food on desert tiles?

[joakim]

how can I grow/get food for my citizens

[Grzemek]

Outback Stations (Australian unique tile improvement), Petra, praying for fertilizing sandstorms. Yeah, not much wiggle room here.

You could be sending Trade routes from that city, but if the city doesn't have any food besides trade routes it's not gonna be a great one.

[Exemplar]

yeh, petra if you can get an early run at mathematics and start building it soon enough. you should try to make that city have as many desert hills as possible in its periphery. maybe 50% of games in which my first district is a campus has a petra city. not sure i'd bother if i couldn't rush it.

[FailedNormiee]

Originally posted by Sabotague:

, praying for fertilizing sandstorms.

Are you being sarcastic I have not seen that. That would be awesome.

[Lady Crimson (RIP)]

Storms are a thing, but if you are out of other options from the nearby tiles.. you'll have to rely on trade routes.

Either allied ones if you have the ally civic for trade routes, or internal trade routes.

If you play as Mali they are ridiculous on desert, but that's civ specific.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Note that the storms require the Gathering Storm DLC, and also they are typically more destructive than they are beneficial.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by tempest.of.emptiness:

and also they are typically more destructive than they are beneficial.

naaah its fine

[pitonsnaboca]

There's also the nubian pyramid, if placed adjacent to the city center gives +1food, but it's also civ specific.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Originally posted by tempest.of.emptiness:

and also they are typically more destructive than they are beneficial.

naaah its fine

I'm not sure what you mean. Having several improvements wiped out and losing some pops is not made up for by having a couple of tiles gain +1 yield. My point is that while storms can technically increase the food output of a desert tile, they usually don't provide a benefit in excess of the cost they impose.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by tempest.of.emptiness:

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

naaah its fine

I'm not sure what you mean. Having several improvements wiped out and losing some pops is not made up for by having a couple of tiles gain +1 yield. My point is that while storms can technically increase the food output of a desert tile, they usually don't provide a benefit in excess of the cost they impose.

There's not a whole lot of point in putting improvements on deserts (not that there are many to begin with). An area that gets dust storms will get them throughout the whole game and it will rapidly make the tiles excellent, which more than make up for a few pops getting mauled by Haboobs every now and then.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

I'm not sure the math supports your position, but okay. I will continue to hope that my desert areas are not wracked by sandstorms.