Are "Grey" areas worth settling?

[wilsonstone]

I have a question about placing cities.

Is it worth it to plop a city in an area just to keep the AI from settling there? The area is "grey" (no water) but the game "recommends the place for a city. (There is chocolate and a banana grove there) . I could use the settler to build in a "green" area near desert where I can use my (Nubia) special building instead.

I'm worried that maybe there's a resource I don't have the tech for yet or that one of the others will build there and be too close to me. But if the city isn't going to grow it won't really be defensible and might fall in loyalty, I think. I ask because I'm pretty sure by mid game the AI will be spamming cities all over the place and I'm trying to block them from cioming into my territoy. In my last game khmer (sp)?) built a crap load of cities to my south when I ignored less than optimal areas and poland did so to the north.

[Skeev]

It depends:

If around your new city (build on a grey tile) is a lot of food resources (food income) it would be a waste most the time.
Why?

Well - the tile color tell you how many extra housing you will gain through "fresh water supplie".
The housing is needed to get more citizens (with low housing level your city growth will be decreased dramaticly).

If you have a lot of food income around the city, the city will get more citizen faster and will also get faster to the point where you will have not enough housing.

If there is not so much food around but there is e.g. a lot of production so your city growth will be slower anyway and so you will not get those problems with low level housing as fast as you will get them with a lot of food around.

When you don't need to grow your city up fast (I personly don't like slow growing cities), you can build on grey tiles. There some ways to increase housing levels by building, districts, tile improvements etc.
-Farms
-Aqueduct (district)
etc.

[blkbutterfly]

Siege mechanics are such that it's almost always better to settle lakes or coasts. Your cities are harder to siege (and they get extra housing).

Only ever if it's near mountains are grey area ok cos you can build an aqueduct and get protection from the mountains.

[wilsonstone]

The game was going badly so I decided not to settle the grey area. Poland did, (as I suspected they would) but that city has been size 2 for centuries. My problem is that I have absolutely NO strategic resources. If it wasn't frustrating it would be funny. No iron is within reach, every iron resource is within AI territory...and of course they all hate my guts. Same with horses.

[terry]

Its fine to put cities in areas like that. Its not hard to get enough housing to have 4 or even 7 population without being next to water or mountains. As far as the seige benefit, the AI doesnt pose a threat anyways so that would be the absolute last thing on my mind.

[gimmethegepgun]

If there's a river, mountain, lake, or oasis within 1 tile you can build an Aqueduct to get a good amount of housing there. If not then it won't have very good housing until you make some Neighborhoods (unless you're suzerain of Mohenjo Daro, which will ignore the terrain water availability and just give it full), but that's still not a very good reason to not put a city there. It'll still help you out (especially if you don't have those resources surrounding it).

[Sir Slasher]

sometimes its good to grab poor housing areas if it nets u things like iron, coal etc or to block a area

[krabdr]

I agree with terry. It's better to build next to freshwater, but sometimes you need a resource or a better position. You can also become suzerain over Mohenjo-Daro. At 6 envoys, you don't need water to grow.

[Elidrin]

If you have acess to a large amount of farmland this becomes viable. Each farm gives .5 pop cap. Granary + 4 farms and your at 7 in a grey area. Not a huge city but enough for a commercial district and something else.