What's the point of floodplains?

[Bibor]

Wheat on floodplains is the best food resource in the game.
Wheat on plains is okay after fertilizer (but overall sucky).

Flood plains have the benefit of:
- being always on rivers (hydroplant, civil service)
- desert hills being just like any other hill (thus not inferior anymore)
- usually having a gold resource nearby

 

[Crazyface]

Yes, wheat doesn't seem to do anything. It gives you a +1 bonus to food on that tile, and that's it. Improving it with a farm gives you no extra benefit - you get the +1 bonus to food regardless of whether you improve it or not. It's actually better to build the farm next to fresh water than it is to build it on wheat. Building a farm next to fresh water will give you an additional +1 food with Civil Service, while building a farm on wheat doesn't give you any special advantages.

That still makes the wheat valuable, just not the best right?

I have a plains with wheat in my current game and its giving me +4 food. 1 from wheat, 1 from plains, 1 from farm and 1 from Civil tech.

Without that wheat it would only be +3....

 

[CHEESE!]

Does it strike anyone that this (resources) is very similar to Civ III?

 

[Sc4Freak]

That still makes the wheat valuable, just not the best right?

I have a plains with wheat in my current game and its giving me +4 food. 1 from wheat, 1 from plains, 1 from farm and 1 from Civil tech.

Without that wheat it would only be +3....

Yep, but the point is that "improving" a wheat tile with a farm does absolutely nothing. You get that +1 bonus regardless of whether you improve it or not.

For example, if you had a city sitting next to a river which had a wheat tile nearby but NOT next to a river. If you're deciding where to build your farm. In this case you should not build it on the wheat - you should build it next to the river. The reason for this is that a farm next to a river will give you +2 food with Civil Service, but a farm on the wheat (which isn't next to fresh water) won't give you +2 until Fertilizers, which is a really late tech.

This seems really broken IMO - there is never any reason to improve bonus resources like wheat.

 

[Crazyface]

Yep, but the point is that "improving" a wheat tile with a farm does absolutely nothing. You get that +1 bonus regardless of whether you improve it or not.

For example, if you had a city sitting next to a river which had a wheat tile nearby but NOT next to a river. If you're deciding where to build your farm. In this case you should not build it on the wheat - you should build it next to the river. The reason for this is that a farm next to a river will give you +2 food with Civil Service, but a farm on the wheat (which isn't next to fresh water) won't give you +2 until Fertilizers, which is a really late tech.

This seems really broken IMO - there is never any reason to improve bonus resources like wheat.

I guess maybe if there are no rivers!!

 

[feelotraveller]

Yep, but the point is that "improving" a wheat tile with a farm does absolutely nothing. You get that +1 bonus regardless of whether you improve it or not.

For example, if you had a city sitting next to a river which had a wheat tile nearby but NOT next to a river. If you're deciding where to build your farm. In this case you should not build it on the wheat - you should build it next to the river. The reason for this is that a farm next to a river will give you +2 food with Civil Service, but a farm on the wheat (which isn't next to fresh water) won't give you +2 until Fertilizers, which is a really late tech.

This seems really broken IMO - there is never any reason to improve bonus resources like wheat.

Perhaps. If I have not got CS yet it's a real choice 3f for the non-river vs. 2f 1g for the river (assuming Wheat plains). And once you have Fertilizers there is that choice again - an extra gold or an extra food.

If it is the other way around (wheat on river versus no bonus non-river) then where are you gonna build your farm?