City square irrigation food bonus

[Eivind IV]

I understand. So in reality you would have to have a special terrain anyway then for extra fertile cities in Europe for instance, as grassland/plains/hills/forest etc is in America as well?

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by Eivind IV
I understand. So in reality you would have to have a special terrain anyway then for extra fertile cities in Europe for instance, as grassland/plains/hills/forest etc is in America as well?

Yes, you are correct. You will have to designate on kind of terrain as being of the type.

You may also choose to use this terrain for dual use. Picture terrain that has a high shield yield, but no food yield until built upon. Any city built on the high yield terrain will be able to use its radius for the shields and its city square for the food.

Hmmmmmm, you know, now that I think of it, you could limit city size using the city square irrigation food bonus to the point where there will be open tiles in the city radius. You would just have to keep the population low enough and make sure the city radius tiles are not producing food.

1) This would reduce the possibility of enemy troops causing a city to starve.

2) Cities will increase in size faster than normal from founding to capped out size. Also they will increase in size faster than normal after they are attacked and lose population.

3) Pollution will never be a problem for the food supply.

4) Global warming will never be a problem? (Does the city tile change?)

5) As I think was said before, cities can be in closer proximity to eachother and not starve due to lack of tiles to grab food from.

[Harry Tuttle]

I just thought of a humorous scenario where the city square irrigation food bonus is used under cities that are designated as "Corn". You, as farmer, need to keep the food/settlers coming out of these cities. Also, since bugs like food, you have to defend these "Corn" cities against locusts.

[Eivind IV]

I'd like to see that scenario

[Mercator]

[q=Eivind IV]I understand. So in reality you would have to have a special terrain anyway then for extra fertile cities in Europe for instance, as grassland/plains/hills/forest etc is in America as well?[/q]

Well, you could have, say, Grassland as the "base" European grassy terrain, and Plains in America. Grassland gives 0 or 1 food, can't be irrigated but gives a large city food bonus. Plains can be irrigated and gives, say, 2 or 3 food without the irrigation. You can probably still find a bit of a balance and use them both on both continents, but mostly Plains in America, and mostly Grassland in Europe.

In scenarios where you aren't allowed to build new cities you can use the "bonus terrain" everywhere. In scenarios where you can build cities, you have to be careful that you only put it where you want to have cities. But then that's the case in any scenario. Well, except with the bonus terrain 1 square is enough, while for normal terrain you'll need several good squares for a viable city.

[q=Harry Tuttle]Hmmmmmm, you know, now that I think of it, you could limit city size using the city square irrigation food bonus to the point where there will be open tiles in the city radius. You would just have to keep the population low enough and make sure the city radius tiles are not producing food. [/q]

But also remember food trade routes. And a Supermarket will add 50% food.

[Q=Harry Tuttle]4) Global warming will never be a problem? (Does the city tile change?)[/q]

Yes. City tiles change too.

[Elok]

For a partial solution to the particular-powers snag, you could only give the Refrigeration technology to the Europeans, or whoever you want to have tons of food. If they don't have supermarkets, the ability to make farmland will do them no good for other squares but the home square will still produce 50% more food than it would for other powers.

Come to think of it, does this also work for mining? If a terrain's mining ability is set to 'no, 5,' will the home square produce five extra shields, and about three more in addition with railroads?

How about if the terrain is set to be transformed by an operation but gets a bonus (i.e., irrigation turns swamp into grassland, but swamp still gets a +2 irrigation bonus)? I would guess the same effect as if irrigation was set to 'no,' but who knows...the computer I have civ2 on isn't the one connected to the internet at my place, so I can't check myself (that, and I'm still lazy).

[biru biru]

As a sci-fi application, orbit or 'space' squares naturally produce no food, but a space-station itself, built in orbit, could be a sort of farm-in-space. Given access to solar energy, who knows, could even produce enough food to export surplus easily back to the planet... ?

[Mercator]

Originally posted by Elok
Come to think of it, does this also work for mining?

Actually, yes. City squares are automatically irrigated, except when the irrigation bonus is 0. In that case they're automatically mined.

If the mining bonus is 0 too, the city won't get any bonus, clearly.

Oh, and when a terrain type doesn't produce any shields, a city built on that terrain will get a bonus shield. I suppose that's to make sure that a city can always support one defender or build something.

Actually, there's nothing secret or special about this at all! Classic Civ2 already uses this! Mountains can't be irrigated, but they still get a 1 food bonus if you build a city on them.

How about if the terrain is set to be transformed by an operation but gets a bonus (i.e., irrigation turns swamp into grassland, but swamp still gets a +2 irrigation bonus)?

Yep, it gets the bonus then too.

the computer I have civ2 on isn't the one connected to the internet at my place, so I can't check myself (that, and I'm still lazy).

Lazy bastard!