in the game when you need to produce lots of units, it is generally a good idea to found cities on plains hills if possible. In general, you don't want to delay founding your first city, but if you can move the initial settler to a plains hill without losing resources, coast or fresh water, then you should do it.

When deciding where to found a city, you should first consider the resources available in the BFC (the 20 workable tiles around the city) and the proximity of fresh water (for the health bonus) and coast (for building ships), as well as the general quality of the terrain. The production bonus for the plains hill is secondary to these.

 

[MrCynical]

I'm speaking of strictly non resource spots... 3 hammer spots with no resource on the 3 hammer tile... I think after I place the city it turns into 2 food, 2 hammer, 1 coin...

The only non-resource tile that does this is forest/plains/hills. The forest is removed on city founding, so you'll get the same as founding on any plains/hill. The extra hammer is nice to have, but should be a very small influence on where you place a city.

 

[Willem]

I'm speaking of strictly non resource spots... 3 hammer spots with no resource on the 3 hammer tile... I think after I place the city it turns into 2 food, 2 hammer, 1 coin...

As mentioned, that's only possible on a Plains Hill. And you would still get an extra Hammer if you were to mine that Hill instead, +2 once you get Railroad. It does have it advantages though as you'll also get an extra 25% defence bonus on the tile. In terms of production though, you're only looking at in the short term. In the long term you would have been better off placing your city beside that Hill, not on it.

 

[Kesshi]

In terms of production though, you're only looking at in the short term. In the long term you would have been better off placing your city beside that Hill, not on it.

Willem,

I disagree. Of course this is highly situational, but as a general rule I always try to place cities on plains hills whenever possible. You see it as a +1 hammer bonus, and I see it as a +2 food bonus. Compared to the most common places where I might place a city, (grassland, plains, grassland hills) I get a +2 bonus over a +1 bonus. There are exceptions of course, but if I find an area surrounded by non negative tiles (desert/tundra) I will typically try to settle on the Plains Hills for the +2 bonus.

 

[Willem]

I agree it's situational. For instance, sometimes you'll find that the Plains Hill is the only thing in the area that will yield Hammers, in which case it would certainly be a bad idea to build on top of it rather than use a mine there. Or you might be creating a city near another civ's border, in which case having the extra defence bonus might be a definite asset. But it sounds like the OP is building on Plains Hills under any circumstances for just a single extra Hammer, which I think is a mistake. He needs to consider the overall city site more, rather than just building there for the sake of it.

 

[Crowqueen]

1) If you settle 1 tile away from a 3 hammer spot you will get the bonus production if you have your citizens work that tile (you can adjust what tile you citizens work from city screen). It's generally not a good idea to work the 3 hammer tile untill your city has a reasonably sized pop.

2) The blue circles are recommended spots but the computer will usually only calculate for food (at least in my game). The computer will not take into account the tiles distance from other cits, the resources hear the spot, or whether or not the spot is located in a good political are (i.e. it might be to close to your neighbor or not situated in the position where you will obtain the most land. It's best to ignore the blue circles

3) Mountains do not affect your city incept that for the most part they are useless terrain. (In the R&F scenario/mod I think some civs can produce food on mountains).

NOTE: Going back to 1) It's usually a bad idea to settle on a 3 hammer tile that has resources, in fact the only reason for settling on a 3 hammer tile is a) proximity to resources, b) it's a good defensive spot. You will get a better production bonuses from a tile if you build a mine there which you cannot do if there's a city there. If there's iron or bronze on the tile you can even 5+ hammers (represented by an anvil) which greatly improves production.

(1) Actually, in the last few games I have got several cities with mostly hills around them which I mine. Combined with coast and a Lighthouse they can grow a bit more but they are then fairly early powerhouses which pump out units ad infinitum for the rest of the game in a few turns. Barracks, Stable, Heroic Epic, Military Academy, Military Instructor, Forge, extra National Wonder (Ironworks*/Moai Statues/Globe Theatre*, though the ones marked with an * often take too long to be practicable given that I am usually in a state of perpetual war by the time they come along), and perhaps a few buildings to help health along at the later stages of the game, and you can have a six-pop city churning out units all day long. (I rather think of them a bit like Stalingrad during the war - the people are all in rags and coughing up blood but they still deliver the goods and have one of the best morale ratings in the entire empire because they are fed a diet of propaganda /bread and circuses along with their herbal tea - good for the circulation and as a prophylactic against bacteria - and their salted sprats.)

They might not grow that much over the course of the game but they are usually well inside my empire - as the first or usually second city - and are usually sited so as to take charge of strategic resources. Because my gambit on Warlord goes Mysticism --> [Stonehenge] [second city] ---> Polytheism/Religion if poss --> Masonry --> [Great Wall] --> Priesthood --> [Oracle]/Code of Laws/Religion if poss --> Monotheism/Religion if poss --> GP for shrine --> GP for Theology/Religion if poss (though I have been beaten to the three late religions, particularly if Wang Kon lightbulbs Philosophy in the mid-BCs as he is wont to do) --> [Apostolic Palace] I make sure I have a decent production site early on and REX to more advantageous sites for population growth and commerce activity later. I enjoy playing Financial and/or Creative and/or Organized leaders, because I run a CE, and this strategy isn't affected by the new patch because although they give you more money to start off with they take it from you in unit maintenance outside your borders as soon you start the first axe rush. I know I spam cottages too much and neglect farms/food, but I also like Windmills around production cities to get a bit of a boost later on and as soon as I get Replaceable Parts the windmills kick into the production field as well as the commerce/food field.

(2) And even when you are over the other side of the board from your empire they will still show up. It is just a guideline, nothing else. If anything they are less annoying than the dialog boxes in Civ II which appear as part of the tutorial mode and infuriate me because it usually ISN'T a good site for a city.

(X) When considering a city I don't tend to look at where it is but as I enjoy financial games and commerce-economies I tend to go towards a coast at first and line my cities up to make sure I get a lot of ports. Then I just land-grab in-land. I do put my cities on empty desert tiles to wring as much as possible from that "empty quarter" but at the moment I am using the strategy layer to dotmap the whole continent and stick within what I've delineated for myself. Amazingly the AI either tends to know where I've dotmapped (one AI got its city to fit perfectly and then of course promptly lost it when I DoWed to get it back!) or tries to muck up my dotmap with spam settlements of its own (once I had to go to war against Saladin twice to get back the nice spot I'd chosen because I neglected to have a Settler ready among the axe rush ) so I'm coming to the conclusion it may not be best to dot-map in-game to avoid giving the enemies' spies the broadest of hints with a huge purple line drawn down the middle of the desert. Perhaps that's where the idea of ley-lines comes from? God trying to dot-map...