City Square food/production

[ben_sphynx]

Does anyone know exactly how one can determine city square food and shields production. Sometimes I think it has something to do with terain, but there are some factors that confuse me.

Eg: square produces 5 food (maise); put a city on it and it now produces 3 (despotism, with an agricultrual civ).
So are bonus resources on the city square ignored?

Can anyone point me to a table with the results of puting the city square on different terains, with or without despotism or agricultrual.

Thanks.

[Grim Leaper]

A city space always produces 2 food, 1 shields and 2 trade (IIRC) no matter what the underlying terrain is. the only variations on this are agricultural civs get +1 food, and i think a river gives an extra trade. Also commercial and industrial civs get a bonus, but this is only once they reach size 7.

goverment has no effect on the city space. I believe the reason for no resource benifits is because that square is essentially worked for free (by no population). Also realistically you can't farm/mine in the middle of a town site :P

Graham

[Aqualung71]

As Grim Leaper says, a town square always gets the same food/production of 2/1, unless the civ is agricultural, in which case it gets +1 food. However, the +1 food is only achieved under despotism if the town is next to a river. Under other governments the agricultural civ will always get 3 food in the city square, regardless of terrain.

The obvious point here is never to settle a town on cows, wheat, wines, sugar (which unfortunately doesn't get the bonus food under despotism) and depending on surrounding terrain, flood plain.

[Dominae]

Settling on high-Shield sites (Iron Hills, etc.) will net more than 1 Shield in the city center tile, but you might not see it until you get out of Despotism.

[Grim Leaper]

The obvious point here is never to settle a town on cows, wheat, wines, sugar (which unfortunately doesn't get the bonus food under despotism) and depending on surrounding terrain, flood plain.

Does this mean you do get the food bonus when out of despotism? The only resources i settle on are luxury or strategic, to ease road building and protection.

[Donegeal]

You might want to shy away from building cities on strategic resouces. Actually building on them makes it more difficult to "cut yourself off" so you can build cheaper obsolete units to upgrade later when you feel like connecting the resource again.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Grim Leaper
Does this mean you do get the food bonus when out of despotism?

No.

[Aeson]

You get the commerce bonuses.

[Aqualung71]

You never get food bonuses when you settle on bonus resources, regardless of government.

Generally, the only resources that are ok to settle on are those with commerce bonuses only, as Aeson said. Eg, Horses, Tobacco.....

Of course, settling on hills has an added defensive bonus that you need to weigh up against losing the production bonus if it's Iron, say.

[joncnunn]

It's best not to settle on any resouce type. Intead build the city on an adjoining tile and make that bonus high on the imporvement list.

Grassland + shield tiles should also be avoided. You'll get exactly the same production from a city founded on a no shield tile than one with a shield.

[Epistax]

So the question is: Do you settle on the first turn no matter what (say, start on a grassland shield tile with no other shield tiles around), or delay your entire empire 1 turn for the rest of the game and move one square so you'll have an extra production point compared to not doing it. I assume people have already figured out what's best, but I haven't heard it yet.

[Krill]

move off the bonus grassland tile.

[Theseus]

Originally posted by Epistax
So the question is: Do you settle on the first turn no matter what (say, start on a grassland shield tile with no other shield tiles around), or delay your entire empire 1 turn for the rest of the game and move one square so you'll have an extra production point compared to not doing it. I assume people have already figured out what's best, but I haven't heard it yet.

Um, it's a little tougher of a decision than that. There are SOOO many factors that go into that starting point.

Here is a VERY good treatise on the subject:

http://www.civfanatics.com/doc/civ3/cracker/civ3_starts/index.htm

[Cort Haus]

IMV the best bonus resource to build on is GOLD. Plop a city down on a gold hill near the capital and voom! Big commerce boost to a young empire.

[joncnunn]

In general, moves of one tile to get off a shield / resource / get adjecent to fresh water help more the hurt.

For an agr civ, moving two tiles to fresh water would be worth it, athough they tend to start on fresh water more often than non-agr civs anyway.

Also if you had a scout or moved a worker to the tile it's going to improve first and notice your starting location has a lot of ocean tiles within future CR and yet isn't adjoining it, it's also benifital to move it one tile either towards the sea (for the harbor and some sea Wonders) or away from it (for larger shield production.) than to found in place with both a shield and food problem.

Originally posted by Epistax
So the question is: Do you settle on the first turn no matter what (say, start on a grassland shield tile with no other shield tiles around), or delay your entire empire 1 turn for the rest of the game and move one square so you'll have an extra production point compared to not doing it. I assume people have already figured out what's best, but I haven't heard it yet.