How many food tiles does a city actually need?

In the past I was playing a lot like the aerly Civ games where you would just farm all the tiles that weren't mineable, but in Civ V BNW, you have so many different resources
that you need to balance some..

So how many farms do you actually need?
Do you convert some to trading posts or even forts at some point in the later game stages?

You also get many tiles which give both food and hammers, like horses and stone.

And then there is the consideration that one food caravan equals to one very good food tile, while a food cargo ship gives even more.

For example, when you have a city in a massive jungle and manage to get that mountain right next to you, how far can you go in order to save those jungles for science?

Let's say you are happy to have 28 pop at year 1900 -> how many actual farms would it require for you to get there?

I think I have been over-farming in my games and that caravans, money and production tiles could be better sometimes. What are your thoughts?

A lot depends upon weather you are talking about growing your capital vs a non capital vs puppets:

If it's your capital, I'd farm every single fresh water tile (that didn't have a resource)

Puppets: Trade post everything

But if the city isn't your capital nor a puppet, I'm likely to trade post flat grassland with fresh water if there's enough other food tiles.

In other cases, the non capital can be so food poor as to cause you to cash buy a flat grassland forest that doesn't have fresh water to chop & farm even before fertilizer to get the city able to work another gem mine.

(My starting cities are in an area that the Incas would love in my current game)

Your core cities: Farm everywhere. (I only ever build trade post on non-river flat jungles)
Your puppets: Trade post everywhere. (actually you want to make sure they work no farm)

Long ago when I started CIV V I had my old CIV IV habit of counting every food available and balancing them out, but now you can just keep growing and make all your core cities actually better at everything.

Hmm, what about France's Chateaus then? Would you be inclined to limit the amount of these for farms, or the other way around?

TurboJ said:

Hmm, what about France's Chateaus then? Would you be inclined to limit the amount of these for farms, or the other way around?

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I think everything above was assuming you weren't playing France / Polynesia / Inca / Morocco who all have a unique improvement.

France & Polynesia tend to both want to build as many of their UI as possible.

Incas & Morocco also tend to prefer their UI to the standard farm.

Tedious nit-pick: you forgot the Dutch.

anthropophage said:

Tedious nit-pick: you forgot the Dutch.

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Oh yeah, but in my first game as the Dutch there was neither marsh nor flood plains anywhere near me.

Don't make trade posts. Farms make your cities bigger, the bigger your city is the more money it generates with city connections. There for you get money from a farm as well as all the other benefits of a larger population such as science and the ability to work more hammer centric tiles without starving.

I would only make trade posts if I was growing beyond my maximum happiness limits.

Erneiz Hyde said:

Your core cities: Farm everywhere. (I only ever build trade post on non-river flat jungles)
Your puppets: Trade post everywhere. (actually you want to make sure they work no farm)

Long ago when I started CIV V I had my old CIV IV habit of counting every food available and balancing them out, but now you can just keep growing and make all your core cities actually better at everything.

Click to expand...

I miss that, it was fun to see a city location, plan out your long-term goal for it on a calculator, and then go to town. Civ5 city management is easy: farms everywhere, food no matter what.

So basically you build all farms unless it's jungle?

So then what about actually improving bananas early - that would mean more food but -2 science from university would be lost.

And when you get hills on a river, I always strive to farm those as well, but sometimes you have no other spots for mines... If you play on liberty and have many workers, you might actually change the tile improvements later on. At least I think that could be beneficial sometimes.

Those are all trade-offs you have to consider. I will usually farm riverside hills, unless, as you note, there are no other production tiles, in which case mine. I never/rarely improve bananas, as the 4 food (with granary) is enough and I want the beakers post-university. But, if the city is truly food starved, then I might plantation the bananas.