Grassland Wheat - Irrigate or Mine?

[Theseus]

Originally posted by Dominae
So might I suggest: "Irrigate all Bonus Food, make Workers when your pop gets too high".

Now that is a good simple rule. I would add:

"Irrigate all Bonus Food, make Workers when your pop gets too high, and when a town/city reaches its then-maximum size and still has excess food."

[trev]

Too many workers result in excessive unit costs, I have found that 1 worker per town/city is enough when used intelligently, more than this and either your military is too weak, or your unit cost affects your gold supply. If cities get unhappy, use a luxury rate if unable to connect or trade for sufficient luxuries.
As for the question about the mining/irrigating, I would irrigate for quicker growth, but if unable to grow past size 6 because of lack of river/lake, them mine for the production

[Arrian]

I irrigate it only if needed to get to +5 fpt. Otherwise, mine.

-Arrian

[joncnunn]

On Wheat on grassland, if early game worker pump needed to reach +5 fpt -> irrigate.

If the city is a settler pump, will probably need that tile mined to have sufficent shield output.

Otherwise, normally mine. This is also very high on the list to switch from mined to irrigation once a worker pump is no longer needed in the above case.

[Worthingtons]

Are teh effects of Specialsists conisderd here?
Lets say your city is 18 right? and no more surplus, now the 3 unused tiles are all graaassland - you can mine 'em all goin' nowhere but maybe replace unmined tiles for a few more sheilds, However ya irrigate and get 4 food for each tile + 6 trade (assume 2 per trade per worked tile), so you city goes to size 24 getting you the flexability of having 6 more sheilds or 9 more science or even more dosh?
Cheers
Matt

[Solomwi]

Worth, I'd say that's situational. Assuming a fully developed (factory+Hoover's or coal/hydro plant) core city in the late industrial and none of the grassland's being bonus, you can get 12 shields out of those three tiles (changing your 18 to 17, since the city square gets worked "free").

The question is where those 12 shields put you and what you're building. If you're building units, using the specialists for shields is out of the question, so the net difference is 12. Now, if that 12 gets you from 88 to 100 shields, you're in business and should mine those for single turn output on advanced units. If it takes you from 63 to 75, it doesn't do you a whole lot more good, since every unit you'll want to build will still take 2 turns, and irrigation may be the way to go.

If you're building improvements, the net shield difference is 6, but the same general principle applies. Will 6 extra shields shave turns off my build times or not? If not, I'm better off irrigating and milking the specialists for shields when they help and science or gold when they don't.

Something else to think about: With a policeman, you can often get two shields back from waste (one raw shield doubled due to factory and power plant), plus the added gold/science from one less corrupted gold piece. And those two shields are usable on unit builds. Anytime a policeman will add two shields to production, using a civil engineer is silly.

To put it into an axiom: When building cavalry, 40 shields per turn are just as good as 79.

[Aqualung71]

Talking about the early game only, when choice of improvements is vital for growth and also because of the limited number of workers, each tile improvement is precious.......I pretty much always irrigate bonus food. This is also because it is a very rare situation where I don't have 2 or occasionally 3 towns that can use a bonus food resource. so if you need shields, switch the bonus food to the second town and work a mined BGL instead.

[Dry]

Under despotism, food comes from irrigated wheat and prod from mined BG.
Otherwise, food/prod will be more balanced with irrigated BG, and mined wheat.
When city is 12, I could even pla(n)t forest on wheat for more production, but I don't do it very often... maybe I should...?

* Dry suddenly realizes that he never tried it in flood plains... if it is possible then ...

[Dominae]

You cannot Plant Forest on Flood Plains.

[joncnunn]

Only possible improvemenst to Flood Plains are:
1. Leave Despotism so you get the 3rd food.
2. Irrigation [4 food per tile]
3. Rail [5 food per tile.] At this point, you can usally mine every land based non flood plain tile and still have the city grow big enough to have specalists.

[bongo]

FOOD!!

It's a special case, but in those cities too corrupt to ever make anything food is the only thing you ever need. Food isn't affected by corruption, in the early game you just rush what you need to keep pop down. later on you use the food to feed the specialist (who isn't affected by corruption either )

[Theseus]

Originally posted by bongo
FOOD!!

It's a special case, but in those cities too corrupt to ever make anything food is the only thing you ever need. Food isn't affected by corruption, in the early game you just rush what you need to keep pop down. later on you use the food to feed the specialist (who isn't affected by corruption either )

Later in the the game go COMMIE!!

[bongo]

Commie? never heard of that

Only rarely enter the modern age anyway

[Rommel2D]

Originally posted by Solomwi
To put it into an axiom: When building cavalry, 40 shields per turn are just as good as 79.

...and 5 food per turn is as good as 6 for growth, right?

(also, when attempting the Worthington Manuvoure, food production is useless and everything should be mined... ;-)

[Vince278]

I've usually irrigated but I mine around my wonder city (even if it was previously irrigated). I may do this around other cities if they already hit their growth maximum. (that should be rather obvious)