Does it pay off building cities on snow/tundra?

[Strategist83]

The AI builds cities just about everywhere - even on snow/tundra terrain with no special ressources nearby. Why does it do this? Does it really pay off? I can see how these cities have certain military uses, serving as an early warning to intrusion. Also, it helps with reaching the 60% terrain required for the domination victory. But I am afraid of city maintenance costs going astronomical.

[Didymus]

I think it's a waste -- at least, the way the artificial idiot does it. It can remove the fog of war; this may or may not be more cost effective than units. If there is a hill and some fresh water lakes in the city radius, building a lighthouse can give 3 food for the lakes, and the hills can give some shields. But pure ice and sea? I only do it to prevent another civ gaining a foothold on my continent.

[Blake]

Fishing villages are fine.

Once you get currency and some open borders they produce +4 commerce from trade alone and +1 from the city - that's +5 inante, nothing worked. If you have a shrine it's a few more gold from the religion.

I have trouble justifying a fishing village without any sea food, unless there's a fair bit of coast to work and a hill to mine & work until the lighthouse and granary are done. The balance is definitely more in favor of organized leaders, both for reduced upkeep and cheap lighthouses. Likewise Exp civs are good for the granaries and the extra health which often helps sans-health improvements.

Ice tundra and desert also has resources fairly often. It might even be some slightly perverse code at work, putting resources in the places least desirable for city.

[Quillan]

It is of very limited benefits, IMO. The area you control expands a bit, which slightly increases your score. Forested tundra squares can be lumbermilled and made productive. Tundra adjacent to a fresh water source can be farmed. And of course the area might bring in certain resources within the newly expanded borders; fur is usually found in tundra from my experience, and I've often seen gold/silver deposits as well as oil, stone and marble in the frozen wastelands.

[Arrian]

Without ANY specials... I probably wouldn't bother, unless I felt like I was low on cities. The improvements it would need are: lighthouse, harbor, library, granary... maybe a temple for happiness? The trouble is that w/o seafood, even if you have a hill to work, you will kill the city's growth in order to work it. If the city really is all tundra/ice, without resources... it sucks pretty bad.

Once you have biology (late game), you can get 3food/turn out of farmed tundra (must be directly next to fresh water), which makes such cities a tad more viable.

-Arrian

[Blake]

With the true ice-coast resourceless city, I just build lighthouse and granary and let it grow/rot. For culture it gets a missionary.
Of course it can build stuff very, very slowly with the 1 base hammer and when it hits caps it can work the mine again. This means in practise it does eventually build the library and harbor.

[Arrian]

Or, w/Universal Suffrage + Kremlin, you can buy the library (late game, clearly).

-Arrian

[Rancidlunchmeat]

Bah. Tundra you can at least do something with if it is near fresh water.

How about desert? Those are the tiles that are really getting to me.. you can't improve them, you can't build anything on them ever, they are completely worthless! Horrible! You're telling me we can't even build a workshop on some sand? Or figure out how to irrigate it ala biodome in the year 2020?

Oh.. and I always seem to end up at either of the poles whenever I play. Huge maps, no matter what.. continent, islands, archipelago, you name it. I'm at one of the poles with at least 1/4 and sometimes more of my directly viable terran unusable because it's damn tundra! I'm so jealous of the AI and their constant equator starts.

[Strategist83]

The AI gets the awful 'pole starts' as well. Myself, I am just wondering why the game puts some players in positions which will have them at a clear disadvantage for the whole game.

[Arrian]

I haven't seen too many really bad starts, playing mostly continents maps with 7 total civs. Maybe it gets more outta whack on other settings.

Desert is the most worthless tile... but at least some resources pop up there (copper, iron, oil). If I can, I like building my city on a desert tile (not if all the surrounding ones are desert too, of course!). I've rarely seen stretches of desert so big and lacking in resources that they're totally worthless. Again, standard maps, continents. I'd expect huge maps to have... huge deserts.

-Arrian

[Blake]

The worst starts in any map I;ve seen are always on Highlands, it can give some truly atrocious starts, like the settler starting in solid tundra/ice, prehaps with one plains hill. Then there's a huge expanse of more tundra and plains, with barely any resources at all. I've never had the heart to play out such a start, I will one day though.

[Arrian]

So Very Cold, baby!

Highlands appears to be deliberately harsh... haven't messed w/that one yet. Actually, I haven't played a lot of the map scripts yet.

-Arrian

[Verrucosus]

I'd never bothered to build cities in the snow, but I recently absorbed one culturally in an Ice Age game with clams in its radius. After I rushed basic infrastructure (Pyramids/switching to Universal Suffrage for a few turns) as suggested by Arrian, it was quite profitable.

I agree that Highland maps (particularly with the ridgeline setting) are quite challenging. By the way, I find the variety of map scripts a major enrichment of the game and use a different type in each new game.

[Uchuu-kun[SM42]]

Originally posted by Arrian
I'd expect huge maps to have... huge deserts.

So you like huuuuuuge... tracts of land?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Rancidlunchmeat
How about desert? Those are the tiles that are really getting to me.. you can't improve them, you can't build anything on them ever, they are completely worthless! Horrible! You're telling me we can't even build a workshop on some sand? Or figure out how to irrigate it ala biodome in the year 2020?

A desert tile is a very good place to build a city if you have some nice tiles around it. Covering some desert tiles give you a chance of getting oil later, which is critical. Building on a worthless square makes it productive. So if you have good tiles nearby it's cool.