Resources vs. Tiles

[dido]

How many useful tiles would you give up for a resource tile?

I am often in a situation that when i am building a city I dont know whether I should take a few ocean tiles for a seafood resource or some desert for an iron/copper

 

[smackthewise]

When I am deciding it really depends on what your Civ needs, i.e. do you require a Health resource to increase your population or do you need Iron quickly to bring the smack-down on your nearest neighbour? (this obviously applies to all strategic resources such as happiness, trade etc). Also it depends on what you intend to use the city for. If there are no other resource food sources in the cities fat-cross then you may need that extra food to get the city to a productive size and to be able to or if its a production city you want more hills, but you need to work out if you'll have enough food to work the tiles.

There are many other factors too, such as blocking off territory, if you're financial, what tiles you will loose in gaining more water tiles i.e. towns in the long run vs water tiles. Basically just know what the city to be used for (now and in 1000 years, and place/build around that.

I will often write the city name as "PR - Rome" for production cities so I don't loose focus and build something like library there. (or CE for cottage cities, SE or specialist cities etc)

 

[vanatteveldt]

For 90% of the (relevant) game, city size << 20. Thus, what matters much more is how useful the best 2, 5, and 10 tiles are, for those are the tiles you will be working at those sizes (minus #specialists).

A city with 7 ocean tiles and 13 good tiles is much better than a city with no ocean/desert/peak tiles but 20 mediocre tiles.

 

[Matthew5117]

I will often write the city name as "PR - Rome" for production cities so I don't loose focus and build something like library there. (or CE for cottage cities, SE or specialist cities etc)

Can you please tell me all the codes you use? I think I could use this. :goobjob:

 

[CynicalMagician]

A few ocean for a seafood is definitely worth it. Seafood are worth minimum 5 food and 1 commerce. Food is king for your cities. Even if all you have is a seafood and nothing else, a city with a library running scientists is worth it.

Desert metals are less worthwhile, but they're still 4-5 hammers. If I need the metal I'll settle them no question. Otherwise, I will settle them if I have the food to work them (flood plains are sometimes nearby desert metals).

 

[Gliese 581]

Food is vastly superior to something like desert iron. You never want to give up food for a few more grassland or something like that.

 

[Gorey]

Can you please tell me all the codes you use? I think I could use this. :goobjob:

i use signs instead in the early game. later on when i no longer need the reminders, i'll remove them.

hit ALT-S then click on the city and type in something like:

IronWorks
Oxford
Wall Street
Science
Commerce
Shipyard
Wealth
Barracks

etc. etc.

to remove it.. hit ALT-S again then right-click on the tile holding the sign.

to be honest. signs are one of my favorite features. i'll even put up signs on tiles to remind me to build an improvement. especially in the beginning. when i found a new city.. i'll figure out which 6-8 tiles are the best to improve first and throw up signs on them. this way i only have to spend one turn thinking. anyway, i put a one or two letter capital for the improvement to keep the sign size small.

F - farm
C - cottage
M - mine
P - pasture
LM - lumber mill
WS -workshop
WM - watermill/windmill
FB - fishing boat
WB - whailing boat

when the improvement gets built i remove the sign.

 

[oyzar]

Food is vastly superior to something like desert iron. You never want to give up food for a few more grassland or something like that.

Yeah especially not if it is the only metal resource you know about playing romans in MP...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Yeah especially not if it is the only metal resource you know about playing romans in MP...

. Food tiles are obviously better to work, but this is an excellent example of when strategic considerations overpower the value of a given tile.

Pick what benefits the empire most.

 

[noto2]

For 90% of the (relevant) game, city size << 20. Thus, what matters much more is how useful the best 2, 5, and 10 tiles are, for those are the tiles you will be working at those sizes (minus #specialists).

A city with 7 ocean tiles and 13 good tiles is much better than a city with no ocean/desert/peak tiles but 20 mediocre tiles.

Seconded. This is very, very true.

 

[Matthew5117]

i use signs instead in the early game. later on when i no longer need the reminders, i'll remove them.

hit ALT-S then click on the city and type in something like:

IronWorks
Oxford
Wall Street
Science
Commerce
Shipyard
Wealth
Barracks

etc. etc.

to remove it.. hit ALT-S again then right-click on the tile holding the sign.

to be honest. signs are one of my favorite features. i'll even put up signs on tiles to remind me to build an improvement. especially in the beginning. when i found a new city.. i'll figure out which 6-8 tiles are the best to improve first and throw up signs on them. this way i only have to spend one turn thinking. anyway, i put a one or two letter capital for the improvement to keep the sign size small.

F - farm
C - cottage
M - mine
P - pasture
LM - lumber mill
WS -workshop
WM - watermill/windmill
FB - fishing boat
WB - whailing boat

when the improvement gets built i remove the sign.

Ah, this will be sure handing. Thanks so much!

 

[Learningciv]

I have never had a size 20 city. Why do I care if I have 3 mountain peaks or desert tiles in a BFC if the city only has the food avaible to grow to size 13? I only care about the 13 best tiles in that scenario. ALL my cities are based on what food they have available. Without food a city cannot grow to work commerce/production tiles.

Considerations to the overall Empire also count:
*Would you settle your 2nd city in 15 desert tiles if it also had 3 riverside plains hills with gold and 1 irrigated corn on grassland? At size 4 it would be bringing in a ton of commerce for that stage of the game (allowing extra expansion and increased early tech rate) as well as raising the happy cap for all future cities by 1.
*Would you settle a city in near useless land if it completly blocked off an AI's expansion?
*Would you give an early city 6-7 useless desert tiles if it also managed to include an iron tile that is surrounded by desert (especially if it is the only source of iron for your early empire)?

 

[Gliese 581]

Yeah especially not if it is the only metal resource you know about playing romans in MP...

Alright, you got me there.

 

[dirtyparrot]

I agree with Learningciv, I think that short term considerations generally trump longterm ones. Everything depends on the circumstances, so there really any hard or fast rule about it.

 

[6K Man]

It's all about the food, and making a city that will grow at a decent rate up to a reasonable size (10+). The trick is ensuring that all your resources are workable (or at least improvable, for the bonuses) by viable cities.

If I had a city site that had a couple of useful, rare resources like Stone or Silver, I'd give up a lot of decent tiles to ensure that I had at least one seafood or other food resource. But even without food, I'd probably still settle such a site, if it had access to a hitherto-unavailable resource.

 

[smackthewise]

@Matthew5117

I only tend to use these for large empires. And as Gorey said signs may be better, but i use;
PR - Rome = For production cities.
CE - For any commerce city, whether is a holy city, cottages etc is not point, if it makes money.
SE - For cities that will run my specialists.
NK - For cities with ICBM's, or I call the city Nuke Depot
I make up others as I go/when necessary like EE for an especially good espionage city

As most important cities i'll remember by name and location, this is used for the myriad of less important cities of a large empire. So Just by seeing 'CE - Timbuktu', I will know exactly what to put into the built que and tile placement (but more importantly, what NOT to build) without having to focus to much attention on it.