OscarWildebeest said:
Another newbie question: when I chop down a forest, I get an immediate hammers boost to the production of the nearest city, right? But (reading one of the other threads) I see this is not permanent, just a one-off boost - right again? In other words, you need to time your chopping to help you to rush improvements that take a long time to build (eg wonders). After that, you just get the normal benefit of whatever terrain lies underneath the forest you've just cut down.
Is this right? If so, what tips would the experienced players give for cutting down forests? I've so far just gone at them hammer and tongs right at the start (as soon as I get BW, that is) but would it be better to wait and time the chopping more effectively?
Your information about chopping forests is correct.
It's usually best to get any production boosts as early as possible. An extra 20 production (production boost from forests at the start of the game at the normal speed setting) at the start of the game for your first city is worth as much as 1000 production at the end of the game. Maybe, I'm exagerating a little, but remember that that production at the start of the game can save you many turns of producing an item. So you have effectively reached a state in the game which you would have reached a few turns later without chopping. This is not completely true as city growth and research are not directly effected but only indirectly. But producing an item like a settler sooner will mean that the research of the city build by that settler will start a few turns sooner and the growth of that city will start a few turns sooner.
So, in general, you'll want to have the production as soon as possible. But in civ, there often are no ultimate solutions. So, I'll present a few situations in which I would wait with chopping a forest.
1) Sometimes there are better things to do with your worker.
For instance:
I have just build my first worker. I can choose between farming a wheat source or chopping a forest. I might choose for the wheat resource if I think I need the food fast. The food can help build another worker and help grow my city. After that, I might chop the forest to help finish the worker production.
2) I need the health benefits from the forests (each forest square inside the fat cross of the city area adds +0.5
).
At the start of the game, you haven't hooked up any health resources and your city might get into health problems if you chop too many forests. This is entirely situational.
3) I'm about to research mathematics which will increase the output of chopping forests from 20 to 30 (normal speed setting). I will often wait until I've finished the research of mathematics before I finish chopping the forests.
4) I see that the forest tiles are the only source of production for the city (no hills) and the city also doesn't have a nice food surplus which could be used for whipping (using the slavery civic). I might leave some forests for production in that situation.
5) I've located a nice city with many forest tiles and plan to get a certain great wonder. I might save the forests so that I can finish the wonder by chopping forests.
Note that you can 'pre-chop' forests. If a forest takes 4 turns to chop and you chop it for 3 turns and stop the worker at that point, then there's only 1 turn of chopping needed later to finish the job. If you build a road on the forest tile so that you can come back to the tile quickly, then you can get a lot of production in a few turns by finishing the pre-chopped tiles. This way, the gamble for a great wonder is not so much of a gamble if you finish the pre-chops all at once and finish the production of the wonder by doing so.
Some other interesting facts about chopping:
-Chops can be usefull to get workers and settlers out of a city quickly without stalling the growth of the city. That can be useful if you want the food to be used for growing the city (instead of producing workers and settlers).
-The production from chopping forests is modified by the production bonusses in the city.
-If you chop forests outside the fat cross of the city or outside the cultural borders, then the production will be significantly less.
edit: cross-posted with Ginger_Ale.