Settling on luxury and strategic resources

[MykC]

Hello, just wanted to see how you guys felt about this. Up until recently I've always settle beside luxury resources and have workers develop the tile but now, I've decided to just settle on top of luxury resources so I don't have to work them.

The reason being is that playing on immortal (and this may be true on lower difficulties as well) that the AI civs are often rolling in the money early and are just begging for someone to sell them luxury resources for 300G. Well, I'm a man that can meet that need and I just need to the supply to meet that demand and the fastest way to do that is to just settle on the resources.

Some draw backs:
-As Arabia your Market doesn't seem to generate an extra resource for the tile your settled on.
-The position of the city MAY be worse overall.
-The additional resources from developing the tile may be lost. Although you may be better off by settling on it in some situations.


I initially started doing this in OCC games that started me off near marble, but now I pretty much do it for most games as least for my capital or far off cities that need a worker immediately (like if city happens to be in close range of 3-4 luxury resources. I've actually had a city that was within 5 luxury resources within 2 tiles).

 

[Slowpoke]

Yes for the first one/two cities basically. Selling your first resource usually bags you an extra settler, so you want it asap.

 

[Sneaks]

I am a huge fan of doing this with satellite cities away from the core group

 

[EscapedGoat]

I try to allways settle on calendar resources, especially the capital and the first 2-3 cities, because the plantation tile improvement is so bad that getting +1 gold in the city is just as good, and early luxury sale for 300 G = free worker or half a city state alliance. Hooking up a luxury resource is basically making a 10 gpt tile improvement (i.e it's the best return you can get early game from any square except the city square. if you COMBINE them you have a lethal combination of super-profit returns )

Generally, settling on a luxury saves you 6-8 turns in hooking up the resource IF you have a worker nearby allready, but if you have to make the worker, you are saving something like 20-30 turns. That's a huge turn-advantage for settling on luxuries, so as someone else mentioned, sattelite cities are a no brainer - settle on the luxury.

The things that gives me headaches are mineable luxuries - those give great yields later on, on the other hand, settling on them let's you start raking in those 10 gpt equivalents earlier. Also, I try to keep my core cities within my ICS grid, so if I have a worker nearby I'll often settle in grid and rather let the worker hook up the luxury a few turns later, thinking that the more efficient cramming in of cities will make up for 6-8 turns of "lost" 10 gpt income. Also, like you said, Arabia don't get extra copies of luxuries when you settle on them, which is a shame and probably a bug.

 

[biohazard72]

Great analysis by EscapedGoat, I agree completely. I almost never settle on mining resources because of the production/gold bonus, but Calendar luxuries are fair game. I typically settle a city on a Calendar resource a few turns before I even grab Calendar, just to sell it as soon as possible.

I also settle on horses somewhat often. I'm playing with Settler immediately after scout if I get the +1 population ruins with France (early Liberty), to maximize their REXing ability. Which leaves me worker-poor, settling a third city on horses around Horseback Riding time. I would then steal a CS worker, build 2 or 3 after Horsemen and steal the rest from my first war opponent to have a good size workforce the rest of the game.