Forests: Should you really keep them?

[BigJMoney]

Don't forget that forests adjacent to your cities provides beseigers a nice +50% defensive bonus if you like to attempt defensive catapult bombardment.

=$= Big J Money =$=

[LzPrst]

why bother with the health benefit? by the time I got environmentalism I had so many resources that a little health from forests and jungles could be left to those little UN hippie tree-huggers.

[Jcg316]

The game is close to finished when you get environmentalism. Between that genetics, supermarkerts, and other late game techs there health can be dealt with fairly well. A really large city will still have disease after most of those. After Guilds there are no heath bonuses until those end game techs and that's where you need them for. Every time your city grows suffering from disease it gains little.

By a time a city is of a large size it is using all its good food tiles and some more lousy tiles. A production city would be having few food tiles as well. In these cities adding a pop could give you a mine for four hammers but you lose a food as well, which means your city couldn't grow unless it had more than three surplus previously. It leaves you with the choice of specialists or production instead of being to take off weak tiles with food to let you have specialists and production.

In the end game when you start getting those techs forests start being very valuable for production as well, letting you basically have mines that also generate one or two food allowing more specialists, GPPs from them, and/or growth.

[monkspider]

I followed Friedrich's advice, and I did actually find that, on balance, leaving a certain number of forests leaves in you in a stronger position in the mid to late game than you would be otherwise. I have noticed a better balance of pop growth and production, and the evironmentalism civic was made much more powerful. Which, in turn, made the Organized civ I was playing as much more powerful since it is a high upkeep civic.

With the combination of trees+environmentalism, I was able to obtain a number of <30 size cities relatively easily.

[Jcg316]

You build courthouses faster with organized right? I'm wondering if chopping one forest, at a distant expansion or for a high number of cities, would let you build a courthouse quick and cut out the high costs. Organized could let you much more easily handle large amounts of expansion that way.

[cal_01]

I like to leave around forests simply because every bit of health contributes later on when your cities hit the higher pop levels. It might not mean much to most people, but usually, that extra point of health usually means one more specialist.

[Velociryx]

You build courthouses faster with organized right? I'm wondering if chopping one forest, at a distant expansion or for a high number of cities, would let you build a courthouse quick and cut out the high costs. Organized could let you much more easily handle large amounts of expansion that way.


Excellent call, JCG!

-=Vel=-

[joncnunn]

It looks to me like the amount you get choping forests is semi-random, but increases over time. The highest count I got was 70 shields! I guess the can't plant your own forest but have to wait for it to regrow on it's own is how they offset it.

[Sox303]

I like to leave pretty much forests exept if by river, on hills or if i have A LOT.
Chopping is nice to hurry up wonders so i try to leave some for that.
Also like big cities so any plus health is nice but I havn´t played enough to really make a good call but about +2 health seems about right.

[Little Honey]

If you want to take a look at why health is important (and thus, why forests are important), do the following:

a) load CIV IV
b) Custom scenario - Earth Map
c) Choose Egypt
d) Move 1 Tile SE and built Thebes (you should be building on a desert tile, no longer adjacent to the Nile).
e) Build city and shed tears as you examine

-=Vel=-

[Tuberski]

Umm, Vel, you've.........changed?

ACK!

[Krill]

I would say that is his fiancee/wifes Login...

[Gufnork]

A forest with lumbermill and railroad provides 0.4F 3P in optimal conditions. Compare that to farm which gives 3F and town that gives 1P 7C. For pretty much all of the game, forests are worse.

I always deforest my territory. That they provide some extra happiness when the game is over isn't much of an argument and the boost in the beginning is huge.

[Jcg316]

Since you also have the initial tiles bonus, grassland or plains, that tile has 3 total yield with nothing on it and has as much as 6 total yield, later. That is far better than a farm which adds one until biology at about the same time you will be improving lumbermills to be your best non-resource sources of production. That is 4 total yield for grassland and plains with biology compared to 6 for a forest with lumbermill, railroad. A forest alone also makes it the same total yield as grassland or plains with a farm for the early game. Then with replaceable parts which is easier to get than biology and railroad is the same tier tech or one off.

Plus, forests also benefit you without having to work the tiles. If you have 7 forests in a 13 pop city you could work every other square with that city and wind up with 20 tiles that are benefiting you to some extent. Those tiles being built with improvements would have done absolutely nothing for you. A city that size will need that health until the last few tiers of techs with genetics and supermarkets. The city of large size may still have disease. Though cottages are always needed to some extent they aren't going to give their all extra bonuses without specific choices as far as civics and mid to late technologies.

A city as much as 20 may not be using more than 13 tiles when you factor in specialists and at that point you would be now getting 6 total yield, 4 improved by forest and lumber mill, with railroad. A mine, meanwhile, could be getting you 4 shields the same as the forest without either the 2 more food for grassland or 1 food and 1 hammer for plains.

[Tennyson]

So far the cities with lots of forests are my best producers when railroads come along. I've had a few blessed cities with both hills and farmable land outperform them, but I smile when I can plunk a city down in the midst of a big forest.