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.

[VJ]

Near the river, on flood plains

[VJ]

[{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