Forge - Every city?

I'm wondering if other people try to put a forge in every city
they build or not. I do and I try to do it early in the city's life.
I find the extra hammers to be quite helpful even if it is a
city surrounded by cottages. In terms of this discussion, you
do already have knowledge of metal casting.

I try to build most buildings in most cities, but the forge is a definate build in 90% of my cities.

I usually build oracle and take metal casting and whip forges in most cities.

The engineers are very useful specialists, especially in numbers later. Obviously early on I don't put forges in cities with few hammers early on, I'd rather whip in libraries and markets and run those specialists. However as the tech tree gets deeper, Engineers from forge, factory/assembly plant and industrial park can really go along way to extending an SE economy and avoiding the need for a CE economy.

I put forges in most cities but I play high difficulties where the health implications of a forge can severely curtail growth. Despite this I will usually build a forge but here are instances where I don't:

a) it's a commerce city with 7 or less production. In this case I would rather put the hammers directly into basic commerce buildings as it will take a long time for the forge to repay the hammers invested. Without a forge the population cap will be higher allowing me to work an extra plains cottage providing me with the hammer that 25% of 7 would give and commerce to boot. The extra population will reduce unit maintenance and potentially improve trade route income.

b) I want to grow the city as fast as possible but have a temporary health problem eg lots of jungles yet to be cleared, but I might build the forge once the city is up to size, jungle chopped or I've got some more health resources hooked up.

c) In my military production city. I usually have literature before metal casting so am cranking out units with a 100% hammer bonus already due to the Heroic Epic so sometimes I won't bother with a forge as well as this only provides an extra 12.5% hammers. To actually build a forge I have to stop building military and the -1 to health from the forge could slow down or stop the city growth as the city is trying to work lots of mines. Once the city gets large enough and units get more expensive then a forge will help but often this might not be until I have Civil Service and can chain irrigate to bring in more food.

As Mali, yes. In games where I have access to 2 or more of gold/silver/gems, yes. Most of the time though they are only going to go in either high production cities where the actual hammers gained will be significant, or in high growth cities where I will need the extra happiness and can afford to lose the health. Most games I find I'm swimming in health resources vs happy ones (particularly early on, pre-plantation) so it's usually a no brainer to slap a forge into a city that's already hit the happy cap... That is, assuming I've hooked at least one of the precious ores up, which is true in the majority of games.

Forges end up in all of my cities eventually, but it's a low priority in commerce dedicated cities. The forge pays for its hammer cost over time, but I'd rather have that market or bank ASAP.

I usually have Forges in most cities. I haven't really figured out how to specifically "specialize" cities yet (it's my current project) so most of my cities are hybrids.

I always build a Forge in my wealth & science cities.

It costs 120, So it pays it's self when you build for 600.

You bring 480 on your own and the Forge give you 25% (120).

In a science science city you will build a; Library 90, University 200, Obsavatroy 150 & a Laboratory 250.

a total of 690


In a wealth gold city it's a little bit more complicated. You only build a Market, Grocer (each 150) and a Bank for 200.

a total of 500


But I left out the following building, Monasteries (60), Harbor (80), Castle (100), Customs House (180) and a Airport (250).

And don't forget if you decide to build wealth or science, the output get also the 25% bonus of the Forge.

And don't underestimate the + from the forge. You get access to forges and Gold/silver/gems earlier than access to plantations (and wine/HR many times). Whipping a forge will often net happiness even after the whip penalty.

the forge i dont understand why shouldnt i build it? of course its one of the first building i build in the new cities

Onagan said:

I always build a Forge in my wealth & science cities.

It costs 120, So it pays it's self when you build for 600.

You bring 480 on your own and the Forge give you 25% (120).

In a science science city you will build a; Library 90, University 200, Obsavatroy 150 & a Laboratory 250.

a total of 690

Click to expand...

So, you'll break even when you're 160 hammers into the laboratory. Thing is, though, you could have had all of the previous buildings sooner if you'd not spent the time building the forge. Anything you build *after* the 600th hammer will arrive sooner with the forge than it would without, but anything before the 600th hammer has been delayed by building the forge. The first building, the library, has been delayed significantly. You've lost quite a few turns of the research bonuses.

You don't break even on the 600th hammer; you still need to compensate for the extra turns that you went without the research buildings. If you need to build significantly more than 600 hammers' worth, though (including building research or gold directly), it eventually becomes worthwhile, and that's not counting the happiness bonuses. Obviously, industrious leaders get a much better deal. I think they're quite a hefty investment, but I still aim to build them pretty quickly in most cities.

You forgot the 25% extra when you're building 'Research'. You get (for example) 30 with Forge instead of 24 without Forge. It's means every 5 turns without Forge you lose a turn building That's how you compensate my lose of turns building the Forge

and don't forget that you can't build a University early, because you don't have the knowlege of Education yet. so you get a University and so on earlier. maybe you lose a few turn with the library

magicalsushi said:

So, you'll break even when you're 160 hammers into the laboratory. Thing is, though, you could have had all of the previous buildings sooner if you'd not spent the time building the forge. Anything you build *after* the 600th hammer will arrive sooner with the forge than it would without, but anything before the 600th hammer has been delayed by building the forge. The first building, the library, has been delayed significantly. You've lost quite a few turns of the research bonuses.

You don't break even on the 600th hammer; you still need to compensate for the extra turns that you went without the research buildings. If you need to build significantly more than 600 hammers' worth, though (including building research or gold directly), it eventually becomes worthwhile, and that's not counting the happiness bonuses. Obviously, industrious leaders get a much better deal. I think they're quite a hefty investment, but I still aim to build them pretty quickly in most cities.

Click to expand...

Exactly. By building the forge first, you're temporarily foregoing beaker and gold multipliers that could have come earlier.

It's easy to place a hammer bonus above a beaker/gold bonus, but the fact is that building a forge first to get the hammer bonus ASAP doesn't make any more sense than building a market for the gold bonus, especially when the forge is going to give 2 /turn and the market is going to give 5+ /turn.

Onagan said:

You forgot the 25% extra when you're building 'Research'. You get (for example) 30 with Forge instead of 24 without Forge. It's means every 5 turns without Forge you lose a turn building That's how you compensate my lose of turns building the Forge

and don't forget that you can't build a University early, because you don't have the knowlege of Education yet. so you get a University and so on earlier. maybe you lose a few turn with the library

Click to expand...

Actually, I did mention the bonus for building research; I said it would count as part of the 600 hammer break-even point, or as part of the benefit after the break-even point (I'm referring to breaking even on hammers here, but the opportunity costs I mentioned before would still be an issue).

The thing is, the bonus for building research is largely irrelevent, because it delays even further the completion of the research multiplier buildings - weren't they the milestones we were meant to be using? If you're building research, you're not finishing off your observatory (or whatever), so the problem I mentioned gets even worse. Assuming you have more commerce than hammers (this was meant to be a commerce city), it's not sensible to build research with a 25% bonus when you could be building a library to give yourself a 25% bonus to commerce. Every turn you spend building research now, is a turn you've lost the 25% commerce bonus on later. In fact, it's even worse than that - you're also delaying the other research buildings. Therefore, delaying the library means you're delaying the situation where you have 100% research bonus to commerce, delaying the university means you're delaying an eventual 75% bonus, etc.

Your point about not having the prerequisites for the later buildings is perfectly valid though. The opportunity cost I mentioned will apply to all the stuff you building while waiting for Education, Astronomy, etc, but we're assuming that we're only interested in building the research multipleir buildings. I suppose if you plan to spend the downtime building research, you're better off with a forge. However, I think you'd be even better off if you built the library and *then* the forge, assuming you can finish the forge before the university is available. That way, you get the bonus on the commerce while you're building the forge.

If you're interested in building stuff other than the research multiplier buildings while you wait for the right technologies (courthouses, temples, etc), then it's a judgement call - is it a problem if you delay *those* while you build a forge, or are they relatively unimportant compared to getting the research multipliers in place quickly once you do get the techs?

Don't get me wrong, I agree with your conclusions, but the opportunity cost issue does mean your figures are slightly flawed - it's only the downtime you experience while waiting for the right techs for unis etc. that really supports your case.

I can agree on building the Library or Market first, but there will be a Forge.

It depends on the situation (as usually), I build forges often but not when it's not a production which has low health.

Has anyone mentioned that forges increase the benefit from whipping? I usually use slavery to build most of my infrastructure, and with organized religion and forges whipping becomes pretty effective.

Hey, I could complicate it more. Everything is rounded down, so if, as mentioned above, someone had a 7 hammer city without potential to get more, the forge would only give +1 hammer, and take a full 480 turns to pay for itself. That would be near the end of an epic game already (750 turns). Of course, most commerce cities are cottage based, so it would get more hammers eventually, but it is to say that a 2 hammer city would build the forge for an engineer as much as the hammer bonus.

I forge every city, and Mint many games.

+1 happy-face from gold, silver, gems!

My commerce cities usually end up with a forge for happiness reasons at some point - production bonus/time be damned!

All cities - need the hammers, the happiness or both.
And as it will be needed anyway I normally whip it straight away to get the most benefit.