Anyone have some good tips for working tiles, i never use windmills/watermills/lumbermills becouse i dont really see what use they are. i build farms on areas with the most food allready on the tiles, ( like flood plains or something). cottages i sometimes build 1-2 near a river for extra gold peice, and then the rest i put wherever i can. And i mine all the mountains in my cities.

i never use windmills/watermills/lumbermills becouse i dont really see what use they are :shake:

I love watermills,+1 food,2 or 3 hammers and 3 commerce in a few
turns at your disposal.A cottage needs time and that's something you
don't have at the end of a game.Windmills if a city has a lot of hills and
less flat terrain and lumbermills vice versa and for tundra tiles.

watermills are good in late game with elctricity, replaceable parts and under state property. Also they are good to improve tundra or desert tile near a river (not floodplain maybe exist only on earth scenario)
lumbermill + railroad add 2 hammers and are good in production cities because you want to save forest for health.
For windmill i completely agree with Tatran.

Cottages and farms are a great combo (except in production cities) up until the very end of your game. If you're using emancipation, the cottages become towns twice as fast.

But towards the end of the game, windmills are a great option. Before them you've got farms and mines in your production cities. After windmills you get a little more flexibility.

I don't know about watermills, with state property they're ok, but without they don't cut it until the VERY end of a game. Otherwise you're better with cottages and farms.

I never use lumbermills because I chop like crazy and expand or trade enough to grab most health resources.

Anyone have some good tips for working tiles, i never use windmills/watermills/lumbermills becouse i dont really see what use they are. i build farms on areas with the most food allready on the tiles, ( like flood plains or something). cottages i sometimes build 1-2 near a river for extra gold peice, and then the rest i put wherever i can. And i mine all the mountains in my cities.

I've been chewing on this quite a bit lately.

OK, obvious bit first - the kinds of improvements you want on a tile depend heavily on the specialization of the city that works that tile. Commerce cities want cottages everywhere possible, coins everywhere else. GP Farms want food. Production centers want hammers.

Second bit, perhaps less obvious - one food equals one hammer. You can work a plains tile (1F/1P) or a grassland hill (1F/1P) instead of a grassland tile (2F). You can likewise work a plains hill (2P) instead of a grassland hill (1F/1P). You can put down a workshop, which converts a food to a hammer. If you have two extra food, you can run an engineer specialist (2P).

Third bit. Mines add 2P; farms add 1F... which is equivalent to adding 1P. So mines are "better" - they have higher yield. Watermills/Windmills/Workshops are farms, as each adds either a hammer or a food to a tile. Lumbermills are mines (because they allow you to keep the hammer from the forrest, in addition to adding a hammer of their own).

[These numbers are mid game, of course - later in the tech tree Mines/Lumbermills are +3 with railroad, the others +2]

Fourth bit. State property turns watermills and workshops into mines (2P becomes 1F/2P, -1F/3P becomes 0F/3P).

So the general rule is:
Foodville: farms farms farms, windmills on the hills (the yield is lower than a mine, but in foodville 1F is more than 1P so....)

Commerce Town: Cottages. Farms to feed it.

Pittsburg: pretty much everything except windmills and cottages. Hills get mined, forrests (if there are any left) get lumber mills, rivers get watermills if food is a problem, workshops otherwise. Other tiles get Farms if you still need food, workshops otherwise.

Anyone have some good tips for working tiles, i never use windmills/watermills/lumbermills becouse i dont really see what use they are. i build farms on areas with the most food allready on the tiles, ( like flood plains or something). cottages i sometimes build 1-2 near a river for extra gold peice, and then the rest i put wherever i can. And i mine all the mountains in my cities.

I don't improve a tile based on the tile. I improve a tile based upon the city it's supporting.

Windmills are better for commerce cities than mines... their purpose is to make as much raw commerce as possible, and mines don't usually produce any commerce. Similarly, windmills are better for GP-farms than mines... the GP-farm's purpose is to produce as much food as possible to support specialists... and mines don't produce any food.

If a commerce city has no access any significant sources of hammers, such as hills or forests, watermills can take up the slack. They produce both commerce and hammers... though they should be replaced with cottages once you start using Universal Sufferage. Watermills are also good for production cities that have an overabundance of food... especially if you're a financial leader.

As for lumbermills... a built lumbermill produces as many hammers as a mine, and provided +0.5 health to the city they support. Production cities tend to be polluted, so it's often worthwhile to save two forest tiles for later in the game. A GP-farm without a couple of hills to provide some hammers can also benefit from the benefits lumbermills bring. After Universal Sufferage, commerce cities should replace their remaining forests with cottages.

[QUOTE=VoiceOfUnreason][These numbers are mid game, of course - later in the tech tree Mines/Lumbermills are +3 with railroad, the others +2]

Mines +3 and Lumbermills +3???
I thought mines were only +2 throughout the game and lumbermills stayed at +1 throughout.

without a railroad, a mine is +2. Lumbermills are +1 above and beyond the +1 a forest gives, for a total of +2. Railroads give an additional +1.

I'll save a couple forests on rivers for some lumbermills. Depends on where the city is in relation to that tile, and whether or not I'm working it. Sometimes it's better to chop it and use a different improvement.

I try to keep 4 forests around per city.

That is 2 health + the hammers/food from the forest, lumbermill, and railroad. lateron.