Flood plains. Taboo to found cities on them?

[Artifex]

Is it ok or really bad to found cities on flood plains? What about at the start of a game founding your capital on a flood plain? OK? or too risky?

What if your choice is desert with no river or flood plain by river for growth benifit. I know disease could strike.

[Master Zen]

All terrain give the same stats for a founded city, no matter if its desert/grassland/hill/tundra etc: 2 food / 1 shield / 1 trade.

I have never seen disease strike a size 1 city, if that's what you're scared about...

[theNiceOne]

I do it all the time if I start there.
Pros:
You build adjacent to a river, which is a huge bonus.
You gain one shield from a tile that otherwise can never produce shields.

Cons:
You waste a lot of food since it now only gives two food.

If there are less useful tiles adjacent to the river, I'll select those (grassland, tundra), but flood plain tiles often come packed many together, so the city will normally get more food than needed anyway.

The disiease strikes if your citizens work on flood plain tiles, the city tile does not matter (IIRC), so there's little reason to build adjacent to the flood plain and work on it with a citizen to avoid the disease.

[CerberusIV]

I will move to an adjacent desert tile or hill if I can but it depends on the surrounding terrain. I don't worry if this means I will have to build an aqueduct.

The key factor is whether the tiles within the city radius are food rich (floodplain/grassland) or resource rich (hills/mountains). If resource rich I would move off the floodplain to get food from it later, if food rich I would stay on the floodplain rather than move to a resource tile.

[Hurricane]

I agree. It very much depends on the surrounding terrain. If there is desert around (which is often tha case) I will try to settle on the desert, but otherwise the river bonus will often make me to settle on the flood plain.

[Jawa Jocky]

I once had 4 random starts in row on flood plains. Each time disease struck the turn before my settler was completed. I prefer to roll the dice and drop the city on the flood plain. I'd rather lose the food than the shields.

[joncnunn]

Considering that the surronding terraign a flood plains are often near is desert, combined with the fresh water access that all cities next to a river edge enjoy often shifts my city building patern onto the Flood Plains.

My top pririoty is placement of cities is to have fresh water access.

Second highest is to avoid being seperated by water by one tile.

I usually don't plan on making settlers from flood plains city's. Instead I build normal improves and race to pop-rush to compete them once the city grows before the disease strikes. Then if the city has plains in its CR, I initally irrigate the Plains to move as many workers away from the Flood Plains tiles and onto Plains tiles, trading food for shields.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Hurricane
I agree. It very much depends on the surrounding terrain. If there is desert around (which is often tha case) I will try to settle on the desert...

I used to follow the same logic, until I realised that a Desert tile can never be adjacent to a River. Thus you do not get the no-Aqueduct benefit. Given that your city will grow pretty fast anyway (Flood Plains = Food, duh), this is quite the disadvantage.


Dominae

[Chemical Ollie]

I regularly build cities on flood plains, at least if there are more than one in the area. There are often other priorities.

[Datajack Franit]

Avoid flood plains unless you don't have better terrain tiles around

[badman]

Flood Plains are great and I do build cities on them because they can grow to size 12 quickly.
If there are some hills or mountain tiles around, the city is perfect.

[Purple]

Originally posted by joncnunn
My top pririoty is placement of cities is to have fresh water access.

Don't you think a coastal city, with its potential for deriving more food/shields/commerce from the salt-water tiles, has an advantage over an inland city, even if the latter has access to fresh water?

Of course, the best would be a city with both fresh and salt water access.

[Qilue]

I like cities on flood plains, but for reasons totally devoid of strategy.

In the city view, cities on flood plains look picturesque as opposed to ones on plains which look butt ugly. Cites on desert look ok, but the lack of a river is a major negative.

Now if only you could build on mountains and the city view looked kind of like Maccu Piccu (sp?) or somewhere like that.

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Originally posted by Qilue
Now if only you could build on mountains and the city view looked kind of like Maccu Piccu (sp?) or somewhere like that.

It's a pity you can't do it in civ3 (as compared to civ2).

As you mention correctly, people actually founded cities on mountains (small cities, nevertheless).

By not being able to anymore, you waste land but more importantly an extra (and nice) strategic factor: damn hard to conquer those mountained cities ...

AJ

[Theseus]

Tell me about it... I still look longingly at strategically placed mountains as potential city sites.