Flood plains. Taboo to found cities on them?

[RGBVideo]

Near the river, on flood plains

[RGBVideo]

[{quote]you waste land but more importantly an extra (and nice) strategic factor: damn hard to conquer those mountained cities ...
[/quote]
I disagree, that was Not Nice.
It allowed you to 'cheat' the stupid AI, thus you could lose with armor to phalanx...

[Jaybe]

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

So, go into the editor and enable cities in mountains!
Personally, I have disabled cities on tundra (and disabled forest planting on tundra) to give potential for more colonies. Of course, this way there is potential for a resource to be on a tundra-only island so access is impossible.

[Theseus]

You can do that??!!

Aaaarghhh... I am sort of committed to playing either stock or the AU Mod.

(Although I like your idea to encourage colonies)

[Jaybe]

Theseus, the only advantages to playing stock is that you get your scores into the Hall of Fame and being able to have a closer comparison to what other people play (IF they are playing stock).

Actually, when you are playing stock you are being cruel to:
The barbarians (with those combat advantages everyone gets against them)
Yourself, if you ever get into the modern era, being unable to effectively do offensive fighter sweeps, by not increasing fighter defense strengths.

Also (as you may have read in PTW > Volcanos, Tornados and Airships ), I am researching the concept of making ALL resources being able to disappear/move. I really like the idea of market conditions changing (lux moves on you), gold mines run out, and climate changes so that food abundance is also dynamic.

[Brizey]

Originally posted by 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 a question. This is true in the beginning. But later on in the game I believe I have noticed differences in the stats of the city square. I will try to dig up an example. Does anyone know the rules for this?

[badams52]

Originally posted by Brizey
I have a question. This is true in the beginning. But later on in the game I believe I have noticed differences in the stats of the city square. I will try to dig up an example. Does anyone know the rules for this?

DaveMcW (He's doing lot's of research lately I noticed) found a formula.

Taking Dave's formula and making a chart (based on shield values according to Prima's Official(ly bad) Strategy Guide which may be wrong) it becomes:

pop size <=6

1 shield - everything except built on coal, iron, aluminum & furs on plains
2 shields iron, furs on plain.
3 shields coal, aluminum, uranium

pop size >=7 and <=12

1 shield - tundra, non shield grassland, flood plain
2 shields - shield grassland, desert, hills, plains
+ 1 for cattle, furs, iron and oil
+ 2 for aluminum, coal, and uranium
vanilla civ adds +1 for industrial civs

pop size >=13

2 shields - tundra, non shield grassland, flood plain
3 shields - shield grassland, desert, hills, plains
+ 1 for cattle, furs, iron and oil
+ 2 for aluminum, coal, and uranium
vanilla civ adds +2 for industrial civs
PTW adds +1 for insudtrial civ

For an industrial civ the best is 6 shields in PTW, 7 shields in vanilla civ
For a non industrial civ the best is 5 shields.

As a side note, if you build your city on a hill, you are sacrificing at least 1 shield that you would get if you were mining it (and railroaded when it comes around).

[MPatton]

I built a city with a massive flood plain it gave me a massive city of like 60 but low shield output. There were some desert mixed in.

[badams52]

Size 60 eh? I've always wanted to make a very large city.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Jaybe

So, go into the editor and enable cities in mountains!
Personally, I have disabled cities on tundra (and disabled forest planting on tundra) to give potential for more colonies. Of course, this way there is potential for a resource to be on a tundra-only island so access is impossible.

Perhaps an idea for the next version of the AU mod? After all, there are mountain cities in both Peru and Tibet. Not big, but cities anyway.

[Ephesos]

Actually, just a suggestion for the scenario designers reading this, enabling cities on mountains would be perfect for a China/S. America scenario (Himalayas, Incas, etc.).

[DeepO]

IIRC, floodplains do give extra disease for a city founded on them, which is the prime reason I avoid building there, certainly my capital. Other cities are okay, most of the times the surrounding fps can make up the loss in pop (always twice in a row! Disease doesn't happen much, but if it does, ouch )

For all cities except my capital, my rule is that if my empire isn't starving and fps are limited, I build on the river if possible. Otherwise, food takes preference over the cost of an aquaduct, and I build away from the fps... note that almost always, some of the tiles close by are desert, which are ideal places to start cities as you don't lose food or shields.

DeepO