Tiny Contribution to Civ3 FAQ

[Craftsman]

On the Civ3 (Gameplay, features, rules, tip) FAQ, exists the folowing question:

.Civilization III FAQ

Does it matter what sort of tile I found my city on?
You will always get 2 food, 1 shield and 2 gold from your city tile no matter what you founded it on. You will not eliminate any terrain special resource but its normal production bonus will be lost. The defensive bonus of building on a hill remains.

I started playing with Civ3 just yesterday! So, I am not sure about the food, shield and gold figures stated above (and I deleted the game saved, so I can´t check it out).

What happened: My very first city, Rome, was placed on a Flooded Plains tile. It was very frustating to hear from time to time that a citizen died from disease, because of this terrain. I thing the rule applies to Jungles, too.

Thanks!
Craftsman.

[Gangerolf]

I'm not 100% sure, but I think it's the labourers you set to work on floodplain and jungle tiles outside of the city that might die from disease. They don't die because the city itself is placed on such terrain.

[Craftsman]

The labourers don´t die because the city is on a Floodplain terrain. Actually, the *citizens* (population points of the city) were the people dying. Try it... Found a city on a Floodplain terrain and watch it while it never grows up...

[vondrack]

Well, AFAIK, it is like this:

If you assign a citizen to work a tile within a city radius that is either floodplains or jungle, citizens of such city may (and occasionally will) start dying from disease. If you found a city on a floodplains tile, you will ALWAYS have the one "default" citizen assigned to a disease risky tile (as the central city tile is always worked upon). As for cities founded on jungle tiles, I believe the jungle is cleared on the central tile automatically when founding the city, so there is no implied disease risk in such a city (unlike in a floodplains city). However, I am not 100% about this - can anyone confirm?

To eliminate the disease risk, you must assign citizens to work tiles that are not jungle or floodplains (even a single citizen working one disease risky tile can cause the city population start dying). Clearing jungle squares is very important, as the cleared tiles no longer pose a threat. As for floodplains, you need to discover sanitation to get rid of the disease caused by them.

Therefore, never build cities on floodplains - you degrade a very good high-food-production tile to a standard city center tile, making yourself lose the floodplains bonus, while "enjoying" the floodplains malus with no hope of solution until sanitation... There is no problem building cities on jungle tiles, though, I believe. Just that you usually have to clear the surrounding tiles of the jungle to make the city grow...

Note: even units may die if spending too much time on a disease risky tile.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by vondrack
Note: even units may die if spending too much time on a disease risky tile.

IIRC, they lose a hitpoint at a time. You get a pop-up warning you that it has happened. Generally it only happens if they are fortified there.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Jaybe
IIRC, they lose a hitpoint at a time. You get a pop-up warning you that it has happened. Generally it only happens if they are fortified there.

Jaybe, I am quite sure (well... 98%) that I had a jungle-fortified full-health spearman die suddenly in one of my past games (or, it could be that I did not notice he was losing health... at least, I am 100% sure there was no warning prior to his death). Anyway, good point about the fortification thing, I really think that unit suffer in jungle only when foritified.