What are some of your terraforming/improvement strats?

[Sarxis]

Tell me, what do you do and when? Without direct control over city workers, it's a little more difficult (for me at least) to know exatly what level of improvement to build and when (fish net, fishery?).

[Sarxis]

No replies yet? Must be a holiday....


Happy Thanx everyone!

[MarkG]

i dont see the difficulty of this. it's the same as before: if you want to boost the production of a city, build mines in your city radius. if you want food, build farms, fish nets, etc. if you want trade, build trading posts.... the difference is that now you dont have to take one worker from one tile and put him in another to work the tile you just "improved".

[Sarxis]

But is it better to instantly 'tear down' older improvements in lieu of newer ones (i.e., fisheries for nets)? Or is it more efficient to fill up all worked squares first, then go back and start upgrading improved squares after?

Just wondered what people prefered and thought the better/best approach is.

[Rollo Tomasi]

That's what I do. Fill up all unimproved squares with the best improvements, then go over the ones with lesser improvements and upgrade them.

[lago]

If I understand it correctly, you should build improvements adjacent to the city only, until city size reaches 7. And even outside the immediate city area, most improvements contribute little until city size reaches 12 or 13 or so. Am I right on that?

[Didymus]

re: "What do I build" part of question.

Early: food and minerals. (doh!)
Later: Trade.

Granted, trade improvements have their drawbacks, but trade helps science, and money is versatile, transferable, and 100% clean (i.e., no pollution). And it accumulates. Plus, you can build trade improvements on forests, and I think jungle.

Generally, I prefer the 'advanced' improvements over the basic or 'mega' variety, except that (for aesthetic reasons) I like Nature Preserves and despise Shopping Malls.

[Dragonfly]

I had a thought the other day, and loaded a (around 1300 AD) game to try it. I built forts to extend my empire range (although I could have done this with a settler, and immediately disbanding the new city), and built tile improvements in the squares I was going to build a new city in.

It worked !

Of course, you would not be able to do this until later in the game, when you actually get the better tile improvements, and once done, the improvement on that tile is locked in, but hey, in the mid-game, adding mega-mines or advanced farms to those new 15 cities is better than a sharp stick in the eye.

[LandBuilder]

Has anyone experienced where their mayor did any terraforming?

[Carrion]

quote: Originally posted by LandBuilder on 12-06-2000 11:21 AM Has anyone experienced where their mayor did any terraforming?

Yes Mayors use your PW's to improve the tiles around the cities. Great isn't it? Now my lazy forgetfull butt will always have cities halfway across the world improved. Instead of my usuall "oh I forgot i had this city" Usually realize that after about 2000 years or so.

[wheathin]

You should fill as many squares as possible in each consecutive ring.

I.e., if city is up to size 7, don't bother replacing old improvements until all 8 squares around the city are filled, because the city will get the benefits of all the improvements.


The real choice comes when you have a filled inner ring, and a partially filled outer ring: should you replace an inner ring farm with and advanced farm, or just build the new outer ring advanced farm?

Easy answer: the marginal difference in benefit here is so small, you have *got* to have something better to do than worry about this. You may have other cities without fully developed inner rings - build there first.

Hard answer: depends on how high your population is. You would get 100% of the benefit of the upgrade in the inner ring, but only variable percentage of the benefit in the outer ring depending on population (i.e. about 8% if pop 8 (upgrade inner), 50% if pop 14, and 100% if pop 20 (build outer)).

[MrFun]

What's the point of the trade tile improvements when I already get plenty of gold?

For me, Trade Posts, Malls, and such are of no use. I think Activision staff might have gone overboard with tile improvements. I can do without the trade tile improvements, thank you very much.

[wheathin]

Mr. Fun,

Is that still true after tweaking the wages setting back to its "proper" setting?

[MrFun]

You know, you just reminded me to add something else to my "to do" list.

[Dragonfly]

I'm having a few thoughts now about changing my gaming style. Usually, very early in the game, I put my PW at 0%, and don't bother building ANY tile imp's until I get roads, then I boost to 20%, build those roads, and if anything left over, some much needed farms and mines. After I get to Fascism/Democracy, and go from 20 cities to 35, I get my 35th city, then immediately boost to 30%, and start improving in earnest.

I am wondering now, if I shouldn't start early at 20% and spread some of the lower imp's out a little bit, at the cost of the faster build rates you get by staying at 0% early. I will have to start my next game and try this.

Anybody else wanna share their general improvement strategies?