Keeping forests alive.

[Skallagrimson]

Do please correct me if I'm wrong but the base yield of an unworked riverside plains at machinery is 1 food and 2 hammers. You chop the forest and do nothing it becomes 1 food, one hammer, and 1 commerce. A watermill at machinery gives you +1 hammer to a riverside tile, that brings you back to 1 food, 2 hammers, and you get that extra commerce.

And if the lumbermill is on a flat side of the river (not a corner) it will also yield the +1 commerce. Watermill gets no railroad bonus, while the lumbermill does. An IW city with most of the BFC (apart from food tiles) packed with lumbermills and railroads yields an enormous number of hammers, and because the trees are still there you have no worries about the unhealthy hit from IW and coal, power, etc.

This is a mid-late game condition though, and to achieve it you have to sacrifice some potential early hammers from chops within that particular BFC.

I was saying that in short games on small maps you're better off with a watermill because you get a slightly better tile long before you can work a lumbermill for just the cost of some health. My math does of course presume that you're working a riverside tile though.

The best use of that riverside tile if you chop would be a farm or a cottage, depending on what else the city will be working (mines for farms, cottages for other cottages). You can watermill it later, but it's best to improve that tile to something else prior to Machinery.

Also, it goes without saying, that not all chops that you chop have to be within your city's BFC or even within your borders. One of my favorite missions for workers not doing desperately-needed land improvements is "ninja chopping", off in foreign lands right outside their culture chopping down the forests of city sites they might otherwise gain yields from themselves after they settle there. Or up in the tundra, etc. (with units as they train up fighting barbs).

 

[Ataxerxes]

Do please correct me if I'm wrong but the base yield of an unworked riverside plains at machinery is 1 food and 2 hammers. You chop the forest and do nothing it becomes 1 food, one hammer, and 1 commerce. A watermill at machinery gives you +1 hammer to a riverside tile, that brings you back to 1 food, 2 hammers, and you get that extra commerce.

I was saying that in short games on small maps you're better off with a watermill because you get a slightly better tile long before you can work a lumbermill for just the cost of some health. My math does of course presume that you're working a riverside tile though.

This is true. As an immediate decision that would be true.

I guess I'm thinking too much long-term. The health might be very useful with a food corp. and the Watermill would be very powerful under State Property.

 

[Tortfeasor]

In retrospect this is one of those numerous civ things where there probably isn't a 'right' answer. Just answers that are better under specific circumstances for specific goals. I often skip the whole debate and chop forests adjacent to my cities even if I'm not planning to immediately improve the tile just so enemy units can't get the defensive bonus.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Sorry if I'm stating the obvious, but this means you're running State Property (which I do). The decision is more involved if you plan to use Free Market and Corps (especially one like Sushi).

I don't see why watermills means SP. I run watermills not under SP all the time - generally, if I do that I'm probably going to get sushi and they will eventually end up workshops, of course, but not always.

 

[GGracchus]

chop chop chop!!!

 

[Utenlok]

if you are planning a cavalry beat-down, replaceable parts is right there on the way to rifles. If i can forsee this happening early enough i leave a few spots for lumber mills to make my cavalry and then tanks.

however, if the cavalry are intended to end the game, i will instead use those trees to make horses out of. Wooden horses are surprisingly agile I have found.

 

[Dman4civ]

Let me point out that later in the game... those forests benefit from the Environmentalist civic, as it adds like 1 or two health per forest to a city.

 

[Strikercups]

I usually just chop most of them, but I always keep at least one for a forest preserve when I research Scientific Method, and eventually I'll get a free specialist from the national park wonder

 

[bob_d]

After emancipation, a forest with a lumberbill and a railroad is a better improvement than a workshop.

HOWEVER, that's a long way down the tech tree. Between now and then, the production from workshops will allow you to build the miliary units you need to crush your enemies. An early military victory is better than a late-game optimal city.

And anyway, the very best improvement you can have is a Town with Universal Suffrage and Free Speech.

On the other hand, the health bonus from forests is good to have, so it's a benefit to keep some forests for that purpose if the city isn't going to work the tile anyway.

 

[Skallagrimson]

CFC Huge Earth was a test case where I tried out the premise of "chop chop chop and who cares about the health cap". I ran into problems. Chop-all proponents insist that all those hammers go into axemen, but in reality you find yourself using chop hammers to generate other workers so that you can do more chops. Also the hammer yield was disappointing. I was seeing 16, so it'd take 2 trees to chop out one axeman that otherwise could just as well whip out with 1 or 2 pop whips--unlike the trees the food is renewable. All in all I had maybe 5 more axemen than I usually have to rush Cathy on that map, resulting in maybe 1 or 2 turns earlier rushing, which made no difference at all in the broad scheme of things--as 1 or 2 turns can easily be burned waiting for CG units to catch up and garrison taken cities, or you lose workers from chariot steals near the borders, etc. The total nuking of health permanently for the whole game as a cost, is touted as a game-winner in benefit, and I'm just not seeing it.

I always do chop some, but it's more of a security measure to deny bonus terrain approaches. With that strategy I get my axemen via whips and via not having to have as huge of a worker force (the food and hammers go to axemen instead). In the early game the difference is negligible, and in the mid-late game when you're trying to build a cavalry apocalypse stack, the higher growth limit allows more hammers and a faster build of that 2-move army (axes as you'll recall, are 1-move). On a huge map there's absolutely no time to wait for one-move armies to approach a city.

 

[GGracchus]

The problem with lumbermills is that you have to wait until replacable parts in order to build them. In the meantime, I could have had a town. If you are going cavalry, you rushbuy, and the town is much more useful. Early chopping and getting more hammers early on for a more advantageous position is much more beneficial than a couple of extra lumbermills. Besides, FM is better than SP.

 

[CHEESE!]

chop chop chop!!!

You, too, MacGregor!

 

[InnateGamer]

Assume normal game speed, you spend one turn moving to a forest square, 3 turns chopping it down, and you get 30 hammers. That's 7.5 hammers per turn for a worker, that is the best you can do in terms of productivity. When you run out of forest you might settle a second city and so forth. Besides by the time you finally get RP the AI might be building their space ships, if you don't chop forest to grow early that is. Early in the game I'm settling for forest to chop and building as many workers as the forest gives me, only when the forest is about to dry up do I start doing other things. I don't even build roads, instead I plan how to move the workers to minimize the time it takes to chop it down. Sometimes you can get a free wonder if you're lucky, basically you need a production bonus for the wonder, overflow the wonder with several forests, then apply the overflow to finish stuff you normally wouldn't get a bonus for. Forest is the only thing that can make that happen, just make sure to finish chopping down a lot of forest on one turn when the wonder is almost finished and those chops will get a bonus. There is no other use for forest, it doesn't make any sense to work those tiles (unimproved with forest), and as for the health it makes more sense to grow your civ in order to find health resources.

 

[AJ11]

At higher difficulties, chopping is a must, if only to keep up with the AI in terms of production. If you don't chop, you will never even REACH RP, let alone think about lumbermills, especially with an aggressive AI right next to you. There is really no reason not to chop.

If you want production, watermills is your best friend. Even workshops are good, despite the hit to food production. There is absolutely NO reason to choose lumbermills over just about any other improvement unless it is a flat, dry tundra forest with no deer or fur in it. Just about every other improvement is better, with the sole exception of the forest preserve (which is really only good for the national park city, which in turn is ideally situated in the middle of a tundra somewhere).

Trading for health resources or just plain taking it from a neighbour is the most efficient way of getting health. Keeping forests around just means you will never get around to enjoying the health. Shaka, Ragnar, Alex or Monty would appreciate your aesthetic sense as they stroll through your forest cities. Just before they call up their workers to level the trees for more axes, that is.

 

[Skallagrimson]

There is absolutely NO reason to choose lumbermills over just about any other improvement unless it is a flat, dry tundra forest with no deer or fur in it.

Or the Iron Works city, which you're implying here that you never build?

Trading for health resources or just plain taking it from a neighbour is the most efficient way of getting health. Keeping forests around just means you will never get around to enjoying the health. Shaka, Ragnar, Alex or Monty would appreciate your aesthetic sense as they stroll through your forest cities. Just before they call up their workers to level the trees for more axes, that is.

This is not an all-or-nothing proposition like you try to make it seem. The alternative to chop-all is not "chop none". We're talking about a difference of two trees in an average BFC that started out, most of the time, with just 3. In my city it grows 1 pop larger with the extra health, to work a 4 hammer mine that you can't work in your city, because you think that all those AIs that are pissed off at you (you axe-rushed their friend after all) will give you corn and rice. For the first 8 turns you have 1 extra axeman (and pray that I don't have a chariot to nerf it on turn 1). After those 8 turns I will consistently build more units, working hammer tiles you can't work. Actually it's less than 8 turns or less than that 1 extra axeman because you also had to build more workers to do the chops. More like a 1 axe advantage for 4 turns.

Then again if you can conquer the world in 4 turns, we have nothing to discuss.

 

[AJ11]

Or the Iron Works city, which you're implying here that you never build?



This is not an all-or-nothing proposition like you try to make it seem. The alternative to chop-all is not "chop none". We're talking about a difference of two trees in an average BFC that started out, most of the time, with just 3. In my city it grows 1 pop larger with the extra health, to work a 4 hammer mine that you can't work in your city, because you think that all those AIs that are pissed off at you (you axe-rushed their friend after all) will give you corn and rice. For the first 8 turns you have 1 extra axeman (and pray that I don't have a chariot to nerf it on turn 1). After those 8 turns I will consistently build more units, working hammer tiles you can't work. Actually it's less than 8 turns or less than that 1 extra axeman because you also had to build more workers to do the chops. More like a 1 axe advantage for 4 turns.

Then again if you can conquer the world in 4 turns, we have nothing to discuss.

How can you consistently build MORE when I have an entire CITY (if not more) over you?

 

[-Asterix-]

We're talking about a difference of two trees in an average BFC that started out, most of the time, with just 3. In my city it grows 1 pop larger with the extra health, to work a 4 hammer mine that you can't work in your city, because you think that all those AIs that are pissed off at you (you axe-rushed their friend after all) will give you corn and rice.

Healthiness is usually hardly a problem unless you find yourself in the middle of huge floodplains (which isn't a problem at all) or play deity or maybe immortal. But if you play on high difficulty levels you will need those early hammers to catch up with AIs. You will always get those few health resources (or buildings) needed to grow a bit more in a reasonable time or you're doing something wrong...

Just chop those forests but don't do it aimlessly. Pre-chop and come back later when you need that shiny wonder or a big army of something.

 

[GGracchus]

Healthiness is usually hardly a problem unless you find yourself in the middle of huge floodplains (which isn't a problem at all) or play deity or maybe immortal. But if you play on high difficulty levels you will need those early hammers to catch up with AIs. You will always get those few health resources (or buildings) needed to grow a bit more in a reasonable time or you're doing something wrong...

Just chop those forests but don't do it aimlessly. Pre-chop and come back later when you need that shiny wonder or a big army of something.

On even emperor, chopping out settlers and workers makes everything go faster. Chop chop chop!

 

[Skallagrimson]

How can you consistently build MORE when I have an entire CITY (if not more) over you?

By what math? In epic/huge a chop is 16 hammers, meaning you'd have to chop 7 trees for that one extra settler, and another several trees to chop out the workers required to do the other chops. If you're on an all-forest map that MIGHT be somewhat believable, but on a normal map there's no way in hell you even have that many trees to begin with.

 

[jtb1127]

Gotta chop em all!