Hi, First post here. Civ4 is my first Civ and I've only had it for 3 weeks, but I've been reading a lot of these strategies and I'm currently winning very consistently on Emperor difficulty.

Anyways, I've seen a lot of threads telling to use farms early and such, with a general agreement that you need to build enough farms to grow to size 20 and anything else is excess. I also see the AI telling me to replace a cottage with a farm instead (like a blue circle around a tile that can only build a farm or cottage). I see absolutely no point in doing this.

This is a real simple concept. A farm can only give 1 food until biology, which is waaay waaay later into the game. 1 food basically means the farm will feed half a tile. So you're telling me that I should sacrifice a tile to feed half of another one? What's the point of that? I've only built farms in an extremely food-rich area to make it a GP farm, but that's it. I tried what people suggested with farms, and it is just worthless compared to cottage spamming.

Now, an early farm or two may let the city grow faster. But you're also sacrificing a lot of commerce by not making it a cottage. I found it completely not worth it in the least. Once biology is available, then it's worth building farms because now the farm alone will supply another tile, which can be built to supply another tile, etc. etc. until you run out of useful tiles and the last tile becomes a cottage.

I was building farms here and there when I first got this game, but now that I'm massing towns the game has become so much easier. Am I missing something here?

Farms = hammers. You use them to work more hill tiles.

You are correct that farming for specialists is inefficient. I don't even use farms in a GP city if I am over the health limit.

(All this is pre-biology, of course.)

Hi, First post here. Civ4 is my first Civ and I've only had it for 3 weeks, but I've been reading a lot of these strategies and I'm currently winning very consistently on Emperor difficulty.

Anyways, I've seen a lot of threads telling to use farms early and such, with a general agreement that you need to build enough farms to grow to size 20 and anything else is excess. I also see the AI telling me to replace a cottage with a farm instead (like a blue circle around a tile that can only build a farm or cottage). I see absolutely no point in doing this.

This is a real simple concept. A farm can only give 1 food until biology, which is waaay waaay later into the game. 1 food basically means the farm will feed half a tile. So you're telling me that I should sacrifice a tile to feed half of another one? What's the point of that? I've only built farms in an extremely food-rich area to make it a GP farm, but that's it. I tried what people suggested with farms, and it is just worthless compared to cottage spamming.

Now, an early farm or two may let the city grow faster. But you're also sacrificing a lot of commerce by not making it a cottage. I found it completely not worth it in the least. Once biology is available, then it's worth building farms because now the farm alone will supply another tile, which can be built to supply another tile, etc. etc. until you run out of useful tiles and the last tile becomes a cottage.

I was building farms here and there when I first got this game, but now that I'm massing towns the game has become so much easier. Am I missing something here?

Welcome to CFC. :band:

You're not missing anything. The AI is not as intelligent as a human, hence the word artificial in Artificial Intelligence ;)

I must say that you're posting this in the wrong forum, this forum is for strategy articles only (see the sticky thread just above this thread). You're a newbie on this forum so you'll be excused this time, but next time :whipped:

One addition to your strategy. I often build a few farms to speed up growth of my city to its optimal size. This is not necessarily size 20, but the size where it is using all the useful tiles (deserts and mountains are not that useful). And sometimes the size is a lot lower because of happiness and health restrictions. Sometimes the city also grows very fast without any farms because of food resources or floodplains in its radius.
After that the city has reached its optimal size, then I'll change some tiles back from farms to more useful tile improvements. I typically don't want any excess food beyond what is needed to feed the workers on the tiles. Of course, farms are used freely in your Great Person city.
The reason that I speed up growth is because a size 10 city is more productive then a size 3 city. Note that this is especially useful when you capture a small enemy city in the late game when you have lots of health and happiness resources and want the city to grow quickly.

Didn't realize this was a subforum. I saw the sticky but this is still a strategy thread so I thought it counted.

Farms = hammers. You use them to work more hill tiles.

Ohh...now it all makes sense. I can see how farms can be important for new cities mid/late in the game since it gives hammers to build improvements faster.

I guess also means that I was too afraid to let a city starve and shrink in size once hammers become unimportant, as it does in cities mid-game since I can only have so many miliary units and all the improvements are built already.

It does seem rather odd and counterintuitive realistically that farms in the early game is completely useless though. :confused:

Didn't realize this was a subforum. I saw the sticky but this is still a strategy thread so I thought it counted.

There's a difference between a strategy question and a strategy article. I think the moderaters want to keep this forum nice and tidy. People can come to the strategy articles section and read some advice on various subjects. It can be very useful if you don't quite grasp a certain subject of the game. Even if you think you understand it all, there are some strategies written here that might amaze you.

Ohh...now it all makes sense. I can see how farms can be important for new cities mid/late in the game since it gives hammers to build improvements faster.

I guess also means that I was too afraid to let a city starve and shrink in size once hammers become unimportant, as it does in cities mid-game since I can only have so many miliary units and all the improvements are built already.

It does seem rather odd and counterintuitive realistically that farms in the early game is completely useless though. :confused:

You might want to take a closer look at the food surplus in your cities. It totally determines the speed at which your cities grow (allthough bigger cities grow slower). If your city needs 20 food to grow to the next size and you're growing at 2 food per turn, then it will take 10 turns. If you want the city to grow faster, then you need farms. At 3 food per turn, it will take 7 turns and at 4 food per turn it will take 5 turns. When the city reaches the optimal size, then you quickly change the farms in more useful tile improvements and have a big productive city with 0 food surplus.

Some tiles also don't produce enough food to be used. For instance a grasland hill mine produces 1 food and 3 hammers at the start of the game. You need 2 food to feed a citizen. Thus using this tile instead of a tile that has a 2 food output will lower the food surplus in the city. To keep a steady growth rate or to be even able to use the tile, you might need farms.

The usefullness of farms totally depends on the terrain. If a city has a lot of tiles that have a low food output (plains, hills), then you might need a few. If the city however has a few food reseources or is abundant in flood plains, then it will grow fast without farms.

You can stop growth in a city by using an option in the city governer panel. That can be useful if a city is growing out of control. Allthough using the extra population for pop rushing can be very useful too.

Farms = hammers. You use them to work more hill tiles and abuse the slavery civic.


Fixed. (and more than 10 characters are now in my reply)

I’m agree, farms aren’t the best improvement, but it can be powerfull in the correct city, spiritual trait (for best micromanagement) and with the correct civic. A specialiced city (with food resources, floodplains, farms…) can be used for this:

1.- The most common use is for the “GP Farm”. You know, enough food + caste system = more specialist support = more GPP…. I prefer Super-merchants for join the city for more food + gold…
2.- In the early game, I use that for pop out workers and settlers with Pottery (Granary) and BW. Yes, BW but not from chopping “my dear forest”, I prefer to switch to slavery and kill the unhappy and unhealthy population…. :D
3.- After Built Globe Theater (No unhappiness), this city could be a great production city with slavery (and Kremlim by hurry production) and with Nationhood (drafting 3 units per turn w/o unhappiness) and recovering population fast for more hurry and drafting…

In this sence, I don’t urdervalue the farms (food), if I have a city placed in NO hammers place, I don’t cry and turn food (population) into hammers…

The farms are less critical in case of enemy pillages, after you kill the pillager team, you can rebuild and use them almost inmediatly and don’t give much cash to the pillager (not like towns-hamlets pillaged)

I said that farms (food) can be usefull in some cases (like many things in Civ IV), I didn’t say that this replace to all. You will need research cities, production cities and commerce cities too…

You might want to take a closer look at the food surplus in your cities. It totally determines the speed at which your cities grow (allthough bigger cities grow slower). If your city needs 20 food to grow to the next size and you're growing at 2 food per turn, then it will take 10 turns. If you want the city to grow faster, then you need farms. At 3 food per turn, it will take 7 turns and at 4 food per turn it will take 5 turns. When the city reaches the optimal size, then you quickly change the farms in more useful tile improvements and have a big productive city with 0 food surplus.

Some tiles also don't produce enough food to be used. For instance a grasland hill mine produces 1 food and 3 hammers at the start of the game. You need 2 food to feed a citizen. Thus using this tile instead of a tile that has a 2 food output will lower the food surplus in the city. To keep a steady growth rate or to be even able to use the tile, you might need farms.

The usefullness of farms totally depends on the terrain. If a city has a lot of tiles that have a low food output (plains, hills), then you might need a few. If the city however has a few food reseources or is abundant in flood plains, then it will grow fast without farms.

You can stop growth in a city by using an option in the city governer panel. That can be useful if a city is growing out of control. Allthough using the extra population for pop rushing can be very useful too.

It can't grow fast anyways early/mid game due to happiness and health issues. My first 3 cities are always stuck being a commerce city no matter what because it already has a lot of towns built on it, and even if it has the best potential to be a production or GP city I still can't sacrifice the commerce just to make a specialized city considering I'll fall behind in research, and a point in now is far more valuable than a point in commerce later.

In the same sense, hammers are not that valuable early game because most tiles will have at least 1 hammer which is more than enough. Once libraries, granaries, and barracks are built, there's a big gap on the next improvement to build on a city because there's no technology available. This means all the hammers go towards building military units. Sure, 1 production city may produce a lot of units fast, but all your older cities are going to be producting military units too because there's just nothing left to build. The thing that pays for military is commerce, so it all goes back to needing more commerce.

The only use for production in the early game that I can think of is building wonders...which can be a big deal, especially for the pyramids and even moreso if I have access to stone. I guess I'll have to try that next time.

It can't grow fast anyways early/mid game due to happiness and health issues. My first 3 cities are always stuck being a commerce city no matter what because it already has a lot of towns built on it, and even if it has the best potential to be a production or GP city I still can't sacrifice the commerce just to make a specialized city considering I'll fall behind in research, and a point in now is far more valuable than a point in commerce later.

In the same sense, hammers are not that valuable early game because most tiles will have at least 1 hammer which is more than enough. Once libraries, granaries, and barracks are built, there's a big gap on the next improvement to build on a city because there's no technology available. This means all the hammers go towards building military units. Sure, 1 production city may produce a lot of units fast, but all your older cities are going to be producting military units too because there's just nothing left to build. The thing that pays for military is commerce, so it all goes back to needing more commerce.

The only use for production in the early game that I can think of is building wonders...which can be a big deal, especially for the pyramids and even moreso if I have access to stone. I guess I'll have to try that next time.

The reason for faster growth is to get to that optimal size where you use all tiles that can be used (limited by happiness/health and number of useful tiles). If you have a city that uses 10 tiles with the cottage improvement, then that is better then using a city that uses 4 tiles with the cottage improvement and is still slowly growing. My goal is to reach a large city with lots of cottages and some mines fast. Farms, used temporarily to speed up the growth can be useful here. Especially for new cities or conquered ones that have to grow a lot to reach their happiness/health limit.

Hmm...but it's still weighed in by the importance of 1 point of commerce now comparative to 1 point of commerce later. Commerce has diminishing returns as the game progresses, simply because you produce so much commerce later on that a point doesn't mean much. I guess the question is: How useful is faster growth?

Most of my cities don't have more than one 3-food tile and a lot of 2-food tiles. In such a site, the first farm will increase growth by 50% (2 surplus and 1 from the farm). 1-farm city will be 2-4 tiles ahead of a no-farm citywith granaries in both cities for a fairly long time. This definitely means that it's worth it to build a farm on grassland/plains areas.

The second farm speeds up growth by 33% (1 food on top of the 2food surplus+first farm). So a 2-farm city will be 2-3 tiles ahead of a 1-farm city for a good portion of the time. The third one speeds up growth by 25%, but by now it's growing fast enough to where it's tough for the 3-farm city to stretch more than 1 tile ahead of the 2-farm city.

The difference is much lower for floodplains/food resource rich areas. If you start with grassland corn, then the farm after the corn will only speed growth by 20% (2 surplus+3 surplus from improved corn+1 farm).

Of course...I'm doing a lot of this with rough approximations in my head. It'd be really cool if I knew how to use the world editor or even where the world editor is at. Then I can actually write an article on it =P. Of course, it'd be even cooler if someone else did it for me... ;) ;)

Hmm...but it's still weighed in by the importance of 1 point of commerce now comparative to 1 point of commerce later. Commerce has diminishing returns as the game progresses, simply because you produce so much commerce later on that a point doesn't mean much. I guess the question is: How useful is faster growth?

Most of my cities don't have more than one 3-food tile and a lot of 2-food tiles. In such a site, the first farm will increase growth by 50% (2 surplus and 1 from the farm). 1-farm city will be 2-4 tiles ahead of a no-farm citywith granaries in both cities for a fairly long time. This definitely means that it's worth it to build a farm on grassland/plains areas.

The second farm speeds up growth by 33% (1 food on top of the 2food surplus+first farm). So a 2-farm city will be 2-3 tiles ahead of a 1-farm city for a good portion of the time. The third one speeds up growth by 25%, but by now it's growing fast enough to where it's tough for the 3-farm city to stretch more than 1 tile ahead of the 2-farm city.

The difference is much lower for floodplains/food resource rich areas. If you start with grassland corn, then the farm after the corn will only speed growth by 20% (2 surplus+3 surplus from improved corn+1 farm).

Of course...I'm doing a lot of this with rough approximations in my head. It'd be really cool if I knew how to use the world editor or even where the world editor is at. Then I can actually write an article on it =P. Of course, it'd be even cooler if someone else did it for me... ;) ;)

Reading this, I don't think our opinions differ that much. Allthough I would add that the growth rate that you strive for should be dependent on the amount of growth that is still needed.

Example: If a city in the beginning of the game needs to grow from size 3 to 6 before reaching its health/happiness limit, then a fast growth will not help a lot since you can't get ahead a lot of phases. Even if you grow 3 times as fast, then still you would only have 2 extra citizens (size 6 compared to size 4) and you would have been working a lot of farms while the other city would have been working useful tile improvements. In order to have a food surplus of 6 instead of 2, 4 farms would have to be worked, not leaving room for useful tile improvements.

If later in the game a city has to grow from size 1 to size 16 before reaching its health/happiness limit, then a fast growth rate will help a lot. If you can get your city to grow 3 times as fast, then you will reach size 16 while the slower growing city is still size 6. Now those 10 extra citizens will probably be doing very useful things and the 4 extra farms during this growth period are not that much compared to the 10 extra citizens at the end.

At the end of a growth spurt, the farms producing the extra food for growth can be changed into other improvements as far as the food surplus allows.

Disclaimer: the mathematics in the above mentioned strategy are slightly off since cities need more food to grow when becoming large. Still, the main thoughts remain true.

Edit: The world builder can be entered by pressing ctrl - W. There's also a button in the menu that allows you to enter the world builder. I've also used it to experiment with a few things before writing a strategy article. It can be very useful.

Yea...I can see the use for farms now. There always has to be an ideal amount of farms to build before starting cottages though, which may be nice to figure out. It will widely differ each game and city considering it's comparing hammers with commerce, but it'd be interesting to know exactly how many extra hammers each farm will give.

There's also another limiting factor early game which is the worker force available to make all those farms, and then switching all those to cottages. Due to this, even if you expand fairly slowly you'd still need to build cottages for the first 4 cities because your workers will be too busy chopping, improving and paving. At least that's how it is with the way I start for Emperor...it'd be rather redundant to spend a lot of hammers and growth time on building a worker when I seriously need my starting cities building archers and axemen.

The point of farms, pre- or post-Biology, is to create enough food so that you can free up population points to work the hammer or commerce tiles that produce less than 2 food.

Farming for commerce tiles pre-biology is silly. Why not build a cottage instead of a farm?

Farming for commerce tiles pre-biology is silly. Why not build a cottage instead of a farm?

Sometimes farming is useful for commerce. Quick example: If you find yourself near a gold mine early, it's a good idea to farm some tiles to gather the food needed to work the mine. Say there is the gold (on a desert hill), and a flood plain. If you put a cottage on the flood plain you will get 1g at the start, and up to 7 at the end of the game; if you farm the flood plains you can work the gold mine and get 8g from 3000 bc. If my capital has gold, the first thing I do is to work it at the expense of some cottages. It's not an unlikely example, flood plains are near the equator, and gold is often found on desert hills.
Farms do their best in production cities, because hills need loads of food.
In these cities it's easy to figure out how many farms you need: count the possible food excess/deficit in every tile. If a city has 3 grassland hills and one plains hill, it needs 5 surplus food to work them all. Two comes from the city, so you need to farm three grassland tiles.
Production cities shouldn't get any cottages IMO. If you have some more space, build a farm and a workshop if grassland, build two farms if plains. Production cities have room for workshops! They are almost the only building that gives hammers to a grassland tile.
Just my two cents, I can barely beat monarch, so I'm not that great expert :)

I do not understand how farms are giving commerce in your example. You're simply sacrificing a cottage tile for a gold tile, which is the correct decision as with every other special resource. There's no farms in the equation.

The point is that without the farm there wouldn't be the food to work the specialty commerce tile, thus the farm helps you put the commerce tile to use where you might not be able to otherwise.

You don't need more food to work specialty tiles. Your main city alone provides 2 food, so you'd need a city surrounded by 0-food tiles with 2 or more specialty tiles that provide 0 food on its own also. I've never seen such a site, and such a site obviously won't be farmable for a long time due to lack of water.

In his example, you can put a cottage on the floodplain and still work the gold mine anyways. The only difference is that the city will grow faster if there's a farm, which means that the gold mine can be worked on a turn or two faster. If there's 2 gold mines, farming the floodplains just allows you to grow faster. It won't be the deciding factor on whether you can work the gold mine or not, unless that floodplain is the only piece of land in the city that provides more than 1 food. Again, I've never seen such a site.