Taking advantage of flood plains

[eao]

I wouldn't have to look like such a noob if the search function was enabled. I'm looking for information regarding flood plains. Should I avoid them until I can prevent disease, or should I take advantage of their food production? Thanks.

[Spiffor]

Food plains are great. If you are lucky enough to start a game in a flood plain (and some shield-producing tiles around too), you'll be able to churn out settlers at godspeed, as well as workers.
If you settle in a floodplain early in the game, that will help you tremendously for the rest of the game, with the rapid expansion it allows.

However, a floodplain with no shield-producing tiles nearby isn't very good for settlement in early game, since the big population is mostly useless (you can still sacrifice it with poprush).

In later game, floodplain cities are interesting, especially for cities far from your capitol. Indeed the extra population (specialists) will work without the adverse effect of corruption.

Disease is a very small price to pay for such a kickass terrain . Besides, you can replace the dead population very quickly

[Dominae]

Definitely take advantage of the extra Food output. If you've got Cattle and Wheat, go for those first, but in all other cases you should Irrigate those Flood Plains as early as possible.


Dominae

[BigFree]

Yes, the disease sucks, but there's a better chance for you to suceed using it than if you don't. One way to hedge that bet is to build a very early granery in that city.

[Rhothaerill]

IMHO flood plains are one of the most powerful tiles in the game because of the quick growth. It's one of the few tiles that isn't affected by the despotism cap of 2 food. Though like Spiffor says, the best flood plains locations occur when you have a few production tiles around too (forests, mined hills, etc.). A good flood plain city is a wonderful settler/worker pump, even without a granary.

I wouldn't worry too much about disease since flood plain cities grow rapidly enough to offset any difficulties you might incur with disease.

[Dr. A. Cula]

I don't know how often you get disease warnings in flood plains. I get them all the time in jungle, but never in flood plains.

And I agree, a city surrounded by flood plains with a few hills/mountains in it's range is the best settler pump you'll ever have, but you have to be careful: a city growing too fast too early in the game will hit civil disorder faster than the rest of your empire, which will harm production. I once had a very good location: a city surrounded by 7 or 8 flood plains (at least one of them had wheat as well), plus 3 or 4 hills and some mountains. When I switched to republic, I had to stop making settlers and build a temple and a marketplace to keep those peasants happy. Meanwhile, 3 other cities took turns in building settlers, they just couldn't do it long enough.

[Gufnork]

My personal favourite is starting with a cow and a shield on grasslands. You can't build settlers faster than that without going above population 2 or rushing. I probably ought to take my time to master poprushing, but I've never bothered. So flood plains are probably better than I think.

Despotism doesn't have a cap, btw. You just get one less if they produce 3+ of something. So mined hills with iron gives 3 produktion (4-1), irrigated floodplains gives 3 food (4-1).

[CerberusIV]

If it is your capital, then build on a floodplain tile next to the river. Even if most of the surrounding tiles are floodplain the boundary will expand quickly to enable you to work the full city radius.

I recently had a capital location with access to 8 floodplain tiles, two of which had wheat. The rest of the city radius was desert and mountains. I worked out that after RR's the total food production would be 46 from the floodplains and city square. The remaining 9 desert and 3 mountains would provide 39 shields when mined and RR'd. Not bad at all. (I abandoned that game for other reasons however)

If it is not your capital floodplains are still great if you have access to shield producing tiles but the one thing you need to watch is that the initial city location gives you enough shields (or pop rush) to get a temple or library up to expand the boundary.

[justjake73]

What?!?!? NEVER put a city on a floodplain square before Sanitation - especially your capital!!! You're just inviting an early loss through disease!!! If you can find a grass or plains square within reach of the floodplain, do that, but too many flood squares lower your shield production too much.

[CerberusIV]

Originally posted by justjake73
What?!?!? NEVER put a city on a floodplain square before Sanitation - especially your capital!!! You're just inviting an early loss through disease!!! If you can find a grass or plains square within reach of the floodplain, do that, but too many flood squares lower your shield production too much.

No. Disease affects the city population that are working the floodplain tiles (the tiles around the city you see being worked in the city view screen). It doesn't matter what tile the city is built on. Better to build on the river so the city can grow past size 6.

As remarked in an earlier post the city will grow so fast that the losses through disease are insignificant.

Also worth noting that the city tile itself produces one shield even if the city is built on floodplain. AFAIK this is the only way to get any shield production from floodplain tiles.

[Arrian]

Floodplains are ok. They do give extra food, but they also carry the risk of disease, which ALWAYS seems to strike twice in a row (costing you 2 pop points).

Cows or Wheat on grassland or plains are both much better. So is game (the deer).

Frankly, I think I'd rather have a bunch of bonus grassland to work with. I can turn the extra production into a granary, and there is no risk of disease.

Wheat on floodplains is another story. The food bonus from that is just huge. But even then, growth is great and all, but you've gotta have some production tiles (and hills are a ***** early, because of the time it takes to mine them, and the reduced output under despotism). Gimme a Wheat of fp + bonus grasslands, though, and I'll be a happy camper.

-Arrian

[eris]

Flood plains are very powerful things. The extra food allows you to grow cities quickly and properly develop and use shield tiles such as hills and forests. I love them.

As for disease, I am not sure where I got this notion, but it is my opinion and seeming experience that flood plains only cause disease if they are undeveloped, in other words, not irrigated. Once I irigate the flood tiles I no longer see disease warnings. Can someone confirm or deny this impression? It affects my worker strategy, since I work the flood plains early, making my cities grow faster than happiness developments and citizen management can always handle well. Then, I start working the shields in the area and the city starts being a real power house.

Maybe this is not the best approach. But if irrigating flood plains saves me from losing population due to disease, then that is a very good thing. Each citizen lost causes me to order all cities to fly their flags at half mast. I am a very sentimental dictator. (What? You don't see those little flags? Either get a monitor with better resolution or a mind with a little more imagination. At least one of them is key to the enjoyment of the game.)

[Panag]

Originally posted by eao
I wouldn't have to look like such a noob if the search function was enabled. I'm looking for information regarding flood plains. Should I avoid them until I can prevent disease, or should I take advantage of their food production? Thanks.

hi ,

use them asap , the river is good for growth and hydro plant , and whatever loss you might get from strange diseases your loss is made more then plenty , ......

have a nice day