starting area always centered on hill

[Steven]

is it supposed to be like that? i dislike it because i dont want my first city to be place on a hill and the center of the landing area usually has the best spread of resources around it (it also does this for the two aquatic sponsors, if the center of the landing area also happens to be on land, then its always a hill)

[mastarfin]

No. It can happen as Hills are a part of the landscape. I always choose the starting benefit of Wider Landing area however. Which gives you a GREAT deal better choice for starting location.

[Steven]

i do use the wider landing area bonus, but that center hill always would be the best place to land if hills werent a 1 yield tile

[Cryten]

The extra production of a hill can be a significant advantage for those early turn productions.

[Steven]

except i could get that same one production from plains and also get one more food, if this was civ 5 where hills gave two prod. i would take it in a heartbeat

[PhailRaptor]

Originally posted by Cryten:

The extra production of a hill can be a significant advantage for those early turn productions.

It only works out that way if you build a Mine on the tile. Which you can't do if you found a city there.

[Cryten]

Not at all, It gives you a bonus production resource which can cut in third the first few builds.

[jonnydoh]

Under setup options you can specify "All Coastal Starts" or "All Sea Starts" for Cities. Coastal is now a default ON for all my games. That way, if you start near a hill, at least it will be close to the water.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Cryten:

Not at all, It gives you a bonus production resource which can cut in third the first few builds.

No. Cities in BE add 2 food 1 production to the yield of the tile it's on. Since hills have a yield of 1 production, a city on a hill will have 2 food 2 production. Whereas a city on a plains tile would have 3 food 2 production.
Hills do give a combat strength bonus to the city, and allow ranged units in the city to shoot over obstacles, which is mildly worthy of consideration. Still falls short most of the time though.

Desert hills are pretty sweet though. Vivarium makes it 1 food 1 production 1 energy, as well as having the defensive bonuses. Still probably better to use it to make a mine for a cool 1/3/1 tile.

[hughw]

If there are no plains though, you could settle on a hill to get 1 extra production and defence as opposed to extra food from a grassland.

[Astasia]

I always try for the hill. The yield doesn't really matter IMO, that tile is going to be in your workable area anyway. You are giving up an improvement one way or the other, mine, farm, whatever, might as well get the small bit of extra city strength from the hill. There's certainly not always a hill in the center though.

[Aluminum Elite Master]

Originally posted by Astasia:

I always try for the hill. The yield doesn't really matter IMO, that tile is going to be in your workable area anyway. You are giving up an improvement one way or the other, mine, farm, whatever, might as well get the small bit of extra city strength from the hill. There's certainly not always a hill in the center though.

I mostly agree with this.

It's a single tile, which *does* matter in a game where very early things can snowball. But in this case, whether you settle your first city on a hill or not, you are just choosing one side of a trade-off. However, currently, with the way fear/respect works (if you have RT), I'd say there's no need to build on a hill for military purposes (stronger city HP)... the AI no longer rushes you almost at all on the harder difficulties, since fear/respect need to drop first.

I mostly settle based on where I can maximize the workable basic resources in my first ring. I often use Retrograde Thrusters to really give myself options, but the tile I settle on is almost 100% about maximizing immediately workable basic resource tiles. The remainder of the time I settle on a coast tile for the better trade-routes (though I haven't looked into how much RT has changed this... trade vessels are still more expensive, but a leaf tech on the first tech allows for trade convoys to go on water... so, need to read more about it). Or I settle on the coast to have water units as an option for my 1st city (water units explore quickly, though can't do expeditions).

In Civ V, IIRC, settling on a hill was usually desirable... but here, I just settle for basic resources in ring 1. But RT has added the whole settling on water thing for Chongsu and NSA, so it's a bit more complicated despite not really caring about settling on hills.


PS: BE still has energy along rivers, so I do sometimes, on occasion, factor rivers into it as well, though enough other tile types have buildings that add energy to them that it's not as big a deal as it was in vanilla Civ V.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by Field Marshal Sad Keanu:

However, currently, with the way fear/respect works (if you have RT), I'd say there's no need to build on a hill for military purposes (stronger city HP)... the AI no longer rushes you almost at all on the harder difficulties, since fear/respect need to drop first.

Aliens. Angry siege worms will attack cities on occasion.