That Useless Land

[Subsidere]

This is something that pisses the sh** out of me but I always forget to post about it here at CFC.

I'm wondering how you veterans of Civ3 approach huge spaces of jungle and desert. They're useless. They're wasteful. The cities will never grow. They waste a settler.

But then again, I always have the feeling that it's better that I have that useless stretch of desert or jungle rather than an opponent.

Now I know jungles can be cleared and then be nice little grassland squares, but, in the ancient era when I'm in my city-building stage, that takes a long time and a lot of workers.

Another thing that makes me mad is when there's one little lonely tile of silk among a huge stretch of jungles tiles. To get it I know I have to settle there, but I know that that city will be a lifeless, non-growing piece of sh**.

So, what do you guys do about issues like these?

Thanks.

 

[MummyMan]

Well usually I am hesitant to build cities there as you are, but most times it is worth it to build cities there, because a city in the desert could later claim some oil, or that gunpowder stuff (can't remember the name) or there could already be incense there. It is worth it to build these cities, even if they really suck. If its early in the game try and build better cities and leave the place holders for later. Cities in the jungle are worthless as well until later unless there is a luxury. The luxury is definitely worth, either a new one for you, which can let you lower your luxury tax rate (if any) and you can get more money per turn, or you can sell it to other civs. So the city is definitely worth it. I hate the cities, but they're needed.

 

[JAWiseman]

Jungles-
While weak early, jungle tiles can become great and powerful city locations later in the game after the workers speed up (thorugh tech and government), and these squares can be cleared quite handily to reveal very nice terrain.

 

[Subsidere]

So, basically, a city with all 21 workable squares being desert tiles is doomed to be a piece of sh** forever? That sucks.

Good point about the oil and "the gunpowder stuff" (salpeter). I wasn't thinking of that, something useful could pop up in the city's borders later on.

 

[Gothmog]

Plus there is often rubber in jungle tiles, a very important resource. I will send settlers up there, especially if there is a lux too. If I don't do it the AI will. Build a city up there and produce a defender and a worker or two. Let the city pay its own way. It should be no burden to you. As long as you aren't butting up against the OCN and the city is one of the farther away from your capital, it doesn't even add to corruption.

Edit: saltpeter. Also even a desert tile when irrigated and railroaded will be a productive square, and once you are a democracy with RP that jungle will melt away.

 

[wilbill]

If you're planning to win by conquest in the Middle Ages, all that bad terrain is pretty much worthless. If you're in the game for the long haul, I'd rather have it than give it to the AI. You can build some amazingly productive cities on tundra - it just takes time. Desert's good for resources as well as strategic positioning. And if you're playing an Industrious civ, a couple of stacks of 3 workers each can clear a lot of jungle in an amazingly short time.

 

[china444]

Jungles,Tundra,and Desert
The Homer Simpson of Civ
(lazy) (worthless)

 

[Trev]

I build everywhere always, because if i don't the ai will.

The chances of missing valuable resources like rubber and coal is too great to give jungles a miss, and the odds of finding saltpetre in a desert likeness means that this must be built on

Once railroaded deserts are productive terrain, jungles productive once cleared, tundra if it occupies the full city radius is virtually useless, but nevertheless best to build on it

Maybe city will stay small for a while, but a library and temple purchased will help cultural strength greatly at little cost, and I find them useful to turn out additional workers at a slow, but steady rate when required, don't need to waste population from a good city

 

[steviejay]

I agree with Trev here. I also build everywhere because if you don't there will be some annoying CIv who will and I don't think there is one person here who likes an enemy Civ to have a forward base sticking right into your teritory like a thorn

 

[tao]

It is a trade-off. If there are better places and the desert/jungle cities are easy prey later, I leave the donkey work of making them productive to the AI and conquer them. OTOH, they may be strategic outposts I want to have asap.

 

[anarres]

Once you get railways even desert-only cities can grow to size 21.

 

[Clown2TheLeft]

Jungles hide rubber, coal, and other important resources; deserts have saltpeter; tundra has oil, uranium, and aluminum, so I build them--I don't make a priority of it--unless there's luxuries in the area--and tend to build a little more spread out than I would on plains and grassland, but I figure build today, plan for tomorrow.

Later!

--The Clown to the Left

 

[col]

Originally posted by anarres
Once you get railways even desert-only cities can grow to size 21.

Its just awfully hard to survive that long - especially against human players.

See Mel v Col. I started between jungle to the north and east, desert to the south and sea to the west. There was room for maybe 3 or 4 productive cities.

I thought I played pretty well that game. Cunning defence took out a whole SoD coming my way. I just couldnt get a productive enough empire. Settlers from my settler factory took too long to reach productive land - and they resulting cities were too far away to be very productive. My opponent could build faster, research faster and everything else faster. A few turns later, a stack of 50 cavalry coming my way lead to my resignation.

 

[Gothmog]

Yes starting in the middle of jungle or desert is a huge dissadvantage. Especially because of the corruption problems you mention - obviously if you somehow got a leader you could jump your capital but that's unlikely. Actually, starting terrain is a huge factor in how well the AI does too.

 

[Tacit_Exit]

I'm the type of player who likes to have no overlap on cities 'cause it annoys me late game to have cities not reach their 'full potential' .
SO early game i settle nearby grassland first, then 'placeholders' in nearby desert/jungle (no overlap)
If a large tundra area is near my civ centre, however, its ICS time!
I leave some gap for coastal tundra cities (they will grow with harbor) but landlocked tundra w/out game locations have cities one space apart as they will never grow beyond 2 pop.
I don't, however, prioritize settling these sub-optimal locations; just close borders then squeeze a few settlers out when cities are max pop. and theres nothing better to build.

 

[warmonger]

In my current game (regent level) most of the top two thirds of my continent was jungle but with a lot of coast. So I put a string of cities along the coast at 3 tile intervals then let them slowly build temples to get the first cultural expansion. Corruption and waste means you get almost no gold or shields from them but there is no distance penalty on food production. Once they had a temple they were usually up to size 4 pop (with a bit of help from a few workers hacking away) then they could turn out a worker every 5 to 10 turns without shrinking.

So they provided a steady stream of workers that either cleared the jungle or were added to the pop of more productive cities to get them up to size 12 as fast as possible.

So don't worry about the loss of shields - harvest the people instead.

 

[Rabid Pop Tart]

I spring for jungle squares! Here's what you do. You build the city. (important step 1) Then, you build a temple or library while the population maxes out. Once you finish your cultural building to get your full city boundaries, build a worker that works exclusively on that city. Slowly but surely, your city will start to rock. In my best game ever (Would've been a high score for Warlord but I don't have the proper saved game files) I did this, and I turned out tanks in one or two turns in about 15 of my cities that had once been surrounded by jungle.

I don't like desert squares. If you have to build try to get it near a flood plain at least. And just wait until industrial times when you can pump a desert square up to 2 food, 1 shield, and 2(?) gold.

 

[Michael York]

The only terrain I don't like in the modern era is Tundra. I generally won't waste my time on a Deity game if the start has a lot of jungle, tundra, or Desert. Deity is too tough for me to have a bad start.

 

[Eclectic99]

I thought jungle areas were worthless until I happened to play a game in which my AI neighbor began building out a large jungle area...soon he had several productive cities producing units and giving me problems.

If you check terrain you'll find some of the jungle tiles give production more than the basic jungle because of what's underneath. think of it this way, of you remove the jungle, you have a grassland area with symbols and rivers just like your best grassland starting area. You can often find a jungle tile on a river for your city, meaning steady growth without having aqueduct. If you check terrain on jungle tiles you'll find extra production available in the grassland underneath. If you start a jungle city off by clearing the best underneath tile with a stack of three workers, and building a mine and road, then the city will take off and produce its own workers to clear all of the rest of the jungle and become a total grassland city and one of your best. I've had a city start in total jungle and end up a 26 with my Forbidden Palace and no jungle anywhere in its 21 tiles.

 

[Hawkster]

Personally I don't mind jungle at all - I'll always build on it (tundra and dessert are much worse IMHO) - it often provides more resources and later development.

Jungle is only a problem early on (once workers speed up it can be cleared to the underlying terrain very quickly). The strategy I employ is:-

1.Look for rivers in the jungle and build next to them whenever possible - use a worker to clear one tile to irrigate to provide food.

2.Look for resources and build on or next to the resource. Then look for hills/mountains and build near them.

3.Don't worry too much about building the cities too much in the early stage - concentrate on other cities in better locations.

4.Move defensive units from other more productive cities to the jungle locations rather than build units there, a recent tactic I picked up on from here is to build units in other cities and move them to your jungle cities and disband them to provide a shield boost for the city - to rush buils temples / markets etc.

5.Once workers speed up, build a lot of them and start clearing jungle - once it is cleared the underlying terrain is free to exploit get the cities really producing - they might take a little while to catch up but they will!

In my current game I had a large area of jungle to the south of my starting position - it is now at the intesive clearing stage and my pop2 towns are starting to really get going - they'll be 12+cities soon enough!