Forests (and breaking habits for new civ4 players)

[MrChupon]

Newbie quesiton here, I played Civ1/Civ2 religiously, skipped 3 and here I am learning 4, remembering a lot of old things and trying to break old habits. For the most part, I'm playing a game on the 2nd easiest difficulty and going with a lot of the computer recommendations just to learn all the new mechanics.

I has a specific questions about the forest tiles though. Now that forests are a modifier rather than a terrain type, I see you can log them for like 40 hammers, at the cost of losing the forest. my question is, am I screwing myself production wise by clearing all these forests so early on (as the computer suggests)? 40 hammers doesn't seem like a lot compared to 2 hammers a turn for hundreds of turns! Or is there some production improvement you can build to replace the forest?

Fake Edit: To make this a better thread topic, what other suggestions/warnings would you have to someone whose brain totally works in Civ1/2 mode? What habits should I try and break, what still works, and what should I be wary of?

[Jaybe]

Do more reading in the forums; but better yet, play more games, trying different techniques in different cities.

Watermills will overtake lumbermills in time. I find mines better than lumbermills also. In BtS (highly recommended), you may want a heavily wooded city to convert lumbermills to forest preserves, and then build your national park (national wonder) there. But I've found that a national park with even ZERO forests is great when the city is large.

Some people like to chop heavily, some (such as I) sparingly only as urgency/impatience requires.

What habits should you break? Most all of them!! As you expand to more cities, WATCH how it affects your income/expenses and don't expand too fast. OTOH, don't be addicted to keeping your research at high levels at all times (use science specialists in the early game after you build libraries).

Instead of rambling on I'll let others contribute.

Most of all, ENJOY learning the game. There are so many ways to play it -- the game is so good that many different styles of play are used (at least in single-player).

[Blake]

The main benefit from forests comes from the +0.5 health per forest.

You should be wary of chopping them if a city can productively grow large.

This doesn't matter much if you are Expansionist, have a UB with health or a wide variety of health resources, or generally much more health than happiness.

Also if chopping out units will let you conquer some more healthy resources, you can justify it that way too.

But do be aware that the health is useful. This is actually mainly because it's a passive benefit - a forest at 1-2-0 or 2-1-0 isn't great, in fact it's awful to work. But getting what is effectively +0.5 food without the need to work a tile is pretty nice, it's like free food.

[Willem]

Originally posted by MrChupon
my question is, am I screwing myself production wise by clearing all these forests so early on (as the computer suggests)? 40 hammers doesn't seem like a lot compared to 2 hammers a turn for hundreds of turns! Or is there some production improvement you can build to replace the forest?

Yes, you can build a Workshop on the empty terrain which will give you even more Hammers than a Forest with the loss on 1 Food. It's a good idea though to save at least 2 tiles of Forest for the health and happiness benefits. As mentioned, each Forest tile gives .5 health plus building a Forest Preserve later will give you 1 happiness as well.

It's definetly a good idea to save any tiles that are in an overlap between two cities. A Forest Preserve will provide the happiness to both cities, and I believe the health bonus works that way as well. Though I tend to chop any that are next to rivers since you don't get any gold from a Forest there until preserves. You also want to chop all the Forests directly around your city as that will help you out for defence purposes. You don't want an enemy parking itself on the only Forest in your inner ring and gain a 50% defence bonus by doing so.

BTW, you also get more yield from your chops once you get Mathematics so you might want to be a bit conservative until then.

[Supr49er]

Also, be aware that you cannot replant a forest once you chop it. Once in a great while a forest will grow in a square if it borders forest squares and is unimproved (road is OK).

[wodan11]

The new Forest Preserve improvement helps with that but it's far from a panacea.

Wodan

[Theben]

I've never seen a forest grow in a tile with any improvements, including roads.

[Ming]

Originally posted by Theben
I've never seen a forest grow in a tile with any improvements, including roads.

Hmmmm.... I would love confirmation on this one. I don't remember if I've ever seen a forest appear on a road either...

[snoopy369]

Generally, you should have a good idea of what a city should become in the long run.

A city where the forests can be replaced by either cottages (a city which won't focus on production but on commerce), watermills (always superior, if you are able to build them), workshops (can afford the food hit and/or will run state property later), or irrigation (specialist cities, or cities with lots of mines that need the extra food) should always chop them when it's convenient. At levels up to about Prince or Monarch, you can make up the health hit typically in SP games fairly easily, especially if you're likely to take over significant amounts of land to gain lots of health resources.

There's also the advantage, of course, in gaining the hammers early on; a hammer in 2000BC is much more valuable than a hammer in AD 1950, typically by much more than the additives you'll gain by then (say +75% for powered factory and forge). If you can gain something by speeding up a build significantly, definitely do it; for example, if you want to chop-rush the pyramids, that's typically going to gain you much more than you'll lose; or, even better, if you chop-rush a settler, say 2 forests (40 hammers early on in normal game) saves 10 turns (4 h/f build) out of 25 on an early settler. Getting that city out 10 turns earlier is very valuable...

However, there are cities you definitely need to keep the forests in. A city with lots of floodplains (for the health); a city that will become your 'specialist' city (forest preserves = more specialists with the National Park); or a city that you want to be a producing city (mil units, say) but doesn't have a ton of mines and doesn't have a ton of food, that will benefit from forests in the lumber mill (2/3/0 tile with railroad).

Ultimately it comes down to planning and strategy; they did a good job in making this a difficult decision, especially with the addition of forest preserves, in my opinion. You still will probably want to chop more than you keep, but it's far from a simple decision. Long term planning will help you here immensely

[rah]

In an MP game I played a few weeks ago, I started in a real wooded area. It was hilarious, the forests were growing faster than I could chop them. On a few turns I had two appear on the same turn. I had never seen that type of regrowth before. I had like 11 forests appear in a span of about 20 turns. I'm chopping and they just kept regrowing. On one the worker had just finished chopping it and had started on the road and it reqrew right on the same spot. (so I don't know if he had finished, whether it would have prevented it)

[snoopy369]

Fake Edit: To make this a better thread topic, what other suggestions/warnings would you have to someone whose brain totally works in Civ1/2 mode? What habits should I try and break, what still works, and what should I be wary of?

Wary: Always following the same plan like in Civ2 (doesn't work).
What still works: Slavery/poprush/whip (whatever) is still pretty important; spearmen still can beat tanks (rarely)
Habits to break: Overexpanding/REX; assuming the AI will behave itself; overrelying on trading for techs.

Things to play around with/strategies:
* Golden Age/GP/specialists - whereas in Civ2 you did this only when you were unhappy or otherwise very occasionally, specialists (scientists, merchants, etc.) are VERY powerful. Most games I have at least one city with solely food producing tiles, one or two superhammer tiles (copper plains, horse plains, etc.), and every citizen not working one of those two tiles as a specialist - 5 or more typically. This is primarily true if you play Beyond the Sword (or Civ4 Complete), but even pre-BtS specialists were powerful.
* Siege Weapons: Learn the intricacies of catapults and their successors. It varies significantly by the version of Civ - basic Civ4 ('vanilla') and Warlords are significantly different from BtS. Siege weapons are very powerful, and using them and knowing how to counter them is very important in Civ4.
* Traits, Unique units, Unique buildings: Learn these well, they make a huge difference. You need to adapt your play style to your traits, or else (in SP) adapt your traits chosen to your play style.

[Jaybe]

@Ming, Theben
Forests/Jungle can spread onto a road/rail tile, but it's only 1/2 as likely.
Yes, I HAVE seen it happen.

[Willem]

Originally posted by wodan11
The new Forest Preserve improvement helps with that but it's far from a panacea.

Wodan

That ability is pretty much useless as far as I'm concerned. By the time I can build them, most of tiles have been developed anyway, so there's isn't any place for new Forests to grow. It would be a lot more useful earlier on when the populations are still small and the city raduis not as developed so you can get in some extra chops here and there.

[Willem]

Originally posted by MrChupon
Fake Edit: To make this a better thread topic, what other suggestions/warnings would you have to someone whose brain totally works in Civ1/2 mode?

Don't turn your back on Montezuma or Shaka, they'll stab it if they can get the chance.

[wodan11]

Originally posted by Willem


That ability is pretty much useless as far as I'm concerned. By the time I can build them, most of tiles have been developed anyway, so there's isn't any place for new Forests to grow. It would be a lot more useful earlier on when the populations are still small and the city raduis not as developed so you can get in some extra chops here and there.

I played one game where I left some wide margins between cities. Purely a result of what I wanted to work, but I stumbled on a trick. I intentionally left forests in there, and unroaded tiles adjacent to them. I chopped the forests, then left. The forest between my cities would expand and regrow the forests, then I woudl chop again. Was nice.

Anyway, you've got a point, but also it sounds like you're improving tiles in advance of your city growth. Unless you're saying all your cities are size 21 before you get the Preserve improvement?

Wodan