Settling on resources

[Fibonacci1123]

Settling on plains hills + copper/iron, while not ideal, can be worth it. Especially if it makes a better overall city. You turn a 6 tile into a 2 3 1 tile, so you lose 1 production. The advantage is your metal can't be pillaged and it is much harder to culture flip a city than a tile. Early in the game, you get the resource immediately which could be useful.

I generally find that settling on plains, grassland or grass hills + metal wastes too much production to be a good idea, but if were the only way to get a decent city I would do it.

 

[capnvonbaron]

Settling on plains hills + copper/iron, while not ideal, can be worth it. Especially if it makes a better overall city. You turn a 6 tile into a 2 3 1 tile, so you lose 1 production. The advantage is your metal can't be pillaged and it is much harder to culture flip a city than a tile. Early in the game, you get the resource immediately which could be useful.

I generally find that settling on plains, grassland or grass hills + metal wastes too much production to be a good idea, but if were the only way to get a decent city I would do it.

+2 on this.

I might also add, some AI have a nasty tendency to send a spy in to destroy a vital mine or pasture resource just before beginning an invasion. Settling a city on top of either of these resources eliminates that threat entirely. Also eliminated are the random events that can destroy improvements (fire ants->pastures; explosions->mines; volcanoes->everything!) and, as stated, pillaging (so long as the AI doesn't take the city... )

I'd also like to add, playing as Rome or other early UU civs, I will gladly place my second city on top of the required UU resource if: 1) doing so will not sacrifice growth in that city, and 2) I still have time to rush someone. The immediate access to the resource can shave dozens of turns off a rush especially on epic and marathon speeds.

 

[Shikadi]

As Rome when warrior rushing the Germans on Earth18 (marble hill).

 

[Alki]

An interesting thread for a Noble/Prince ditherer like me trying to eek every turn and benefit out of the game.

 

[Irgy]

So generally the main benefit of settling on a resource is getting the bonus straight away, which is particularly good for getting a worker out of your first city in 12 turns instead of 15.

Another slightly different benefit to settling on a resource though is that you get access to it without building the required improvement.

So, for instance, let's say you have an empty grassland and a silk grassland (both non-riverside). If you settle on the silk, you can cottage the grassland, and still have the silk (once you get Calendar at least) for use or trade). If you settle on the grassland and put the cottage on the silk, you actually get 1 more commerce, but you lose access to the silk. Or if instead then you put a plantation on the silk it's not as good in the long run as the cottage would have been.

This applies mostly when the improved tile is not very good, so it could apply for instance to ivory and wine as well.

 

[Izmir Stinger]

So generally the main benefit of settling on a resource is getting the bonus straight away, which is particularly good for getting a worker out of your first city in 12 turns instead of 15.

Yeah, the thing that people get most excited about is the prospect of more than one hammers in the city plot. You don't even need a resource for this: a plains hill will get ya two. Three hammers requires a resource, such as plains hill marble, stone or metal. Discussions about moving the starting settler vs. SIP are quite contested when there is a possibility of getting bonus hammers in the city plot from moving.

 

[bhavv]

This is not correct. It is 3H, if those resources are on a plains hill. Flat plains are 2H.

I meant plains hill sorry. Thats what I thought I had typed.

 

[Alki]

Okay in Earth18 scenario. If you play the Japanese there is a hill gold resource on the SW corner of the main island. Would anyone build a city on that tile?

 

[Deckhand]

Okay in Earth18 scenario. If you play the Japanese there is a hill gold resource on the SW corner of the main island. Would anyone build a city on that tile?

I doubt anyone advocates settling on gold - you lose too much commerce.

 

[yanner39]

I didn't see it in the thread if you settle a happyness resource, you don't lose the +1 right? Si say I settle my city at 3000BC on silk, my Civ will get a +1 once I research calendar correct?

 

[Carboniferous]

Si say I settle my city at 3000BC on silk, my Civ will get a +1 once I research calendar correct?

Indeed it will.

You get any additional tile yield from the resource as long as can see it, e.g. an extra food from bananas, but you can't use the resource until you have the required tech.

 

[StrategeryBush]

I play at Emperor. Typically I look to settle on resources when I can get more food or hammers by settling than I can by using the standard tile improvement, thus neglecting the additional commerce unless that commerce bonus is large. Plains Wine or Ivory are prime candidates for the additional food, as are Bananas or Sugar, which are always on Grassland but give you three food when you settle on them, which is a huge early edge. Any resource in a desert tile is a good candidate to settle on as well, excepting gold, as plus 2 food and possibly an additional hammer more than compensate for the loss of commerce from not being able to use a plantation/mine.

 

[dannypytlak]

There is no excuse to build a city on a resource.

When I see syuch a city I automatically start beuilding seige weapons...

 

[kossin]

Settling on plains hills + copper/iron, while not ideal, can be worth it. Especially if it makes a better overall city. You turn a 6 tile into a 2 3 1 tile, so you lose 1 production.

Except food =\= hammers, food>hammers for a long time. Given a granary the 2F3H tile is stronger than a 0F6H up to and including size 10.

~~~

If you want a general rule:

Never settle on top of food, unless you can't place a city otherwise.

There are exceptions (ex. Rice is pretty weak without fresh water) but you should just look at the food surplus or the strategic reason behind your doing so.

 

[JackOfClubs]

So generally the main benefit of settling on a resource is getting the bonus straight away, which is particularly good for getting a worker out of your first city in 12 turns instead of 15.

I wouldn't say that was the main benefit, but it could be the most important in a given situation. As I see it, there are four benefits of settling on a resource:

1. Gaining the additional food, production or commerce in the city tile for an early boost. (This is nearly always limited to the capital city at the start of the game.)

2. Protecting the resource from pillaging or other loss. (This is also usually an early game issue, though I suppose the Random Events danger will persist throughout the game.)

3. Gaining the strategic (or in rare cases luxury or health) benefit from the tile as soon as it is technologically available. (This is generally most important when war is imminent, or when you are trying to race to a particular wonder. The turn savings will not otherwise have a great long-term effect on the game.)

4. Maximizing the total output of the fat cross. This is easiest to explain by an example. Suppose you have an Oil resource in the middle of the desert and there are two Food resouces such that the only place you can grab all three is to settle on the Oil:

X F D D X
D D D D D
D D O D D
D D D D D
X D D F X

In this case, not settling on the Oil will pretty much stagnate your city at a very early stage, so that the added production of working the oil well will not compensate for the overall loss of viability. The two outlying resources don't even need to be food, as long as the total value of the city would increase by settling rather than working the one in the middle.

Obviously this is an extreme example, and most real world cases will be more subtle, but you get the point. I actually find variations on this scenario all the time and it is the most usual reason I consider settling a resource in the late game.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

1. Gaining the additional food, production or commerce in the city tile for an early boost. (This is nearly always limited to the capital city at the start of the game.)

Mild disagreement with the parenthetical. Wines, for example, have never struck me as so exciting that I wouldn't rather work a green cottage instead. Likewise, are sugar plantations really all that, compared to again dropping a cottage on it? if you are willing to cottage the sugar, you ought to be willing to drop a house on it.

 

[JackOfClubs]

Mild disagreement with the parenthetical. Wines, for example, have never struck me as so exciting that I wouldn't rather work a green cottage instead. Likewise, are sugar plantations really all that, compared to again dropping a cottage on it? if you are willing to cottage the sugar, you ought to be willing to drop a house on it.

Fair enough. I do that, too.

In such scenarios, though, I usually am not too concerned with the advantages of settling on the resource but am just treating it as an optional bonus. As you say, "you ought to be willing" to settle it, but it really isn't a deal maker or breaker either way. Whereas, in the early game, the extra whatever is a proportionally much larger factor.

 

[bob_d]

Adding to JackOfClubs list:

5. Getting happiness benefit from gems before you discover Iron Working (because gems are usually in jungles).

OTOH, gems give a big early commerce boost, so it seems a shame to waste that by settling on top of them.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

Leans in close to the microphone...

NECRO!!!