Worked tile selection after city growth

[Celebithil]

Recently I read some posts about Settler factories, and an essential part of such a factory generally consist of using the fact that in the turn your city grows it still obtains the extra shields from the tile the computer (governer?) assigns to the new citizen. What I would like to know is how you can predict which tile will be assigned, and in what way you can influence this decision.

Another, somewhat minor issue, is whether you also get the extra commerce from the new tile.

[Grogs]

If you haven't read the article by RFHolloway in the war academy, you should. It really laid out the Settler factory for me and I was able to build my first one in the last game.

It seems that, by default, the computer assigns the new worker to the highest shield producing tile. I didn't want to tempt fate, so I followed the advice from the article and told the governor to maximize production (without actually turning on the governor.)

At this point, when the city grows, the new citizen will work the highest shield tile in its radius. If 2 or more have the same output, it picks the one with the highest food. Commerce seems to be the 3rd choice. For example, initially my citizen was being assigned to a forest during growth. Changing the governor settings may be able to change this.

In my game, each time the city grew, I had to micromanage the city by taking him off the forest and putting him on a bonus grassland. Once I mined the bonus grassland, the new citizen would automatically pick the BG over the forest. This was useful to me because it meant that even if I forgot to MM the city, it would still produce a settler every 4 turns (although it would waste 2 shields, but I considered that a pretty fair trade-off.)

Sadly, I never paid enough attention to see if I was getting extra commerce during the growth turn. I'd like to know the answer to that myself.

[JMK]

Originally Posted by Celebithil

Another, somewhat minor issue, is whether you also get the extra commerce from the new tile.

Yes you get everything from the tile, the food, the shields and the commerce if any.

[viper275]

Chop down all the forests and avoid mining what you don't need, then put the governor to "Emphasize Production."

For extra commerce, road all the tiles you're using and if you have a choice, use tiles by a river.

[SJ Frank]

I think I have found a test proving that you do NOT get the commerce from the newly grown citizen, here is how:

- start a new game, found your city.
- time the completion of a tech research to the same turn of your city's growth.
- when the tech is researched, click on "big picture", then F1, and look at your city.
- if the city hasn't grown yet, then the tech is researched without benefit of the new citizen, which means that you do not get the commerce from the new citizen (another way to put it: the game handles commerce before growth)

Among other things, this mean that the trick of starving a city down by hiring scientists should work. It can be tested in the same way: when a tech is researched, "big picture" then F1 to check the cities, if the city hasn't starved yet, then you have benefited from the beaker output of the starving scientists.

[JMK]

Originally Posted by SJ Frank

I think I have found a test proving that you do NOT get the commerce from the newly grown citizen, here is how:

- start a new game, found your city.
- time the completion of a tech research to the same turn of your city's growth.
- when the tech is researched, click on "big picture", then F1, and look at your city.
- if the city hasn't grown yet, then the tech is researched without benefit of the new citizen, which means that you do not get the commerce from the new citizen (another way to put it: the game handles commerce before growth).

This seams to be a bit too complicated to me
Let's try another test.
1) start a new game with your capital close to a river.
2) turn your research off, and start building something that takes time (pyramid)
3) do not use your worker.
4) check how much GPT you are doing with one citizen.
5) wait for your city to grow to size 2 (hopefully less than 10 turns) before border expension. (If your city grows to size 2 when border expends your original citizen might be moved to another tile).
6) Check how much Gold you have when you hit size 2.

[Offa]

I don't know about the commerce but I think to make sure of the extra 2 shields on growth you need:

set governor to maximize production, and not food etc.

set governor not to manage moods.

Have at least +3 food. I believe the governor will otherwise assign the new citizen to achieve a surplus of 3 food rather than work the wished for (forest) square.

Please correct me if you know better.

[Grogs]

Originally Posted by Offa

Have at least +3 food. I believe the governor will otherwise assign the new citizen to achieve a surplus of 3 food rather than work the wished for (forest) square.

I think you might be right about this. I was playing some test starts last night with 2 cows, 1 BG, and 1 forest in the initial city radius. Both cows were unmined/unirrigated, so 3 f/1s from each. When the city grew to size 2, it would pick up the second cow every time, no matter what I tried. Once it was working both cows (+4 fpt), it would pick up the forest every time. Once I mined the BG, it would pick that up every time (if available.) This probably isn't an issue for a 4-turn settler factory where you're running at +5 food from the start of the cycle.

Also, related to the 'which tile will they work' question, I was trying to determine if a citizen would pick up one of the outside tiles (not one of the initial 8) if the city grew and expanded on the same turn. My tests seemed to indicate that he wouldn't, but they were by no means exhaustive.

[Celebithil]

I have run some tests as well, and I cannot properly make out what is important. I had a brilliant starting position by the way, on a river with a cow. Also within the 9 tile city limits were a BG and a forest on the river.

First of all, using JMK's setup I showed that you do not get the extra commerce from the extra tile.

Second, if I set the governor to emphasize production and let my worker just sit, the governor would choose the forest (1/2/1) upon growth. If I had however set the governor to emphasize food he would choose the BG (2/1/1).

However, when I let my worker put a road on the BG, the governor would pick that tile pver the forest even when put on emphasize production (of course the BG had added value now with an extra trade).

However, if I had irrigated the cow and put a road on the BG, the governor would once again choose the forest over the BG.

My conclusion is that I don't know why the governor chooses what, but that the amount of surplus food definitely plays a part, just as the governor settings, and also that the governor sometimes prefers extra food and commerce over extra production, even if you want him to emphasize production. (This means that if in a settler factory the governor chooses the wrong tile, you could put a road on it to make it more attractive, even if you never actually get the extra commerce from that tile).

Upon expansion to larger cultural values I notice one nice thing. The governor resets the tiles worked and once again you get the food from the old configuration (and probably also the commerce) but the production from the new. In my example, where my city was size 2 at expansion and worked the cow and the BG (and the worker had improved nothing), I would get +3 food and +4 production for that turn, which is the best of both worlds.

[Gyathaar]

Originally Posted by Offa

I don't know about the commerce but I think to make sure of the extra 2 shields on growth you need:

set governor to maximize production, and not food etc.

set governor not to manage moods.

Have at least +3 food. I believe the governor will otherwise assign the new citizen to achieve a surplus of 3 food rather than work the wished for (forest) square.

Please correct me if you know better.

As far as I experienced in a current SG;
The govenor will place the new citizen on the highest shield tile that will still yield atleast +2 food (not +3), unless no tiles are available to give +2 food (then it will be put on the highest shield tile that will still give +1 food.. or no growth if no tile available that gives +1 food)

[crazyluke2001]

I agree with Gyathaar.

[Grogs]

I did some more testing and I think that the governor has a preference for bonus food resources (wheat, cattle, game, etc.) The 2 fpt assumption holds up if I have no bonuses in my radius I'm not already using. For example, if I have a size 1 city working 1 grassland cow, the governor will pick up a forest when the city grows to size 2 (+2 fpt.) If I have 2 cows in my city radius, the governor seems to always pick the 2nd cow (+4 fpt) over the forest (+2 fpt), no matter what I tell him to emphasize.

@Celebithil: Looks like you're right about the governor reorganizing tiles after expansion. I just had to try a few different city locations to see it.

[TimBentley]

I've been doing some testing and I still don't really understand some of the nuances of the governor. I can say that gold is collected before a city grows or starves. Therefore, if you micromanage every city (which is why you should not do this the entire game), every city should be on emphasize production.

[Tomoyo]

I always thought that gold was collected after growth/starvation, because I heard somewhere that taxmen don't work in starving cities. However, it appears that science is calculated before the growth/starvation, so scientists work.

[LulThyme]

Im not 100%, but almost taht science and gold are the first thing computed.
Thats what allow the wealth to prod trick, and why if you get a science that will be the first thing in your turn.
Then food is processed and last is shields.
So you DO NOT get the commerce from the extra tile from city growth.

[Gyathaar]

Gold and science work before city growth/starvation, but production is done after.

So using taxmen or scientists in a starving town works fine, but using civil engineers wont work (I assume policemen will work for for the gold/science part, but not production)

[bouncelot]

There's a comprehensive analysis of this buried somewhere in the GK2 Training Day Succession Game. Unfortunately, I can't find it at the moment, so I'll quote it from memory:

First, if there's a tile which is superior in food, shields, and gold, it takes that square

First, it looks at a tile taking food, shields, and gold equally. If there's a clear winner, then it goes there.

Then, if there's less than 3 food per turn, it emphasises food over the other two.

Only then does the "emphasise production" or whatever come into play, and it chooses to maximise whichever emphasis is checked.

If it still can't make a choice, it goes for a (pseudo-)random choice.

As I'm quoting from memory, I may be wrong somewhere.

[rschissler]

the governor sometimes prefers extra food and commerce over extra production, even if you want him to emphasize production

I've noticed this too. I feel that the governor should calculate how much food is needed to maintain the current pop of a city (say for example: 24 food for size 12 city), and chose whatever combination of tiles that give the most production and 24 food.

[Renata]

With no preferences set in the governor, my experience is this: If the city is making +3 food or less, it will pick the highest-food tile available on growth. If the city is making +4 food or more, it will pick the highest shields.

Renata