Why aren't people talking about Workshops very much?

[stormwriter]

I don't use them much, cause i've been foolishly automating my workers. So, i'm trying to get a handle of all the terrain improvements, trying to increase production to fuel fast builds, and i noticed the Workshop.

Available with Metal Casting
-1 Food, +1 Production
+1 Food with State Property Civic
+1 Production with Guilds
+1 Production with Replaceable Parts

So, is it only good late game when you have all those techs? Is it even worth using if you aren't State Property?
Is it just too much of a hassle mid game?

[QuestGAV]

Well, you've got to figure that most improvements will give you a +1 or +2 to your resources. Personally, I feel like food is more valuable than production given that more food -> more production but the reverse is not necessarily true. This can also be seen by the fact that early mines give you +2 production while early farms give +1 food. Clearly, the design math says food is more important. So if you have an improvement that takes 1 food and gives 1 production you lose a great deal on that transaction.

Even with State Property, workshops don't appear to be a good deal as you get 0 food and 1 production, which could have been commerce or food if you chose your improvements differently. With guilds and state property you essentially get a mine which is equivalent to a farm. Still gets a big meh to me. It looks more interesting with state property, guilds, and replaceable parts, but then you're pretty damn close to biology and farms go to +2 and blow it out of the water.

If you have fresh water to build a farm you should build it, get the excess production from specialists (as well as the GP bonus). If not, a cottage is probably going to give you more in the longrun.

It is all situational, but it seems like workshops aren't the best option in most cases. I too am struggling with the improvement options but I'm starting to lean towards just using farms, cottages, and mines.

[stormwriter]

If you're focusing on cottages, are you using the Emancipation Labor Civic? (no upkeep, requires Democracy, +100% growth for cottage, hamlet, village)

Sounds like it's a pretty amazing Civic, but fairly mid-late game with Democracy? By that time aren't all my cottages full-fledged towns?

So, that Civic is probably good for the cities i build later in the game?

Maybe i'll try that Civic once i get it, cause i'm not fond of any Labor Civic right now. Serfdom is kind of cool for the quicker improvements, but that's not that big of a deal.
I'm sure some folks like the Caste System for the unlimited artists, scientists, and merchants.

[xxFlukexx]

Workshops are great if you have 2 out of 3 of its upgrades, before that it's pretty bad compared to either a farm or a cottage.

If you got 2 of its upgrades, then it's -1 food +3 hammer, which will turn a plains into a +4 hammer tile, which is what mountains with a mine are. So you can turn a city that was full of plains/grassland into a production powerhouse.

I think watermills are another good improvement when they get fully upgraded, they get +2 production +2 gold on a tile next to a river. Or something close to that, I think there's a civic that increases that even further.

[Byelotsar]

Originally posted by stormwriter
If you're focusing on cottages, are you using the Emancipation Labor Civic? (no upkeep, requires Democracy, +100% growth for cottage, hamlet, village)

Sounds like it's a pretty amazing Civic, but fairly mid-late game with Democracy? By that time aren't all my cottages full-fledged towns?

Though the cottage growth bonus is fantastic and the zero civic upkeep nice, I think Emancipation is "best" used in conjunction with Free Speech (which causes towns to produce +2 gold) and Universal Suffrage (which causes towns to produce +1 hammer) so that you can take better tactical advantage of this improvement which offers 6 gold and a hammer. By the time Democracy rolls around, the fifty turns (or whatever) that a cottage would normally take to mature into a town is a significant chunk of the remaining game. Halving that time makes the cottage a viable investment for a square with another improvement.

[Jon Shafer]

Workshops are pretty much for cities with a lot of food but little production. Or if you're running State Property and have nothing better to do.

[upsidedown]

Situational but generally not going to be used that often. Very good in those situations.

[Alphard]

I have been thinking about that. I think it should be possible to build a workshop on a tile that gives you 0 food anyways? So.. you just gain a production point. Even more.. when you finally get the +1 food.. does it add it even if the tile normally does not support foor production? It should be so.. though i havent tested it. Anyways I think a workshop is an option in the 'poor terrain' regions of the map

[Fried-Psitalon]

I greatly favor workshops in more modern starts (Industrial+) for getting heavy industry off the ground quickly.

[BgT]

I don't know, I still can't decide about all these improvements. I tend to like Lumbermills. If you go for hammers, why not use lumbermills on forests? Does really nobody have problems with health level in cities? With lumbermills you get +2 hammers (I say 2 because forest remains) and +0.4 "health". If by river +1 gp also. Help me get rid of this lumbermill love, please! Probably your arguments will go in way of more food --> specialists, but they only add to health requirements. The only problem seems you can't build them for long time. But I don't know if this problem is really that big. Forests are not that bad and for even more food you can use other tiles until you are able to build lumbermills.

[MattPilot]

Originally posted by BgT
I don't know, I still can't decide about all these improvements. I tend to like Lumbermills. If you go for hammers, why not use lumbermills on forests? Does really nobody have problems with health level in cities? With lumbermills you get +2 hammers (I say 2 because forest remains) and +0.4 "health". If by river +1 gp also. Help me get rid of this lumbermill love, please! Probably your arguments will go in way of more food --> specialists, but they only add to health requirements. The only problem seems you can't build them for long time. But I don't know if this problem is really that big. Forests are not that bad and for even more food you can use other tiles until you are able to build lumbermills.

For some real lumbermill love, build one on a grassland hill with a forest (of course), next to a river.

Now THAT is a valuable tile.

[Volstag]

At first I ignored them, thinking the bonuses didn't really justify whatever I was losing. However, late in the game, they can really ramp up production on the right tiles.