Best City Sites (Squares)

[ben_sphynx]

Normally when one founds a new city, the city square produces 2 food, 1 production, 1 commerse.

There are some places that provide exceptions to this, however, such as

Plains/Hill, gives 2 production rather than 1.

Certain resources also give a bonus to the city if on the city square.

Bananas/Grassland gives 3 food rather than 2, for example.

Plains/Hill/Stone gives 3 production rather than the usual 1!

Has anyone experimented with different resources to see where one wants to build cities?

[johnmcd]

As far as I'm aware the bonus you get from siting your city on the resource is always inferior to the dedicated improvement. Even plains hills shouldn't be settled if there is little other production around and not any strategic imperative demanding extra defence.

On the other, hand, having a banana tree in the city square is totally cool.

[Ray Radlein]

I remember with earlier version of Civ, founding a city was an automatic improvement, back when resources were a lot more simple (i.e., no plantations/wineries/camps/pastures needed). I am curious about how it works now; I recently passed up what would have been a perfect founding city square because it had sheep on it (which is, of course, the exact opposite of what I would have done in Civs II or III).

[Tuberski]

I like it when there are a bunch of useful surrounding a desert square(usually coastline). I always plat the city in the desert to make it useful as well.

ACK!

[axi]

The bad thing is desert squares usualy don't have fresh water. If there is desert near a river, it is a flood plain.

So what do you do, settle on the desert to gain the extra flood plain, or settle on the flood plain to get the freshwater access?

Hills have the extra defense bonus, I like to build on them. Most ancient civilizations in real life as well. Hills should be adding a 50% on the effect of walls, forts and castles, IMO.

[joncnunn]

I belive that was SMAC, and indeed directly on a resource was generally the best idea.

In Civ III, the food and shields from a city were a flat 2 and 1 so food & shield bonsues were bad city sites, but you would benifit in commerce from founding on pure commerce boosts.

In Civ IV, I try to avoid settling directly on a resource, but sometimes it's the better choice than alternative.

Say on the real world playing Egypt, I think the Marple by far is a better spot for Carthage than any of the other tiles. The sugested spot one SE has way too much desert.
On the other had one further NW on the forest has too much Roman influence from Rome to use it's northern second ring.
As is I was very happy that the free Great Artist from Music had been born about the same the settler was built so I could use it immedately to push the Rome's border back.

Originally posted by Ray Radlein
I remember with earlier version of Civ, founding a city was an automatic improvement, back when resources were a lot more simple (i.e., no plantations/wineries/camps/pastures needed). I am curious about how it works now; I recently passed up what would have been a perfect founding city square because it had sheep on it (which is, of course, the exact opposite of what I would have done in Civs II or III).

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by johnmcd
As far as I'm aware the bonus you get from siting your city on the resource is always inferior to the dedicated improvement.

This is true. It also means your resource "improvement" cannot be pillaged, unless your city is pillaged as well. This makes it easier to defend critical resources.

Originally posted by johnmcd
Even plains hills shouldn't be settled if there is little other production around and not any strategic imperative demanding extra defence.

The city "improvement" to the tile is 2f/1c as compared to 2h for a mine. This is quite favourable.

[johnmcd]

Quite so, but if you imagine a two tile island, one tile grassland, the other a plains hill, you're going to want the plains hill mined. Generally it's not as extreme as that I'll grant you, which is why settling the things is normally good practise. I was just trying to make the case that it's something that is always worth considering.

[psiekier]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
The city "improvement" to the tile is 2f/1c as compared to 2h for a mine. This is quite favourable.

If you run a railroud through a mine, you get a bonus hammer.

If you get Railroad in Civ IV, does it automatically build railroads through all your cities like it did in Civ III? If so, does the discovery of Railroad give you the bonus third hammer in your city, or is that only valid with the mine?

Personally, I love founding cities on plains hills to get the extra hammer. If I'm Financial (and I usually am - Catherine the Great rules!), I try to get a plains hill on the river near some flood plains!

[tetley]

Anyone know what the "small chance" is for discovering resources in the mines?

[The keeper]

Citys on a hill do grant you better defense though. Another bonus for plains hills.


I was rather disappointed that cities on a resource dont give you that resource. In one game, there was only 1 source of oil on the whole continent - and it was under a pre-existing city. So I got no oil. And there is no way to get rid of the city to get the oil.

[axisworks]

You could always let an enemy capture it, then wait a while, re-capture it, and raze it?

Nah, I totally agree... I've had aluminum, coal, gold, and numerous other resources pop up under cities I've built on hills and elsewhere, and it's quite infuriating when I can't do anything to harvest the resource, even though the city is right there.

Hopefully they'll remedy this in a later patch.

[tetley]

I plopped a city directly on top of marble once, in the middle of the tundra. The city had no future anyway--I just needed the marble right away.

[Willem]

Originally posted by tetley
Anyone know what the "small chance" is for discovering resources in the mines?

1 in 10000. Though you probably would never find anything if your city is on top of it. There has to be a Mine I believe. At least the odds number is found in the Mine stats.

[Crossfire]

And in some games I have had as many as 3 additional resources pop up where an existing mine was. Extra copper in one and gems in the other 2. Pretty amazing odds, that.