Improving the Land

[Martinus]

I have a question - do you guys have any special land improvement strategies for building improvements around your cities?

Unless I am playing a Financial civ, in which case I build a lot of cottages, I usually just build the improvements necessary for collecting resources, and other than that leave the workers on auto-improve. When I do it on my own, I have a tendency to overdo either mines or farms and neglect stuff like windmills.

What's your strategy? Do you re-create your improvement system every now and then when new technologies become available (e.g. change some areas into farms once they become more useful after the development of Biology)? Do you have any algorithm for how many farms/mines/watermills your cities should have? Does anyone ever build workshops when not planning to turn to State Property?

[Leifmk]

In the ancient and classical eras, around my first cities, I'm all about mines and cottages; a few farms in cities that don't have enough food resources to ensure a reasonable growth rate. I clear-cut all forest except in the tundra or if those forest tiles are the city's only source of hammers.

When colonizing new land (whether by settling or conquest) in the later game I mix in a few wind- or watermills. I don't really see the point of workshops except for otherwise hammerless plains cities.

I don't usually change a tile that's already been improved. Might be worth it but usually my worker-turns are best spent making fresh improvements somewhere else.

[couerdelion]

After resource development and trade-linking of the cities, I guess I tend to balance production and food based on population limits but also to take account of specialist needs for the city.

I’m fast coming round to the view that early game specialists are extremely valuable because of the GP points. So specialists tend to beat land tiles and probably need farms to support them.

Post-biology, then there seems to be a simple choice in specialist versus town. With specialists and representation, the gold benefit is generally +6 and the GP bonus is +3 (+6 with Heroic Epic).

Can’t quite figure out what the town gives on maximum settings so haven’t been able to work out the pros and cons of these alternatives.

I’ve yet to build a mill or workshop because I don’t see the point. Having said that, I haven’t really done the sums but compared to mines, they seem a little pointless.

[Martinus]

A town under the "maxed" setting (i.e. Universal Suffrage, Free Speech, Printing Press researched) gives +1 hammer, +7 commerce (or +8 if you also have a Financial civilization).

A workshop under the "maxed" setting (i.e. State Property, Guilds, Replacable Parts researched) gives +1 food, +3 hammers.

A far under the "maxed" setting (Biology) gives +2 food.