Does it pay off building cities on snow/tundra?

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by 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.

yep 3 out of three starts in the bottm left corner ... I thought threre was something wrong with the map script, but than after I was placed around the map too... anyhow highlands is otherwise a very pretty map.

[Colthor]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Building on a worthless square makes it productive. So if you have good tiles nearby it's cool.

Do city tiles always give the same production, then, or at least some minimum value? I've never been brave enough to plonk one on desert.

[Velociryx]

Once you hit state property, it absolutely pays to build cities everywhere. Since state property eliminates city cost due to distance from the capitol (city cost, in terms of maintenance, has three components: Distance from the capitol, number of cities, and city size), it dramatically reduces the total cost of planinting an additional city. A special would be nice, but not necessary, and so long as you can work at least a couple of coastal tiles, load up on them!

Essentially, State Property gives you the license to ICS again, or, what passes for ICS in Civ IV (given the mandatory spacing requirements in Civ IV, ICS here is a very different critter than it was in other iterations of the game), but the long and short of it is, yes. Especially if you're running certain civic combos, or have certain wonders, it's well worth it.

Imagine:

State Property (radically reduced maintenance costs)
Representation (+ 3 beakers per specialist)
Mercantilism (+1 free specialist per city)
Statue of Liberty (+1 free specialist per city)

Smokin'.

-=Vel=-

[Blake]

Pity we're restricted to only imagining it! Since Merchant and State Property are both economy civics .

[Velociryx]

Hey, my excuse is that I'm heavily medicated!

But you get the idea...even minus that, with the Statue, you're still getting a free specialist, and he's still getting 3 bpt.

*smacks self* Must.....avoid....medicine-head!

-=Vel=-

[couerdelion]

Won't the commerce from the sea tiles quickly pay for a coastal city for a financial civ too. Add that to the trade routes and it should pay its way and return something more to the treasury. Of course, you have to invest a settler so it might not be that cost effective.

[Strategist83]

So in the end, ICS is not truly dead after all. Well, I guess it depends on just how much that extra city drives up the maintenance costs. If the city means the difference between six and seven 'number of cities' cost, I guess you should hold off building it. Or what? From what I got out of another thread (I do not remember the link, sorry - I think it was on another forum), there is a maximum limit maintenance costs will grow to. For this reason, having more than 30 cities is actually *cheaper* with regards to maintenance than is 14-15. The article named this 'the conqueror's plateau', if that means anything to you.

[Strategist83]

Courdelion: A settler is but a one time expense and certainly should not keep you from plopping down that extra city (which will return the 'hammer' investment many-fold since games last several hundred rounds).

[Blake]

Oh yes, Financial + Colossus = can't get enough of those fishing villages!
The only problem is your cottages don't tend to get worked!

[Martin the Dane]

I just made a Google search on "the conqueror's plateau" and found this thread over at Civfanatics: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showth...=138473&page=3
It's quite informative on cost on number of cities.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Colthor
Do city tiles always give the same production, then, or at least some minimum value? I've never been brave enough to plonk one on desert.

Yes, you have a minimum value of 2f/1h/1c. This makes desert, tundra or ice tiles the best city sites if there are productive tiles around them. Hm, some flood plains perhaps, or a few forest tiles plus a couple of seafood resources. Can't complain about that.

[tetley]

I leave the ice & tundra alone unless there's resources to justify it. If the AI wants to plant cities there, fine--let them drain his economy, not mine. But the fishing villages on the poles can be quite lucrative.

[smbakeresq]

When you have the Great Lighthouse, almost any coastal city becomes worthwhile for the extra trade routes. I have had success with the fishing village, but it has been mostly on low sea level maps where you get more crabs and clams. Any health benefit is important, even if usable only for trade.

[Dis]

I never build directly on them. But I will build on the edge. But I need at least a few useful tiles. The reason I do this is for the chance to get the oil resource later. I like to push my boundaries out as far as I can.

[smbakeresq]

I do think that even a resource is outside the city radius, but in your cultural radius, you should still get the actually resource and trade (coin) benefit, since you are going to the resource and bringing it back to your people.

But this is nitpicking...