That Useless Land

[Hellfire]

Jungles and Deserts are never a problem by the modern era but they can be a pain early on.

Tundra SUCKS. They are never very productive. I try to keep Tundra Divvied up over several cities which share Tundra and good grasslands.

Thankfully, since the latest versions of Civ3, bad terrain is no longer rampant (like wall upon wall of mountains for 20 tiles), though a nice big mass of tundra was useful for farming barbarians way back when

 

[Subsidere]

Posted by Hawkster:

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.

Assuming that you are discussing your strategy for dealing with jungle-surrounded cities early in the game, that is not what you want to do. I'm usually in despotism for most of the city-building period so that's why it's a bad idea to me.

The tile's food value after the jungle is cleared is 2, and when you irrigate that tile it remains at 2. So I'd say build a mine, but maybe you research new governments first and that's why you said irrigate.

 

[Noldodan]

building in jungle or deserts IS a good idea, but only if it gets you a resource. otherwise its jsut a waste of a settler, even if you settle to deny it to them

PS Gothmog, love the name and title. and where the snaff did you get the avatar?

 

[Adofl Lundgren]

Jungle, for the most part, could/should be looked at for its potential output. Some of the most productive cities in the mid to late game (esp. with Democracy govt) will be those founded near/in jungles.

Tunda squares I've often used as bait to get AI to build a city I can easily culture flip. In a recent game, French dropped a city near 2 game resources in tundra, 12 turns later, it was mine and became a productive city in its own right. I've read elsewhere in these forums AI only looks at City center plus 8 surrounding tiles, rather than the full 21 workable tiles, which causes them to build cities like the one mentioned above...

 

[Tassadar]

For jungle city just use more worker and clear it, if your city location is good ( with some hills or mountain) then it will be a very good city later on.

For desert city, i always look carfully before ploting my city, i will try to catch at least 1 grassland tile or a few plain, then once you got railroad, those irrigated plain will give you food boost and the city will grow fast and be very good, desert with railroad and irrigation give 2 food 1 shiled so its ok.

 

[Seanirl]

I hate when you start near loads of tundra... >_<

it's hard to expand ¬_¬...

 

[Astares]

Tundra without game is bad, Desert is so so, Jungle is a suprise waiting to be unwrapped but Mountains suck big time. One or two mountains in a city radius is fine but I hate those games where you get a gazillion mountains and they all seem to be in large packs and the worse possible spots like all along a great coast line that you would have two or three whales in the radius if you could build on the mountain on the coast. I hate mountains, except the resource bearing ones

For an industrious civ, Jungles offer no real problem at team of 4 workers can clear out a Jungle square in 3 turns. More then fast enough at the beginning to keep pace with a new cities growth. The only real problems are disease and if you actually start the game smack bang in the centre of jungle all around you. Disease is a real problem and I've had games where the game either gave me a really bad run of disease rolls, (10 or more in a row on a city but the game ended before they stopped) or it was a bug. It seems with disease any square jungle or flood plain within its current or future workable radius will affect it, so clearing 20 or so squares to be free of jungle fever can take a while.

For non industrious civs and alot of jungle in your core production area, I use temporary ICS (Infinite City Sprawl) to clear jungles. As long as you have a decent settler producing city and maybe a defender making city, you simply plonk cities down within the minimum one square of each other through the jungle. A city instantly clears jungle and puts a road down. Use these cities to produce a few workers to clear one or two squares either side of the city, then use them somewhere else or add them back into your real cities. Then put the temp. cities to 0 growth and build a settler when at size 2. Once built it will ask if you wish to abandon and then go use the settler either to add to a real city or build a new one. It takes 24 turns to clear a jungle for non-industrious workers, in 24 turns a city can usually produce at least 2 workers from its city tile food and production, plus it clears the space to boot. But you do need a real good settler production city or more.

 

[Tassadar]

Astares,

My experience show that i got disease only if a citizen is actualy on a jungle tile or flood plain. If disease strike then go into city display and reasign citizen so no one will be on jungle or flood plain, the disease will stop right away.

 

[rlw33]

It's funny you should say that. I never used to bother building in jungles either. But I tell you what, those bonus chop-down-jungle shields really do make a difference when you're trying to pump out a cultural improvement in a city next to an AI city.
Also, jungles have useful resources that appear later in the game.

 

[Subsidere]

Posted by rlw33:

But I tell you what, those bonus chop-down-jungle shields really do make a difference when you're trying to pump out a cultural improvement in a city next to an AI city.

Yeah, that's a horrible statement considering jungles do not give you any bonus shields.

 

[SewerStarFish]

Tundra(the poor boy of Civ III):
Hate it, but never one to quit a game, I resign myself to many little cities if that is the dominant terrain. Like all difficult terrain I build around it first if possible. Then place cities at the better food locations (game,coast w/fish). toward end game I fill in the gaps as possible. Of course there is the penalty of too many cities,but with tundra and desert dominant maps that's the breaks.
Desert(poor boy's neighbor):
A little easier but much the same as tundra. Tundra needs workers able to plant forests, but deserts can be irrrigated right off.
Jungle(not so bad):
True they're irritating, and no you don't get sheilds for hacking them down (I think you should). But they grow faster than the other two. Everyone else has pretty much handled how to deal with them.

I miss the Civ II Mountain redoubts

 

[JollyRoger]

I just let the AI have the jungle in the early game and spend their resources clearing it. If something useful later pops up there, I just take it.

 

[[GoD]Toxic]

I always builds everywhere otherwhise the Ai will come with their nasty little settlers

 

[Tassadar]

It remenber me something, one of my game 3-4 month ago. I was in war with knight to conquier my continent, in the northern part of it, a mountain with iron and several jungle aroud+ river, I decide to raze 2-3 a.i. city close by and built my own one in a good spot.

Guess what, later on i was able to built iron work ( coal was around like expected ), This city had lots of corruption because it was far aways, but under communist this city was able to produce modern armor in 1 turn ( with nuclear plant ).
So you never know what lies in those area, coal,iron (on hills) and oil and salpeter for desert.