Cows in early game. Emperor level. Irrigate or mine them?

[joncnunn]

To my knowelege, there is no irrigation of tundra allowed.

Anyway; forest is a better use for tundra:

Turnda + Mine + Road : 1/1/1
Tundra + Forest + Road: 1/2/1

Originally posted by Jawa Jocky
Hey let's not forget about mining tundra

[Bluefrog]

Originally posted by joncnunn
To my knowelege, there is no irrigation of tundra allowed.

Anyway; forest is a better use for tundra:

Turnda + Mine + Road : 1/1/1
Tundra + Forest + Road: 1/2/1

After RR, they are both 1/2/1.

[Jawa Jocky]

Originally posted by joncnunn
To my knowelege, there is no irrigation of tundra allowed.

Anyway; forest is a better use for tundra:

Turnda + Mine + Road : 1/1/1
Tundra + Forest + Road: 1/2/1

You can't plant forrest for a while, but you can mine right away.

To bad Global warming doesn't melt the permafrost.

[T-hawk]

It all depends on how much food the city can get total.

There's two kinds of food bonus: strong (4 food in despotism) and weak (3 food in despotism.) Strong is wheat, cattle, or forest-game on grassland. Weak is wheat/cattle/forest-game on plains, wines on grassland, fish in freshwater lake, or flood plains. (This presumes you can irrigate all the tiles in question. With no irrigation available, the strong ones are weak and the weak ones are useless.)

A city requires three weak or one strong and one weak food bonus to reach the +5 food/turn threshold. That's growth every two turns with the granary, and then any food beyond that is completely wasted. Once you have the city at +5 food/turn, mine everything.

So if you have two grassland wheat/cattle, irrigate one and mine the other. If you have two of those and also a floodplain/grassland wine/etc in range, mine both.

(There's also the Uber food bonus - flood plains wheat - which puts the city at +5 food/turn all by itself. But you can't mine that so it doesn't really enter into this discussion.)

[Dominae]

Definitely irrigate. If two Grassland Cows are available, you're golden: irrigate both, using them to grow one Granary city (probably the capitol) every two turns, while the other gets a "Food boost" (4 instead of regular 2) every other turn.

If fresh water is available, I suggest always irrigating bonus Food tiles early. The extra Food does a lot more for you than the production provided for by a mine. There are extreme circumstances (lots of Flood Plains), but generally I stick to this plan.

Edit: Just read T-Hawk's post, which makes a lot of sense. Really you're trying to get as close to growth every 2 turns as possible (with Granary of course), without waste. Surpluses of 3 and 4 will result in waste, so always try to divert those to nearby cities to make the maximum use of your Food.


Dominae

[Artifex]

so a little micromanagement is in order right? when you talk about diverting the food every other turn.

[Dominae]

Yes, it involves micro-management. But it is something I have learned to live with, because the results are worth it. It's simple really: do you want to waste those 2 Food, or do you want to transfer them to that other city's Food box? It just takes some effort to follow through with the logic. But I never micro-manage like this past the Ancient times, only in the BC years where it counts the most.


Dominae

[badams52]

Just started a game with 3 cows, 1 grassland, 2 plains but the closest open water source is far from usable. Aztec's capital is on the freshwater lake and forests are between it and the city.

[joncnunn]

Unless the city is all tundra and water: There are much more important tiles to improve.

Tundra cities normally start with some forest anyway. Usually I don't get around to anything other than hooking up an all tundra - water city to the trade network along with any furs present in the ancient era.
(My workers are busy improving better tiles)

On the Global Warming; on my mod, global warming on tundra produces coast.

Originally posted by Jawa Jocky

You can't plant forrest for a while, but you can mine right away.

To bad Global warming doesn't melt the permafrost.

[Fosse]

Does a Tundra tile with a city on it ever transform into coast?