Workshops / Lumbermills / Waterwheels - Why use?

[SerapisIV]

Do people use workshops, lumbermills, and waterwheels?

I only recently got CIV and I can't see any big value in workshops or waterwheels, yet the AI uses them pretty regularly.

I've used lumbermills in cities with forests but few if any hills and are a necessity in tundra/forests, but they seem to have relatively limited usage.

I haven't noticed any discussion on these, so I figured I'd throw it out and see how more experienced CIV players have been using them.

[nullspace]

When I want hammers, I prefer mined hills, but there aren't always as many hills as I want. If I'm trying to maximize a city's production and I'm already using all the availible hills, then workshops, lumbermills, and waterwheels will get hammers from flat land.

[Cardozo]

Yeah, the AI frickin' loves them. I turned on automated workers to save the hassle, and they flatted three fully developed towns in my Commerce city to built waterwheels. Frickin' unbelievable.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Under options their is a setting for workers to keep existing improvments, this will atleast keep them from steam-rolling your towns.

The misilanious improvments have some ocasional uses but it seems that they require a lot of tec and very specific Civics to realy be worth it.

[cal_01]

Once you go 'mills, you'll never go back!

Seriously though:

1. Water/windmills balance out your food/production output of any given city. Sometimes more useful than building cottages.
2. There's a bunch of techs that give bonuses to water/windmills.
3. Financial civs love mills once you get electricity.
4. Lumbermills get bonuses from rails. Save them up, and you'll get health bonuses too!
5. Workshops with communism is great! It basically turns any tile (er, flat land, I think?) into a production powerhouse (especially with rails).

[Enigma_Nova]

I clear any forest that isn't on Tundra (can't do crap with tundra), so I tend to have heavily farmed areas.
If I don't have enough Production in a city, I can use a Watermill or a Workshop to balance it out.
I tend not to use Towns that much.

[Cardozo]

Originally posted by Enigma_Nova
I clear any forest that isn't on Tundra (can't do crap with tundra)

If it's forested you can put a lumber mill on it. Better than nothing, anyway.

Yeah, I'm aware of the 'don't change stuff' option for Workers, but I left it off to see what would happen. I also didn't want to manually tell them to mine every new resource that appeared. If there's a farm where uranium is discovered they won't built a mine to get to it, and I didn't want to bother. More interested in managing my two-front war with Persia and the Incans.

PS - Panzers rock.

[KillerNuts]

Originally posted by Enigma_Nova
I tend not to use Towns that much.

You might want to consider using Towns a bit more. Cottages (true for everyone, but particularly for Financial civs and river squares) provide a considerable amount of commerce, which will help to speed up research. Not to mention that they can grow to become very profitable. Place many of them in a commerce-oriented city and you'll reap the benefits many times over.

Obviously, don't sacrafice too many hammers and food for them, but they are a centerpiece to any successful civilization.

[Blake]

I find that watermills and workshops are most useful to quickly make newly captured cities productive post-Communism.

With state property, a watermills+farms+mines+workshops city has the highest maximum production possible. Now early in the game you want to make cottages so they grow into towns, but later on it's good to make the new cities into hammer powerhouses, with the old cities handling commerce.

In particular try to arrange for a size 20 mill/workshop city + ironworks, it'll crank out industrial-modern wonders and SS parts so quickly.

[Dog of Justice]

Under State Property, Watermills are incredible. In a low food city I value them more highly than fully grown Towns (and would actually be willing to rip up Towns to build them, except that I plan for this in advance and usually build farms on future Watermill sites).

I never build Workshops or Lumbermills, though.

[Enigma_Nova]

The main problem with me using towns is this:
They start off as cottages.
In the early game, I'm spamming farms for rapid expansion. Commerce comes mainly from Lighthouses + Sea, and Trade.
In the middle of the game, I'm doing a production storm to get the military working.
In the late game, it's too late to develop them.

The main problem I face is Culture, not Commerce. Though this would up my tech rate, I don't see how I can plan for a Commerce city when Food and Production tend to be better.

[Cardozo]

Originally posted by Enigma_Nova
Though this would up my tech rate, I don't see how I can plan for a Commerce city when Food and Production tend to be better.

The whole point of a good Commerce City is that it can drive your economy and research all by itself, and you let the other cities worry about producing military units.

In my current game (as Bismark, natch) I have 9 cities. I'm getting ~200 beakers from Berlin, ~350 beakers from Hamburg, and between 50 and 90 from all the rest. Hamburg isn't a production powerhouse, but it doesn't need to be. Since I have Ironworks in Cologne, which has a lot of farms and mines, I have all the unit production I need.

Meanwhile, because Hamburg is printing money like no tomorrow, I'm running Science at 100% and still making phat cash. Remember, Panzers rock, but they REALLY rock if you get to them while your opponents are still using Riflemen. A good Commerce City helps that happen.

[Diadem]

If you have all technologies and civics then:

Farms -> 2 food
Watermills -> 1 food / 2 hammers / 2 commerce (req civic: State Property)
Windmill -> 1 food / 1 hammer / 2 commerce
Lumbermill -> 2 hammers / 1 commerce / health + hapiness (including bonus from forest itself)
Mine -> 2 hammers
Workshop -> 3 hammers (req civic: State Property)
Town -> 1 hammer / 7 commerce (req civic: Universal Suffrage, Free Speech)

Railroads give 1 hammer bonus to mines, workshops and lumbermills if I'm right. Please correct me if I'm not.

From this list, it looks like all improvements have their uses. Farms are good because they require no specific civics and optimize your food. Lumbermills give the greatest bang for buck, but requir rivers and State Property (which you might not want). Lumbermills are pretty nice with Environementalism. Mines and workshops optimize hammer production, while towns obviously optimize your commerce.

[Blake]

Workshops don't get a hammer from railroad.
I believe it's +1 hammer from Guilds and +1 hammer from Replaceable Parts. Finally you get +1 food from State Property, making it a 3 hammer improvement. This happens to be exactly the same as the lumbermill+rail. It's possible to get fully upgraded workshops quite a bit earlier than railroads, so don't think that chopping down forests will really harm your production, it's about the health, and that you need to be a commie to get forest-level production from workshops. But commies are cool, so no problem there.

[eataTREE]

Personally, I love windmills -- a few of them will give that town you settled in the hills next to the iron enough food to grow to a respectable size. Especially if you're a Financial civ: Hill next to River + Windmill = 2F 1P 3C. Can't complain about that at all.