Should you only settle fresh water?

[kolpo]

The settler interface seems to suggest you should settle fresh water sites but you often have good resource rich settle locations without fresh water, do you settle those?

With Kongo seems it doable to have a growing city without fresh water if it has forest or jungle tiles. It can take a while to get those going but once they do they perform like fresh water cities except that you can't have good farms. But in many of my fresh water cities don't I build farms anyway because I shall hit the amenities cap anyway. Do you settle good locations without fresh water?

 

[skyclad]

I try to settle all my cities on fresh water as much as possible. I also overlap kind of a lot when I can, I just try not to leave any tiles in between my cities unclaimed. What the individual city gets doesn't really matter to me so I can usually fit them all by water with this philosophy.
Sometimes you can't of course and then I try to settle 1 city so I can get the aqueduct eureka.
Otherwise coast if nothing else is avaliable, and try to build some farms/workboats early for the housing...

HATE having slow starting cities with housing cap already so try to avoid this whenever possible! The AI seems to love to settle just one tile away from lakes and rivers and of course the only tile possible to build an aqueduct on it has iron or something there

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

In the beginning, settling on fresh water is paramount for me. I'll settle 1 tile away in the beginning as well if it makes for a better location. Once those core cities are up I'm fine settling away from fresh water if there's a nice spot with plenty of resources (like horses, sheep, wheat, etc.) because I can get them up and running quickly with builders and trade routes. Farms, pastures, etc. can provide a decent amount of housing especially when coupled with a granary built first.

 

[LanguishViking]

one neighborhood or aqueduct makes up for not having fresh water. So once you have the techs you might as well.

 

[Acken]

Building a neighbourhood or aqueduct with a low pop city is pretty slow... unless you re Rome or Kongo. Somewhat forces you to have a trade route there.

I avoid settling these kind of city unless there is a strategic I really want. I feel the housing system is kind of annoying right now. Especially the n-1 penalty and waterless cities starting at only 2.

 

[Nefelia]

I settle fresh water first, whether it be inland, on the coast, or close to the coast. Then I settle on the coast with no fresh water. Then I backfill and settle the 'grey' sites with no water source... but by then I usually have trade routes running and can get a granary up quickly enough.

Not every city has to be a towering juggernaut. Smaller cities with no fresh water and too far from mountains or water for aqueducts can serve as specialist cities with a commercial district, market, bank, etc to support the rest of the empire.

 

[The Highwayman]

I think the system is a little too restrictive without fresh water right now. After the first wave of expansion, and I have several trade routes flowing, good cities near mountains can certainly come into play. However it's too much of a setback to have to build a granary early on in my first few cities. Maybe if they increase the baseline housing to 3 instead of 2 it will allow a little more flexibility.

 

[King Jason]

I don't think they need to increase the flexibility. It's fine where it's at. Besides, there's really nothing wrong with low pop cities.

Also, with any harvestable growth in the area it's actually very easy to go beyond pop caps - Just make sure you grow to the cap normally before you do your pop chops. Harvesting resources gives you almost a full pops-worth of food. You can get 80 turn pop growths down to 12 turns with one chop. You're allowed to go 5 pop over the limit, so a city without fresh water but with 2 food resources and/or some jungle in the area can get to pop 5 easily without a granary. Pop 7 or 8 with one. Personally, I think a size 7 city is just fine. It allows for 3 districts. Toss in a commercial hub and/or an Industrial district and the city will be supporting the growth of other areas of your empire.

 

[The Highwayman]

Yeah that's true--chopping can really save the day for those cities for all the reasons you mentioned. In a recent game I played as Sumeria, one of Ghandi's cities I took very early was stuck at pop 8 for a long time due to housing restrictions but was a production powerhouse due to the surrounding jungle/hill terrain. I still don't like non fresh water for my capital, however, but I have started next to a river in all my games so far. I'm not sure if there are starting biases without it.

 

[Ogaw]

You dont need to have fresh water. After two settlements I think its fine to go with either ocean or no fresh water.

The key as I see it is luxuries, strategic resources and hills. Those are all more important than fresh water in the long run

 

[rrrwww]

only fresh water i care about is in the capital. but even then, i would probably trade away this water for better resources

 

[Brutus2]

There really is no penalty to building more cities and whatever population you manage to grow can only help. So, obviously fresh water is better but I would not hesitate to settle anywhere that has good resources even with no access to water. There are plenty of ways to add housing and you never know where those late game strategic resources are going to pop up.

 

[alpaca]

Currently, getting more cities is more important than fresh water because each city gets a free district and most production will be from overlapping factories and power plants after turn 150 or so. So only go for it if it won't block another city spot.

 

[joncnunn]

All else being equal, highest priority is:
Fresh water cities
followed by those cities that can't be built on fresh water but can build an aqueduct to get it
and lowest priority would be the ones unable to get this.

But even that lowest priority ones are worth founding. And it's frequently the case that everything else isn't equal.

 

[Big J Money]

I want all luxes, period. Each city on a lux supports 3 more cities. I don't even have to think about fresh water in those cases. Grabbing the luxes is never bad.

After that, then I prioritize fresh water. Or mountains if it's early enough in the game where districts aren't too expensive.

I'm sure if there was a real dearth of good fresh water cities then I would have to settle (heh) for what I can get. And make up for it by using internal trade routes to build a neighborhood or 2.

 

[Browd]

Luxuries provide Amenities, but they do not provide Housing. Even if you have oodles of Amenities, lack of Housing will still limit your city's growth.

 

[Roxlimn]

Fresh water is a relative limitation. There are ways around it. Of course, you can always just buy a Granary with money. That'll lift the pop cap up to 4. But there are other ways. For instance, each Farm is worth half housing, so you can pop a city up to 6 Housing just by having a Granary and 4 Farms around it. If you're India, you're better, and earlier. In addition to the Farms, you can pop two Stepwells in addition to the 4 Farms, and that'll pop your housing up to 8 without anything else. India, Farming, and Religious Communities (Holy Site, Shrine, Temple) + Farms will pop it up to 10, all with Ancient tech only, without any Aqueduct or fresh water in sight. Heck, your Stepwells could be in Desert (yep, can be built in Desert), and it'll still be good. Can boost to 12 with Medina Quarters.

As a helpful hint, it makes a lot of sense to befriend Valleta and take it as a City State under your wing if you're Religious, and especially if you're Japan, because then then you're both Militaristic AND Religious. Valleta allows you to purchase Granary for 130 Faith. Very handy.