My comprehensive terrain improvement strategy:

[QuantumPion]

flat grassland: town
flat grass+river: town (if more hammers needed, watermill)
flat plain: farm (if more hammers needed, workshop)
flat plain+river: farm (if more hammers needed, watermill)
tundra: workshop
tundra+river: farm (if more hammers needed, watermill)
floodplain: farm
grass hill: windmill (if more hammers needed, mine)
plain hill: mine 1 + 1 per food giving resource, the rest windmill.
desert hill: windmill
tundra hill: windmill

later in the game, once you get biology, it is worth it to farm grassland in order to have enough food to workshop/mine more plains. This is assuming you are satisfied with your commerce/science levels and want more production.

About forests:
Forests on hills: chop at your convenience
forest on grassland/plains within city radius: keep!
forests along rivers: chop, unless you have no hills. the extra 1 gold late in the game is usually not as useful as having more farms/towns earlier in the game.
forests outside of city radius: chop away once you have a city close enough to benefit from them, unless you want to keep them, hoping to spread inside a city radius.

what do you think?

[Cordelayne]

Good post. I'll be curious to see responses. Hope this stays up awhile. I think I need to do more chopping.

[Mujadaddy]

Hmm...I always put towns on floodplains... as they're sure to be worked on for their 3 food, they'll only get more valuable as the towns grow...

[gilfan]

Farms suck. For most of the game, they only give one food, even with biology they only give two. they are the worst tile improvement in the game. Only build the absolute minimum number of farms you have to in order to keep your city growing.

Put windmills on all hills, unless you need to mine for a resource. windmills and mines are equally good, but every windmill you build is one fewer farm you have to build.

Put towns everywhere you can (short of the minimum food requirements) and use universal sufferage to get shield and hurry production with your vast amounts of gold.


Watermills and workshops are ok, but ONLY if you have state property. Otherwise stick to towns/windmills and the minimum required farms.

[Enigma_Nova]

I prefer to farm my way to the maximum my town can support, then switch to my highest-hammer tiles, usually Workshops and Mines.
I don't bother much with Cottages or Towns,

[Kidinnu]

Every pair of farmed grasslands (or single farmed floodplain) lets me support a no-food 4+-production mine. I can't understand the dislike of farms.

I usually have enough lulls when my workers are underused that I'll overfarm early on to get my city up to its effective pop limit, and then convert some to towns or shift some of the workers to high-production low-food plots.

[nullspace]

I build my improvements based on what the city needs, not any rules based on terrain. City location, specialization, and improvements are all related.

A city with lots of hills can be a production city because mined hills are a good source of hammers. A city with a river and lots of grassland is a good commerce city because it can build lots of towns. Things like windmills, watermills, and workshops aren't as specialized, and I'll only build them if I really need more hammers from flat land or more food from hills.

Farms are fairly weak, but sometimes you need them because every city needs to grow, and you need the food surplus to work hills or cottages on plains, or hire specialists. I try to use every food bonus and flood plain I can to reduce the need for farms.

[Diadem]

There is no single fixed strategy for tile improvements. It depends on what you want to do with your city.

GP production city -> Farms everywhere. Floodplains, grassland, even plains. Farm 'em. You shouldn't have more than a few hills around such a city, and those can be mined to get some production, but farms are the main improvement for this city. The reason? Simple, you want as many specialists as you can.

Production city -> Get mines and workmills. And as many farms/watermills as you need to feed your population.

Commerce city -> cottages. Doh


As a general rule of thumb, it's best to upgrade in such a way as to allow flexibility. If you farm all grassland, and put cottages on the plains, you'll only have t iles that produce 1 and 3. But there might be situations where your city breaks even with a tile producing 2, and you don't want it to grow because of hapiness. So spread it around a bit. A cottage'd plains and farmed grassland produce exactly the same as a farmed plains and cottage'd grassland. There's no difference there

[gilfan]

Farms are the worst terrain improvement. For the vast majority of the game, they only add 1 point to your tile, and max out at +2. Every other terrain improvement adds 3 or more.

Windmills are equally as good as railroaded mines, but every windmill you build is one less farm you have to have. The fewer farms, the better, so you should build windmills on every hill except those that have special resources.


When evaluating a tile improvement, I count 1 food as 1 point, 1 hammer as 1 point, and 2 commerce as 1 point. When you use gold to hurry production, it takes 2.5 gold per hammer, but I round down because commerce/gold is much more flexible. You can use it for tech, culture, gold, or to instantly purchase any building at your convenience.


These are max values, with all technologies

Farms 2 food (biology) 2 points

Towns 1 hammer, 7 commerce (universal sufferage, printing press, free speech) 3.5 points

Windmills 1 food, 1 hammer, 2 commerce (replacable parts, electricity) 3 points

Watermills 1 food, 2 hammers, 2 commerce (state property, replaceable parts, electricity) 4 points

Workshops 0 food, 3 hammers (state property, guilds, replaceable parts) 3 points




@Diadem. I agree GP are important, but if you max out a single city with farms, there are two major drawbacks. First, you start running into health problems when the city gets too big, negating the benefit of your farms. Second, each GP produced by a city raises the cost of the next GP. You're better off having 2 specialists in 5 cities than 10 specialists in a single city.

[Enigma_Nova]

GP costs are per-civilization, not per-city.

[gilfan]

Originally posted by Kidinnu
Every pair of farmed grasslands (or single farmed floodplain) lets me support a no-food 4+-production mine. I can't understand the dislike of farms.

Ok, you farmed 2 grasslands and mined one hills. Let's assume you have all techs. 2 farms with biology give 4 extra food, one mine with railroad gives 3 extra shields.

Net gain, 4 food, 3 hammers



Now let's put two Towns and a windmill there. Each town gives 7 commerce and 1 hammer, and the windmill gives 1 food, 1 hammer, and 2 commerce.

Net gain, 1 food, 3 hammers, and 16 commerce.



Hammers cancel each other out, so which would you rather have... 3 food, or 16 commerce?


To me, that's an EASY choice. As long as there's enough food to allow your cities to max out to size 20-23, towns (or any other improvement) are vastly superior to farms.

[Cabbagemeister]

Where's the love for lumbermills? Lately I've taken a liking to lumbermills instead of mines on forested grasslan/plains hills. They give the same production as mines, but +1 food. Yeah, you don't get the hammers from clearing the forest, but unless you're shooting for a contested wonder, I think +1 food is MUCH more valuable over the long run. For example, lumbermilling 2 tiles instead of mining them gives enough food for one extra specialist. Worth it in my book. Plus, it preserves the forest intact for possible chopping in later wonder chases. And then there's the health benefits. The only downside is waiting until lumbermills are available.

[Silbeg]

Originally posted by Cabbagemeister
Where's the love for lumbermills?

I definately agree with lumbermills... the ability to get the extra hammers out of forests, and gaining the late game health benefits are great. Now, if you could only put lumbermills in a jungle!

[QuantumPion]

Originally posted by Cabbagemeister
Where's the love for lumbermills? Lately I've taken a liking to lumbermills instead of mines on forested grasslan/plains hills. They give the same production as mines, but +1 food. Yeah, you don't get the hammers from clearing the forest, but unless you're shooting for a contested wonder, I think +1 food is MUCH more valuable over the long run. For example, lumbermilling 2 tiles instead of mining them gives enough food for one extra specialist. Worth it in my book. Plus, it preserves the forest intact for possible chopping in later wonder chases. And then there's the health benefits. The only downside is waiting until lumbermills are available.

lumbermills don't give food. they give 1 hammer, and if on a river, 1 commerce. So a lumbermill on a hill would give +1 commerce. Windmill the hill and you get +1 hammer, food, and commerce. Mine it and you get +2 hammers. You also get the hammers from chopping the forest. There is no reason to keep a forest on a hill, whatsoever. Either mine it or windmill it. Unless you really really need that health bonus or are hoping the forest will spread...

[Cabbagemeister]

Originally posted by QuantumPion


lumbermills don't give food. they give 1 hammer, and if on a river, 1 commerce. So a lumbermill on a hill would give +1 commerce. Windmill the hill and you get +1 hammer, food, and commerce. Mine it and you get +2 hammers. You also get the hammers from chopping the forest. There is no reason to keep a forest on a hill, whatsoever. Either mine it or windmill it. Unless you really really need that health bonus or are hoping the forest will spread...

I don't believe you are correct. Lumbermills do not give food like windmills do, but they are better than mines because they keep the forest, and they don't take away food. For a forested plains tile on a hill:

base: 1f 2s
mine: 0f 3s
windmill: 2f 1s 1c
lumbermill: 1f 3s

This is because the lumbermill is the only one of those improvements that does not remove the forest. So yes, it's only +1s, but it's +1s to a 1f/2s tile, rather than -1f/+2s to a 1f/1s tile.

As for lumbermill vs windmill, they have the same number of total "points" (f/s/c). It's just a question of whether you want food/commerce or shields.