Terrain and modifications

[Obese Monkfish]

It seems to me that the best cities are those with about 8-15 squares of grassland, and the rest hills or mountains. What do you think, what are the best cities?

Also, what terrain modifications should I make? I tend to mine all my grassland, and mine about 50% of my plains (irrigate the rest). I irrigate my deserts. Later in the game should I go and change my terrain improvements?

Basically the way I see it is, a city that's REALLY REALLY BIG but has no production doesn't help me at all...give me a size 14 city with insane production over a HUGE city with very little.

Any tips?

Thx

[Ethelred]

I do change things later myself. I start mining most of the grasslands and irrigating all the plains. Once I get railroads I go out and rebalance it. The idea is to get all the tiles worked if I can. For cities with a lot of mountains I can't do that. But for the rest I will irigate as much grasslands as I need to work all the hills and the mountains.

I usually stop a cities growth when all the tiles it controlls are being worked unless. Some cities can have everything mined though and still grow past 20. Sometimes I move the workers around on adjacent cities to optimize things. If I can get a city up to producing 120 shields after waste I will do that even if it handicaps another city. With 120 shields I can produce modern armour in one turn. If I can't reach that its good to balance things out for the other cities to get as many as I can that can produce 60 shields or more after waste.

Of course if I was trying for a big score production would be less important than a large population. The more the happy people the higher the score.

[Dominae]

The best way to do it is determine how many squares you can currently produce until you reach your population limit (6 if you don't have access to fresh water, etc.). You should only work those 6 squares, trying to produce 2 food on average per square.
This means that if you've got a great Flood Plain produce 4+ food, it's useless to mine too many Grasslands: instead, switch to Hills (and head for Monarchy if you're not in it already). On the whole, you'll find yourself mining most squares, unless food is really scarce.

If you constanly think about which squares your cities are actually going to use and improve those exclusively, you'll have a lot more Worker-time available. This time you can use to build better road networks (Miliatary road networks are great).


Dominae

[Arrian]

In general, I like a good mix of grass and hills, with a river.

The single best city site I've ever seen, however, had no river and only a couple of grassland squares. It had 4 furs (I chopped the forrest and got to grass underneath) and 3 gold hills. That's a lot of commerce. If only it had been coastal...

As for improvements, it depends on your form of government. In despotism, irrigation only works on certain squares (wheat, cows, floodplain, plains, desert, game). So I do lots of mining of grassland. I tend to leave hills for later, because you don't get the full bonus from the mine under despotism, and because it takes 2x as long. As a monarchy or republic, I will irrigate some more to get my cities up to size 12, and then mine such that they have no surplus - they aren't gonna grow for a long time. Once I have hospitals, I go back and irrigate some more, and then switch back to mines once my cities pass size 15/16... so they stop growing around 20.

-Arrian

[Harovan]

The best city site for me is half mountains half grassland, or 2/3 hills and 1/3 grasslands. Optional with a river and/or gold or gems for commerce. And iron and coal for the Iron Works, woohoo. And all this 50 tiles away from your Palace, so all you get is 1 shield and 1 commerce . No, serious:

1st case: An irrigated and railroaded grassland tile can feed a mountain tile with no food, city grows to size 21 and stops there. You will have a kickass production in this city.

2nd case: Same thing, an irrigated and railroaded grassland tile feeds 2 hill tiles.

For my start position all I need is a cow that can be irrigated, and a shielded grassland to mine. A river is appreciated but not a condition. These 2 tiles make a 10-turn settler factory. They're easy to set up, just build 2 or 3 of them near to your capital, and you can settle almost as fast as you can discover.

[Dominae]

I don't know about you guys, but I love Flood Plain squares. Every game that I've started close to a river and a bunch of Flood Plains I've done well. You gain population so fast that you can produce Settlers like crazy, and rush buy Temples and military units whenever unhappiness kicks in. Disease has never been a major problem in my games.

So, for me, a few Flood Plain squares, some Forest and Hills (for when Monarchy kicks in) and a Luxury or two is close to ideal for an early-game position.


Dominae

[Barchan]

Originally posted by Dominae
I don't know about you guys, but I love Flood Plain squares. Every game that I've started close to a river and a bunch of Flood Plains I've done well. You gain population so fast that you can produce Settlers like crazy, and rush buy Temples and military units whenever unhappiness kicks in. Disease has never been a major problem in my games.

So, for me, a few Flood Plain squares, some Forest and Hills (for when Monarchy kicks in) and a Luxury or two is close to ideal for an early-game position.


Dominae

I don't know; every time I've tried to establish a city in a flood plain on Deity disease has been rampant, often reducing the city to one pop point. It's not as bad on lower levels, but on higher levels disease seems to be a real problem for flood plains.