Hamlets, Camps and Farms...oh my

[thanakar]

Originally posted by Platypus Rex


Not you, just the AI

I have seen large pop cities surrounded by C/H/V

If we were to do that, we would not grow like them

AI expolit?

To me building cottages in the beginning is sometimes better then farms since you don't yet have the tech to fully utilize some of the resources and the gold is good in the beginning. Later I remove the towns and replace them with farms as I need to rely less and less on towns for income and my population is needed the extra food.

[Dominae]

Windmills and Watermills are not strictly worse than Mines and Farms, respetively. Think of them as options in your terrain improvement repertoire, to be used as the situation dictates.

Mines need support from Farms and Food resources in other tiles, lest your population stagnate. Sometimes this Food support is simply not available.

Farms produce no Hammers. Most of the time this not a major problem since you can use the extra Food to support Specialists. Or you can just lay down Cottages instead of Watermills. In some cases, however, you really do need those Hammers instead of Commerce.

Windmills and Watermills are powerful tiles in the late-game, after they get all their tech-enabled boosts.

As in other Civ games, the AI goes for a balanced approach. Despite making suboptimal decisions, on average it nonetheless manages to put on a good show.

That said, one of the first AU mods should be an "Automated Workers" mod.

[cal_01]

Rightfully said. I think, later on in the game, a balanced option is more suitable because of all the bonuses that various buildings give out.

thanakar also said that cottages are better in the beginning sometimes because on the reliance of gold. I dunno about that, since it seems for me that gold (or at least income) is /less/ reliable in the beginning and I'd typically want high food output to start pushing out workers and settlers (and at least some production to get a scout out, but that's not really necessary since scouting with the first warrior helps a bit too).

[weiming]

Different era needs different improvements. early on mine, irrigation and cottage is best, but when you move on till middle of middle age, you will want watermill on all the square you can plant 1, cause with 2 tech + 1 civic option, watermill give +2hammer, +2gold, +1 food. by this time watermill is better than irrigation by far. versus towns, its hard to say, watermill is more balanced, while towns give hell lot more commerce.

windmill on the other hand is only a transitional improvement, windmill is good once u got electriciy and replaceble parts. but when u got rairoad, mines beats windmill again, cause railroad allow mines to pomp out 3 hammer.

[ktbutts]

After biology, farms provide +2 food. If you are on grassland 4 food allows for 1 specialist. So far my land improvements are:

Grassland = farm
plain w/river = water mill
plain wo/river = farm
grassland hill = windmill
other hill = mine
floodplain = farm

Cottages only seem productive late in the game with univeral suffrage. I think the extra specialist is more valuable.

[weiming]

plant farm on river side is a bad idea grassland or not. Cause farms on grassland by riverside gives only 4 food 1 gold, mean while watermill after u get the 2 tech and switch your civic to state property gives you 3 food, 2 hammer, 3 gold. you basically trading 1 extra food which is half a specialist for 2 hammer 2 gold, that would equate to 1 specialist for 4 hammer 4 gold. unless of cause this is done in you great people producer city where u need the extra GP points. Or in some border town you desperately need the extra culture point. otherwise, I dont think any specialist is worth 4hammer 4gold.

[lokiju]

Um, do hamlets, farms, and mines need roads? Seems like I should know this, but I didn't find it in a search, only this thread.

[Jcg316]

There is an option to have workers not build over improvements. They also don't need roads, but do need to be worked to grow.

A city does not need farms to grow if it has good resources. The cottages will pay off far more as they go along farther.

Unless you are trying to build some specific cities that need incredible amounts of food, somehow not running into health disease problems, you don't need many farms. Play a noble game not even building farms but only cottages with a financial civ, you should fly through the tech tree and be in the lead most of the game. One or two farms is good for all but one city if you are highly specializing it in some uncommon way. Every coin, maybe 9/10 or 8/10, is a beaker and that isn't often as good as a food for a city but when you're geting 4 or 5 and as much as 9 or 10 later from each cottage its incredible for gaining techs and worth much more to your empire than one food for that city.

At the end of a game that can turn into 900-1000 gold per turn with 100% wealth to sabotage a lot of space ships and squeak yours by them.

A city with lots of flood plains can pay for your empire with cottages on ther floodplains while growing, for a financial civ it gets the extra bonus from two right away for 3 instead of an extra food and 1 coin and not growing into more coin. A city with farms or cottages on floodplains will hit the disease soft cap, it isn't as bad as the happiness soft cap but is still a serious concern. A city with 6 pop with grown cottages on 6 floodplains will yield 30 beakers from those 6 tiles. That is worth 10! scientist specialists probably more like 5 or 6 considering great people, much more of an effect when trying to grow the pop to support that many. Also much more than you can reasonably support until much later.

Coin and hammers can be worth much more than food, you don't winning by growing a 30 size city so unless it is actually producing more benefit then a smaller 12-15 city it isn't worthwhile.

For example on normal ground in the early classical era you can have your capitol easily generating 25 beakers per turn on its own and still growing with 5 grassland tiles next to a river. Thats with run of the mill two yield tiles. Trying to support 5 scientist specialists at that point is unheard of.

Plus, you can do this with multiple cities, however, doing it with many would require the remainder to be churning out hammers for defense constantly as anyone who sees that you are defenseless could try attacking you at 25 gold per town and often that again for the village. I know its at least twenty five don't remeber if its higher, seems like maybe 27 was the usual but I can't remember.

Keep in mind you don't need to build up tiles early unless your using them, missing out on lumbermills late for unused cottages and farms early would seriously hurt your future economy.

[Addled Platypus]

a lot less road spam in this game

Still need to connect resources