Grassland or Plains? Farm on hills or mine on hills?

revelation216 · Aug 3, 2014

Before any techs:

Grassland = :c5food:

Plains =

Mine on hills = :c5production:

Farm on hills = : :c5production:

What's best and why?

Let me know if I have any of those wrong btw!

Redaxe · Aug 3, 2014

It's generally agreed amongst the high-end players that maximising food earlier is better as the faster you grow your capital the earlier you will win the game. So start with farms, however I try not to neglect production too much. These tiles can be the best for growing quickly and also providing some production, deer/camps with granary, wheat on plains with granary, fish with lighthouses, stone with quarries are all resources you should exploit.
You can always build mines on surplus hill tiles and keep them in reserve until you need the extra production for a quick Wonder. But remember food/growth must come first.

dragonxxx · Aug 3, 2014

hills on river - always build farms. After civil service,these are 2F2H tiles. If you desperately need a mine - build it on non-river tiles.

joncnunn · Aug 3, 2014

First before any of the above, you want to improve all resource tiles with whatever improvement it needs (except for Bananas in Jungle)

Next comes the the farms on fresh water tiles of all types with will add two food after civil service.
Next is mine non fresh water hills for production
Non fresh water flat grassland is low priority, either trade post or farm.
Non fresh water flat plains is very low priority, but is normally a farm.

iamflatline · Aug 3, 2014

joncnunn said:
First before any of the above, you want to improve all resource tiles with whatever improvement it needs (except for Bananas in Jungle)

Next comes the the farms on fresh water tiles of all types with will add two food after civil service.
Next is mine non fresh water hills for production
Non fresh water flat grassland is low priority, either trade post or farm.
Non fresh water flat plains is very low priority, but is normally a farm.

I normally put farms on non-fresh water flat grasslands, but do not hesitate to replace them with GP improvements when available.

Non-fresh water flat plains I typically TP, but it's rare I end up working them, as a specialist is generally better than the tile's output. As you mention they are the absolute lowest priority IMHO.

sun8119 · Aug 3, 2014

joncnunn said:
First before any of the above, you want to improve all resource tiles with whatever improvement it needs (except for Bananas in Jungle)

Next comes the the farms on fresh water tiles of all types with will add two food after civil service.
Next is mine non fresh water hills for production
Non fresh water flat grassland is low priority, either trade post or farm.
Non fresh water flat plains is very low priority, but is normally a farm.

How is getting 3 food on flat grassland low priority? Or did you mean lower priority than the above?

As for mines it depends, you don't wanna mine all 5 hills before 5 flat grassland

joncnunn · Aug 3, 2014

sun8119 said:
How is getting 3 food on flat grassland low priority? Or did you mean lower priority than the above?

As for mines it depends, you don't wanna mine all 5 hills before 5 flat grassland

I always on legendary start, so it takes a while to even get thru all the tiles that aren't resources.
Production tends to be a bottleneck, so provided I have food from other sources I would indeed skip all 5 flat non-freshwater grasslands that weren't near a river until all the mines were up.

GoStu · Aug 3, 2014

Generally speaking I find Grassland to be a little stronger than Plains, mostly for its flexibility. Analyzing citizens in groups of 3, before Civil Service or Fertilizer come into play:

Grassland Options:

Option 1)
2 citizens work farms for 3 :c5food:

each, third citizen works mining luxury for 3 :c5production:

and some

.
Total yield: 6 :c5food:

, 3

, some

. City continues to grow from city tile food.

Option 2)
2 citizens work farms for 3 :c5food:

each, third citizen works plantation luxury (base tile assumed to be Grassland) for 2 :c5food:

and some

Total yield: 8 :c5food:

, some

. City grows from city tile food, and this group provides +2 surplus food.

Plains Options:

Option 1)
3 citizens work farms for 2 :c5food:

and 1

each.
Total yield: 6 :c5food:

and 3

. City grows from base food. Compare this to Grassland option 1: same production, no gold.

Option 2)
2 citizens work farms for 2 :c5food:

and 1

each, third citizen works mining luxury for 3 :c5production:

and some

.
Total yield: 4 :c5food:

, 5

, and some :c5gold:

. City stagnates as third citizen needs to use city base food to survive.

Option 3)
2 citizens work farms for 2 :c5food:

and 1

each, third citizen works plantation or camp luxury (base tile assumed to be plains) for 1 :c5food:

, 1

and some

.
Total yield: 5 :c5food:

, 3

, and some :c5gold:

. City grows slowly, as this citizen group draws 1 food away from base yield, leaving only 1 for growth.

Of course, the above ignores Bonus resources - I'm assuming those are equal across any start. There is some evidence out there that the game engine values Plains (!?) more highly than Grassland though, and gives Plains starts fewer Bonuses, where Grassland and Desert tend to get more. Jungle is about even with Grassland, and Tundra just plain sucks regardless. Speaking generally, any start should have enough bonus resources that Citizens 1-3 turn out okay, it's Citizens 4-6 that this really tells for, and this is where I find Plains starts bog down and Grass starts keep on truckin'.

I've also totally neglected Civil Service and Fertilizer's effects as I'm just trying to analyze starts (pre-medieval era). My work after that isn't as rigorous, but I still think Grassland has a lead, albeit the gap narrows quite a bit as Plains can start generating surplus food.

joncnunn · Aug 3, 2014

GoStu said:
Of course, the above ignores Bonus resources - I'm assuming those are equal across any start. There is some evidence out there that the game engine values Plains (!?) more highly than Grassland though, and gives Plains starts fewer Bonuses

Yes, this is left over logic from Civ IV which hasn't been changed.

Halcyan2 · Aug 4, 2014

Grasslands is much better than plains. Not only because food/growth is so important, but because plains has some additional downsides (like no Stoneworks if your city is on plains).

Most of the time, farms on hills is better.

However, if you do micromanagement tricks like "production focus" when you are about to increase in population size, then you do want one hill with a mine (or manufactory) for maximum hammers.

clinton · Aug 4, 2014

I'm personally of the opinion that production is king, particularly in the early game.

Civ is a game of momentum, as generally everything you build is designed to help you build more in the future, whether that be buildings, techs, or units for conquest.

It's a bit like compound interest. Generally, it's wiser to choose to get something sooner rather than later, as the benefits compound for longer.

I generally value one production over one food. Even with a new city, faced with a choice of a 2 food tile and a 2 production tile, I'd choose the two production one and get out that momument/granary/lighthouse whatever ASAP.

If it was a 2 production vs (2 food/1 production) I'd probably go for the 2 food/1 production in that case though.

There are probably some exceptions to focus on food is if you can work out that what you're building will be built quicker (or almost as quick) focusing on food first, bumping the population by one then focusing on production. It has to be very close though, a few extra turns without a granary, or a few extra terms without a border expansion can make delaying that building not worthwhile.

This approach will help you get the most out of cities whilst minimising happiness problems. You'll might take a little hit in science, but you'll pump out settlers/buildings quicker enough I think to compensate. Keep in mind that small cities grow faster than large cities, so focusing on production and producing settlers/happiness buildings/workers to work resources may actually result in a greater population.

Even though a settler costs 106 production, if you add the food+production costs of a settler/food growth, you'll find that this total is minimised at population four or five. One may argue that it's better to have less slightly larger cities as you have to spend less resources into buildings, but I'd rather had a slightly smaller city that has actually build a library that is out-teching and out-production a slightly larger one that is focused on food.

Of course, if you've got a bunch of bonus food resources, go ahead an use them, but perhaps with the exception of farms on rivers after civil service, I definitely focus on mines and even lumbermills unless the city site is particularly food poor (and even after civil service sometimes I'll still focus on the mines if the food is just giving me happiness problems).

kaspergm · Aug 4, 2014

GoStu said:
There is some evidence out there that the game engine values Plains (!?) more highly than Grassland though, and gives Plains starts fewer Bonuses, where Grassland and Desert tend to get more.

joncnunn said:
Yes, this is left over logic from Civ IV which hasn't been changed.

Actually joncnunn, I don't think that's true, we can see from AssignStartingPlots.lua that the values of Grassland and Plains were actively reversed as a balance tweak which I think was the same time Stone were added(?).

Spoiler :

Code:

-- Measure Fertility -- Any cases absent from the process have a 0 value.
	if plotType == PlotTypes.PLOT_MOUNTAIN then -- Note, mountains cannot belong to a landmass AreaID, so they usually go unmeasured.
		plotFertility = -2;
	elseif terrainType == TerrainTypes.TERRAIN_SNOW then
		plotFertility = -1;
	elseif featureType == FeatureTypes.FEATURE_OASIS then
		plotFertility = 4; -- Reducing Oasis value slightly. -1/26/2011 BT
	elseif featureType == FeatureTypes.FEATURE_FLOOD_PLAINS then
		plotFertility = 5; -- Reducing Flood Plains value slightly. -1/26/2011 BT
	else
[B]		if terrainType == TerrainTypes.TERRAIN_GRASS then [COLOR="Red"]-- Reversing values for Grass and Plains. -1/26/2011 BT[/COLOR]
			plotFertility = 3;
		elseif terrainType == TerrainTypes.TERRAIN_PLAINS then
			plotFertility = 4;[/B]
		elseif terrainType == TerrainTypes.TERRAIN_TUNDRA then
			plotFertility = 2;
		elseif terrainType == TerrainTypes.TERRAIN_COAST then
			plotFertility = 2;
		elseif terrainType == TerrainTypes.TERRAIN_DESERT then
			plotFertility = 1;
		end
		if plotType == PlotTypes.PLOT_HILLS then
			plotFertility = plotFertility + 1;
		end
		if featureType == FeatureTypes.FEATURE_FOREST then
			plotFertility = plotFertility + 0; -- Removing forest bonus as a balance tweak. -1/26/2011 BT
		elseif featureType == FeatureTypes.FEATURE_JUNGLE then
			plotFertility = plotFertility - 1;
		elseif featureType == FeatureTypes.FEATURE_MARSH then
			plotFertility = plotFertility - 2; -- Increasing penalty for Marsh plots. -1/26/2011 BT
		elseif featureType == FeatureTypes.FEATURE_ICE then
			plotFertility = plotFertility - 1;
		end
		if plot:IsRiverSide() then
			plotFertility = plotFertility + 1;
		end
		if plot:IsFreshWater() then
			plotFertility = plotFertility + 1;
		end
		if checkForCoastalLand == true then -- When measuring only one AreaID, this shortcut helps account for coastal plots not measured.
			if plot:IsCoastalLand() then
				plotFertility = plotFertility + 2;
			end
		end
	end

beetle · Aug 5, 2014

Kaspergm, I think you are just questioning Joncnunn's assertion about the logic being leftover code.

kaspergm said:
Actually joncnunn, I don't think that's true, we can see from AssignStartingPlots.lua that the values of Grassland and Plains were actively reversed as a balance tweak which I think was the same time Stone were added(?).

Your code fragment provides the evidence that the game engine values Plains more highly than Grassland.

This was also true in Civ4.

joncnunn · Aug 5, 2014

beetle said:
Kaspergm, I think you are just questioning Joncnunn's assertion about the logic being leftover code.

Your code fragment provides the evidence that the game engine values Plains more highly than Grassland.

This was also true in Civ4.

Yup and Plains was more valuable than grassland in Civ 4, (no cash buying until late in the game), farm chaining. Still it was pretty bad if you actually started nowhere near a fresh water source in Civ IV, especially if it was plains.
The reversal is from Civ 3, where (like Civ 5) grassland was better than plains, but I don't recall if they made the reversal in one of the early balance patches of Civ 4 or if it was done during Beta testing of Civ 4 prior to official release.

beetle · Aug 5, 2014

On a related note, city founded on plains not being able to build stone works seems quite broken to me.

Browd · Aug 5, 2014

Broken, perhaps, in terms of logic, but the game files show it is WAD.

beetle · Aug 5, 2014

Agreed, WAD. Bad design IMHO, and not well documented with the in-game help.

joncnunn · Aug 5, 2014

beetle said:
On a related note, city founded on plains not being able to build stone works seems quite broken to me.

The most popular mod component may be removing the prohibited terrain type from stone works.

GoStu · Aug 5, 2014

kaspergm said:

Actually joncnunn, I don't think that's true, we can see from AssignStartingPlots.lua that the values of Grassland and Plains were actively reversed as a balance tweak which I think was the same time Stone were added(?).

Spoiler :

Code:

-- Measure Fertility -- Any cases absent from the process have a 0 value.
	if plotType == PlotTypes.PLOT_MOUNTAIN then -- Note, mountains cannot belong to a landmass AreaID, so they usually go unmeasured.
		plotFertility = -2;
	elseif terrainType == TerrainTypes.TERRAIN_SNOW then
		plotFertility = -1;
	elseif featureType == FeatureTypes.FEATURE_OASIS then
		plotFertility = 4; -- Reducing Oasis value slightly. -1/26/2011 BT
	elseif featureType == FeatureTypes.FEATURE_FLOOD_PLAINS then
		plotFertility = 5; -- Reducing Flood Plains value slightly. -1/26/2011 BT
	else
[B]		if terrainType == TerrainTypes.TERRAIN_GRASS then [COLOR="Red"]-- Reversing values for Grass and Plains. -1/26/2011 BT[/COLOR]
			plotFertility = 3;
		elseif terrainType == TerrainTypes.TERRAIN_PLAINS then
			plotFertility = 4;[/B]
		elseif terrainType == TerrainTypes.TERRAIN_TUNDRA then
			plotFertility = 2;
		elseif terrainType == TerrainTypes.TERRAIN_COAST then
			plotFertility = 2;
		elseif terrainType == TerrainTypes.TERRAIN_DESERT then
			plotFertility = 1;
		end
		if plotType == PlotTypes.PLOT_HILLS then
			plotFertility = plotFertility + 1;
		end
		if featureType == FeatureTypes.FEATURE_FOREST then
			plotFertility = plotFertility + 0; -- Removing forest bonus as a balance tweak. -1/26/2011 BT
		elseif featureType == FeatureTypes.FEATURE_JUNGLE then
			plotFertility = plotFertility - 1;
		elseif featureType == FeatureTypes.FEATURE_MARSH then
			plotFertility = plotFertility - 2; -- Increasing penalty for Marsh plots. -1/26/2011 BT
		elseif featureType == FeatureTypes.FEATURE_ICE then
			plotFertility = plotFertility - 1;
		end
		if plot:IsRiverSide() then
			plotFertility = plotFertility + 1;
		end
		if plot:IsFreshWater() then
			plotFertility = plotFertility + 1;
		end
		if checkForCoastalLand == true then -- When measuring only one AreaID, this shortcut helps account for coastal plots not measured.
			if plot:IsCoastalLand() then
				plotFertility = plotFertility + 2;
			end
		end
	end

Great detail in your reply, Kasper. Thanks for digging that up.

Reading over that function*, it looks like it's assigning value to pieces of land. I'm not sure when this function gets called or how often it's used, but it appears to be valuing certain pieces of land.

Flood Plains gets the highest base value at 5/tile, and Plains gets 4/tile. Grassland is pretty middle of the road at 3, with Coast and Tundra worth 2 and flat desert worth only 1. Any hill increases the value by 1. Averaging out flood plains and flat desert for a typical start combination leaves it at 3 - no worse off than grassland.

Nice to see someone's comments still on the code. Forest changes nothing, which intrigues me as forest makes a big difference in a Tundra start. Ice detracts value from any start (good), and Marsh substantially reduces the value of a start as well. Jungle also takes away value, presumably because it's hard to move in and improve at the start of a game.

My takeaways from this:

1) Plains is still valued more highly than Grassland by the engine, which it probably shouldn't be based on our earlier analysis.

2) Desert is valued kind of low for two reasons. It's basically the same as a Grassland start in terms of value, but being in the desert is better as you can reap tons of Faith with Desert Folklore, and you can get Petra to make frankly incredible tile yields on Hills.

3) A very hilly piece of land might be overvalued by the engine - if there's no food, lots of hills still stinks.

4) Marsh plots are valued very low: accurate for most civs, but might explain some difficulties for the Netherlands. In my understanding, the game will start you well away from this 'bad' piece of land, which can actually be very good for the Dutch. (Admittedly, probably better to start next to swamp than right in the middle of it, or your start will be brutal.)

*Caveat: It's been a while since I've done any programming, and that was only ever in C. I've never worked in whatever language this is, and my reading might be off a little.

kaspergm · Aug 7, 2014

beetle said:
Kaspergm, I think you are just questioning Joncnunn's assertion about the logic being leftover code.

Yes, that was my point, the fact that Grassland < Plains is not a relic from Civ4 code, when vanilla Civ5 was released, they actually got it right (namely: Grassland 4, Plains 3), but then changed it back motivated by whatever reasons.

Grassland or Plains? Farm on hills or mine on hills?

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