Settling on a resource

[Bleys]

I have a situation in my current game that has been a question in my mind for a while. Its about access to resources.

I know its bad to settle on many resources, because the tile itself is generally going to be one of your cities best tiles. I especially enjoy it when Copper or Iron lands on a grassland, since it turns a self-feeding citizen into a production powerhouse. But in this case, the copper-grassland is bordering on a lot of bad tiles, mostly tundra and ice. The "best" spot would include a few ice and a bunch of tundra, but if I settle on the copper, it cuts most of those out of my BFC, and gives me a 2nd food source for that city. The alternate spot is reasonable, a plains hill on a river-end, with 1 food, 1 copper grassland, and mostly grasslands on one side and tundra on the other. The river comes from the ice, so the other river tiles arent so good. NOTE, this is Vanilla Monarch, and I am playing a civ with EXP, so the +health on the river settlement is less of a factor.

My question relates beyond this particular spot as well. Sometimes I think its better to leave a resource tile outside your BFC, as long as it will be inside your cultural borders with a couple border-pops. Especially when stuff like Marble ends up on a tundra tile with ice all over the area. Putting a city 3 tiles due-north, where it will have more productive tiles to work AND get the marble in its cultural border eventually. Is this a wrong way to look at it?

 

[martin026]

I have a situation in my current game that has been a question in my mind for a while. Its about access to resources.

I know its bad to settle on many resources, because the tile itself is generally going to be one of your cities best tiles. I especially enjoy it when Copper or Iron lands on a grassland, since it turns a self-feeding citizen into a production powerhouse. But in this case, the copper-grassland is bordering on a lot of bad tiles, mostly tundra and ice. The "best" spot would include a few ice and a bunch of tundra, but if I settle on the copper, it cuts most of those out of my BFC, and gives me a 2nd food source for that city. The alternate spot is reasonable, a plains hill on a river-end, with 1 food, 1 copper grassland, and mostly grasslands on one side and tundra on the other. The river comes from the ice, so the other river tiles arent so good. NOTE, this is Vanilla Monarch, and I am playing a civ with EXP, so the +health on the river settlement is less of a factor.

My question relates beyond this particular spot as well. Sometimes I think its better to leave a resource tile outside your BFC, as long as it will be inside your cultural borders with a couple border-pops. Especially when stuff like Marble ends up on a tundra tile with ice all over the area. Putting a city 3 tiles due-north, where it will have more productive tiles to work AND get the marble in its cultural border eventually. Is this a wrong way to look at it?

I try my best not to settle on resources, but if I have to I will. I had one city that was going to be a GP farm. In the BFC it was going to have two fish, pigs and wheat (or two flood plains, can't remember) as well as a hill or two. To get them all in, I had a hill picked out right on the coast that fit right in the middle of two other cities I had planned out. Anyway, researched IW and turns out iron was on the hill I had planned to settle. I thought about it a while, but just settled on it and it was a good city.

 

[Morgrad]

Not settling on a resource is one of those "as a general rule" sort of things.

If the situation warrants it (better overall city site, emergency fast hookup, uber-protected hookup), then do it without reservations.

If you're going to do something that goes against "general rules", as long as you pause to think about it and still come to the conclusion that it's a good idea in this circumstance, just do it.

 

[Xhaine]

Gives you an unpillageable resource that can often be imediately hooked up to your capital so in the right situation it is very useful

 

[dragomaster]

sometimes settling on resorses is better than beside them. Morgrad has som good points but sometimes is the best city site on top of a resorrs from the BFC's point ow view: maximum cottages, maximum food, river for health, maximum production. so it depends of this point of view, but if it's posible to settle on anouther square with better reslut, do so.

 

[Solomwi]

The margin is the key. As everybody else has said, if the marginal benefit from the tiles you gain outweighs the marginal cost of "losing" the resource tile, by all means, settle on it. The goal is the best possible city under the conditions you're given, of course, not to work an iron tile, per se.

 

[Bleys]

Great points. Thanks guys.

My second question is similar. When is it "better" to keep a resource tile outside the BFC, with the idea that it will be in my cultural border soon? I see this one a lot too, for example, that "2-tile diagonal" corner that never gets in the BFC, but is part of your cultural border fairly quickly, especially if its near other cities. Sometimes, I just dont want that marble-tundra or stone-plains in my BFC, but I want that resource.

 

[Verge]

Great points. Thanks guys.

My second question is similar. When is it "better" to keep a resource tile outside the BFC, with the idea that it will be in my cultural border soon? I see this one a lot too, for example, that "2-tile diagonal" corner that never gets in the BFC, but is part of your cultural border fairly quickly, especially if its near other cities. Sometimes, I just dont want that marble-tundra or stone-plains in my BFC, but I want that resource.

That marble-tundra or stone-plains tiles can be very useful if you have food to work them, and it's very rare that you don't.

The only time I have resources outside of the cross but within borders is when my city placement precluded any chance of me incorporating that resource tile into my city usage. I'll even settle my "frontier cities" out in the middle of tundra and snow just to get a big collection of fur resources, even if I don't have the food to work all the camps. Trading away just one extra fur usually recoups the maintenance cost of the otherwise worthless city.

 

[Solomwi]

I'd give you the same general answer: it's better when the marginal benefits of the site outweigh the marginal costs. More specifically, I find it better to have the resource outside the BFC when getting it inside the BFC would force me to also incorporate a few useless tiles in place of a few useful ones, pull me off a critical canal point (less of a concern now that forts can do that job), or otherwise throw my city into a bad position. The most common situation in which I find myself is a subset of the first factor I listed, when that resource tile is the least useful of several resource tiles that are spread such that I have to choose one to leave out.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

Rules are meant to be broken. I've even settled one tile from the coast once! o.O I don't have a screen shot or save, but I thought about it, and it was the best way to go.

 

[Indiansmoke]

Setling on resources is sometimes the best thing to do.

Settling on a plains hill (no resourse) will give your city 2 starting hammers....big

Settling Marble or iron plains hill will give your city 3 starting hammers.....huge

Settling on a commerce resource will give your city 3 starting commerce if you are financial.....also huge early on..

Settling on riverside wheat will give your city 3 starting food....not bad but it will propably be better to work the wheat.

 

[v8_mark]

Also, settling on unirrigated rice is often big, giving you an extra food in the city square. Farmed unirrigated rice is only 4 anyway, and it's often not optimal to take the trouble to irrigate it once you get Civil Service.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

I just acidentally settled on iron the other day. My second city turned out to be on Iron after I teched IW. To bad, I could have used the production there.

 

[jihe]

I always settle on sugar if possible

Also, settling on unirrigated rice is often big, giving you an extra food in the city square. Farmed unirrigated rice is only 4 anyway, and it's often not optimal to take the trouble to irrigate it once you get Civil Service.