Which tiles to work? :(

Chibi88

Chieftain
Joined
Jun 1, 2014
Messages
15
I personally manage my city tiles manually because I like micro managing and I want to make use of the so called "extra hammer trick"

Unfortunately I have too many options and I don't really know which tile to work and what is the "best" tile to work early / midgame / endgame

For example:

I settle a City and I got like

2 Hills

2 Grassland

1 Sheep

1 Hammer 1 Food tile

So what is the best choice in general early on? On 1 pop I normally go for 2 food tile but I don't really know which tile to work if I reach 2 pop. Hills would be not a good idea because it would stagnete my citiy. I have the choice between the sheep and the grassland tile. 1 food 1 hammer vs 2 food. What would you take? Is there a general advise?
 
stagnating may be good if you want a city to convert to your religion (with pressure) asap and theres no pantheon majority (e.g. you've built a city after the religion was founded)

imo 1 food is better than 1 hammer, unless you build something important. all in all its too dependent on current situation so i think no general advice can be given here.
 
I don't think of any situation where hammers are that important except wonders. :o

But then: I don't want to wait forever when building units / buildings.
 
I don't think there is a 'best' strategy to working tiles. It depends on what is going on at the time. If someone has DOWed you then it's maximum production to get some units out asap, the same for a possibly contested wonder.

This is what I do:

Early(unimproved)
Wheat, cattle, deer(with granary), sheep, hill

Early(improved)
Fish(with lighthouse), Wheat, then cattle, deer, mines

Midgame
A balance between and production keeping growth to a 10turn minimum if possible, of course university/schools slots are worked sacrificing production over food. If faith is in abundance then I faith rush Big Ben otherwise it's built in the highest production city whilst(usually) the World's Fair is going on with maximum production as I don't want that going.

Endgame
All specialists worked, especially if Freedom is chosen with a a balance between and production keeping growth to a 10turn minimum. When Hospitals are built then its 7turns minimum, and 5turns when Medical labs are built.

WLTK
Unless there is something pressing it's maximum food in every city that is in WLTK day.

Consider my first successful Immortal SV as Spain @ t302, which isn't to good. Granted the dirt was poor, but it was saved by KSM surrounded by grassland, river grassland, 3 hills, 1 cattle, and 1 horses. What wold you have done with this city? On reflection I should've built the NC (planting any GS on non-riverside grassland) in there and worked those 4 food tiles until a possible contested wonder came along to build.
 
So you prefer Sheep over 2 food grasland?

Personally I would go for two food. I hate sheep. Such a troll resource. Too many games as the Inca where a sheep swarm river hill with 3 mountain tiles turn what could be an absolutely amazing terrace farm into a much more worthless tile. :mad:
 
So you prefer Sheep over 2 food grasland?

As a general rule, any tile with bonus resource is stronger than one without, so yes. If you are really stuck, toggle through the various governor focus, to see what the game suggests. Early game, they might all be the same anyway! When you find a set you like, then lock down the tiles and set the focus to production (to make use of the so called "extra hammer trick").
 
The great thing about this game is how you must always choose one good thing for another. Try to create a priority list for yourself based on your civ, what your doing at the time, and how you want to win.

Right at the beginning you have 3 types of resources generally, food, production, and gold. Generally I prioritize them in that order. So to me a 3 food, 1 hammer is more valuable than a 2 food, 2 hammer tile. Gold is significantly worse to me early. Most likely valued at 2-3 times worse than a food or hammer.

Culture, science, faith, and sometimes happiness can come into play later. Your going to have to try and prioritize what you value more or less. You try and go for tiles that offer more overall net value but take into account the resources most valuable to how your playing. Food, production, and science are generally highest priority. But to be the best player is to understand when its a good idea to adapt or push certain objectives.

Sometimes you make temporary changes to accomplish certain goals. If I have a good gold tile, I may use it temporarily if I'm close to purchasing a settler for instance. It may slow my growth but that's better than going stagnant during settler production. Sometimes you need more hammers in midgame for war, wonders, or anything you need asap. Sure you hurt your growth a little but what good is growth if your capital is captured?

Also when your roughly at 80% done with the game food is going to get significantly worse for you, as each population will have less impact on the game. This keeps increasing till the final stages of the game, where you might go stagnant across the whole civilization if you can work better tiles. The point at which to slow down/stop growth just comes from experience.
 
The great thing about this game is how you must always choose one good thing for another. Try to create a priority list for yourself based on your civ, what your doing at the time, and how you want to win.

Right at the beginning you have 3 types of resources generally, food, production, and gold. Generally I prioritize them in that order. So to me a 3 food, 1 hammer is more valuable than a 2 food, 2 hammer tile. Gold is significantly worse to me early. Most likely valued at 2-3 times worse than a food or hammer.

Culture, science, faith, and sometimes happiness can come into play later. Your going to have to try and prioritize what you value more or less. You try and go for tiles that offer more overall net value but take into account the resources most valuable to how your playing. Food, production, and science are generally highest priority. But to be the best player is to understand when its a good idea to adapt or push certain objectives.

Sometimes you make temporary changes to accomplish certain goals. If I have a good gold tile, I may use it temporarily if I'm close to purchasing a settler for instance. It may slow my growth but that's better than going stagnant during settler production. Sometimes you need more hammers in midgame for war, wonders, or anything you need asap. Sure you hurt your growth a little but what good is growth if your capital is captured?

Also when your roughly at 80% done with the game food is going to get significantly worse for you, as each population will have less impact on the game. This keeps increasing till the final stages of the game, where you might go stagnant across the whole civilization if you can work better tiles. The point at which to slow down/stop growth just comes from experience.
 
As a general rule, any tile with bonus resource is stronger than one without, so yes. If you are really stuck, toggle through the various governor focus, to see what the game suggests. Early game, they might all be the same anyway! When you find a set you like, then lock down the tiles and set the focus to production (to make use of the so called "extra hammer trick").

I'm wondering. Isn't growing more important than 2 hammers early on except rushing wonders? If I switch between 2 food grassland and a sheep tile I see that the sheep tile often takes 2-4 turns longer to grow.
 
Depends on context. The decision is not always so clear-cut.

For example, if my choice is a 2-food grasslands tile and a 1-food 2-hammer sheep tile, and I'm working on finishing my granary, I will check growth differential. Perhaps working the grassland tile still means my next citizen is in 14 turns (e.g., I'm stuck with a bunch of 2 food tiles), and the granary is 12 turns away (60 hammers with a 5-hammer start = 12 turns). In that case, working the sheep tile means I get the granary in 9 turns (7 hammers) and time to next citizen might be 20+ turns. In those cases, I will likely switch to production focus (maybe that picks up a 2-hammer hill, shortening granary to about 7 turns) and bang out the granary ASAP and then switch back to food tiles. At that point, I may have enough food such that time to next citizen is down to 8 turns, meaning I lost 1 turn on my next population point by working the sheep, while finishing my granary 5 turns earlier, allowing me to start building something else (e.g., a worker to improve those dreadful 2-food tiles).
 
So you prefer Sheep over 2 food grasland?
Forgot that, although I do prefer the sheep over unimproved grassland. Unless growth would be very slow. Of course I'm going to be improving those tile(s) sharpish, especially if they're next to a river.

Building settlers
This is a weird one as deer(with granary) seems to give more hammers than an unimproved hill. Here I try for the fastest turn time rush-buying a hill or deer to see if I can shave a turn off. I'm sure there are other 'weird' tiles but can't remember exactly.
 
Building settlers
This is a weird one as deer(with granary) seems to give more hammers than an unimproved hill. Here I try for the fastest turn time rush-buying a hill or deer to see if I can shave a turn off. I'm sure there are other 'weird' tiles but can't remember exactly.

I remember somewhere saying that while building settlers the extra food in city is converted to hammers on 2:1 ratio or something like 5 food -> 3 hammers. that being said, deer with granary gives 3f1h, and unimproved hill is 2h. if you factor in the fact that a citizen eats 2 food, then deer+granary is 1f1h, unimproved hill is -2f2h, and unemployed citizen is -1f1h
 
if you factor in the fact that a citizen eats 2 food, then deer+granary is 1f1h, unimproved hill is -2f2h, and unemployed citizen is -1f1h

That is the formula most of the time (which is why that sheep tile is usually better than unimproved grassland or hill). But when building settlers, the city will not starve down (which seems counter intuitive to me, especially since food should equal hammers when build settlers, but whatever) so all hills (or, later, all mines) should be okay for building settlers.
 
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