I am a newbie in civIV. I would like to ask whether it is needed to replace my mines (of coz without resource that one) with windmills afterwards? As i know, mines provides me 2P while windmills provide with 1F1C. I don't know whether in what circumstances should I replaces it.

thks for answering~

Windmill starts to give you greater bonuses to commerce as you discover new techs, but Mines will get also get an extra unit of production if you railroad them.
In general, you might want to replace mines with windmills in cities that A) Lack food or B) Doesn't really need a lot of production.(But production is almost always harder to get than commerce, so I don't really know when this will apply.)

A hidden advantage of mines is that they also have a small chance of uncovering new resources each turn, which is another reason to hold on to a few.

I rarely bother to replace my mines, but I often build windmill on the hills near my more recent cities.

well...
thx for replying!:)

That means it is better to replace the mills with windmills in our main city ( ie. GP farm) ? And shouldn't replace in my commerce-oriented city?

Also, a overtopic question, is a city necessary to growth to above size 20? As tiles only can choose up to 20, that means it is not necessary to LV up to 20, right?

I think what Corlindale was mainly trying to say was don't use windmills unless there's not a lot of food around your city. That's what I do.

Also, having more than 20 (or 21, I forget) will automatically give you city specialists (priests, merchants, etc.) These can boost various aspects of that city (culture, science, commerce, etc.) and boost the rate at which you get great people. The problem is with larger cities, of course, is that you get unhappiness and sickness due to overpopulation. If that's a problem, you can force specialists or manage the city's tiles yourself to make the city's growth stagnant before people start getting unhappy and/or sick.

if you have 4 or more dead tiles (desert, mountain,ect) you might want to consider windmills. But even in those situations, I will mine early. Hoping for that small chance to come through. Did twice in my last game. Got silver, and gems. And I didn't have either one. Woot.

Well... I have heart for a saying that the ratio between farm and cottage is best with 3:1. Is that right? I am not familiar with the game enough... I don't know how should I determin my city is having enough food for growth...

The AI management should be good enough for figuring out how to optimize stuff. The only problem is sometimes it doesn't give you the best advice on WHERE to build your new city.

Well... I have heart for a saying that the ratio between farm and cottage is best with 3:1. Is that right? I am not familiar with the game enough... I don't know how should I determin my city is having enough food for growth...by 3:1, you mean 3 cottages and 1 farm or the opposite?

Of course, it depends. If you want a high commerce city, build a lot of cottages. But, if you want GP or high production, farms will do a better job, because they can support more low food/high hammer tiles or specialists.

Edit: And pretty much the same applies to Mines and Windmills. In a GP city, you want as much food as you can get, but if you're building units or wonders, build some mines.

Um... Well... I am going clear now! :mischief:

Actually, when I start the game, should all 20 tiles be improved or just leave some behind? As a city is not as big as 20 cannot used up 20 tiles, so keep improving it seems like a waste. Of coz, I support building mines in hill in order to change to production.

Also is it necessary to turn on the auto-citzen option in city view? I think I have miss out many wasted turns as I don't turn it on. Turning on it seems a good choice...

Let me attach my save game here and please help me to examine the micro-control of the cities. Please give me any suggestion, thx~! ;)

The improvements in that save game file look great to me, none of those cities would need windmills. I mainly use windmills when I've got a city in a desert or tundra with no grassland or irrigation source available.

Windmills serve the same purpose as farms: build them if you can't work all your hills with mines and farms alone. For example, say you have two plains hills (2 base hammers each). Mining one supports one citizen with 0/5/0 FPC (food/production/commerce), with two windmills you can support an extra citizen with the +1 food on each tile. So the net FPC for your city (subtracting food costs for citizens) would be:

1 mine : -2/5/0
2 windmills : -2/6/4

And with desert, tundra or ice hills:

1 mine: -2/4/0
2 windmills: -2/4/4

Grassland hills:

2 mines: -2/8/0
2 windmills: 0/4/4

Windmills don't have their full benifit until about halfway through the game however, so they're not really an option until then (other than for polar cities). These values are with all benifits, including the +1 hammer mines get from railroads. Mines give the possibility to discover a resource, as well. Farm + mine generally works better if you have enough food available to work all tiles. Another point is that lumbermills can be produced at the same time windmills recieve +1 hammer, making a lumbermilled forest equal to a mine or workshop (+3 hammers with a Railroad).

But 2 windmills require 1 more citizen, which costs additional food (not much, but it delayes the whole thing) and causes unhappiness and unhealthiness.

Edit: And I've had several cases where I'd be very glad to convert 4 commerce into 2 hammers.

I would like to ask what should build on a single plain (consider it just worth 1F1P without irrigation). Build a workshop or a cottage is better?

And also my city grow to 13 or 14 population and thus stop growing anymore... It takes me lots of turn indeed... Is it too few farms? Or it is ok for some money-beg city or Production city to have size up to 13~14?

I haven't looked at your save, but I think the generic advice I'm about to provide should help a little.

One thing I've noticed about Civ IV compared to its predecessors is the need for city specialization. Most of the strategies you see floating around here for a specific type of victory take advantage of this.

Assuming nothing about the kind of victory you want, it's important to try to decide what each city's specialization will be so that you know which direction to take it with regards to tile improvement and city buildings.

I should point out that no matter what kind of city you're putting down, if it has resources, you should always improve that tile appropriately (pastures for cows, plantations for sugar, etc.)

I will go over three city types below, how many you should have, and where are good places to put them:

Commerce

Easily the most important kind of city you can have, regardless of which victory type you're after, because commerce drives research, and can provide happiness through the Culture slider. Commerce cities employ the "Cottage spam" tactic, which basically means you build cottages anywhere you can. These cities don't normally have a problem growing to the 10-12 population range, but tend to slow down after that.

How many: At least two, regardless of your victory type, so that your commerce is somewhere in the 100's by mid-game. It is not uncommon to have this as your default city type, only straying as needed.

Where: Anywhere there is about 15 Cottage-friendly tiles *after* counting non-usable (peaks, desert, ice, etc.) and Resources. It's a very good idea to have these cities near rivers, because a river tile adds 1 commerce, and if you're a Financial civ., this is bumped up to 3 by placing a cottage there. So you get 3 commerce per turn just with a cottage!

"GP" Farm

I know what this is, and how it's supposed to work, but haven't had much success employing one myself, but I'll pass on what I know anyway. Basically, this city is devoted to producing Great People (GP), and does so by employing Specialists inside your city. You want as much surplus food as possible, so that you can have some citizens who don't work any tiles and are devoted as specialists. This city employs "Farm spamming" to increase the margin of surplus food, allowing for more Specialists.

How many: Unless you're trying for a cultural victory, and even sometimes then, one of these is plenty.

Where: Try to find a spot with lots of fresh water (becuase farm spamming pre-Civil Service can be a pain) and at least one food resource (corn, cows, rice, etc.). Definitely avoid "dead tiles" (ice, desert, etc.) if you can, or you'll have to stagnate this city's growth earlier than is ideal.

Production

These cities emphasize Hammer output mostly through mines. These cities can have a number of appliciations depending your needs/desires. For me, they're usually my military factories and occasionally wonder-builders. This has been one of the harder cities for me to set-up, simply because finding a good location for one can be tricky. If one of my production cities ever breaks 12 population, I'm impressed, hehe.

How many: At least one I'd say for any kind of game, because from Noble difficulty and higher, neglecting one's military just won't cut it, even if you're not a warmonger. Someone who wishes to play more aggressively might have a couple more of these to really churn out a sea of military.

Where: This is the hardest part of these cities. You want lots of hills (at least 5 or so), but you also need some good food-production tiles to support your miners. Any cluster of hills with a few fresh water tiles is good, but damn is this hard to find, lol. Any kind of production resource is a huge bonus, especially cows! Cows are *great* for these cities because with a pasture, you get a good chunk of production and food!

So, my typical game will use Commerce cities as default, and I'll have one or two production, and one city attempting a GP Farm, which usually just breaks down into another production city :P

I find that even for Conquest, this works great, although I normally play towards Domination victories It helps keep your tech edge, wherever you're going with it. And if you beeline towards Kremlin (see Synex's excellent "Catherine Cottage Spam" thread), then you can get set-up real nice for a mid-game explosion via Kremlin-discounted buying sprees.

I feel obligated here to go over a quick bit about tile management.

One very important concept in Civ IV is Manually-induced Growth Stagnation. Sometimes if a city is growing too fast, or its population is about to exceed your ability to keep them happy, you have to step in and stop it, or at least slow it down. To do this, carefully examine your city management screen. To the left of the "Growth" bar you have Food Produced - Food Consumed. To manually induce growth stagnation, simply juggle your citizens around your tiles until these two numbers are equal. Your city will now remain at its current population and productivity unless your workers improve a tile that changes this.

If you have "leftover" citizens that aren't working tiles, this is not necessarily a bad thing, because you can turn them into specialists.

Some key points:


Do NOT turn on tile-managment automation. It is never too early to start learning how to micromanage your own city's tiles, and if you expect to have any amount of success with this game on a more advanced level, you have to learn to do this.


Happiness is THE most important number to keep track of when deciding how big your cities can get. The answer to the question, "How big should I let a city get?" is as big as it can while keeping them happy. This means most cities will NOT hit 20+ population. Hell, I'm thankful for 15 most of the time.


An unhappy citizen still consumes food, but refuses to work any tiles. He'd be better off dead, and if this means your city has to starve until it shrinks, so be it. If your cities are starving a lot, then you're trying to let them grow beyond their happiness or food capacity. Either way you'll need to stagnate it til new technologies or improvements come along which allow you to keep growing.


Health is not that important. Seriously. I've had cities that were unhealthy for entire eras, but they were never unhappy, and continued to grow and be productive. While I do my best to keep Healthy cities, it is pretty far down on my priority list. It's also easier for the most part, to keep your cities Healthier than Happier.


When deciding what improvement to put on a tile, go back to your city screen. What does it *need*? If it has 15 Food Produced - 11 Food Consumed, you probably don't need a farm, and would get more use out of a cottage or farm. If that gap is a little narrower though, you might need the extra food.


Finally, don't hesitate to calculate and plan a city's population well in advance. While examining the 20 tiles around your city in the City Management screen, you can count the amount of un-improved food your city can produce. This number divided by 2 is how big of a population your city could feed. This does not guaruntee you will be able to provide enough happiness, but the food will be there. This can also help you decide how many farms you'll need to put down if you want your city to be able to get to a certain size.


Remember that early farms only produce +1 F, so if you have a Plains tile next to a River, by default, this is 1F/1P/1C. Adding a farm there will only make it 2/1/1, so the citizen working that tile is only producing enough food for himself, and you're only getting 1P and 1C out of the tile. If you had put a cottage there, you'd eventually have 1F/1P/5C, but that citizen is "draining" 1 surplus food because they're only producing 1, so there has to be another tile somewhere with 3 or more food to make up the difference.


Because of the above, I tend to put farms on Grasslands (3F/1C near river) and cottages on Plains (1F/1P/5C near river) if needed. I think you'll be surprised how large Commerce cities can grow at times with no farms at all.


Well, this turned out to be a little longer than I intended it to be, but I hope it answers a lot of yours and others' questions. Happy Gaming! ^^

"GP" Farm

I know what this is, and how it's supposed to work, but haven't had much success employing one myself, but I'll pass on what I know anyway. Basically, this city is devoted to producing Great People (GP), and does so by employing Specialists inside your city. You want as much surplus food as possible, so that you can have some citizens who don't work any tiles and are devoted as specialists. This city employs "Farm spamming" to increase the margin of surplus food, allowing for more Specialists.

How many: Unless you're trying for a cultural victory, and even sometimes then, one of these is plenty.

Where: Try to find a spot with lots of fresh water (becuase farm spamming pre-Civil Service can be a pain) and at least one food resource (corn, cows, rice, etc.). Definitely avoid "dead tiles" (ice, desert, etc.) if you can, or you'll have to stagnate this city's growth earlier than is ideal.

I will tell you how I have successfully set up GP farms. Flood Plains are your best friend. 3-4 food resources can cut the deal as well but that is hard to find whereas deserts and rivers are not uncommon. Plop your city to cover as many floodplains as you can, often you can grab a relatively inaccessible resource in the desert at the same time. Farm every floodplain and work any resources you have in range and then just start growing. Grow to your food capacity and then specialize everyone. It is not hard to have 6 specialists in a size 12 city this way. 18 base GP points double it up a few times from civics and traits and it is a pretty impressive use of a bunch of desert. The nice thing is that you have 100% control of what GP you are producing in this city.

Really nice of you, Malganis! I have learnt a lot when reading!

So, it means every city has its own use, right? So, normally, the first city should be GP farm (as AI always place it in the most fertile tile), right?

Secondly, how can a GP farm or a commerce-oriented city to grow without much Production? It's difficult to build any building as it just consist of ten or twenty P. Any ideas?

Finally, is specializing the city comes mid or even late of the game? Every cities grow as usual and balance at first and start replacing the tiles afterwards?

Thanks~

I know when you mine a hill you have a small chance of discovering a resource... i.e. gold, silver, etc. this has only happened to me once in 10 games and i mine a lot - am i missing something?

whoops~~~
I have done a game and please someone take a look on it to determine whether I do it correct or not.
Thx a lot~

I know when you mine a hill you have a small chance of discovering a resource... i.e. gold, silver, etc. this has only happened to me once in 10 games and i mine a lot - am i missing something?

Probably not. The odds are quite low, and you might have been unlucky. One thing to note is that the mine has to be actively worked to have a chance to discover new resources, just as a cottage must be worked to grow.

I have to disagree heartily with the concept of building cottages on any tile possible in a commerce city. That's not the best way to go about it at all. Even commerce cities can be limited by food quite often. And on top of that they also need production to build libraries/universities/etc. Farms and mines are almost always needed for a commerce city. You definitely need cottages, but not on every workable tile.

I have to disagree heartily with the concept of building cottages on any tile possible in a commerce city. That's not the best way to go about it at all. Even commerce cities can be limited by food quite often. And on top of that they also need production to build libraries/universities/etc. Farms and mines are almost always needed for a commerce city. You definitely need cottages, but not on every workable tile.

ya... i agree with that... let me clear my mind up first! um...

1. A GP Farm CAN farm all the tiles with farm!
2. Both commerce city and production city SHOULD consider the output of food to determine which tile for food and which tile for cottage.

Right?

On the topic of specializing cities, I feel that pure specialization is not too good at all. If you make a city completely commerce (cottages) it will have no food or production. Food and production are needed in EVERY city. Even if you don't want to make military units there, you'll still want building improvements or that city is worthless later on.

For this reason, I like to make sure I have enough food to work all the tiles in the later game. I like building cottages on grasslands since the 2 food supports the tile by itself. I also take into fact Biology, since almost all the time, you won't be able to work all 20 tiles in a city pre-Biology. So if I farma grassland, I look at it as 4 food instead of 3 later on, which can support 2 workers from just that one tile.

In regards to windmills, I like them almost always over mines. My typical rule of thumb is if a city needs food, use windmills, especially on grassland/hill tiles since it will increase food to 2. If the city has a good supply of food, I will use mines, especially on plains/hill or desert/hill tiles since it will be a pure production tile that can be supported by a high food tile. Windmills are like a "general" tile improvement, and gives a little bit of everything for those cities that are not lacking in anything. Maps like Highlands make really good use of Windmills because of the lack of food, and the high production rates from all the hills. Windmills on this map will hinder production by a tad and make up for the weak parts of the maps tiles in food/commerce.

Probably not. The odds are quite low, and you might have been unlucky. One thing to note is that the mine has to be actively worked to have a chance to discover new resources, just as a cottage must be worked to grow.Once I actually discovered two resources on the same turn, at the same city. This was kind of early in the game, and no it wasn't becuse I discovered a new technology. ;) Also happened to be the two first mines I built too.

Meh, I guess I just had a insane spree of luck.

Really nice of you, Malganis! I have learnt a lot when reading!

So, it means every city has its own use, right? So, normally, the first city should be GP farm (as AI always place it in the most fertile tile), right?

Secondly, how can a GP farm or a commerce-oriented city to grow without much Production? It's difficult to build any building as it just consist of ten or twenty P. Any ideas?

Finally, is specializing the city comes mid or even late of the game? Every cities grow as usual and balance at first and start replacing the tiles afterwards?

Thanks~

Hi Crazymarco!

First of all, I have to say that this thread has been very informative in general; thanks to all so far.

Now to Crazymarco's points:
1) The first city may not actually be a good place to make a GP Farm, especially in trickier map types like Highlands or Ice Age. It might be worth it on occasion to have your first settler run around a bit to find a better settling point, but I find it is best to settle immediately, or at most move once before settling. Because of this, your first city may be much better suited for production or commerce or any other thing besides GP.

2) and 3) You mention that it might be hard for a city to become developed if it is too specialized on food or commerce too early. This is something that you will have to try and balance out on a per-city, per-situation basis. However, it is important to remember that--with specialization in mind--any given city may ignore building many improvements.

For example, a city focusing on production should build a barracks, but probably not a grocer, unless it really needs that extra health bonus for some reason.

I have only done a little testing on this, but I'll go out on a limb and say that it can be worth it to have somewhat slower production in a city that isn't geared for production because you aren't going to be building as much. That is, if you have a commerce focused city, its main purpose is to produce research and money--both are things that are unrelated to what a city pops out when its production bar is filled. That means that what the city produces can be considered kinda incidental to its true purpose--commerce. Yes, the improvements help this out a lot, but there are only so many improvements to help commerce along, so what will you produce once you have completed them and are waiting for the next one? Why make units when you can do it faster in a production-oriented city?

OTOH, it is useful to have those focus-specific improvements completed ASAP, so it is useful to have some production after all.

-Cheers

How do i destroy one of my own roads?

How do i destroy one of my own roads?

Never tried it but I think I've seen the pillage icon on my own troops when moving through my own territory. So maybe you can pillage your own land which would mean first, any improvement on the tile and then the road itself. :mischief:

Maybe someone else has actually tried this to see if it works or not?