Fool Inc.
Back from the Dead
Always a river, you can get the "missing tiles" back with culture anyway.
River city or Grid City?
- Thread starter MadHatter
- Start date
Zachriel
Kaiser
Yes! I too always play the terrain. It's more natural, more fun, more historical, and nearly as effective as artifice (grid-lock
).Marx
Warlord
I`ll choose the river city..
this has always plagued me early on in the game. choosing sites for your cities is hard, but i do like to keep it on rivers early on in the game if i can because producing aqueducts early on can take quite a bit of time. however, if i can build my cities on the grid to keep other civs from expanding, ie making a culture barrier between them and open land, i go for that.
MadHatter
Warlord
Yes, but they won't be worked by your citizens and their production potential is wasted.
Speaking of waste, although not entirely related to having a river...
If you build strictly on a grid you're "wasting" at least 8 tiles per city until you develop hospitals, and then you're wasting worker time cleaning up polution until you develop mass transit even if you have no factories, which also means that poluted tile is wasted until you clean it up.
A grid over mountains, hills and desert (without floodplains) means you're wasting tiles that will never be worked by cities that won't grow to at least size 20.
Any city over size 20 is wasting productive population since they'll never have more than 20 tiles to work and at those sizes you'll actually need entertainers, more waste.
4 small cities occupying the same space as 2 large cities will essentially have equal production. Although it will take longer to build individual items, you'll be building 4 at a time rather than just 2. This is a big advantage in the early game and those 200 spearmen can eventually be upgraded to 200 Mech Inf. So it's really 6 of one or a half dozen of the other. The exception is wonders, but that problem is solved by having a few massive production cities that do have their full 21 tiles to play with.
The further away from your empire center you get the closer you can pack them. At "total" corruption levels, a city with 20 pop is no more productive than a city with 1 pop.
Small cites are easier to manage and easier to keep happy. If no city has more population than you have luxury resources to keep them happy with, you don't need to waste comerce on luxury.
And, last but not least, you can always abandon "extra" cities once you have the tech to let your cities grow. So, you can have your grid with extra cities packed in between the grid cities, when you get hospitals you can start abandoning them
Just my $0.02
If you build strictly on a grid you're "wasting" at least 8 tiles per city until you develop hospitals, and then you're wasting worker time cleaning up polution until you develop mass transit even if you have no factories, which also means that poluted tile is wasted until you clean it up.
A grid over mountains, hills and desert (without floodplains) means you're wasting tiles that will never be worked by cities that won't grow to at least size 20.
Any city over size 20 is wasting productive population since they'll never have more than 20 tiles to work and at those sizes you'll actually need entertainers, more waste.
4 small cities occupying the same space as 2 large cities will essentially have equal production. Although it will take longer to build individual items, you'll be building 4 at a time rather than just 2. This is a big advantage in the early game and those 200 spearmen can eventually be upgraded to 200 Mech Inf. So it's really 6 of one or a half dozen of the other. The exception is wonders, but that problem is solved by having a few massive production cities that do have their full 21 tiles to play with.
The further away from your empire center you get the closer you can pack them. At "total" corruption levels, a city with 20 pop is no more productive than a city with 1 pop.
Small cites are easier to manage and easier to keep happy. If no city has more population than you have luxury resources to keep them happy with, you don't need to waste comerce on luxury.
And, last but not least, you can always abandon "extra" cities once you have the tech to let your cities grow. So, you can have your grid with extra cities packed in between the grid cities, when you get hospitals you can start abandoning them
Just my $0.02
In the river or grid debate, don't forget about Hydro Plants. They can only be built in cities with rivers. And they are a lot better than coal plants from a pollution standpoint. Of course, building the Hover Dam wonder gives you a Hydro Plant in every city on that continent but I believe you can only build Hover Dam in a city on a river. Although I personally like a nice grid, I make an exception when it comes to rivers. The "no aqueduct" bonus is too important, especially early in the game.
greenie
Warlord
I usually wait and see, I'm more paranoid of having hills in my starting position. But one of the big things I had to get used to with Civ 3 is the fact you cant irrigate using salt water (seems simple enough 
). Even though my first cities' plains and grasslands get mined normally (esp on wheat and cattle and shields) I also like to have irrigation possible for growth and ease of settler production.
So I find rivers and lakes a handy thing to go looking for - but if they don't turn up I'm not too anti about it. It's a very unlucky game where you start without some kind of fresh water able to be discovered relatively quickly.
PS - I totally agree with you Raskolnikov - building Aqueducts pisses me off to no end!
). Even though my first cities' plains and grasslands get mined normally (esp on wheat and cattle and shields) I also like to have irrigation possible for growth and ease of settler production.So I find rivers and lakes a handy thing to go looking for - but if they don't turn up I'm not too anti about it. It's a very unlucky game where you start without some kind of fresh water able to be discovered relatively quickly.
PS - I totally agree with you Raskolnikov - building Aqueducts pisses me off to no end!
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