Are forests actually of any use?

StanVanDamn

Chieftain
Joined
Oct 20, 2004
Messages
5
Is it just best to get rd of them when building around a city?

Also, imagine a city is surrounded with grassland. Wouldn't it be best to mine every square as there is still 2 food in every square for the city radius to be manned in every square and you are also getting plenty of shields to. Or is it best to irriagte them all, get a huge city and use the massive population and change them to tax collectors?

Lol sorry if thats confusing for you!
 
StanVanDamn said:
Is it just best to get rd of them when building around a city?

Also, imagine a city is surrounded with grassland. Wouldn't it be best to mine every square as there is still 2 food in every square for the city radius to be manned in every square and you are also getting plenty of shields to. Or is it best to irriagte them all, get a huge city and use the massive population and change them to tax collectors?

Lol sorry if thats confusing for you!

They are actually *very* useful. :) Yep, I just cut them all down. I get 10 shields towards the city that works it and I get grassland (maybe even bonus grassland) underneath. :) Same goes for jungle and marsh, except for the 10 shield bonus, but grassland is always nice to have.
 
Well, I think forests can be useful in the early game if you micromanage. But after getting rails and hospitals, I'm 99% sure they are useless and should be cleared. EXCEPT ON TUNDRA! Always plant trees on tundra and road them.
 
Forest near a total grassland city are good. They provide production for the city. Especially in the early time in the game but are still somewhat useful later on
 
Forests are onlny good for absorbing global warming after rails. Some peopl like to keep them on tundra for the defensive bonus, but I don't like having forest where the AI can potentially land.

I usually don't irrigate and have everyone be tax collectors because it produces so much pollution, as well as really really bad production.
 
For mining or irrigation, I guess the best use would be to change it at certain times - early on, under despotism, grassland without resources gives no bonus when irrigated, but the mines do.

With other forms of government, I would be tempted to irrigate for rapid growth. Although I'm a specialist fan, and a fan of large pops, these things probably aren't the best strategies, so towards the end it might be best to start mining grassland instead.

Constantly chaning wastes worker time though - I only tend to have lots of workers towards the end of the game.

And of course, it's nice to be able to produce a bit more than needed for pop-stability, in case you lose pop through starvation, bombardment or whatever...
 
forests are certainly worth roading and working. but later in the game i chop down my forests and mine them. i guess the difference is the bonus railroads give.
 
Forrests are good to have on grassland without the shield bonsus. For example, cut down a forrest, check to see if that tile is a bonsus grassland and then reforrest if it is not a bonsus grassland.

Forrests give -1food but +1 shield. Mined bonsus grassland give the same number of shields as forrested grassland.

At your desired city size, you want zero food extra and as many shields as you can get. Where your city is on all grassland, forrests boost shield production which may mean finishing a unit one turn earlier.
 
Cracker wrote a terrific article a long time ago, which you can read here. It may be a little dated, but remains an excellent tutorial on forestry.
 
StanVanDamn said:
Is it just best to get rd of them when building around a city?

Also, imagine a city is surrounded with grassland. Wouldn't it be best to mine every square as there is still 2 food in every square for the city radius to be manned in every square and you are also getting plenty of shields to. Or is it best to irriagte them all, get a huge city and use the massive population and change them to tax collectors?

Lol sorry if thats confusing for you!
If you want production forests give you more than non bonus mined grassland (until RR).

Also in tundra, it is preferable to have forest.
 
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