Terrain (Civ1)

Terrain tiles in the original Civilization are square-shaped and comprise an 80x50 cylindrical map grid in all world types: random, customized, and EARTH.

Overview

Civilization established broad concepts for terrain resources and exploitation that have seen gradual developments in later titles. Every civilization starts with the pseudo-advances of Irrigation, Mining, and Roads, which dispersed into separate research goals later on in the series. The process of allocating population points to work tiles in the vicinity of a city, and improving the land for the city's use, therefore begins as soon as the first city is founded.

Civ 1 Settlers are responsible for creating both cities and terrain improvements. A city's terrain catchment area, which has come to be known as the Big fat cross, is a 5x5 square, minus the corners, with the city on the middle square. The city tile automatically produces resources as if roaded & irrigated, while the other 20 squares in the BFC require a population unit to be assigned to work it. Yields are in terms of food, shields, and trade arrows. Special resources do appear in Civ 1 and improve the harvest considerably when a citizen works the tile, but they are not strategic assets.

Terrain Table

Tile		Move cost	Defense	Normal Tile	Resource tile		Irrigation	Mine	Road	Railroad
	Arctic	2	+0%		Seal
	Desert	1	+0%		Oasis	↓			↑	+50% yields
	Forest	2	+50%		Game	↓	→ Plains	→ Plains		+50% yields
	Grassland	1	+0%		Shield		↓	→ Forest	↑	+50% yields
	Hills	2	+100%		Coal			↓		+50% yields
	Jungle	2	+50%		Gem	↓ ↑	→ Grass	→ Forest		+50% yields
	Mountain	3	+200%		Gold	↓ ↑				+50% yields
	Ocean	1	+0%	↑	Fish	↓     ↑
	Plains	1	+0%		Horse	↓		→ Forest	↑	+50% yields
	River	1	+50%	↑	Shield	↑	↓			+50% yields
	Swamp	2	+50%		Oil		→ Grass	→ Forest		+50% yields
	Tundra	1	+0%		Game	↓
↓ ...means minus 1 of this resource under Despotism or Anarchy.
↑ ...means plus 1 of this resource in a Republic or Democracy.

Example

A Shield Grassland tile has a base yield of Road + Irrigation changes the yield to:
	...under Despotism/Anarchy
	...under Monarchy/Communism
	...under Republic/Democracy
A Railroad adds on another 50% of the non-government-adjusted yield, rounded down, of each resource. In the case of Shield Grassland, this really only adds Food, resulting in:
	...under Despotism/Anarchy
	...under Monarchy/Communism
	...under Republic/Democracy

Terrain Improvement Times

Tile	Turns needed to:
	Irrigate	Mine	Road	Railroad	Fortress
Arctic			4	8	6
Desert	5	5	2	4	5
Forest	5	5	4	8	6
Grassland	5	10	2	4	5
Hills	10	10	4	8	6
Jungle	15	15	4	8	6
Mountain		10	6	12	7
Ocean			2	4	5
Plains	5	15	2	4	5
River	5		2	4	5
Swamp	15	15	4	8	6
Tundra			2	4	5

Remarks

Rivers, Grasslands, and Plains are necessary and sufficient for developing cities in Civ 1, because they feed the citizens working them. In Despotism, road the shieldgrass as soon as possible, and then road and irrigate Plains squares as needed. Buried in the first table's data is a hard truth that while grasslands can be irrigated under Despotism, there will be no increased food harvest for doing so. Output is penalized back to where it started. This issue alone makes the first government weak on food output. To feed foresters, miners, and elite citizens, a higher form of government is warranted.

Regular grass and shieldgrass are arranged in a striped diagonal step pattern. From a couple of visible grassland tiles, it is possible to deduce the arrangement of shield river tiles, and also determine which swamp and jungle tiles will turn into shieldgrass when irrigated (so they can be prioritized).

Special resources, for their part, are also arranged in particularly-shaped clusters. These shapes become especially apparent in the open seas. Keep an eye out for any grassland that is supposed to have a special on it. That tile can be Mined, which will turn it into Forest Game. Irrigating the forest will then turn it into Plains Horse, rich in shields and trade, although this step incurs a net loss of up to 1 Food (depending on gov't) from when it was Grassland.

Grassland step pattern

Resource cluster 1

Resource cluster 2

See also

• Terrain in other games

Sid Meier's Civilization [edit]
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