City and Resource management

IMACIVFAN · Aug 10, 2015

If I have a tile NOT automatically worked on by my governor's appointment, it is originally greyed out. The tile is a plain with food and gold. When I select the tile to over-ride the governor's arrangement, it does turn green but with a lock icon. My question is that: is the tile now being worked on according to my selection?

Another question is that, I have a worker, it has finished a couple of improvements for me which are an Ivory tile and a 2 hammer tile on which I improved a mine(actually the AI was suggesting me to build a trading post :undecide:

). Now, all the luxury resources that are surrounding my capital have been improved, other than building farms on tiles that are not automatically worked by the AI, should I delete the worker to save 1 maintenance costs?

If I am not going to delete the worker, do I build road while I get only a capital and no other cities at this point?

Thanks!
Also, I have got Sargo, the Great General, I intend to build the defense and consume it, where is the best spot, currently, I have the capital and one city which both are not linked up by borders.

beetle · Aug 10, 2015

IMACIVFAN said:
My question is that: is the tile now being worked on according to my selection?

Yes, that is what the green lock indicates.

should I delete the worker to save 1 maintenance costs?

No! Keep him busy improving tiles that you might work in the future. Yes, you can start on roads, but don't get too far ahead with that. You might end up deleting workers at some point, but if you have only one per city, it should be easy keep him useful. In a pinch, start building roads in nearest CS territory -- so if you get the quest the hardest tiles to reach are already built.

I intend to build the defense and consume it, where is the best spot?

You would have to post a screen shot to get good advise, but GG are generally worth the maintenance cost to keep around. But if you want to burn it, make sure it captures some lux or strategic resource that is outside the third ring of one of your cities.

IMACIVFAN · Aug 10, 2015

About the worker, I have further questions. In newly settled city, if I 'accidentally' put a worker to say, build a farm on a tile, which is being selected to work on by the AI, what would be the end result? I mean, the AI clearly has picked the tile for food production, does my added tile improvement of creating a farm create additional food output?

Also, about road that worker can be instructed to build, I am not very clear about how roads work in Civ 5 compared to that in Civ 4. When a worker is put to work on a road, what does it create? I mean, does it build a road on just the tile or it is creating a road which link the tile to the city or it is creating a ROAD NETWORK? The manual doesn't say anything about it?

I tried to place the GG to a strategic location which is a plain tile surrounded by 3 mountain thought it would be the nest spot for building the defense point for preventing possible invasion by Arabs from the west of one of my nearby cities. It was captured and killed by a Barbarian archer, I know I was stupid not escorting the GG by by garrison unit, thought it has its combat abilities LOL

beetle · Aug 10, 2015

Oops, missed one question:

IMACIVFAN said:
actually the AI was suggesting me to build a trading post

Yes, the tool-tip suggestion is wrong most of the time. Vanilla or BNW you pretty much want farms everywhere except dry hills which get mines.

IMACIVFAN said:
...does my added tile improvement of creating a farm create additional food output?

Yes. Farms == 1 or 2 more food. As compared to Civ 4, the result of improving tiles (in terms of yields) are pretty meager. Still, it is important, and luxes and strategic resources even more so.

I am not very clear about how roads work in Civ 5 compared to that in Civ 4.

Unlike Civ4, you pay maintenance on roads but do not need roads to connect luxes or resources. Road connections between your cities (expos) and your capital generate gold. If the population of the expo is greater than the number of road tiles, this will be a net gain. But roads are quite important for movement too, so don't let the expo size stop you.

I tried to place the GG to a strategic location which is a plain tile surrounded by 3 mountain thought it would be the nest spot for building the defense point for preventing possible invasion by Arabs from the west of one of my nearby cities.

That could be good. I forget how it works in Vanilla, but I think citadels have to touch your territory. Was the mountain pass that close to you? Workers can build forts in neutral territory. Just fortifying a unit in the pass can keep the AI away, especially if the unit is on a hill.

It was captured and killed by a Barbarian archer, I know I was stupid not escorting the GG by by garrison unit, thought it has its combat abilities

Live and learn. The game supports reload for a reason! Great People are too valuable to waste IMHO.

IMACIVFAN · Aug 10, 2015

beetle said:
Oops, missed one question:

Yes, the tool-tip suggestion is wrong most of the time. Vanilla or BNW you pretty much want farms everywhere except dry hills which get mines.

So let me get this right, so I build farms for tiles which tagged with apples + hammer + gold, is that right? Actually a further question: if a tile is a mixture of apples, hammer and gold, when I improve it with a worker by building a farm on it, are the hammer and gold wasted in favour of more food?

Yes. Farms == 1 or 2 more food. As compared to Civ 4, the result of improving tiles (in terms of yields) are pretty meager. Still, it is important, and luxes and strategic resources even more so.

Oaky, so say if a luxuries tile has already been improved, and I go over-ride the governor's decision to make AI work on the same tile, the production of that luxuries will be multiplied? I really want to confirm this.

Unlike Civ4, you pay maintenance on roads but do not need roads to connect luxes or resources. Road connections between your cities (expos) and your capital generate gold. If the population of the expo is greater than the number of road tiles, this will be a net gain. But roads are quite important for movement too, so don't let the expo size stop you.

Sorry, I don't get that about roads. How road works in Civ 5, please?

Dushku · Aug 10, 2015

You have a luxury when you improve its tile. Working the tile with a citizen won't change that.

Roads provide a city connection, which increases gold to your empire. You should be able to hover over/click on your gold intake to see both what tile maintenance (roads) are costing you as well as how much money they're making you from city connections. Longer roads means more upkeep. Higher population cities means more gold from city connections.

For what it's worth, you should be expanding new cities well before your workers could be done improving every tile in your capital. Balancing expanding, connecting resources, connecting cities, etc is just what early game Civ is about. Try different things to see which works best for you.

Even after every tile is improved and you have roads, you should still keep some workers. Later in the game, you're going to discover Coal, Aluminum, Oil, and Uranium, which you'll likely need to connect. Also, when you tech into Railroads, you'll want to replace your roads with rails to increase production in your cities by way of city connection.

beetle · Aug 10, 2015

IMACIVFAN said:
If a tile is a mixture of apples, hammer and gold, when I improve it with a worker by building a farm on it, are the hammer and gold wasted in favour of more food?

No, improving a tile always adds yield, it does not convert one yield to another type. The exception is forests and jungles.

Oaky, so say if a luxuries tile has already been improved, and I go over-ride the governor's decision to make AI work on the same tile, the production of that luxuries will be multiplied?

First, I don't think you should be overriding the governor until you have handle on other game aspects. Some luxes (e.g., anything on desert) often not worth working (by your city). All luxes in your territory should still be improved because the first one (of any given type) gives your whole empire happiness, and any duplicates can be traded.

I don't get that about roads. How road works in Civ 5, please?

Your worker builds a road on each hex forming a path between your capital and an expo. You will see the road formed as soon as two touching hexes each have a road in them.

Browd · Aug 10, 2015

IMACIVFAN said:
So let me get this right, so I build farms for tiles which tagged with apples + hammer + gold, is that right? Actually a further question: if a tile is a mixture of apples, hammer and gold, when I improve it with a worker by building a farm on it, are the hammer and gold wasted in favour of more food?

A farm adds either +1 or +2 food to that tile's prior yield. The other base yields of that tile will be unchanged, unless creating the farm will remove a terrain feature (like a forest).

Oaky, so say if a luxuries tile has already been improved, and I go over-ride the governor's decision to make AI work on the same tile, the production of that luxuries will be multiplied? I really want to confirm this.

No. Improving the tile (whether or not you or the city governor assign a citizen to work that tile) connects one instance of that luxury to your trading network, giving you happiness (if it is your only copy) and a tradeable resource (you can trade the luxury with the AI for another luxury that you do not already have (giving you happiness from that new luxury) or for another resource or yield (iron, horses, gold, etc.). Whether or not you have traded away the improved luxury, you can obtain the improved yield from the relevant improvement on that luxury tile (e.g., plantation for incense, mine for gold, camp for Ivory, etc.) by assigning a citizen to work that tile.

Sorry, I don't get that about roads. How road works in Civ 5, please?

A tile that improved with a road contains a single road segment, which costs 1 gpt in maintenance (unlike in Civ IV, roads cost maintenance, but other tile improvements do not). Any set of connected tiles with road segments will form a road. If that road connects your capital to another one of your cities, you form a trade route (in vanilla and Gods & Kings) or a city connection (in Brave New World). If your capital is connected to one of your cities and that city is in turn connected to another one of your cities, both cities have a trade route/city connection. A trade route/city connection will generate a net profit (in gold per turn terms) if the trade route/city connection income exceeds the maintenance cost of the road. Since a, for example, 5-tile road will cost you 5 gpt of maintenance, you want your trade route to provide at least 5 gpt of income to break even. As a rule of thumb, that means a secondary city with a population at least equal to the number of road segments. Here is a link to a War Academy article that breaks down trade route economics (for vanilla, but still works for G&K and BNW): http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=438745.

Of course, roads aren't just about net income -- they also provide faster movement for traveling units, which can be invaluable in a war. And in BNW, they extend the range of trade caravans (for BNW's new trade route mechanic).

IMACIVFAN · Aug 10, 2015

Thanks for all of your input.

But sorry, I got very confused now.

About roads, in Civ 4, I can visually interpret and understand that a worker completes a road network which connects every city. But in Civ 5, this is not the case at least, I don't see the function that a worker has, am I correct?

About tiles, I want to know, are they supposed to be improved, each and every one of them, be there a luxury or not ?(OF COURSE EXCEPT DESERT which is self-explanatory).

If yes to the above, then do I build farms in early game, then replace them by other like trade post?

Also, what is the difference between a worked which costs me maintenance and a citizen? They both work on tiles or they both improve tiles? I can remove/delete a worker, but I can't delete a citizen, so does a citizen contribute food, gold and production just like a worker does?

Sorry folks for the really silly questions because I am a complete new comer to the game!

Browd · Aug 10, 2015

You can give a worker a "route to" command, requiring a road be built between here and there, but I never use it -- automating any worker behavior always seems to turn out badly. So, to build a road from here to there, I start the worker on the first tile, build a road segment, move to the next tile, build a road segment, rinse and repeat until the road is done.

You can work unimproved tiles, but why would you want to do that? Since the only cost of a tile improvement (other than a road or railroad) is worker time to build the improvement, you will always prefer to work improved tiles. Build those farms, mines, plantations, etc. The only popular exception (to my knowledge) is jungle bananas -- most players will leave those unimproved, since a granary in the city boosts the bananas yield by 1 without a plantation (so you get 4 food with a granary) and, when you have a university in that city, the jungle provides 2 science -- 4 food and 2 science is a terrific yield, without having to take ages to chop the jungle (losing 2 food and 2 science).

As for farms vs. trading posts, most will farm (for population growth ==> population = science) and never convert to TPs. Others will convert farms to TPs in the late game, once growth has plateaued (each unit of pop requires incrementally more food to grow to the next pop) for some extra science (Rationalism social policy) as they are looking to bulb Great Scientists for late game techs. Otherwise, TPs are pretty much reserved for puppets.

Ah, citizens vs. workers -- unnecessarily confusing, I guess. Citizens are the population in a given city -- they are available to be assigned to work tiles -- each city automatically works the city center tile (no citizen needed) and any tile inside the city's culture borders in the first 3 rings of tiles around the city (total of 36 potential tiles). Citizens can also be assigned to work specialist slots (certain buildings provide slots for scientists, merchants, engineers and artists). All citizens consume 2 food per turn, so a city with 8 population needs 16 food per turn just to avoid starving (and losing a citizen) and will work 9 tiles and/or specialist slots in total (city center plus 1 tile or specialist slot per citizen).

Workers, on the other hand, are non-military units that must be built or bought, are not limited to one city. and do not consume food, but do cost unit maintenance (initially 1 gpt in the early game, rising as the eras and game turns advance to much more substantial sums). All workers can do is create tile improvements (including road and railroad segments). General rule of thumb (and just a rule of thumb) is 1 (or slightly more than 1) worker per city. Efficient use of workers generally dictates that you improve extra tiles in one city (well beyond that city's current population, so newly born citizens can work improved tiles as soon as they are born) before moving the worker to a new city (mostly because worker travel time between cities is wasteful -- better to sick around one city to improve extra tiles than burn a lot of turns traveling).

Plumfairy · Aug 10, 2015

IMACIVFAN said:
About tiles, I want to know, are they supposed to be improved, each and every one of them, be there a luxury or not ?(OF COURSE EXCEPT DESERT which is self-explanatory).

It depends on the population of the city. You want to improve enough tiles so that every tile that a city works is improved in some fashion. Cities can work one tile or specialist slot per population point. Usually you want to work all available scientist specialist slots, if possible. Also, if a city doesn't have much production, I'll often work engineer specialist slots as well.

If yes to the above, then do I build farms in early game, then replace them by other like trade post?

Pretty much the only time I replace tile improvements is when I've discovered a new strategic resource. (e.g. coal, uranium, etc) BTW, I usually build farms on all tiles that have access to fresh water & trade posts and/or mines on all tiles that don't have fresh water. (Obviously, if a city doesn't have any fresh water, I'll often build a couple farms w/out fresh water access.)

Also, what is the difference between a worked which costs me maintenance and a citizen? They both work on tiles or they both improve tiles? I can remove/delete a worker, but I can't delete a citizen, so does a citizen contribute food, gold and production just like a worker does?

A worker is a unit, which means he appears on the map, moves around, costs maintenance, and can be captured if an enemy moves on top of him. His only purpose is to build tile improvements. Note that workers don't directly contribute food, gold, production, or anything else. (Actually, each one costs you one or two gold every turn, just like all units.) They just improve tiles.

Citizens, on the other hand, represent your cities' population. You can assign each citizen to work either a tile or a specialist slot. Citizens don't cost you any gold... and they can generate gold if you assign them to work a tile that yields gold or a merchant specialist slot. Citizens do cost you unhappiness, though. Each citizen (i.e. each population point of a city) increases your unhappiness by 1.

joncnunn · Aug 10, 2015

IMACIVFAN said:
Another question is that, I have a worker, it has finished a couple of improvements for me which are an Ivory tile and a 2 hammer tile on which I improved a mine(actually the AI was suggesting me to build a trading post ). Now, all the luxury resources that are surrounding my capital have been improved, other than building farms on tiles that are not automatically worked by the AI, should I delete the worker to save 1 maintenance costs?

If I am not going to delete the worker, do I build road while I get only a capital and no other cities at this point?

Ignore improvement recommendations. It's does static analysis. (If your Gold Per Turn drops to low, it recommends trading posts everywhere. One gold per turn higher and it recommends them nowhere [unless you are running a Golden Age at the moment] )

No, don't delete the unit.
No, don't build a road to nowhere, you probably can't afford the maintenance cost of a road yet if you only have one city.
Instead, either build the next highest priority for your capital to work after it has grown or alternatively if you are building a settler, you might want to send the worker to improve the first tile the city is going to work. (But only if you have a military unit near there.)

dasaard200 · Aug 10, 2015

As for road building, usually one will have a 2nd city(or more) off yonderways; and the decision to go "Road Warrior", for me, when I am between population growths and have built up the 'good' tiles my citizens CAN work at that time; and if I've got 3+ workers with nothing else to do .

Call them W1, W2, W3, as most road tiles take 3 turns to complete; others more .

BIG HINT: Do not automate workers; EVER !!

Method: A 'conga line' of workers, moving 1 tile per turn, doing move-and-build each turn until you reach your destination . W1 starts the road on Tile1 on T1, with W2,3 ready to follow W1 as it moves forward, tile-by-tile . Works for railroads, too .

Also send an escort to make sure that the road GETS where it is going; 3 workers are a tempting target for barbs .

From T3 and beyond, you're FINISHING 1 road tile per turn !

IMACIVFAN · Aug 10, 2015

Browd said:
You can give a worker a "route to" command, requiring a road be built between here and there, but I never use it -- automating any worker behavior always seems to turn out badly. So, to build a road from here to there, I start the worker on the first tile, build a road segment, move to the next tile, build a road segment, rinse and repeat until the road is done.

You can work unimproved tiles, but why would you want to do that? Since the only cost of a tile improvement (other than a road or railroad) is worker time to build the improvement, you will always prefer to work improved tiles. Build those farms, mines, plantations, etc. The only popular exception (to my knowledge) is jungle bananas -- most players will leave those unimproved, since a granary in the city boosts the bananas yield by 1 without a plantation (so you get 4 food with a granary) and, when you have a university in that city, the jungle provides 2 science -- 4 food and 2 science is a terrific yield, without having to take ages to chop the jungle (losing 2 food and 2 science).

As for farms vs. trading posts, most will farm (for population growth ==> population = science) and never convert to TPs. Others will convert farms to TPs in the late game, once growth has plateaued (each unit of pop requires incrementally more food to grow to the next pop) for some extra science (Rationalism social policy) as they are looking to bulb Great Scientists for late game techs. Otherwise, TPs are pretty much reserved for puppets.

Ah, citizens vs. workers -- unnecessarily confusing, I guess. Citizens are the population in a given city -- they are available to be assigned to work tiles -- each city automatically works the city center tile (no citizen needed) and any tile inside the city's culture borders in the first 3 rings of tiles around the city (total of 36 potential tiles). Citizens can also be assigned to work specialist slots (certain buildings provide slots for scientists, merchants, engineers and artists). All citizens consume 2 food per turn, so a city with 8 population needs 16 food per turn just to avoid starving (and losing a citizen) and will work 9 tiles and/or specialist slots in total (city center plus 1 tile or specialist slot per citizen).

Workers, on the other hand, are non-military units that must be built or bought, are not limited to one city. and do not consume food, but do cost unit maintenance (initially 1 gpt in the early game, rising as the eras and game turns advance to much more substantial sums). All workers can do is create tile improvements (including road and railroad segments). General rule of thumb (and just a rule of thumb) is 1 (or slightly more than 1) worker per city. Efficient use of workers generally dictates that you improve extra tiles in one city (well beyond that city's current population, so newly born citizens can work improved tiles as soon as they are born) before moving the worker to a new city (mostly because worker travel time between cities is wasteful -- better to sick around one city to improve extra tiles than burn a lot of turns traveling).

Thanks for your detailed explanation, and while I was reading it, a slightly off-topic comments, why all these are not documented? Makes me slightly frustrated.

Okay, it's very good to know about the difference between citizen and workers. So, that is to say, when we reverse our thinking process, if a scenario turns ups that a citizen is dead, the worker can work in place of the dead citizen correct?

And excuse me for going slightly deeper technically, for a newly founded city, there are only 1 citizen, say I transfer a worker to this nearby city and let him work on one of the 'vacant' tile, the preferred improvement would be creating a farm, even if there is a luxury in range, is that so? (for early game of course)

And about TP, if I automate a worker, he builds them all over the place. So I should never use automated worker?

Amrunril · Aug 11, 2015

IMACIVFAN said:
Okay, it's very good to know about the difference between citizen and workers. So, that is to say, when we reverse our thinking process, if a scenario turns ups that a citizen is dead, the worker can work in place of the dead citizen correct?

No, workers can only ever construct tile improvements, improving the tiles' yields when worked by citizens. They cannot themselves work tiles under any circumstances.

IMACIVFAN said:
And excuse me for going slightly deeper technically, for a newly founded city, there are only 1 citizen, say I transfer a worker to this nearby city and let him work on one of the 'vacant' tile, the preferred improvement would be creating a farm, even if there is a luxury in range, is that so? (for early game of course)

I'm not entirely sure what the reasoning behind this question is. Just to be clear (apologies if I'm being repetitive), having a worker unit constructing an improvement on a tile doesn't cause that tile to be worked by the city. It only improves the tile's yield (once the improvement is complete) if a citizen is assigned to work that tile in the city management screen.

In general, you should improve tiles with resources first, as these are the best tiles for the city to work (and improvements don't do anything until their tiles are being worked by citizens). Luxury resources will often take precedence over other resource tiles because improving them can provide happiness in addition to increasing tile yields. Farms are important, but they're rarely going to be your very best tiles (unless they're on wheat), so in general they can wait until you have a few resource tiles improved.

IMACIVFAN said:
And about TP, if I automate a worker, he builds them all over the place. So I should never use automated worker?

This is essentially correct. Automating workers can save you a bit of time, but the results will be decidedly non-optimal. If you care about this, and it definitely sounds like you do, ordering your workers manually is always the way to go (The same is true of assigning citizens to tiles/specialist slots in the city management screen, though to a somewhat lesser extent).

IMACIVFAN · Aug 11, 2015

Ok, let me go and play it around for a few times, and ask other questions when I still get stuck with things.

Thanks a million!

IMACIVFAN · Aug 11, 2015

I followed what you folks taught me and got a fairly good economy.

Then I invaded the Egyptians. I knocked down one of their cities in the BC era without the use of siege units. He asked for peace I signed it, then I broke it LOL but no luck on the second time.

Then the Persian declared war on me! Took the cities I took from the Egyptian, no joy. Fought really hard.

Overall, I don't have the feeling of being cheated by the AI , level's set at Prince.

Civ 5 is great!

reddishrecue · Aug 12, 2015

That's great that you got to enjoy civ 5 because of the victory that you achieved. Some easier levels could become really dull sometimes so moving up a couple of levels could make things a bit more interesting since there's a greater challenge there.

IMACIVFAN · Aug 14, 2015

I was playing against AI last night. I checked the city details and found food production was 0, why that happened? Had I not checked I would not have discovered that. How do I prevent that?

beetle · Aug 14, 2015

IMACIVFAN said:
How do I prevent that?

That is the problem with locking tiles -- you have to be very disciplined. It is much safer (and easier and less time consuming) to use only the governors and then mostly only the default focus. You will only be losing a trivial number of hammers. There are so many other aspects of learning the game that need your time and attention...

City and Resource management

Chieftain

Deity

Chieftain

Deity

Chieftain

Prince

Deity

Dilettante

Chieftain

Dilettante

Prince

Senior Java Wizard

Prince

Chieftain

Emperor

Chieftain

Chieftain

Some dude on civfans

Chieftain

Deity

Similar threads