Settling on desert without water

Haig

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The "Water availability guide" seen on settler on the Trajan video made me think, that maybe in Civ 6 deserts aren't such a hot place to settle (except for temperature. which is hot).

I found it kinda odd in Civ 5 that deserts were very desirable with many resources, Petra bonus etc. Like why would anybody except maybe Arabia want to settle there?
I'm glad that Civ 6 fixes that.
 
Do neighbourhoods need water, I guess poor amenties from desert may keep them useless but otherwise you can maybe build a large city in the desert.
 
Deserts will probably be barren except near fresh water sources like oases and rivers, which seems logical.
 
Deserts will probably be barren except near fresh water sources like oases and rivers, which seems logical.

Exactly.
Very few real life cities are built just on the plain desert.
Most are
a) Near major river (Nile, Iraq), oasis or other fresh water source
b) Appear to be in the desert climate but are actually on the verge of it and livable climate (vast majority of population of Maghreb lives in the warm mediterranean/semi-arid climate, not "in the desert"; similarly majority of Iranian land isn't actually desert in any way, and population of African Sahel states lives as far from the Sahara as they can)

When you have neither of those things, you get countries like Libya, Saudi Arabia or Australia which have extremely bad population density on vast majority of their territory.

Deserts without fresh water or on the verge of other terrain should be bad for settling.
 
Deserts without fresh water or on the verge of other terrain should be bad for settling.


But will that stop the AI plonking some two-bit town in the middle of a player's empire I wonder?



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Exactly.
Very few real life cities are built just on the plain desert.
Most are
a) Near major river (Nile, Iraq), oasis or other fresh water source
b) Appear to be in the desert climate but are actually on the verge of it and livable climate (vast majority of population of Maghreb lives in the warm mediterranean/semi-arid climate, not "in the desert"; similarly majority of Iranian land isn't actually desert in any way, and population of African Sahel states lives as far from the Sahara as they can)

When you have neither of those things, you get countries like Libya, Saudi Arabia or Australia which have extremely bad population density on vast majority of their territory.

Deserts without fresh water or on the verge of other terrain should be bad for settling.


Viva Las Vegas.
 
Las Vegas is on the desert, but it would not be able to support a large gambling industry if it weren't for the Hoover Dam to create Lake Mead even if gambling were legalized.

Oh, and Lake Mead is drying up, which means that Las Vegas is actually unsustainable.
 
Las Vegas is on the desert, but it would not be able to support a large gambling industry if it weren't for the Hoover Dam to create Lake Mead even if gambling were legalized.

Oh, and Lake Mead is drying up, which means that Las Vegas is actually unsustainable.


It's a heck of a sight, the dam and Lake Mead.
 
As long as you can build neighbourhoods and have access to alot of internal trade routes you should be able to support a desert metropolis.
 
Well desert and Tundra do a few things

..if you don't have water (either desert or Grassland without water) you take a housing hit

Desert has 0 yields.... hopefully desert can't be farmed without fresh water (like Tundra)
[Tundra has 1 yield]

Neighborhoods have a housing yield based on appeal...that appeal seems to be based on livability of adjacent tiles...
River=+
Rainforst=-
I wouldn't be surprised if Deserts had a negative appeal (so you couldn't get good housing from the Neighborhoods in a desert area)
 
I think Granary provides some housing. Will be interesting to see just how constrained a poor water start city is.
 
To me it looks like:

As much as possible city center tiles should be built where they'd have the +3 fresh water.

After those are built generally the next to build are the coast in a suitable location (sea resources nearby and a good spot for a Harbor) is next; with ones that can get an aqueduct [but couldn't simply be relocated one tile] higher than the others.

Only after those are built is it time for the non fresh water cities, again the ones that can get an aqueduct [but couldn't simply be relocated one tile] higher than the others.

The thing is about desert though unless there's flood plains or it's just an edge that independent of housing it has little going for it due to limited food. The lack of housing won't really matter due to failure to grow enough to hit the housing limit. It will take something significant to be worth founding a city in the middle of the desert. (Strategic resource? Large cluster of luxuries? Natural wonder? Strategic location?)
 
In additional to regular Civ problems with lack of food, desert cities will also have slower growth due to lack of housing until they manage to build Aqueduct if they can (as Aqueducts have strict requirements).
 
In additional to regular Civ problems with lack of food, desert cities will also have slower growth due to lack of housing until they manage to build Aqueduct if they can (as Aqueducts have strict requirements).

And they will still struggle with housing even after the Aqueduct because their Neighborhoods will almost certainly have low housing (due to almost certainly low Appeal)

and hopefully no farms on desert (except Floodplains)
 
I'm a fan of desert being highly undesirable land once again. If certain types of land are very weak, that is historically accurate. It's also good gameplay, because it makes the good land more precious and worthy of competing over. If all terrain types are good, things start to feel bland. It doesn't present serious problems to balance, either, so long as you design the Civ start formula to not have the opening Settlers spawn directly on the middle of the desert.

Along that vein, I'm not sure I approve of Civ VI's decision to make rainforests valuable, with strong base yields and adjacency bonuses to science. That's another biome that's hardly conducive to large cities and high population density.
 
A desert city will probably be viable under a few conditions:
1) It holds resources you need and you don't care that this city is going to be a mess its entire existence.
2) It is in range of a freshwater source via aquaduct. It will still probably be a pretty small city.
3) It is along a river, oasis, lake, or other source of water.

Oasis + nearby mountain or river for aquaduct + Desert Folklore could actually be a viable if slightly stunted starting location, though Desert Folklore isn't the insane powerhouse it was in Civ5.
 
On Reddit, Pete indicated that the Baths will help Rome expand into more marginal terrain than a regular Aqueduct would. Of course you still have to be close enough to water or a mountain to meet the adjacency requirements.
 
Petra would be considered a desert city. It controlled the water supply (mainly flash floods) and created a sort of artificial oasis by storing the water for periods of drought.

Some sort of water storage tech could make deserts a little more viable if they chose to do it.
 
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