Why you do NOT want to mine shielded grasslands!

[DeepO]

About all the guides, strats, and comments I've read on this site talked about mining the shielded grasslands(SG) asap, to have the best improvement possible. Further, a lot of worker AI whining came down to that fact that the AI will not focus on mining SG, but go for a checkerboard pattern of mines and irrigations in grassland.

Well, I just started this thread to give my opinion: mining SG is not an advantage after you get out of Despotism, is a small disadvantage when you have RRs, and is downright the worst option when you didn't had your GA yet or are planning on mobilization (after RRs).

First, in despotism, mining SG will mean that you can get 2 shields from grassland, which can't produce anything more with irrigation. Unshielded only gives 1 shield. Clearly it is a given that you should focus on mining SGs first.
But, after despotism, you do not want to have maximum shields from your mined SGs, but rather from hills or mountains nearby (if available, of course). You still want to improve your SGs first, but it is not necessary to mine a SG and irrigate a normal grassland instead of doing it the other way around, it will not give you any more shields. On the contrary, when you have hills, you want to mine these, and irrigate the SGs, this will give you more food so you can work the hill, while giving you an extra shield as well.

After RR, this last situation becomes more outspoken: you want to work all hills nearby, and the best way to do this is to put some of your grasslands on irrigation. Choosing your SGs for irrigation will mean there is plenty of food, while still providing one extra shield. If you make the comparison again of having 1 mined SG + 1 irrigated grassland against 1 irrigated SG + 1 mined grassland (all of them RRed), it will still give the same numbers. But whenever there is a choice, and a hill can be worked as well, the irrigated SG is favored over the mined one.

This would all be minor points, if it wasn't for the bonusses you get with a GA or mobilization. These two will add one shield to all worked tiles where shields are already present. So, if you have the two situations again; the mined SG + irrigated grassland will give 1 shield bonus, while the irrigated SG + mined grassland will give 2 shields bonus!

Conclusion: after you left despotism, and your cities have grown just a little so that a few tiles are worked, it is best to irrigate all the SGs (to the amount needed, of course), while mining all normal grasslands. This will give the biggest rewards in all cases.

Of course, this rule should be adapted when needed, and certainly for very small cities (size 1, higher if no hills are present) a mined SG is still a good thing, but once your cities have grown a bit it is worth it to try to use all SGs for irrigation, while mining all other grasslands.

DeepO

[Tuberski]

Sounds logical to me, except that having any size grow over the size of 21(?), where every tile is worked is a waste.

Specialists don't really help all that much, so if I have enough food production to help my city grow to size 21, further population increases are close to useless.

[DeepO]

True... but at that time, if you still can be bothered, you should have plenty of workers around with little to do. They can than start to mine everything, included the SGs.

My point was that whenever you have the choice of irrigating a SG or a grassland, in general you should go for the SG instead. This is completely opposite to what has been said here so far...

DeepO

[edited for typos]

[Tuberski]

That is what I always thought, but usually I just mine everything and be done with it.

[alva]

again, case by case for me.
In close games i will do the micromanagement, if not i'll do what Tuberski said. ( or quit )

Nice work on the avatar DeepO
(btw: what's (a) DeepO?

[Catt]

I agree with you. I'll mine everything I can in the ancient age, but if a city later needs irrigation to grow, the shielded grasslands are the first to get irrigated. Given the rules regarding various "bonus" opportuntities, you generally want your tiles producing at least one of each possible output item - be it food, shield or commerce. Unless a normal grassland is mined, it will not produce any shields.

There are a number of commonly accepted "rules of thumb" that run counter to smart gameplay; mining shielded grassland (as opposed to regular grassland?) is a great example. I'm coming around to the notion that tile improvement is the most important skill to master in the game -- I started a long post at CFC earlier today in response to a thread entittled "irrigation or mine" and later abandoned the post before posting because the subject matter clearly required a detailed discussion - there was no way to answer "irrigate or mine" concisely, accurately, and quickly!

No bit of advice or rule of thumb replaces the overiding maxim (which also represents the core of the player's advantage over the AI) of smart gameplay: play the circumstances - every situation is (potentially) unique.

Catt

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Catt
I'll mine everything I can in the ancient age, but if a city later needs irrigation to grow, the shielded grasslands are the first to get irrigated.

You word it better then I do, Catt. This is exactly my point...

There are a number of commonly accepted "rules of thumb" that run counter to smart gameplay; mining shielded grassland (as opposed to regular grassland?) is a great example.

The reason why I started this thread is that I just read a comment of the strategy master Vel, in which he says the worker AI bothers him because they won't concentrate on mining shielded grassland... This might be a problem very early on (despotism), but after that, there is more chance that the AI with its checkerboard will be better off then the mining human. Of course, the terrain improving is something that the human can be a lot smarter about then the AI, but there are too many myths surrounding it. There is no definate answer, and everything will depend on the situation, but in general you have to make sure that you get the highest shielded tiles first, for which you need food to support them.

So for me, the priority order (after despotism) of tiles is like this: hills - shielded grasslands - flood plains - grasslands - plains - mountains - forests - tundra (sea and inner seas in special cases, like needing the commerce, or not having anything producing food in the vicinity). Irrigation or mining is a case-by-case question, but everybody will agree that you need as much shields as possible; food is only good to support the shields, and to let a city grow so that more shields are worked faster. So irrigation should be given to those tiles that already have some shields, being the shielded grasslands and the plains, and only after these 2 are not enough to have the food production needed you irrigate the normal grasslands.

Of course, other bonus resources can be seen in the same light: I will always try to mine wheat, wines, and game, while the shield producing resources (cow) are irrigated when food is needed.

DeepO

PS to alva: Deepo is the name of the pet 'concrete seagull'(?) (Dutch: betonmeeuw) of John Difool, from the Incal serie of Moebius. My nick is a tribute to Moebius, which I worship as the most influentual graphic artist of modern time

[Velociryx]

Good thread! I'll play devil's advocate if I could, not because I think the logic in Deep-O's argument is bad, simply to put a different spin on it.

I nearly always mine shielded grassland for three principle reasons:

* Not much of it. Maybe 1-2 tiles per city (or maybe I'm just unlucky). Generally I do not have a sufficient number of shielded grassland tiles contained inside a single city's radius to generate a telling amount of food late game, if it was irrigated.

* Self imposed limits to growth - I don't like wampum big cities. Anything over size 20 is a waste (exception - if you use the mammoth city exploit, then specialists can generate obscene amounts of goods for you), given the lack of stuff that specialists produce, and I tend to shy away from having too many cities bigger than size 13 (too much pollution for me).

* Production is King - I want the maximum number of shields I can produce, for total squares worked. If, as Deep-O indicates, there are hills or mountains nearby, then my best move is to irrigate everything flat, up to the point where I can work all the hills and mountains in range and still feed everybody, and work those hills and mountains! On the other hand, if I have no hills to work, then my shielded grasslands represent my best bet for decent production.

'k...enough typing for me...I'm off to get some tea....try and jumpstart the ol' motor this morning....

-=Vel=-

[DeepO]

Vel, glad you like to play devil's advocate in this one, otherwise it wouldn't last for long I guess

So let me try to convince you:

Originally posted by Velociryx
* Not much of it. Maybe 1-2 tiles per city (or maybe I'm just unlucky). Generally I do not have a sufficient number of shielded grassland tiles contained inside a single city's radius to generate a telling amount of food late game, if it was irrigated.

This is for me all the more reason why I want the irrigation here, instead of on normal grasslands. Of course, you need to have some kind of production providers, but if you irrigate any grassland, be sure it is shielded.

* Self imposed limits to growth - I don't like wampum big cities. Anything over size 20 is a waste (exception - if you use the mammoth city exploit, then specialists can generate obscene amounts of goods for you), given the lack of stuff that specialists produce, and I tend to shy away from having too many cities bigger than size 13 (too much pollution for me).

This one I can understand. But it doesn't conflict the main point I'd like to get across: if you need food, irrigate SGs. They are better for this then the normal grasslands. If you don't need more food, by all means mine everything

* . . . On the other hand, if I have no hills to work, then my shielded grasslands represent my best bet for decent production.

No it isn't, that's exactly the myth I'm trying to fight. normal grasslands are just as good as shielded ones for production, as long as you make sure that the shielded are worked. Mining and RR will give 2+ shields in both cases. And because of the possible bonusses from GA or mobilization, and the possible faster use of hills, forests, mountains, all irrigation should be done on shielded grasslands, instead of on normal ones. In fact, after RR I prefer to have irrigated plains while mining all grasslands, this will balance the shield outcome more.

Of course, as said before, there are situations that will call for another approach, but in general I will always try to have the shielded grasslands worked first, and use these for my food production, where other tiles can take care of my production. Unless of course you have flood plains nearby, or so many SGs that you just have to mine them

DeepO

[Arrian]

Hmm, makes sense. Then again, I usually don't have much irrigation in my empire. Normally while my cities are sitting at size 12, just about every tile is mined. However, from now on, when I go back and irrigate a couple of tiles to get a city to grow, I will irrigate the bonus grasslands.

-Arrian

[Harovan]

I'm in the mid of Vel and Arrian on this one. I'm also in favor of size 12 cities, and I mine most of green tiles. However, as soon as irrigation makes sense, I irrigate as much tiles as I need to work at my hills and mountains. From now on, I will irrigate shielded grassland.

[Velociryx]

Ahhhh! I see what you're saying, and you're quite right! That's the rub for me though...."mining normal grassland is just as good, as long as you make sure the shielded grassland is worked." Its that last bit that smacks of too much MM for me. If it's six in one, half dozen in the other, so long as both are worked, that is.

See....to my way of thinking...in the early game (Despotism), those shielded grasslands are among my first targets to get mined. Once they are mined, even if I move to some other form of government, now I've gotta make a choice. Do I re-work a tile that already has an improvement on it, or do I work a new tile that I haven't gotten to yet? In almost every case, I'll work the new tile, thus putting rework on shielded grasslands very much on the back burner. Eventually, if there's a need to tweak and shift, I'll rework a few to tweak food production, but at that point (possibly dem, and post rr), my workers are on speed and can do it in a turn or two.

-=Vel=-

[steven8r]

My 'standard approach' (each situation is diferent and I try to be adaptable, therefore I have no hard and fast rules) is to mine the SG's early in the game to get as many sheilds as I can with available food.

Then, once my cities reach a sufficient size (I too, prefer smaller sized cities) to need more food, I will then irrigate-starting w/ the SG's. I prefer to have each square produce at least 1 shield. If I absolutely need more hills or mountains, I will then irrigate regular grassland.

boiled down: mine SG's first, then irrigate later (sometimes much later) if needed to boost population to work more hills/mountains.

[Velociryx]

Interesting...I usually take the opposite approach....I tend to specialize my tiles out as much as possible....regular grassland (non-bonus) doesn't produce any shields if its irrigated, so when I irrigate and RR it, it produces nothing but food and coin. I dunno....just makes it easier for me to tell "at a glance" what tiles are doing what.

Of course, a good many tiles DO have some mixed production value to them (hills, plains, shielded grassland), and in those cases, my first choice is always to mine them...irrigating if I need to.

-=Vel=-

[Theseus]

I'll tell you what I want: an option to turn off the damn warning about changing an already worked tile!!

I'm with DeepO, in that it's all about the shields. Thus, I mine everything except plains and desert, except in the cases of cities surrounded by hills, in which case I irrigate to a level sufficient to work all the mined hills.