Workshops

[Jaguar]

I have come to the conclusion that constructing a Workshop is absolutely indefensible.

The Workshop starts out -1 food, +1 production, which is clearly a terrible tradeoff. However, it improves with techs and civics. But even these upgrades don't make it a viable choice. It gets the 1 food back with State Property, and it gets an additional +2 production, one from chemistry and one from guilds. So, at best, it is +3 production to a flat square.

In some cases, you have an option that is in every way superior to the workshop. If the square was originally forested, you can keep it that way, and build a lumbermill, which will give +2 production after railroad (+3 due to the extra production from the forest itself) and perhaps +1 gold as well. A lumbermilled forest also produces extra health and possibly happiness as well in environmentalism. So with forests in the radius, the workshop is absolutely inferior to the lumbermill.

However, I guess that advocates of the workshop would contend that it is to be used in cities that don't have forests, and are heavy on food but low on production, in order to balance them out. Say, a city with a lot of flood plains. The problem is that floodplains are next to water, and the watermill is completely superior to the workshop. Watermills add 2 hammers after replaceable parts, and 2 commerce after electricity. Furthermore, they don't subtract 1 food, and they even add one food with State Property, so under all circumstances, they add one more food. So if we compare two watermills to two workshops, the workshops produce 2 more hammers, but the watermills produce 2 more food, and some commerce with electricity. Say this 2 food goes to an engineer specialist. He'll get the 2 production back, and produce great people points as well.

The specialist principle also makes the farm a better investment than the workshop. A farmed square will generally produce 2 food more than a workshopped square. The two food goes to an engineer, who will produce 2 hammers and great people points.

Last, the workshop should be compared to the town, although these two improvements have very different goals. A town, with maximized civics and printing press, produces 1 hammer and 7 commerce (possibly 8 if Financial trait comes into play) while a maximized workshop produces 3 hammers. 7 commerce is enough to consistently rushbuy whatever is produced by those 2 extra hammers.

And it's not like towns are any more slow-developing than workshops. You can build cottages earlier than you can build workshops, and by the time you get to state property, your cottages will have long since become towns.

The workshop is barely better than leaving the terrain unworked. A grassland with a workshop, early game, is equivalent to a plains square. Plains aren't even better than grasslands, and it's certainly not worth a worker's time to make a grassland into a plains. Even after the upgrades later in the game, it's wholly inferior to other improvements unless you bend over backwards for it and switch to State Property. In that case, it's maybe, in some cases, at parity with other improvements.



Sure, I'll concede that a workshop could occasionally be useful for a civ already intending to switch to State Property. But the fact is that no civ game will ever be lost for a lack of workshops. Strengthen it or remove it.

[WoodenTaco]

I disagree.

I think workshops are useful for production-focused cities. I'm a firm believer in city specialization. I'll agree that there are better choices for rivers and for forests, but for plains, grasslands, and tundra the workshop is better in a production-heavy city.

The specialists argument is invalid, since the great people points won't be likely to do anything if you specialize cities - you really should have just one or two, maybe three cities doing great people points in my mind. The cost for the next great person rises in every city at the same time, which makes it grossly inefficient to spread out your GPPs.

Towns are obviously inferior to workshops if you specialize, as well. A production oriented city could reasonably be garnering +200% to shields, which makes the hammers certainly more valuable than a small commerce boost.

[xxFlukexx]

Re: Workshops

Originally posted by Jaguar
I have come to the conclusion that constructing a Workshop is absolutely indefensible.

The Workshop starts out -1 food, +1 production, which is clearly a terrible tradeoff. However, it improves with techs and civics. But even these upgrades don't make it a viable choice. It gets the 1 food back with State Property, and it gets an additional +2 production, one from chemistry and one from guilds. So, at best, it is +3 production to a flat square.

In some cases, you have an option that is in every way superior to the workshop. If the square was originally forested, you can keep it that way, and build a lumbermill, which will give +2 production after railroad (+3 due to the extra production from the forest itself) and perhaps +1 gold as well. A lumbermilled forest also produces extra health and possibly happiness as well in environmentalism. So with forests in the radius, the workshop is absolutely inferior to the lumbermill.

You mean lose out on the early 30 hammers from the forest. That's too huge to not mention. Worjshop is not inferior, it gives the same as a lumbermill, Environmentalism is much more expensive and State Property gives no distance to capital maintenace.

However, I guess that advocates of the workshop would contend that it is to be used in cities that don't have forests, and are heavy on food but low on production, in order to balance them out. Say, a city with a lot of flood plains. The problem is that floodplains are next to water, and the watermill is completely superior to the workshop. Watermills add 2 hammers after replaceable parts, and 2 commerce after electricity. Furthermore, they don't subtract 1 food, and they even add one food with State Property, so under all circumstances, they add one more food. So if we compare two watermills to two workshops, the workshops produce 2 more hammers, but the watermills produce 2 more food, and some commerce with electricity.

Yes, watermills are better on river tiles. However you can place workshops everywhere.

Say this 2 food goes to an engineer specialist. He'll get the 2 production back, and produce great people points as well.

Here's a big point you are not counting: an extra person takes an extra +1 healthy and +1 happy.

The specialist principle also makes the farm a better investment than the workshop. A farmed square will generally produce 2 food more than a workshopped square. The two food goes to an engineer, who will produce 2 hammers and great people points.

Actually you are getting 1 hammer per person with a biology farm grassland + engineer. Two Workshopped grasslands gives +6 hammers or 3 hammers per person. GPP are another story, if you only have the one engineer in that city that late in the game you probably won't get a Great Engineer so the points are useless. Your GPP factory of course is completely different.

[quote]
Last, the workshop should be compared to the town, although these two improvements have very different goals. A town, with maximized civics and printing press, produces 1 hammer and 7 commerce (possibly 8 if Financial trait comes into play) while a maximized workshop produces 3 hammers. 7 commerce is enough to consistently rushbuy whatever is produced by those 2 extra hammers.
[quote]

This is a good point. It depends on the buildings you have in the city, a city with a forge+factory+power gets +100% to hammers. OR, Heroic Epic, Ironworks, Police State, etc make it so that base hammers are worth a lot. If you have 100% or above to science and +100% to gold, yes towns under Universal Suffrage are better.

The workshop is barely better than leaving the terrain unworked. A grassland with a workshop, early game, is equivalent to a plains square. Plains aren't even better than grasslands, and it's certainly not worth a worker's time to make a grassland into a plains. Even after the upgrades later in the game, it's wholly inferior to other improvements unless you bend over backwards for it and switch to State Property. In that case, it's maybe, in some cases, at parity with other improvements.

Errr, you are doing this a lot in the post, why is it bending over backwards to go to State Property, but not bending over backwards to adopt Environmentalism or Universal Suffrage?

Sure, I'll concede that a workshop could occasionally be useful for a civ already intending to switch to State Property. But the fact is that no civ game will ever be lost for a lack of workshops. Strengthen it or remove it.

Actually my specialized hammer cities mostly have farms and mines so when I get to that point in the game I want workshops because adding in cottages that late will take too long to grow(and I can't add in cottages early game because I will be hammer weak and killed) So I can easily swap in Workshops and watermills and boost my hammer city to even greater heights very easily.

I could use another +1 hammer to workshops sometime late in the game, towns give =1 hammer and +7 commerce and that's 3 + 1/3 hammers while a workshop gives 3 hammers if you add it all up due to rush buying at 3 gold per hammer. I don't think it's that bad, State Property workshops are much better than biology grassland farms.

[MasterDave]

The only time I ever use workshops is on a plain or possibly a grassland tile in a city that has no other means of production (for example a coastal city with a couple fish resources, no hills, and 0-2 forests). I agree that they are pretty much worthless in most other circumstances.

One idea to maybe make workshops worthwhile without making changing their output would be to make them buildable on deserts or snow tiles (santa's workshop ). Perhaps the time to build the workshops on these tiles could be doubled or tripled, but it would at least give us a reason to build them.

Another idea is to add a single commerce to them, although that would probably not be enough in itself to make up for the -1 food penalty. Maybe getting rid of the penalty and making a workshop just a +1 production without the later improvements to +2 and +3 could also be the answer.

[gentle]

I have come to the conclusion that constructing a Workshop is absolutely indefensible.

Thats what I call a statement ^^ but...well..guess you are right.

The specialists argument is invalid, since the great people points won't be likely to do anything if you specialize cities

Well, it is not for GPs but for only for hammers the engineer gives. I think this is an arguement one can make.

skip this one, when I replied there was no answer yet.

[Quillan]

For the most part, I use workshops on cities that have no other source of production. However, you are missing one very vital piece of the equation: the State Property civic. When used, workshops and water/windmills produce one extra food. For the workshop, that cancels out its inherent penalty. A later city with workshops on grassland can get 2 food and 3 hammers from a grassland tile with a workshop.

Or, as a few of the guys here have put it: "Once you've gone commie, you'll never go back".

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by WoodenTaco
I disagree.

I think workshops are useful for production-focused cities. I'm a firm believer in city specialization. I'll agree that there are better choices for rivers and for forests, but for plains, grasslands, and tundra the workshop is better in a production-heavy city.

The specialists argument is invalid, since the great people points won't be likely to do anything if you specialize cities - you really should have just one or two, maybe three cities doing great people points in my mind. The cost for the next great person rises in every city at the same time, which makes it grossly inefficient to spread out your GPPs.

Towns are obviously inferior to workshops if you specialize, as well. A production oriented city could reasonably be garnering +200% to shields, which makes the hammers certainly more valuable than a small commerce boost.

First, I don't believe in using tundra squares at all. A laborer there isn't worth the food it requires to support him.

Second, I believe in some degree of specialization as well. But a city with grassland and plains shouldn't be a production city, period. That's what hills are for.

The specialists argument definitely works for watermills, because one food can be easily turned into one hammer via engineers, and that alone makes the watermill better, GP points aside.

Your argument is centered around workshops in production-focused cities without forests on flat land. I don't see why anyone would want production-focused cities on flat, unforested land.

[Jaguar]

I think the deciding factor is that you want to work at least all water, grassland-based, plains-based, and flood plains tiles. If you have enough food, but not extra, then towns are easily the best investment. If you have more food than needed to fill up those squares, it's a good candidate for a great person city. If you have less food than needed, you need some farms.

There's just no way that the workshop fits into the equation.

Errr, you are doing this a lot in the post, why is it bending over backwards to go to State Property, but not bending over backwards to adopt Environmentalism or Universal Suffrage?

Universal Suffrage lets you rushbuy. That alone is powerful enough, unless you don't have gold because you have been neglecting towns in favor of inferior improvements.

Environmentalism doesn't affect any improvements except lumbermill. It's not really that relevant. But the health bonus is good for large cities, or alternatively, free market is huge. Trade routes are greatly underrated.

[xxFlukexx]

Because I don't get to pick the terrain, if I did I would love a perfect city site full of grassland hills and grassland with like 7 floodplains squares on a river. An SP workshop effectively turns a plains into a grassland mined hill without the lucky resource popping which is hardly worth taking into account. With SP workshops I can keep my population well below h&h caps and still have a large production center. On a tile that is not next to fresh water I can't watermill, I either have to bring in a farm through irrigation chaining, build a cottage or I can build a workshop and at least make the tile useful. In a production centered city, an SP workshop is better than cottages.

They aren't useful all the time like you say, but it is not always the wrong choice. I'd rather watermill everything too, but you just can't. I usually tear down a few farms post Biology for SP workshops and those cities are my super production cities that help me for example in the space race. I don't recommend workshops for most people, but they aren't always "the suxxor"

[ben_sphynx]

Your argument is centered around workshops in production-focused cities without forests on flat land. I don't see why anyone would want production-focused cities on flat, unforested land.

And that is why you dont like workshops.

Sometimes, one might get flat, boring land, and need more production, for whatever reason.
Examples might be creating the greatest military ever, or building a spaceship - probably the most relevant, because one might have finished doing research (internet?) at that stage, and just want to specialise on maximising production.

[Jaguar]

Oh, if you're in a desperate spaceship race, all bets are off. Anything and everything to increase production.

[Quillan]

I had a game not too long ago where I wound up sharing a border with Alexander. The area between our two civs was all jungle. I hacked a cleared area out of the jungle over a long time, which left nothing but grassland. I needed SOME production to be able to build any needed buildings there, as even if I decided to concentrate on great people I would need temples and cathedrals to keep them happy. The only way to get any production at all was workshops. Once I had reached Communism and adopted State Property, that particular city became extremely viable because all the workshops were in use now, where before it was mostly farms with just a few workshops being run.

You don't always have a choice in the terrain, and I personally want all cities to have at least some production capability. In some cases workshops are the only way to do it.

[WoodenTaco]

Your argument is centered around workshops in production-focused cities without forests on flat land. I don't see why anyone would want production-focused cities on flat, unforested land.

I don't think I've ever had a production city totally devoid of flat land, though. Obviously, you wouldn't convert a city which was entirely flat into a production center, but if it had mostly hills and some flat land on the side, I think it's perfectly reasonable to build workshops there.

[Urban Ranger]

I reckon workshops could use some strengthing - maybe adding a coin or two?

[Martinus]

The +1 food under State Property translates into +2 food compared to normal workshops, since normal workshops substract 1 food.

Workshops for me are useful as part of the heavy-production, conquest strategy with state property, especially if you are expansive (I like using it as Russians with Peter the Great). By building workshops and watermills everywhere, you can still maintain a decent level of food (workshop under state property gives as much food as a farm without biology - plus it gives +3 hammers) and have a monster production. If you add Police state, vassalage and theocracy to it, my monster army of cossacks usually dominates middle-to-late game.

And also, since you are likely to be first to reach Communism, you can easily build Kremlin - which makes running Slavery actually useful in later game (you are going to have a lot of people).

Plus it looks neat to be able to be running a huge (due to state property maintenance benefits) Russian empire with Police State, Vassalage/Bureaucracy, Slavery, State Property and Theocracy.