Folks, I've been browsing numerous articles/games since discovering this great repository of knowledge, the plan being to take my rediscovered love for Civ IV to a new level.

Currently I'm slogging through a few games on Warlord to try out individual ideas, and when I get back from an impending holiday I will embark upon a serious attempt to put them all into play (probably stepping back a level and working my way up).

One thing that I've seen a few times, that has confused me. In several posts of advice given on the basics of the game I've read people saying "only work improved tiles".

Is this intended to be taken literally? I can appreciate that you would want to improve all workable tiles (as soon as physically able), and presumably work improved tiles ahead of others (food production permitting), but in the meantime surely it's better to work unimproved tiles than have population sitting around as citizens?

Am I missing something? Is the suggestion that you should pump out workers/settlers (thus holding back population growth) until the workers have improved tiles ready to be worked? What's the benefit of that over allowing natural growth? (assuming that you have the means to keep the growing populace happy and healthy)

Last point, I'm browsing at work - so I can read the forums, but can't get into the war academy etc, please don't diect me there right now ;)

Is the suggestion that you should pump out workers/settlers (thus holding back population growth) until the workers have improved tiles ready to be worked? What's the benefit of that over allowing natural growth?

Exactly. An unimproved forest will add a measly 1 hammer to your settler production, an unimproved grassland/plains tile will change nothing. You might as well give your additional cities a head start (which should ideally have an improved tile to work the instant they're founded).

If working more than 1 unimproved tile (perhaps there's nothing left better than a forest), you might want to consider establishing a whip cycle - work all good tiles all the time, work up to 2 marginal tiles to whip away periodically.

Think like this: you're working unimproved tiles that only marginally help you grow, and add very few hammers/commerce to the city production/commerce output. So why not build a worker instead that will improve the tiles once he's done? I'm guilty too of not doing that often enough. I build enough workers at the start of the game, but as I expand I always find other things to build than workers. The problem is that at one point your new cities will grow/build/research very slowly, as you'll be better off improving the tiles in your older cities who have lots of multiplier buildings. So build a worker in the new city, maybe help him with a chop, and then the city can grow.

Or use the citizens working unimproved tiles for scientist instead. If you don't have a library you can whip them to get it.

You can work forest tiles in some cases, but often it is better to just get a worker to improve the tiles before you city grow.

If you are settling a city with no worker ready to improve tiles around it(and it doesn't have anything improved already) you are probably doing something wrong. Sometimes it is as simple as building that worker that was going to improve the city before the settler(it can road the way to the city while waiting for the settler to arrive).

Working any unimproved tiles without a forest is actually a no, no(obviously working a citizen is even worse though). The options for avoiding this is several. Either you stop growth by building workers/settler, you change the order you build worker/settlers in(more often than not you want workers ready for the settlers and not have to build them afterwards) or you whip! Often you can combine this so you whip a worker when you were growing to fast and hence close to working unimproved tiles.

All the articles in the war academy have a forum eqivalent link, so if you just get that, it should be no problem.

As for what your workers should do it is very often a case of improve food resources -> improve other resources -> (if you don't have any food yet farm a couple grassland, if you still don't have food odds are you shouldn't have settled the city there) -> improve other tiles(so your cities are always working improved tiles, or as close to always) -> chop. As you see due to the last step(chopping), it is very seldom the case that you have too many workers, there should almost always be something to do!

Fantastic stuff, thanks all, yet another basic that I've been overlooking.

I can see the "improved tiles + 2 = whip" scenario being a useful little tool both for worker/improvement discipline, and to encourage me to learn more about the whip/overflow mechanics - at least in the early levels, until I learn more on the technicalities of the game.

To think I used to leave all my workers on auto and just amass wonders/buildings - needless to say, I was in Dan Quayle territory on almost any difficulty setting ;)

Already improved a fair way from that, but still a loooong way to go. This place makes the journey much less daunting though.

You can also assign citizens as specialists once you have the required buildings/civics.

Yeah, Specialists are something I get up and running well - but rarley until late on - which is likely to be another issue with my past strategy. I tended to work on the basis of bringing them in only after my city was working as many tiles as it could and was producting citizens.

Big learning area for me is going to be the semi-micro management of cities, and running specialists off lower populations. Seems alien to me (or used to), but I'm beginning to see the light

It's often a good idea to whip away or use as specialists citizens working unimproved tiles.

Natural growth is kind of useless and hurts on maintenance too if you don't do anything with it ,take for example a grass forest, city eats the 2 food and a single hammer is all you get. I often see people growing a city to 4 because the city'll build the settler faster. If the city works 4 unimproved tiles it still takes forever to build the settler, compare to a city at 2 that works a pastured pig and an irrigated corn, here the settler's done in decent time.

There is a good reason to grow the city to 4 of course, you can now 2 pop whip whatever you're building creating 60 hammers. Or you can keep on working 2 improved tiles while assigning 2 scientists. But on top of my head these are about the only reasons to do so.

It's often a good idea to whip away or use as specialists citizens working unimproved tiles.

Natural growth is kind of useless and hurts on maintenance too if you don't do anything with it ,take for example a grass forest, city eats the 2 food and a single hammer is all you get. I often see people growing a city to 4 because the city'll build the settler faster. If the city works 4 unimproved tiles it still takes forever to build the settler, compare to a city at 2 that works a pastured pig and an irrigated corn, here the settler's done in decent time.

There is a good reason to grow the city to 4 of course, you can now 2 pop whip whatever you're building creating 60 hammers. Or you can keep on working 2 improved tiles while assigning 2 scientists. But on top of my head these are about the only reasons to do so.

You can always use the extra population to work riverside tiles or better yet riverside cottages, that will always offset the maintenance.

But a riverside cottage is an improved tile. Of course you can grow a city on unimproved tiles in anticipation of better things. Those better things should be just around the corner tough otherwise whipping is generally much better imo.

An unimproved river tile often yields an extra hammer & commerce for instance, still not good enough to compete with 60 hammers & grow back or specialists. With unimproved floodplains it becomes a bit better still but whipping becomes better too because of quick regrow.

Mind you i presume a city with a reasonable surplus on food, if you have a city grown to 4 with lots of trouble and it has 2 unimproved goldmines (for some reason) or just 2 hills it'd be madness to whip it to give an extreme example.

Oh, and there's threads about whipping efficiencies, which suggests grassland forests are better than plains/hills mines.

There's nothing wrong with having few workers, as long as you assign them to do the right tasks to make the right improvements...

Once the workers are finished with what they are doing, they will eventually get around to building the more "marginal" tile improvements.

The hammers you save on workers can be used for more pressing needs like Barracks or Axemen.

Oh, and there's threads about whipping efficiencies, which suggests grassland forests are better than plains/hills mines.

Hi Vicawoo,

grass FARMS are better than mines until ~size 10 ... grass forests? :lol:

Cheers,

Raskolnikov

OK: got it, you were suggesting that these threads are :smoke:

Not all unimproved tiles are bad. Some forested hills give 3 hammers, equal to mine in food poor hill. A lake gives 2f&2c, equal to grassland hamlet, decent in early game.

At what point does a plains forest overtake the whip in terms of efficiency? I know it does eventually. Same for a caste workshop (and there may be other reasons one might want to run caste), although of course depending on city specialization you can just run a specialists there instead.

If you're using few workers, lean on special tiles, specialists, and the whip. Don't neglect cottages in all cities forever, but these things can cut down on the need for more workers, or get you more workers :p.

Edit: I forget at what point a plains hill mine becomes more efficient than the whip, but a grassland hill mine *always* is. Of course, efficiency isn't ALWAYS the focus (aka mass troops ASAP, theoretically the last one you'd make would be whipped to save time or something).

At pop 10+ the whip is pretty costly. I'm almost certain a plains forest is better than the whip by then, but that doesn't mean you should be working it.

There's nothing wrong with having few workers, as long as you assign them to do the right tasks to make the right improvements...

Well, there's "few workers" and then there's "your-empire-is-grounding-to-a-halt-while-everyone-sails-past-you few workers". :lol: The problem is that the first one unattended usually leads to the second one.

@MkLh:

if not bad while unimproved... they could be great with some worker turns...

Cheers,

raskolnikov

It's often a good idea to whip away or use as specialists citizens working unimproved tiles.

Natural growth is kind of useless and hurts on maintenance too if you don't do anything with it ,take for example a grass forest, city eats the 2 food and a single hammer is all you get. I often see people growing a city to 4 because the city'll build the settler faster. If the city works 4 unimproved tiles it still takes forever to build the settler, compare to a city at 2 that works a pastured pig and an irrigated corn, here the settler's done in decent time.

There is a good reason to grow the city to 4 of course, you can now 2 pop whip whatever you're building creating 60 hammers. Or you can keep on working 2 improved tiles while assigning 2 scientists. But on top of my head these are about the only reasons to do so.

Isn't trade revenue a function of population, too? And aren't Apostolic Palace votes in part a function of population?

Floodplains for new cities are the only exception in my mind, since you're getting the extra food no matter what.

At what point does a plains forest overtake the whip in terms of efficiency? I know it does eventually. Same for a caste workshop (and there may be other reasons one might want to run caste), although of course depending on city specialization you can just run a specialists there instead.

If you're using few workers, lean on special tiles, specialists, and the whip. Don't neglect cottages in all cities forever, but these things can cut down on the need for more workers, or get you more workers :p.

Edit: I forget at what point a plains hill mine becomes more efficient than the whip, but a grassland hill mine *always* is. Of course, efficiency isn't ALWAYS the focus (aka mass troops ASAP, theoretically the last one you'd make would be whipped to save time or something).

At pop 10+ the whip is pretty costly. I'm almost certain a plains forest is better than the whip by then, but that doesn't mean you should be working it.

Grassland farm is better than a mine up to size 5...

what do I do with the city that I settle late in the early game that has 10 forests in the BFC? I don't want to chop them in anticipation of lumbermills. Is it better to work unimproved tiles for a few hundred years until lumbermills come online, or to chop them down and be less optimal down the road?

@vicawoo, about grassland forest being better than plain hill mine, i seem to remember that thread too, it seems to me though that it's dependent on things like happy cap and food surplus. Have to read up really.

simple example, 4 grassland forest and a plain hill mine, happy cap at 4, i'd feel working 3 forests and the mine > 4 forests and whip at 5 but i'm not sure really. These things tend to get complex soon.

@Codex,
We're talking beginning of the game here, not having most tiles improved when AP comes around is just not so good.

what do I do with the city that I settle late in the early game that has 10 forests in the BFC? I don't want to chop them in anticipation of lumbermills. Is it better to work unimproved tiles for a few hundred years until lumbermills come online, or to chop them down and be less optimal down the road?

Depends how badly you need that city to be doing something useful. If you have a 40 city empire one dud isn't a big deal so you can save it and build NP there (better use of massively forested cities than mills IMO). Personally I'd chop them. Lumbermills and NP are too little too late to make a significant impact on the game.

Grassland farm is better than a mine up to size 5...

And even above size 5, the whip is significantly better if you have things to rush that can be bought with 2 population because you can whip yourself down to population 2 or 3 and then let your city regrow to size 4 where you can whip again at outstanding levels of efficiency.

When you need commerce from the city, let it regrow, but while you are cranking out units (especially units that cost 2 pop each), whip down to your number of food specials and then let it regrow to the point where you want to whip.

It's amazing how much you can produce then.

And even above size 5, the whip is significantly better if you have things to rush that can be bought with 2 population because you can whip yourself down to population 2 or 3 and then let your city regrow to size 4 where you can whip again at outstanding levels of efficiency.

When you need commerce from the city, let it regrow, but while you are cranking out units (especially units that cost 2 pop each), whip down to your number of food specials and then let it regrow to the point where you want to whip.

It's amazing how much you can produce then.

Show me a situation where this outdoes grassland hills or caste/guild workshops, assuming you have one or the other. When we're talking about efficiency, we're talking about average hammers of the period of time you're producing units...at least consuming consistent production. A whip cycle can't compare to working equal food of grassland mines at ANY population, so those are #1 sites for hammers.

Whip is for high food cities without the hammer tiles, or with insufficient hammer tiles so you're not killing people working specials, grass hills, or whatever.

Apparently a plains hill is to whip away @ size 6 also. It's very much an early game or fast-massing-at-expense-of-bit-city type civic.

There are times not to work improved tiles:
1. You are REXing to block. If you have to go balls to wall to get the block it can often mean a good number of turns before you can escort a worker up to your blocking city(ies); this is especially true if you do minimal fog busting and you start getting warriors/archers near then end of your blocking run.
2. During chopfests. One of my preferred methods to get a stable cultural border is to settle two cities towards the AI I intend to not to fight (early) and chop out the Oracle in the third city (with a CoL slingshot, the second city founds a nice religion). Due to time constraints on higher levels, this means that I literally can't wait 4 turns to drop a farm, mine, or whatever while I quickly slash and burn 7 or so forests. Likewise when I'm chop/whipping units (though sometimes buildings/wonders) I find that spending 4 turns getting up a marginal farm is less important than quickly getting in another 20(30) :hammers:.
3. Isolated cities where the boat landing the settler or barb crushing troops couldn't bring a worker.
4. Jungle resource grabbing cities waiting for you to get IW.
5. Farming forests for the NP.

Its rare, but there are times where you literally can't spare the turns to make another worker or to build marginal improvements. There are also times where you need to settle places you can't exploit now to claim long term strategic advantage.

There seems to be confusion between 'is it worth working food-deficit hammer tiles at all' and 'is it better than working an additional grassland farm'.

With a Granary, the conversion rate is roughly 30:hammers: : (10+size):food:

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First the trickier bit, to answer the actual question of 'is it better than another grassland farm?'

For now, I'm assuming we are unconstrained by the happy cap and considering a 1-point whip - pretty much as good as it gets for Slavery.
I'm also assuming that we have a food equilibrium when working the hammer tile and any food saved by not supporting that tile would go towards whipping.

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A grassland Forest feeds itself and requires 30 turns to produce enough hammers to be equivalent to a 1-pop-whip (which I'll use as a standard to simplify things).
A grassland farm gives you a net 30:food: in that time, which translates into more production via the whip below size 20.

Plains Forest: You need to work it 15 turns for 30 :hammers:
Again, working a Grassland Farm instead gives you 30 more :food: in that time period and is superior below size 20.

Note that this doesn't imply all forests are equal - the period length is shorter for the plains forest! In short, below size 20 1:food: whipped > 1:hammers:.

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Grassland Hill: At 1:food: deficit, 10 rounds are needed to produce the 30:hammers: equivalent to a 1-pop whip. A Grassland Farm would result in an additional 20:food:.
Below size 10, a farm for whipping will do more; this is of particular interest to people torn between Slavery and Caste System for workshops equivalent to a grassland hill.

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Plains Hill: 7.5 rounds needed for 30:hammers:, at a total food deficit of 15:food:. In that time period, a grassland farm would result in 22.5 :food: to play with.
At size 12 the grassland farm produces better results, at size 13 and above the plains hill is superior.

*

*****

Some thing many people confuse with this for some reason: 'Is it worth working a food-deficit production tile at all, even if we have no more food-surplus tiles available?'. This one is easy.

Grassland Forests give a hammer at no investment of food, so they're worth growing into, even if they are thoroughly unexciting.

Plains Forests and Mined Plains Hills both convert food into hammers at a rate of 2:hammers: : 1:food:. Below size 6 we shouldn't bother and simply whip.

Grassland Hills give a conversion of 3:hammers: : 1:food:, which is better than anything attainable by the whip.