Ideal tile improvements

[Feyd]

I guess the biggest question of all is what to do about cottages...

Since they take a long time to get built up what do you do about them. I like to have at least two per city, but on some of my cities I have six or seven. Other improvements can be swapped out easily enough, but what to do about planning for cottages?

[Dominae]

Originally posted by ghen
If you have two tiles, one grassland (with water) and the other floodplains.. whats the difference if you put a farm on one and cottage on the other? If you aren't financial there is none.

Actually there is. You're assuming that you will be working both 100% of the time. If this is the case, then you a right.

However if you retool your city for GPP generation or military production, a single 4 Food tile is much more valuable than the same amount of Food spread across two tiles; the farmed Flood Plains can support a Specialist or Mine, but the farmed Grassland or cottaged Flood Plains cannot.

When placing tile improvements, you also have to think about the cities that will be using them.

[joncnunn]

Re: Ideal tile improvements

Mine are:

Resource -> Resource building always

otherwise:

Flood Plains -> Cottage always

Plains -> Farms usually

Grassland -> Cottage usually

Forest on grassland -> usually stay and lumber mill

Forest on plains -> usally gets chopped for farms

anything + hills -> windmills usually

On replacing structures, almost all my replacements are for conquered city where the previous management made poor choices.

But, post Biology after growth hits the health / happy limit, unworked farms get converted to something else, usally a cottage.

Originally posted by Feyd
Do you have any hard and fast rules on what tile improvements you place on specific terrains? Do you think long term or change them regularly as new techs and abilities become available?

I'm not really intending this to be a discussion on chopping, but what are your impressions of lumbermills on a map where you only chop moderately?

Finally, how do you allocate your cottages? Do you get a ton of them started from the get go or leave open spots for workshops, irrigation-spread farms, etc.? Do you maybe cover half of the available ground with the cottages or do you go all out?

Here are a few TIs that I have come to appreciate over my play experience and will place there for the long term...

Windmill on Plains/Hills... (2/2/1) and more with upgrades

Mines on Grassland/Hills... Food and production in one nice package.

Floodplains and watermills... Mmm mmm good (irrigation until you get the mill)

Any others?

[Lochlann]

Quick question: has anyone created a hard & fast list of all possible combinations of tiles and improvements? That would be a handy list to have for immediate comparison purposes. Something like this:

Grassland = 2 food, 0 hamm, 0 comm, 0 health, 0 happ
Grassland + farm = ...
Grassland + cottage = ...
Grassland + hamlet = ...
Grassland(River) + Watermill = ...
...

Plains = ...
Plains + farm = ...
...

Plains/Forest = ...
Plains/Forest + Lumbermill = ...
Plains/Forest + Lumbermill + Railroad = ....

etc.

This would be a really handy tool for folks who are civ veterans but who might be new to the exact numbers in Civ4. Anyone know where I could find such a list? Thanks.

[fed1943]

Lochlann,there is a thread in civfanatics with exactly that.
Very worth reading and printing.
Best regards,

[Arrian]

I have a tendancy to be more of a farm/mine guy than a cottage/windmill guy. As a result, I usually kick butt in MFG, but the AI is fairly competative w/me in GNP. This tends to work out best when I maximize my coastal cities, maybe building the Glighthouse and/or Colossus to boost the commerce value of those cities, so then I'm solid in both production & money. But my general philosophy of civ remains that tech is nice, but of little use if you can't produce anything. edit: of course, I've not really taken the idea of rushbuying everything w/Kremlin to its max, either.

I have worked in more windmills of late. They're a no-brainer in certain circumstances, of course (lots of hills, low food). Watermills I only use quite late, when there are bonuses for them.

In general, I like to take a tile that is already good in one area and push this to the max (e.g. mine a plains hill). I hadn't really thought it all the way through, but it's basically what Dominae said: it's better to have a mix of tiles that can do very different things (wanna grow, boom, adjust for +4 food. Hit the health/happy cap for the time being? Crank up your production and stop growing). The exception for me so far has been floodplains - I have been plunking cottages down there, but come to think of it maybe if I'm not financial (insta-3 commerce tile w/cottage), I should farm.

-Arrian

[axi]

However if you retool your city for GPP generation or military production, a single 4 Food tile is much more valuable than the same amount of Food spread across two tiles; the farmed Flood Plains can support a Specialist or Mine, but the farmed Grassland or cottaged Flood Plains cannot.

I agree with this logic. You have to have flexibility. This means specialisation is a must. We farm grasslands, we cottage plains, mine hills and if we want a windmill, we build it on the hill/grassland or the hill/tundra rather than the hill/plains or the hill/desert.

Also chop forests on grassland before forest on plains?

Hmmm, IF you have other worthwhile tiles to work and don't need the 2/1 tile. then yes. But you have to build a farm. If it's going to be a cottage, then prefer the plains forest instead.

[Jake4]

Originally posted by fed1943
Lochlann,there is a thread in civfanatics with exactly that.
Very worth reading and printing.
Best regards,

Here's the link.

edit: forgot about this one.