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What are the effects of placing a city on a resource in Civilization VI?

There are available: strategic resources (like iron), normal resources, like sheep and luxurious resources like wine. Do we get any bonuses for placing a city on a resource tile?

Vemonus
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Filip Bartuzi
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1 Answers1

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Summary: You get the base resource, but the resource doesn't count as being "improved" in any way.

As a Stack Overflow user, my first thought is to check the documentation. (Yes, there is a manual.) According to page 48:

To utilize a resource, it first must be within your civilization’s borders, and then you must construct the appropriate "improvement" in that hex, or found a city on top of it.

(emphasis mine)

It's not clear whether the city gets the additional improvement bonuses, such as counting for adjacency purposes.

That didn't satisfy me, so I ran some tests.

I found a spot with a mine-able resource (niter, base 3 food/1 production) next to empty regular grassland (just 2 food). After I built the city on the niter, I saw niter appear in my nation's list of available resources, but the tile continued to produce the same 3F/1P. When I reloaded and built the city on the grassland, then built a mine on the niter, it started to produce 3F/4P instead. Conclusion: cities do not count as resource improvements (i.e. mines, pastures, &c.)

To test adjacency, I placed a farm immediately to the right of the grassland city, which was a rice grassland hex. Its base value was 3F, and the farm boosted its production to 4F. Then I started another playthrough where the city was not adjacent to either hex, and placed farms on both hexes. The production went from base 2F/3F to 4F/5F after the farms were built. Conclusion: cities do not grant resource adjacency bonuses (which really isn't a surprise since we already know they don't count as resource improvements in the first place).

I did this with a game starting in the Information Age (just so I would have the farm adjacency bonus available for testing) and the leader Catherine de Medici of France (because she doesn't have any special abilities that would interfere with these tests).

Side note: when I put the city on the regular grassland hex, the hex gained an extra unit of production. Based on the available evidence, I don't think this has anything to do with resources; I speculate that it's the game's way of making sure that no city starts with 0 production (and ends up in a sad, perpetual state of never being able to build anything at all).

In the screenshot you can see the city doesn't improve the niter yield at all, nor does it provide/receive an adjacency bonus to/from the farm.

Original patch of land without cities or improvements Land with city on niter and adjacent farm

NoDataDumpNoContribution
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Red Rogue
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    +1 for well researched answer and showing your work. Well done. – Shadur-don't-feed-the-AI Oct 26 '16 at 07:17
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    So as with most Civ VI questions, the answer is "the same as Civ V"? – OrangeDog Oct 26 '16 at 13:00
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    The way city initial yields are determined, is 2 food 1 production or better. So in the case of the niter on grassland, that results in a 2 food 1 production city. My bet is that a niter grassland hills would produce 2 food 2 production instead. – Raven Dreamer Oct 27 '16 at 03:13
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    What about placing it on natural wonders (I Think there is one wonder which could be occupied city but don't remember its name :))? – Filip Bartuzi Oct 27 '16 at 03:30
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    @FilipBartuzi Ask a question separately, not in comments – Wrigglenite Oct 27 '16 at 20:59
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    Quick note, the in-game encyclopedia does not have the "or found a city on top of it." language. (It is otherwise very similar to the manual) So perhaps this was a late change. – yarian Oct 29 '16 at 00:18
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    Thanks for this authoritative answer. I just wanted to note, however, that Hansa district does seem to count the resource that you founded the city on for purposes of its adjacency bonuses (it gives +1 production for each adjacent resource). – Stephen Nov 13 '16 at 03:42
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    Being totally new to Civ6, do I understand it right, that it's bad to place the city on a resource, and that it's much better to build it next to the resource? – WayneEra Jan 04 '17 at 07:07
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    @WayneEra City placement is a big deal in Civ 6 because you will fit tile improvement, districts, and wonders into the space around the city center. If there is a resource that sits right on what is otherwise the ideal center, that's not as good, since you can't improve it, but it's not the worst thing — at least you don't destroy the resource (as you do when building a district). – mattdm Mar 04 '17 at 05:11