Desert

[wertyu70]

Which terrain improvements can be built on desert?
My workers seem to be able to build only roads on them.

[make]

In a desert, you can only build roads and railroads. If there is a resource in the desert, you can build the improvement for that. Fore example, desert with oil allows you to build the Oilwell.

[Nacht]

And you know, building roads in a desert takes even more turns.

[Ijuin]

The odd thing is that I altered the XML files to supposedly allow farms to be placed on deserts, but it didn't seem to work.

[Jaybe]

If you look at one of the composite maps of the Earth showing night glows of city lights, you will see that VAST areas of the land are ... DARK.

It is entirely appropriate that large areas of the ground are rather useless. Even more than is often the case in Civ maps (I generally use huge ones).

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ijuin
The odd thing is that I altered the XML files to supposedly allow farms to be placed on deserts, but it didn't seem to work.

It does. I did the same thing. IIRC, you need to adjust TERRAIN_DESERT to allow improvements.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Jaybe
If you look at one of the composite maps of the Earth showing night glows of city lights, you will see that VAST areas of the land are ... DARK.

Farms don't have lamp posts at every bean patch. You could be cultivating thousands of square miles and it would still show up as dark. Lights only indicate where people live, not what they do with the land around them.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Nacht
And you know, building roads in a desert takes even more turns.

should take less. no trees to clear away. We can build roads very fast where I live (in the mojave desert essentually- or the edge of it)

[MadDjinn]

cities

best improvement by far for a desert...

[pchang]

I am not sure what the rules are, but I can sometimes build farms on deserts. It required being next to a river. Being next to a lake or oasis was not enough.

[axisworks]

Yeah, that kind of tile is called a "floodplain." If they're within your city's fat cross you actually get a tiny bit of sickness from them... probably theoretically from mosquitoes breeding there or something.

I think it's a bit absurd that you STILL can't build on desert in the game, even after researching biology and all the modern techs up to fusion. I think one of the later techs should allow irrigated farms and cities to be built on desert tiles, at least. Look at Palm Springs, Las Vegas, and all the farmland in southern California we have today. Sure getting all the water needed essentially re-routes entire streams and rivers directly into faucets and sprinklers...

[bongo]

It makes perfect sense *not* being able to use everything. In RL, only 12% of all land area is considered habitable. I'd say civ is quite generous towards us

[Spiderjeru]

12%? That seems pretty low. I'm living in Japan right now, and mountains that climb at like 55 degree grades render the island 25% unihabitable - and even that is pretty extreme when you see it. Maybe the number should be more like 12% of the world's surface.

It would also depend on how you mean it - if you're a bedouin, desert is quite liveable thanks very much, and an Inuit would provide the same answer for what many would consider otherwise worthless tundra. Even the mountains here in Japan are 'liveable' - but there ain't a lot of territory for video stores and strip malls, if that's what you're saying.

[Dis]

Originally posted by axisworks
Yeah, that kind of tile is called a "floodplain." If they're within your city's fat cross you actually get a tiny bit of sickness from them... probably theoretically from mosquitoes breeding there or something.

I think it's a bit absurd that you STILL can't build on desert in the game, even after researching biology and all the modern techs up to fusion. I think one of the later techs should allow irrigated farms and cities to be built on desert tiles, at least. Look at Palm Springs, Las Vegas, and all the farmland in southern California we have today. Sure getting all the water needed essentially re-routes entire streams and rivers directly into faucets and sprinklers...

yeah I know. Much of southern California and a few areas outside Las Vegas are irrigated. But we here in Las Vegas still get most of our food from outside sources (namely California), we are not self sustaining. Most of the desert outside our city is unused. Sure you'll find mines in the hills (this is in the game as you can mine desert hills), but most of the land is useless. You'll find a little bit of farming near Mesquite and Overton. This utilizes the Virgin and Muddy river water. And much of the farming in So Co. utilizes colorado river water.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Spiderjeru
12%? That seems pretty low. I'm living in Japan right now, and mountains that climb at like 55 degree grades render the island 25% unihabitable - and even that is pretty extreme when you see it. Maybe the number should be more like 12% of the world's surface.

That's about right. 30% or so is land, then you exclude ice caps, deserts, moutain ranges, etc.