Micromanagement of cities

[MightySpice]

Behind your reasoning is the assumption that if you don't chop the forrest you are in the wrong spot. That's not very brilliant reasoning.

In a lot of situations chopping a forrest leaves you with 3 'things'. Food for example Or 2 food and one hammer in a lot of other situations. A lumbermill provides 3 'things'. So it is really a matter of what needs the city the most.

 

[Chum]

Behind your reasoning is the assumption that if you don't chop the forrest you are in the wrong spot. That's not very brilliant reasoning.

In a lot of situations chopping a forrest leaves you with 3 'things'. Food for example Or 2 food and one hammer in a lot of other situations. A lumbermill provides 3 'things'. So it is really a matter of what needs the city the most.

No, you're wrong.

A city needs 1 thing - Food. Period. Once you grow to a large enough size, you have everything you need.

The reason that people are telling you that your reasoning is wrong is because it is. Your cities need to grow and build basic infrastructure. The faster they do both, the faster they reach their full potential. Lets use an example of a forest, and you're building a granary.

Leaving a forest and building your granary 5 turns later means that you're 5 turns behind the guy who built his first. That's 5 turns of +2 food +1 food for every granary resource you are working in the city. That's an extra population right there. You're not working the forest on T1, so your idea that you get consistent hammers is wrong. You would never work a 1f1H tile. When you're starting out, you want to be working 3F tiles, or 2F1H tiles. This spreads to 4F tiles and 3F1H tiles after Civil service. Even if you improve that forest to 1F2H, you're not growing working it. 1 food doesn't support the citizen that's working it.

Lets say you and I have a forested grassland and a forested plains on a river. If you put lumber mills on both of those, you would be working a pair of 1F2H tiles, for a total yield of 2F4H. If I instead chopped them both, and put farms there, I would be working a 4F and a 3F1H tile. That's 7F1H, which is more "things" than your dual lumber mills, in addition to the fact that I got free hammers for chopping the forest AND I have enough food to support 3.5 citizens, not 1 citizen, growing my city EVEN MORE so that I can work more tiles. That extra yield means my city now has another citizen and a half who are working more "things" than yours are.

My logic is solid. Yours is looking only at the term of total yield, which is wrong. Food is FAR more important than hammers early, and if you prioritize food, you will find your cities will be able to work EVERYTHING later on. You will have massive cities where you work all your farms, all your mines and all your specialists, whereas yours will be stuck working a couple of lumber mills and being very low population.

 

[fyar]

I honestly don't remember the last time I worked a lumber mill.

Or built one for that matter. They are terrible improvements that I really don't want to work, and there's only a very small window where they are useful if you're going a specific path on the tech tree (If you're going Sci Theory before Chemistry or your Ideology).

If the forest is on fresh water, you chop it, period. You want 3 or 4 food tiles early on.

If the forest is on a hill, you chop it, period. You want mines to work early on for production.

If the forest isn't on fresh water and is on flat land, and you have enough hills in your capital to work, you chop it for the early hammers.

If the forest isn't on fresh water and is on flat land, and you have no hills, well, you put that city in the wrong spot. Build a lumber mill I guess, but that city is going to be garbage.

Basically, any time I am working a lumber mill, I planted an awful city.

I am with you on the chopping premise, but I have to disagree with some of your arguments.
1. I often go for Scientific Theory before Industrialization or Chemistry. What's wrong with getting public schools ASAP? Sometimes that's actually the faster path to ideologies because you can tech directly to radio, and Industrialization doesn't guarantee coal.
2. If food is higher priority than hammers, as has been the argument for chopping, why is a lumber mill always worse than a mined hill? I don't see anything wrong with working a 1 food 2 hammer tile instead of a 3 hammer tile. (Of course if you want to chop it for the immediate hammers, I don't see anything wrong with that either. But the tile is not inherently worse than a mine.)

 

[MightySpice]

Ah. I'm wrong. Period. Another strong point you bring forward.
For a city to grow it needs food. No debate. You don't need to chop a forrest to generate food. You need to build farms, build workboats, etc. As long as you have a sufficient number of tiles to work your citizens, you need not to chop anything for growth. And you are still on maximum growth. There is no opposition when it comes to food and trees. Unless you run out of places to place your citizens on. And it that case you probably have of lot of trees and you can safely burn a few.
Why leave the forrest if you are not going to work them? Because i am going to work them. I never play a game where i sprint to 30+ citizens without a hick up. There are allways periods where lack of happines slow you down. A perfect moment to 'withdraw' from your foodobsessed strategie and place your citizen on more productive tiles, like a lumbermill. A perfect moment to catch up the little momentum i missed when you were chopping your forrest. My city will have greater productionpower later on.
You can even predict these hick ups far ahead and even things out. Slow things down by placing citizens on different tiles.
Some cities grow fast even with citizens on mines and lumbermills. Sometimes you don't want to focus on food but on production, because you want to build a wonder or something else. Fast.
In my current game there were a few tiles which were forrest en now a lumbermill. In your game it would have been a farm. What an immense gamechanger that would have been . . .

I am not wrong. I play this game since forever. My aproach differs just a bit from yours.

 

[beetle]

If food is higher priority than hammers, as has been the argument for chopping, why is a lumber mill always worse than a mined hill?

Why are you comparing the mill to a mine instead of a mill to a farm?

I don't see anything wrong with working a 1 2 tile instead of a 3 tile.

Because you are only working mines before chemistry in a pinch, and because both need to be offset by farms.

Ah. I'm wrong. Period. Another strong point you bring forward... I am not wrong. I play this game since forever. My approach differs just a bit from yours.

It sounds harsh, but it is the simple math. You are wrong, sorry.

 

[Chum]

I am with you on the chopping premise, but I have to disagree with some of your arguments.
1. I often go for Scientific Theory before Industrialization or Chemistry. What's wrong with getting public schools ASAP? Sometimes that's actually the faster path to ideologies because you can tech directly to radio, and Industrialization doesn't guarantee coal.
2. If food is higher priority than hammers, as has been the argument for chopping, why is a lumber mill always worse than a mined hill? I don't see anything wrong with working a 1 food 2 hammer tile instead of a 3 hammer tile. (Of course if you want to chop it for the immediate hammers, I don't see anything wrong with that either. But the tile is not inherently worse than a mine.)

There's nothing wrong with that. Tall Science/Culture paths will lead you to Sci Theory first over Industrialization or Chemistry, but that is the ONLY time a Lumber mill is superior to a mine. The mine is 3 hammers, and Sci Theory makes the LM 1 food 3 hammers, making it superior to the mine. But that window ONLY exists until Chemistry (or Order policy for extra hammers from mine), at which point mines are 4 or 5 hammers (plus the bonus resources which happen to be on them). You can't connect Iron or coal with a lumber mill, so you're going to get more hammers from the mine eventually.

Like I said, there's a window where I'd work a LM, but it's a small one. After that, it's all mines, all the time.

As far as #2 goes, I look at it like this - would you work it building a settler? Then those are the tiles I'd be working first. Since a mine is better than a LM for building settlers (3 Hammers > 2 hammers), then that's what I'm working. 1 food doesn't make up for the citizen working the tile anyway, so you need something else there regardless to make up the difference.

Like I said, if you don't have enough hills to work, you probably settled a bad city. Outside of unusual circumstances, I hardly ever work LM's.

 

[Chum]

I never play a game where i sprint to 30+ citizens without a hick up. There are allways periods where lack of happines slow you down.

Well, I don't.

A perfect moment to 'withdraw' from your foodobsessed strategie and place your citizen on more productive tiles, like a lumbermill. A perfect moment to catch up the little momentum i missed when you were chopping your forrest. My city will have greater productionpower later on.

No it won't. Less citizens = less production. That's a fact, jack.

I am not wrong. I play this game since forever. My aproach differs just a bit from yours.

Well, your approach can be different from mine, and that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's very clear that the math only favors one outcome, and that's food > all. Chop all forests, chop them early. The quicker you get a granary the quicker you get an extra citizen. The quicker you get a water mill, the more hammers and food it generates for you throughout the game. These are facts, and it's a snowball effect.

Trust me, your extra hammer in the modern era doesn't matter whatsoever when you have 5+ extra pop because you grew and got your key buildings up faster in the ancient and classical era. How do I know you're wrong? Because I used to play like you, focusing on early production, and now I don't. And now I'm a WAY better player than I used to be.

 

[claudiupb]

Ah. I'm wrong. Period. Another strong point you bring forward.
For a city to grow it needs food. No debate. You don't need to chop a forrest to generate food. You need to build farms, build workboats, etc. As long as you have a sufficient number of tiles to work your citizens, you need not to chop anything for growth. And you are still on maximum growth. There is no opposition when it comes to food and trees. Unless you run out of places to place your citizens on. And it that case you probably have of lot of trees and you can safely burn a few.
Why leave the forrest if you are not going to work them? Because i am going to work them. I never play a game where i sprint to 30+ citizens without a hick up. There are allways periods where lack of happines slow you down. A perfect moment to 'withdraw' from your foodobsessed strategie and place your citizen on more productive tiles, like a lumbermill. A perfect moment to catch up the little momentum i missed when you were chopping your forrest. My city will have greater productionpower later on.
You can even predict these hick ups far ahead and even things out. Slow things down by placing citizens on different tiles.
Some cities grow fast even with citizens on mines and lumbermills. Sometimes you don't want to focus on food but on production, because you want to build a wonder or something else. Fast.

You are ignoring the fact that a chop will give up to 20 hammers instantly that are going to help you a lot in your early game when the build queue is very long, and there are several things that need to be built sooner rather than later. In the late game you rarely, at one time, have more than two projects that need to be done ASAP.

In my current game there were a few tiles which were forrest en now a lumbermill. In your game it would have been a farm. What an immense gamechanger that would have been . . .

Except that in his game all his expos are at least 2 turns ahead compared to the expos in your game. Chopping 2 forests near the capital while building a settler will save 2-3 turns on that settler, and since at that point all things are built in the capital it means every other settler is build 2-3 turns sooner. That 2-3 turns advantage scales the entire game, and it's definitely a lot better than having 2 food 6 hammers (instead of 6-8 food) in late game. I already made an argument about how late game hammers devaluate compared to early game hammers (while gold becomes more valuable, conveniently making gold purchases more effective), so why do you consider an extra 6 hammers being more valuable than ALL of your settlers coming 2-3 turns earlier? Not to mention that chopping a settler is just one example of the usefulness of early chops.

 

[gobbledydook]

He can't admit he is wrong, and isn't brave enough to test whether he is right or wrong. So end of discussion.

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