Why windmills?

[mkorin]

Originally posted by Hauptman


But your not taking into acount the fact that some things provide more hammers than mines! Under caste system, workshops are better hammer producers. If you have alot of rivers, replace farms and towns with watermils, then windmill your hills and have a hammer/commerce GAIN.

That's assuming I use the caste system. My suggestion is to build a strong civilization, takes hammers in the beginning more than food. By the time a windmill is technically better, I wouldn't want to micromanagemy serfs to change back just to get a couple gold. Hammers = success in the early game.

Plus the fact that workshops have a much too heavy negative. By reducing a food from every square with a workshop, you ca't grow. I know that seems like a contradiction with my earlier comment, but I find I can still grow using mines, but falter using workshops.

Mike

[Hauptman]

Ok, so I played a OOC just for this thread..

Now, I used mines right up until electricity, started windmilling as I researched medicine. Made the swap over to environmentalism and wated a couple turns to grow to size 20. I took a screenie with windmills, then went into world builder and edited the land back to orriginal. 3 windmills turned to mines, 2 farms replaced.

First shot is with the orriginal set up.



Second shot by going with the mills...



By changing 5 plots, The hammer count is exacly the same, I loose 2 food, but gain nearly 100 . That 2 food could have been made into a specialist later, wich would have upped the hammer count, but it would not have given me 100 . And we all know wins the game, 4 or 6 hammers hardly would have been noticable (when your cranking 210!)

[mkorin]

Right, after electricity if you want to take the time to micro-manage your serfs. At that point, I pretty much know if I'm going to win or lose and have my serfs set on auto. The game is won or lost by the time you get to electricity and as you said, you used mines until that point.

Mike

[Hauptman]

Well I could have done it at machinery, Change the same plots and it would have evened out the hammers but I wouldnt have had the gold pop...

Yes I usually wait until electricity to change up, but just 5 plots made a huge difference in commerce with no sacrifice to production. Now expand this to a large empire and gain 20 raw commerce in each city that has hills or rivers and both mills are a godsend.

If you have a game won by electricity, perhaps it's time to bump up the level!~ My game is a likely win, but Periclese is not far behind in tech. I allied with Zara so I have no worries on the combat front, but not having a navy also means I can do little to effect Peri or Asoka as they race to their victory of choice.

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by Hauptman
Ok, so I played a OOC just for this thread..

Now, I used mines right up until electricity, started windmilling as I researched medicine. Made the swap over to environmentalism and wated a couple turns to grow to size 20. I took a screenie with windmills, then went into world builder and edited the land back to orriginal. 3 windmills turned to mines, 2 farms replaced.

...

By changing 5 plots, The hammer count is exacly the same, I loose 2 food, but gain nearly 100 . That 2 food could have been made into a specialist later, wich would have upped the hammer count, but it would not have given me 100 . And we all know wins the game, 4 or 6 hammers hardly would have been noticable (when your cranking 210!)

Some of the (and hence ) gain comes from being a financial leader. The benefit from windmills will be less for a non-financial leader ( -4 and - 19.5 ).

This example also benefits from environmentalism (+6 ) although free trade would probably have been worth +7.

I am not sure how much being an OCC affects things. Would it have been possible to avoid switching to emancipation for example?

RJM

BTW - thanks to Hauptman for posting this example, which forced me to look in greater detail at some aspects of the game that I had previously ignored.

[Hauptman]

Well caste system only gives me 1 hammer in this examply, I use it for the unlimited scientists and merchants however, hence my having the 2 corporations so fast. No globe theater means I may have to switch.

But on the topic of discusion, windmills are 60% worth it after electricity, and 100% worth it running environmentalism, wich I run almost every game. I'm a corporate monster. And with sid's sushi giving +10 or more food, a size 30 city NEEDS that extra health.


BTW. My largest real game city was 45. Not sure why I brought that up, but it was fun.

[Hauptman]

This example also benefits from environmentalism (+6 ) although free trade would probably have been worth +7.

You almost had me second guessing myself here. But then I looked at the forests and decided not to switch back... :Þ as they give me another +12. Edit: OOps make that 15, missed the lower one.

[Hauptman]

Also, I want to mention that too many hammers can in fact be a waste. I often have to switch cities to "wealth" as they wait on something to build.

Hammers mean bigger armies. Coins make better armies. If you read my last emperor AAR you would have seen my few Mechanized infantry slaughtering cavalry and infantry by the dozens.

[Panag]

Hi ,

thanks Hauptman , i never stood still by it , its a big eye opener , thanks for the screenshots , its a giant difference indeed


Have a nice windy day



panag slaps himself for thinking about this earlier

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by Hauptman


You almost had me second guessing myself here. But then I looked at the forests and decided not to switch back... :Þ as they give me another +12. Edit: OOps make that 15, missed the lower one.

Ah ... forest preserve; I didn't allow for that.

RJM

[joncnunn]

Myself, I look at the food needs, including that of useful specalists with a heavy bias towards short term as opposed to long run and normaly bias towards keeping an existing improvement over replacing.

This can sometimes mean replacement of windmills with mines or replacement of mines of windmills after all tiles have some improvement.

In addition if I don't have a food corporation and the food polarity is odd I'll either swap a mine for a mill or a mill to a mill just to get it even.

Enviormentalism -> I don't tend to use. If I don't have a food corporation I don't need health that badly. If I do have a food corporation though (usually Sushi's) I can't afford what it does to corporation maintenance payments even if I don't buy extra resources.

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Originally posted by Hauptman
By changing 5 plots, The hammer count is exacly the same, I loose 2 food, but gain nearly 100 . That 2 food could have been made into a specialist later, wich would have upped the hammer count, but it would not have given me 100 . And we all know wins the game, 4 or 6 hammers hardly would have been noticable (when your cranking 210!)

I would have been a lot more interested in how the base food/production/commerce numbers changed than the ones with all the multipliers built in.

I've never seen an OCC losing the culture battle that badly before. Wow.

[Hauptman]

I allied with Zara, so my culture "let his in". I had burnt a couple cities prior to the alliance.

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by VoiceOfUnreason

I would have been a lot more interested in how the base food/production/commerce numbers changed than the ones with all the multipliers built in.

For the record, the base numbers are as follows.

3 mines (2 at 1 food, 4 production, 0 commerce; 1 at 0,5,0 ) transformed to 3 windmills (2 at 2,2,5; 1 at 1,3,5).

1 farm (3,1,0) transformed to a forge (0,5,0).

1 farm (3,2,1) transformed to a watermill (1,4,4).

(The windmills and the watermill each get 1 extra commerce from having a financial leader and the windmills get 2 extra from environmentalism.)

The three mines were producing 2 food and 13 production. The three windmills produce 5 food, 7 production and 15 commerce.

To compensate for the lost production, 2 farms producing 6 food, 3 production and 1 commerce were transformed into a forge and a watermill producing 1 food, 9 production and 4 commerce.

Overall change: 8, 16, 1 becomes 6, 16, 19.

The 18 additional commerce gets increased by 50% for bureaucracy and then science multipliers of 325% - Oxford, academy, library, university and observatory.

RJM