Who else here hates deserts?

[logical_psycho]

I really really really really find myself getting annoyed over and over again to see some valuable resources (stone, marble, incense) in the middle of a huge desert. Building a city there will just mean that it's going to be a colony without a possibility to grow.... which has to be defended like any other city and just costs a lot. Often I just start a game in tropical wet setting, just to minimalize the amount of desert tiles in the game.



Of course it makes sense that a city can't grow in a desert, since I can't think of any cities built in the biggest real life sandbox on the planet, the sahara, either. I just HATE to see the competition taking that resource, but I also HATE spending a settler early in the game to secure that resource, while I could have founded a city in a very fertile area instead. Unfortunately there isn't a single way to transform desert tiles into anything other than a desert tile with a road.


The AI civilizations don't seem to have a problem building cities there though, they all play like expansionists popping out cities like rabbits multiply themselves.

 

[potatokiosk]

Shouldn't their support costs slaughter them?

 

[Bill3000]

I agree that it's stupid to have no improvements whatsoever on a desert. Wasn't irrigation still allowed in desert (other than flood plains, of course) in Civ3?

 

[Eigenvector]

I dare you to name a single city that is founded in a desert. I can't think of one, either they are on a floodplain, like Baghdad or next to a body of water - like Salt Lake City.

 

[potatokiosk]

Mecca. Medina. Anything in the of deleted Saudi Arabia.

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[Eigenvector]

So where do they get their water?

From wells I guess, but my point was that there's a reason deserts are so hard to found cities on and do something useful with - in real life they just don't support habitation. They do provide rich resources though - the trick is getting them out.

 

[RX2000]

It never fails. EVERY game I have started so far seems to see me right next to at least a small desert. One time I was on the coast with nothing but a giant desert to my west.

On the temperate maps they really need to tone down the desert tiles a little bit.

 

[Thalassicus]

I think a few months ago people were complaining there weren't enough vast deserts in the game

So I guess you can't have the best of both worlds...

...unless you change it to the way you like

 

[theverymadcow]

Las Vegas is in the desert isn't it? Think it was actually originally a train junction or somthing like that.

 

[Mementh]

Las Vegas is in the desert isn't it? Think it was actually originally a train junction or somthing like that.

but it has no resource of its own.. it was not untill the 30's or so that it started to grow.

 

[trigger1]

I love desserts, chocolate cake is my favourite

 

[vbraun]

At least being to add Solar Panels would be nice...

 

[Charles 22]

I think a few months ago people were complaining there weren't enough vast deserts in the game

So I guess you can't have the best of both worlds...

...unless you change it to the way you like

As this game seems at least until the mid-game, the desert areas shouldn't be too much of a problem. Why? Because you can cut 'just pieces' of it. IOW settle on an outer desert hex, such that in the early game the hexes on the other side of the city will be your producing ones, though the city will inevitably be limited though. Do the same to other outer portions of a desert and you may secure the whole area. While desert is a hassle, so is not having desert and therefore quite likely not having oil later. I make sure and use this outer-desert placement scheme on at least one desert. I play for the tank/plane era, and I'm going to be in for a massive letdown if I was dumb enough not to make sure and get some desert somewhere.

 

[Charles 22]

but it has no resource of its own.. it was not untill the 30's or so that it started to grow.

IIRC I saw on PBS the other day, that it didn't take off until that starting testing nukes out there. Needless to say this didn't start till the late-40's at the earliest. People went out there to go see nukes set off. I kid you not.

 

[oagersnap]

IIRC I saw on PBS the other day, that it didn't take off until that starting testing nukes out there. Needless to say this didn't start till the late-40's at the earliest. People went out there to go see nukes set off. I kid you not.

AFAIK it started to grow when gambling became legalized in Nevada but was still outlawed in California, which was in the 30's.

 

[Phyr_Negator]

People complained that thera are no vast deserts, but a lot of desert tiles randomly placed EVERYWHERE. Jungle forest? Desert in the middle! Vast plains - again desert! And so on -_-.

 

[Charles 22]

AFAIK it started to grow when gambling became legalized in Nevada but was still outlawed in California, which was in the 30's.

Well I guess it's a matter of what 'started to grow' one wants to talk about. I know the nukes were a pretty large growth formula, whereas of course there had to be growth at the beginning.

 

[potatokiosk]

So now we have another split between gameplay and accuracy. Joy.

 

[Kilroy]

Las Vegas is in the desert isn't it? Think it was actually originally a train junction or somthing like that.

Yeah and Las Vegas has food shipped to it from elsewhere in the country, just like in Civ4.

 

[Fru]

I'd love to see an industry improvement similar to towns. The more turns you invest on it, the more the production grows.

It's poor that you can't get at least something out of deserts later in the game. If they are inside a city radius, they should be able to have improvements, however little it gives you.

IMO