Founding the first city on a hill...

[lordrune]

In my many games of Civ 4 to date, I have a habit of founding my first city on the first square - usually because I glance and its a good location, also because I know that the game generates good and balanced starts (on continents maps at leasts, which is what I usually play), and because I don't want to waste any time before I start producing/researching.

However, I've come to the realisation that when a city is founded on a hill, the bonus +1 resource in the first square (Not to mention the defense bonus) is a really huge advantage over a city founded on flat terrain, with no apparent drawbacks.

Would it be right to say that if a move to a hill gives an equally good starting site to the initial placement, than its almost always worth moving the settler that first step, even given that a turn will be wasted? Assuming the first couple of tiles you can work are good ones, then you'd quickly make up the time in production...

[Krill]

so long as it is a plains hill...grass hills don;t give bonus production.

[mrp]

Always thought city squares only give 2 food 1 prod 1commerce even if its on a resource. But you can get alot more production by mining a hill than have city on it. With Beyond the sword place em on river tiles or on some loser terrain like desert. But hopefully your not on tundra so a plains or grassland will work

[Sabre2th]

Originally posted by mrp
Always thought city squares only give 2 food 1 prod 1commerce even if its on a resource. But you can get alot more production by mining a hill than have city on it. With Beyond the sword place em on river tiles or on some loser terrain like desert. But hopefully your not on tundra so a plains or grassland will work

If you have an excessive amount of hills (plains or otherwise) in your fat cross, it's not a bad idea to found a city on a hill.

[lordrune]

Originally posted by mrp
Always thought city squares only give 2 food 1 prod 1commerce even if its on a resource. But you can get alot more production by mining a hill than have city on it. With Beyond the sword place em on river tiles or on some loser terrain like desert. But hopefully your not on tundra so a plains or grassland will work

The exception is the plains hill though. I think because it has a base production of 2, there's a rule that building the city there won't reduce the base production - if that makes sense. City sites can't work resources, so that's why building there offers no tile benefit. Yeah, its not all consistent, but that's the way it works.

I certainly have placed cities on deserts (even ice) for the free food bonus, but typically those aren't the best city sites because of surrounding terrain (not always the case, though).

Now you're right that you would get more production in the long haul out of that hill by mining it. But for those initial handful of turns - building on the plains hill gets you a 2 food, 2 production, 1 commerce - which is as good as you're going to get from the foundation tile - PLUS whatever is nearby to get your city a kickstart. The first two tiles worked (the city, and the tile for citizen #1) are arguably the most important two tiles in the game, so if you maximise the production on one of them, then it could give you a kick, to get that first worker, settler, workboat, or whatever, out faster.

[trev]

There are more than the plains hill options for increased production on your city square, this also extends to plains combined with ivory/stone/marble, a plains hill combined with 1 of these resources will give 3 hammers for your city square, even better. Personally I almost always start with a worker first strategy and building on one of these squares does gain several moves in getting that first worker out, which is good as long as you have an appropriate tech to make use of the worker, ie less useful if you go straight for religion and have nothing for worker to do.

[Chemical Ollie]

Founding the city on a gold mine would be a dream. You get 2 food, lots of extra gold and 2 hammers. Otherwise, gold mines need lots of extra food resources in the vicinity if you want to work them early on.

[joncnunn]

One worked food improvment will support a grassland gold mine quite easily.

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Originally posted by Chemical Ollie
Founding the city on a gold mine would be a dream. You get 2 food, lots of extra gold and 2 hammers.

No, it doesn't work that way. If you manage to settle on a plains hill with gold, adjacent to a river, that will get you 2F/2C/2P, or 2F/3C/2P if you are financial, but that's it.

[Theben]

Right. Bonus tiles usually only add +1 (food/hammer/gold) to the city production. I had horses pop up under my capital once, and let me tell you I was sorely disappointed with only +1 hammer.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by joncnunn
One worked food improvment will support a grassland gold mine quite easily.

Yes, but you have to make the farm, grow the additional citizen, and keep them happy. In the early game, the added "free" food and production seems invaluable, unless it really breaks the general city placement.

[LzPrst]

settling on resources is generally not worth it. settling on plains hills can be practical early on. the defence bonus is not to be disregarded either if you're the defensive type rather than offensive.

[Chemical Ollie]

I currently play with raging barbarians, and founding all cities on hills is really helping.

And yes, I found out the hard way that building a city on gold doesn't give me more than a single coin.

[albucc]

I think that there are other things that are factors on founding a city:

1- Access to fresh water: (by river or by lake) fresh water gives +2health, making the city grow to larger size faster (it will be unhealthy only later in the game);
2-Access to sea: access to the sea is good: in vanilla civ you get the great lighthouse that gets 2 more trade routes, and get the harbor that boosts trade (if you are in open borders and good terms with your neighbours); in bts you get the Custom house that boosts even more;
3-Don't have jungles (health onus, and hard to work), and have forests inside your city radius: health boost (and bonus resources on cutting after bronze);
4-Don't have desert and mountain peaks: in vanilla civs, they are useless; in BTS, mountain peaks are even hazardous, because of the volcano events.
5-"spiced" terrain: have good sources of hammers and gold when the city reaches cap size, and have good sources of growth when it is not.

The game AI balances all this stuff when selecting a city start. And even count unseen resources, with usually count as a blessing (like horses or iron). Well, sometimes as a curse (aluminium or uranium, always too darn late...).

[Supr49er]

I'll gladly take a plains hill start. I don't mind if it has a critical resource like copper, iron or horses. I'll trade the lost production for keeping my resource safe from pillaging.