Permanent drought on 1 tile?

[MadDragon]

So I have a drought that destroys this one farm. Always that one farm. Drought ends, I fix the farm, next turn BOOM, another 5 turn drought on the SAME tile. Is this normal, or is this just another unwanted "feature"?

[Sarisin]

This is one of those maddening things in the game when it comes to natural disasters. I know the party line is that they come randomly, but I hear you. I guess it can be said certain tiles or groups of tiles are prone to drought. However, why are those selected again and again. I play on Enormous maps and I can tell you I had one group of tiles that got hit a bunch of times with droughts so that the total got up over 70 turns! You mean to tell me that the AI couldn't find anywhere else on the Enormous map to hit with a drought or another natural disaster? No, instead, I get hit 6-7 time in the space of about 10 turns.\

Sorry for the rant, but this one hits a nerve and I brought it up previously only to be ignored by the powers that be. Unwanted feature IMO.

[MadDragon]

Yeah. I just had a city hit twice in a row by tornadoes. Oddly the ONE city that could construct units near an AI I'm at war with. I think the AI might be cheating... but I understand that good AI is hard to program, whereas cheating is easy, cheap, and fast. Oh well, that's gaming!

Off to battle with Hungary.

[Don Costro]

There are only certain tiles that are prone to drought, although you won't know which ones, until the drought actually happens, then you can be sure it will happen again on the exact same tiles. Build an aqueduct in that city if it's an option, it'll mitigate the drought effects.

[Shiva]

In my current game there are exactly two regions on my continent that get droughts. It's only those areas and nowhere else. So it seems to be normal.

[Sarisin]

I always try to avoid building cities in areas where I have seen a drought, tornado, blizzard, flood, etc. The problems arise in the early game where you don't happen to see that first one hit - especially if it is in an area that LOOKS good for your capital.

The other thing is when you capture city-states or AI cities in wars and they may be in areas that get hit with disasters over and over again.

I get that certain areas on your map might be prone to disasters of a particular kind (sandstorms in deserts, blizzards in tundra/snow,etc), but given I use Enormous sized maps, I don't expect there to be only one or two of these areas and that I will get hit over and over again. Spread the wealth to some of the other areas on the map.

[sauluxville]

A drought hits at least four adjacent flat tiles with no features, but then it can cover a larger zone with other type of tiles.
When you can, plant some forests in drought prone areas, or else don't overchop.
An aqueduct, bath or dam will prevent food loss on the affected tiles, but not the drought itself.
If you happen to have a "drought city", well, Liang promoted to Reinforced Materials should protect it's improvements, buildings and districts from being pillaged by a drought (or any other environmental disaster).
So promoted Liang combined with one of the aforementioned districts will fully protect a vulnerable city against the drought effects.

[Sarisin]

Unfortunately, planting trees comes much later in the game (I play at Epic speed) and I don't believer you can do that until you get Conservation.

I guess you have to prioritize here. For me, I seldom build aqueducts, dams or baths (Roman only?). The same with promoting Liang. I play with Zombie mode on and I have to play a strong defensive game so I tend to build a lot of encampments, holy sites (accumulate Faith for Apostles), and go for promotions in other Governors that help.

As I said, I try very hard to keep my cities away from any known disasters like droughts I have seen pop up on the screen if I can. However, capturing city-states and AI cities that is not always possible.

You do have some very good strategies there. Thanks for putting them here.