Terraforming land...

[Trev]

In general building cities in dead zones is not worthwhile until all better sites have been built on, and development of existing cities would be a greater benefit in that case, so roads and maybe some irrigation before the establishment of cities in dead regions should be considered. However these days I build triremes much earlier than I did in the past and trasport settlers to coastal sites where they can access whales preferably, or fishes and establish these cities with harbours before I build in dead zones, the payback in trade is much quicker doing this.

 

[Old n Slow]

It also depends on how dead that zone is. Strategic considerations can come into play such as: country defense; use of a narrow strait as a canal; building on a (mined) mountain for hyper defense; size two cities (with JSB) using mined coal to support democratic troops; trade sources; ICS to stem barbarian hordes, and maybe there are a few more reasons out there as well.

I agree that one should plant cities in nice locales -- but aside from city placement tactics, there are occaisionally some city placement strategies.

 

[sethos]

If you don't expand, the AI Civs will. I built cities even in dead zones (even on glaciers) if there are some specials. The terrain can be improved later when engineers are available.

 

[sir_schwick]

I would prefer spending the pop points and shields and time on building units to take those cities when engineers role around.

 

[HMonster]

I generally just build a new city, then get more settlers from it while its still 2-3 in size. The chances of being found early on by another civ is remote when playing arcepelego maps, but illl still stick one unit in each just for safety. When ive got 7-8 cities, ill start terraforming, pretty much around the same time i get Monarchy.

I also like to go to Democracy asap, but i went a bit early in my last game, and as its been a while since i played, i forgot about the 2 food per settler part, and lost a lot of them!

Ahhh...so good to be back playing again!