When To Build Mines Or Irrigate??

[RazorBladeKandy]

IM in the Industrial age and i have cities that i have started and are about 7 - 11 in pop. i wondering how many mines should i build and how many I should Irrigate?

[zagnut]

In the early game the general rule is to irrigate plains and mine grassland. However, you are in the Industrial Age. Therefore, there is no rule. You can irrigate or mine depending on what result you want to obtain in that city.

[RazorBladeKandy]

i was just wondering is ther like a ratio that would help?
like

1 mine to every 2 irrigations?

[Woody]

It really depends on the land around the city. If there are hills and mountains that you need to mine then you will need more irrigation in other squares to provide population to work the mines. On the other hand if you are on a river with flood plains they produce so much food that you can usually mine all squares that arent flood plains.

[Happyman]

Esp. When you have railroads...

[Wakboth]

Yup. You need to look at the squares available around your city and make the assessment yourself. There's no general rule that will work. I think someone came up with a formula at some point, but it was honestly more complicated then it would be to just count up squares and figure it out manually.

There are certain key bits to think about, especially as you get into the later ages of the game.

Commerce is essentially a "how many city squares are you working" equation. Thus, the amount of money/science you can generate goes up the more squares you are working in your civ. You also get more civ score with a higher population. Um... You also will get more pollution as well.

Rails will increase the effect of a mine or irrigation, allowing you to increase those total squares (in the case of irrigation), while still maintaining a similar or slightly increased shield production (via mines).

What I find tends to happen is that prior to rails, you follow the "mine grasslands, irrigate plains" tactic and that will work pretty well. Once you get rails, you'll find that your irrigated areas get you more food, so your city can grow larger then it could before (the 6/12 size restrictions aside). Often, I find this means you start working hills around your city once you get rails. Hills don't produce alot of food, and can't be irrigated, but they are great for adding to shield production. Here's where the choice comes in:

You can just take those few extra squares you'll get from your irrigated land and mine them, take the extra production and be done with it.

You can alternatively, keep production relatively constant by replacing mines with irrigation in grasslands as you add these worked hill squares with mines and rails on them.

The choice depends totally on you. You can get a bit more production right off the bat by just working those hill spots and accepting that you'll hit a zero population growth relatively quickly. This is often what you'll want to do if the city wouldn't grow much anyway because you don't have sanitation yet, and/or aren't on a river.

If you have a city that will grow if given the chance, then gradually moving your production to the hills and irrigating both plains and grasslands will maintain a relatively constant shield production but will increase the population of the city significantly. The main reason for doing this is to increase your commerce.

The next important bit is to think about happiness though. The whole point to building larger cities is to work more squares. If you have to turn those guys into specialists, then you aren't getting that much from them. You can actually end up losing production by increasing population in some cases. Your luxury rate, and government type, and available luxury resources will all play a part in the decision to build larger or smaller cities (which is essentially what you're chosing between when your deciding whether to irrigate or mine).

You really have to look at each city and make an assessment. Play some games where you experiment with different improvements in different situations. This is also why most experienced players will tell you to micromanage your cities. If you just follow a pattern of improvements and builds, you will not be getting the most out of the city. I suppose if your map consisted of a simple and regular pattern of terrain, you could follow a simply rule of thumb. But most maps dont. You'll have different terrain around each city, so the specifics of how you improve the squares around each city will differ.

[Pfeffersack]

Another point is the amount of corruption in a city.Core citys are more effective if production is maximized, very high corrupted cities may be more valuable if food is maxed out and there are created as much specialists as possible(engineers, scientists).

[Longasc]

Mine green, irrigate brown.

Works all the time.

In general, I have usually by far more mines than irrigations. This means perhaps less growth, but to 99% the increased production is more worth. The one exception is what Pfeffersack said.

[Longasc]

Terrain assessment is what cracker called it - to mine/irrigate the most valuable tiles first. So you will usually start mining grasslands.

[RazorBladeKandy]

thanx all for your help i m going to try out mine grasslands and irrigate plains in my next game

[Tomoyo]

In the Industrial age, assuming every square is railed:

First, irrigate your city so it will grow to the size you want it to be.

Then,

Irrigate one grassland for every mountain you intend to work
OR
Irrigate two plains for every mountain you intend to work

Irrigate one plain for every plain that you mine (not including plains used in other statements)

Irrigate all flood plains (obviously)

Mine all Tundras (Or forest them)

Mine three deserts for every two flood plains you intend to work
OR
Mine ten plains for every two flood plains you intend to work

Irrigate one grassland for every two hills you intend to work
OR
Irrigate one plain for every hill you intend to work

For every tundra, irrigate on plain
OR
For every two tundras, irrigate one grassland

Then, check your food bonuses:

Change one irrigation to a mine for every wheat, game, cattle, or any other +2 food bonuses.

Change one irrigation to a mine for every two wines, or any other +1 food bonuses (Including the agricultural fresh water bonus)

Please tell me if there is something I left out. I was assuming that the would be no forests or jungles. Any plains I mentioned could be agricultural deserts. If you are agricultural, irrigate a desert, pretending it is a plain, and mine something else. These are my calculations, even though they sometimes can be thrown off by global warming.

[arkan_jman]

I think you generally should irrigate all plains and grassland and mine hills, mountains, desert and tundra.

[Hunter Noventa]

A quick not about Tundra, always put forests on tundra, you get as many shields as with a mine, plus one food.

[Tomoyo]

Originally posted by Hunter Noventa
A quick note about Tundra, always put forests on tundra, you get as many shields as with a mine, plus one food.

You mean it gives as much food as a mine, plus one shield. Tundras are one food, no shields. Forests are one food, two shields. Mining the tundra and railing it does the same thing, for 4 less worker turns (assuming that you railed the tundra, then planted the forest)

I don't like giving enemy units a defensive advantage when landing on those squares.

[Pfeffersack]

Originally posted by Tomoyo
You mean it gives as much food as a mine, plus one shield. Tundras are one food, no shields. Forests are one food, two shields. Mining the tundra and railing it does the same thing, for 4 less worker turns (assuming that you railed the tundra, then planted the forest)

I don't like giving enemy units a defensive advantage when landing on those squares.

Ok, the defense bonus for landing enemies is an argument against planting forests, but one for forests is their ability to absorb the effects global warming.

[Tomoyo]

Originally posted by Pfeffersack
Ok, the defense bonus for landing enemies is an argument against planting forests, but one for forests is their ability to absorb the effects global warming.

Global Warming can't hit tundra tiles, and planting forests on anything else would lose the railroad bonus.

P.S. Is "Pfeffer" a name?

[Pfeffersack]

Originally posted by Tomoyo
Global Warming can't hit tundra tiles, and planting forests on anything else would lose the railroad bonus.

P.S. Is "Pfeffer" a name?

Yes, uncovered tundra tiles are not affected, but after one of the CivIII vanilla patches (don't rember exatly which it was) the working of global warming has been slightly changed.Before he patch, it randomly targets tiles, which means conversion of tiles without forest or jungle and destroying the vegetation in forest or jungle squares.
After the patch GW affects first and only forest and jungle tiles are targeted, as long as there any present on the map.If forest is on tundra or grassland doesn't matter - it protects your other tiles.So you can use tundra tiles for permanently reforesting and global warming will notconvert tiles as long as it finds vegetation to "kill".This strtegy is possible as long as global warming is not to strong; mostly after nuclear wars there is point reached where more tiles every turm are effected than forests can be planted.

PS: "Pfeffersack" is not really a name, it is a historical German nickname for the hanseatic merchants, because they made a lot of money with trade of spices, especilally with pepper.So they are called "peppersacks" (although I'm not sure this exists in the English language)

[tao]

Don't be afraid to irrigate grasland first for fast growth and later change it to mines. Especially when you want to reach pop 6 and trigger wltkd for fighting corruption, this is the way to go.

[WarLust]

The general rule of thumb - mine green, irrigate brown. I leave mountains and hills alone until I have a lot of workers to stack (chain gang) and all other flat areas have been improved. Some city scenarios like half mountains/half grassland may alter this strategy. Use the general rule of thumb unless you have situations like those.

[Wakboth]

Originally posted by WarLust
The general rule of thumb - mine green, irrigate brown. I leave mountains and hills alone until I have a lot of workers to stack (chain gang) and all other flat areas have been improved. Some city scenarios like half mountains/half grassland may alter this strategy. Use the general rule of thumb unless you have situations like those.

Yes. That is the general rule of thumb to follow in the early game. However, the OP specifically talked about the industrial age, and the introduction of rails changes the rules quite a bit. The trick it to learn when to break the "rule of thumb". If you just blindly follow it, you'll still do ok. But if you don't take advantage of the additional expansion that rails can bring (especially to your core cities where corruption is lowest), you'll lose a heck of a lot of potential commerce and production in the course of a game.

As Tomoyo points out in his list, by irrigating one grassland (instead of mining it), you can then mine two hills. You've just gained two extra worked tiles in your city (4 additional commerce), and increased your production by 5 shields. If you'd just left that mine on the grasslands, you would not have gained that. The "rule of thumb" simply does not apply once you get rails.