Which Great Improvement on which tile?

It would seem almost impossible to mess this up too badly. The decision should just be one between a single hammer or food, but:

Ways to mess up an Academy's location

- Planting somewhere that requires 3+ turns moving. Every turn you don't settle (and work) that Academy costs ~15beakers and ~2gold. Settle close to home. Same turn is best. (Rare exception: it is ok to walk to your NC/Obs city if your GSci spawns elsewhere - just walk quickly).

- Planting on a resource when you are working unimproved tiles. I've seen this multiple times in LPs. Don't do that. Plant to save those (clearly unavailable) worker turns.

- Planting on a hill because your city is "low production". That would be backwards ...

- Planting (anywhere) after turn 150. This is almost certainly too late. Bulb that Thomas Edison. Edit: "After entering the Industrial Era" is probably a better rule of thumb than "after t150".

Browd said:

GP tile improvement connects the horses (in fact, will connect any strategic resource) for trading purposes and for use with units that require that resource.

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WHOA! Really?! That's so cool ... learn something new every day. Yeah, I can see going horses, especially as Babylon.

Strategic ressources at first. Then no fresh water grassland. Then cattle or wheat. Then plains. Then another city.

I plant manyfactories on hills.

brasaelal said:

I'm sorry, but isn't placing great improvement on resources kind of waste of your best tiles?

Seems to me that the best tiles to do that are grassland or plains with no fresh water, because around modern era you'll be assigning specialists on buildings for lack of good tiles anyway.

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This is exactly what i do too.

Olodune said:

Ways to mess up an Academy's location: Planting on a hill because your city is "low production". That would be backwards...

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I am less certain on the others, but that's a good one!

Memoryjar said:

I plant manyfactories on hills.

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The AI does this too -- which makes me suspicious! Does manufactory on hill get any bonus production? If you know you will be working the hill anyway, it seems okay, but I would plant the GE on grassland (like any other GP). Is farmed grassland + manufactory hill > manufactory grassland + mined hill? The second combo provides more flexibility. The GE (any GP really) on non-freshwater grassland is a no-compromise tile you can (and will) always work.

I have GE on low level, thanks to wonders GE point or Pisa. Or if I went into Liberty. Sometimes with Liberty finisher I settle a GE to boost my production (GS is my first pick, then prophet is religion is available, amiral if I'm on islands/continents, then GE). In this case, it's on an hill, I'll work and, if possible not improve with a mine or jungle hill.
A mine is +1 production, + 1 with chemistry, +1 with five-year plan. A manufactories +4, +1 with chemistry, + 4 with New Deal. In late game, I can settle a manufactories in an unproved hill with coal or alu to connect it.
When comes Pisa, you're near T130 to 150. Rushing Sistine or else is 900 free hammers (for a 20 pop city) in one shot plus overflow. A manyfactories is something like (T140 to T260) between 550 to 900 free hammers for stuffs (+ bonus from workshops, factories, nuclear/solar plants, german UA). Even with Space procurement, you'll need to build one or two spaceships parts. So it can make it. And for it clearly becomes rentable since Liberty finisher.

Farm grassland are for GS and Prophets. Hard to have plenty non freshwater grasslands to settle GS, Prophets AND GE.

People settle manufactories? Those are UP something serious.

tetley said:

People settle manufactories? Those are UP something serious.

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There is a gameplay that revolves around settling manufactories. Combined with New Deal in Freedom, you can centralize production in one city (with all XP buildings) so you can pump out units at 1 per turn. Its great for domination.

Is this like a Deity advanced start domination-only game?

tetley said:

People settle manufactories? Those are UP something serious.

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Manufactories are amazing. I make manufactories probably 80% of the time as opposed to the one shot short term wonder snatch.

The manufactory increases your production quite well all game long. It's great to give to a low production city or a city on the coast that can make boats or just pooling mass production in your cap.

If you ever go to war you will be thanking yourself for the extra production.

Takes around 100turns for a manufactory to break even with rushbuying a renaissance wonder. So yeah...

I'd put them down in late game - if it doesn't make citizens starve! Anything before that, build wonder.

I only use GE for manufactory if there's no good wonder available at the moment or within few turns.

Otherwise, I plant manufactories until modern era. If a GE is born after modern era, I hold them until a wonder is available.

JeSuisNapoleon said:

You really only need to make hard choices as Babylon.

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I stumbled upon this thread this evening while playing Babylon (Immortal). It's a great thread and there's some good advice here, but I've got a dilemma that I'd love to hear input on. As has been stated, there aren't any hard rules and placement can be situationally dependent. I did save the screen shot, but am unsure how to post it here (I'm on a Mac that always plays fullscreen).

The scenario is this: Early game, I step on a hut that gave me writing (lucky me. Because it is turn 10, I'm dropping everything and going after GL (well, I will finish my worker, as GL shouldn't go before turn 35 and I should be able to nail it around 30).

My inner ring is: stone, cotton, stone, grass-river, hill, 2 dry grass. I have a cow in the 2nd and 3rd rings, and several more grass-river tiles, another stone in 2nd ring, marble in 3rd ring, and 3-4 more mountains (yes, I'm going after Mausoleum, building quarries ASAP, and praying I can get stone circle pantheon). If I can build GL and Mausoleum, I'm going to gamble and go for Oracle for what would be an absolutely epic start (only bad part is there are no mountains anywhere in sight). Those are going to be some very sexy quarries if I pull this off.

So where to put my ancient scientist? Obviously I'm not going to put it on the stones or cotton. I could put it on the plain grass, but I'm going after wonders. I put it on the hill. I know I'll have no food issues (after my early wonder-binge is over) given all of the 3-4 food tiles available and I REALLY want to be a wonder-monger for a change.

One other angle that hasn't been mentioned here. It is very early in the game and there is already plenty of barbarian activity (I play random settings and this looks like a raging mess). I've got to protect that academy at all costs. Putting it on a hill makes it so any non-horse barbarian has to take an extra turn to climb my hilltop before razing, giving me an extra turn to blast him or move a unit onto the hill for protection. That extra turn can mean a lot this early in the game, when I only have a wandering warrior and scout.

Thoughts?

Also, thinking ahead, I'd normally go for Freedom Ideology later on (for SV), but if I recall, I can maximize those quarries better with some other tenets in other Ideos. Any suggestions here?

Update: I got all 3 wonders AND Stone Circles (stepped on another lucky hut at turn 21). Things are looking great, right? Ahem…I settled Babylon on a riverside hill. Forgot to check to see if it was on grassland or plains…..yeah, can't build stoneworks on plains. My super-sexy quarries are now just moderately attractive.

Further Update: Morocco is down on the Southern end of a 4-civ continent. They got Desert Folklore, Petra, and a couple of the religious wonders. When 4 missionaries showed up on Babylon's front door, I DoW'd him and captured all 4 (I had pagodas and really didn't need an early holy war). I hope my walls and Xbows hold up.

Planting manufactories is a terrible, terrible idea without New Deal, a manufactory's worth effectively +3 hammers per turn w/o modifiers early b/c you have to sacrifice 1 mine and if you go Order it's even worse. On flat land it's essentially -1/2 food + 4 hammers, no thank you. I'll rather rush that wonder. GP improvements (except maybe early academies) are honestly so much worse than having great person working in your cap back in Civ4 it's not worth it.

Well, I somewhat agree about the manufactories : rushed wonders are better. If your behind and there are no wonders then a manufactory might be a good way to boost production. Your gonna need some heavy production to build the tanks needed to get those wonders back.

but I think turning a prophet into a holy site has some merit. Everything is situational.