All about workshops...

[Ramesses-Rules]

I put my second city in a low production area to get quick access to Marble. Unfortunately, the city has horrible production potential (no hills and only one forest). So it's the perfect workshop situation.

Questions:

1. Given that I have a river there to compensate for a sick worker, should I build one or two workshops? Does having 2 workshops in an area like this usually pay off even if it produces a sick worker for some time until more heath resources come available? Not sure about that.

2. I usually build the workshop in the plains to save grassland for cottages and river tiles for farms. Good idea?

3. Any other workshop tips?

Thanks.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

1. Workshops suck until caste/guilds minimum
2. You don't normally work plains early in the game. If you have spare worker turns, you can throw shops there in preparation for a transition from farms ----> hammers at state property or something, but I wouldn't recommend working them.
3. Farms are good production tiles for whipping, stronger than workshops at most pops pre-guilds/caste.
4. If the city is inherently hammer poor, consider doing something else other than hammering heavily on units/infra with it if you want to run caste.

Caste/chem/guilds/SP workshops are amazing, but it takes some time to get there. New cities in later eras should definitely consider workshop spam if you go the SP route.

 

[kossin]

Workshops stink before you have a combination of at least 2 of:
-Caste System
-Guilds
-Workshops (duh, obviously)
-chemistry

They are okay if you have:
-State Property

That city is better used running specialists off its food specials, cottages, or mass farms with irrigation in the meantime.

 

[huerfanista]

Sick worker? Are you playing vanilla or BTS? BTS workshops don't give unhealthiness like they did in vanilla (IIRC). Otherwise, what TMIT and Kossin said.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

I'm surprised by the anti-workshop sentiment, we have some slavers in the house I take it?
If you aren't using slavery and you need more hammers do whatever it takes to get them.

 

[drlake]

I'm surprised by the anti-workshop sentiment, we have some slavers in the house I take it?
If you aren't using slavery and you need more hammers do whatever it takes to get them.

Whip 'em, whip 'em good!

 

[jauggy]

Workshops stink before you have a combination of at least 2 of:
-Caste System
-Guilds
-Workshops

Workshops stink before you have workshops? Are you sure?

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

Workshops stink before you have workshops? Are you sure?

Guess he meant Chemistry.

 

[roguepro92]

just whip out a building every 30turn and make everything food generating

 

[kossin]

I'm surprised by the anti-workshop sentiment, we have some slavers in the house I take it?
If you aren't using slavery and you need more hammers do whatever it takes to get them.

If you want the more effective improvement, then yes workshops stink before. If you aren't in Slavery, you're either in Caste (run specialists) or Emancipation (cottages or you already have enough technologies). If you're in Serfdom: more workers. If you aren't in anything: why aren't you in Slavery?

For reference:

Spoiler :

The whip converts (10 + city_size) food into 30 hammers. [with granary]
A grassland hill converts 1 food into 3 hammers.
A plains hill converts 2 food into 4 hammers.
A plains forest converts 1 food into 2 hammers.
etc...

Consider, you have:
-Metal Casting

On grassland a workshop is: -1f/+1h = 11 = plains tile = bad [pay 1 food for 1 hammer]
On plains a workshop is: -1f/+1h = 02 = un-mined plains hill = bad [pay 2 food for 1 hammer]
On flood plains a workshop is: -1f/+1h = 21 = forested grassland = somewhat bad [1 "free" hammer provided you have the happy/health cap]​

Basically you're working low food unimproved tiles. You can do the math if you want to see the actual yield versus farms+whipping every 10 turns (or less).

-Add one of {Caste,Guilds,Chemistry}

On grassland a workshop is: -1f/+2h = 12 = forested plains tile = somewhat bad [pay 1 food for 2 hammers]
On plains a workshop is: -1f/+2h = 03 = mined desert hill = bad [pay 2 food for 3 hammers]
On flood plains a workshop is: -1f/+2h = 22 = lumbermilled grassland = somewhat decent [2 "free" hammers provided you have the happy/health cap]​

This is slightly better but you're still behind compared to whipping. Not that I'd workshop a flood plains for 2 hammers... a cottage or a farm to pay for mines/specialists is far better in my opinion at this stage.

-Add two of {Caste,Guilds,Chemistry}

On grassland a workshop is: -1f/+3h = 13 = grassland hill mine = very good [pay 1 food for 3 hammers]
On plains a workshop is: -1f/+3h = 04 = plains hill mine hill = pretty good [pay 2 food for 4 hammers]
On flood plains a workshop is: -1f/+3h = 23 = lumbermilled grassland+railroad = pretty amazing [3 "free" hammers provided you have the happy cap]​

If you're planning on playing peacefully for a while, it starts to pay off here. When you add the third choice it becomes better than mines! And when you add State Property... well you know how it ends up.

Or more simply, as DaveMcW put it:

Spoiler :

It is always inefficient to kill a citizen working a mined grassland hill.

At size 6, it becomes inefficient to kill off a mined plains hill.
At size 6, it becomes inefficient to kill off a plains forest.

At size 10, it becomes inefficient to kill off a mined desert hill.

At size 20, it becomes inefficient to kill off an engineer.

[...]

If you are planning to whip multiple citizens, use the average city size during regrowth. I assume a granary in all these calculations.

But as others pointed out, this is more of a guideline than an exact calculation. Very often the benefit of building something instantly outweighs the inefficiency in the food/hammer conversion.

Workshops stink before you have workshops? Are you sure?

Absolutely... since they can't be used ... thanks - fixed my post.

 

[NonPrayinMantis]

Workshops are my favorite late game improvements. They are the only thing you can build that provides an immediate benefit on a non-riverside flat tile. The cottage takes time to improve and late game this is problematic. Late game, with a food corp, your cities can easily feed themselves so farms are also somewhat useless. This leaves workshops.

NPM

 

[TheWilltoAct]

Bravo kossin, that was very informative, thanks! That is an elegant way to think of it.

 

[Wreck]

Sick worker? Are you playing vanilla or BTS? BTS workshops don't give unhealthiness like they did in vanilla (IIRC).

They didn't give unhealth in vanilla, either. So I've no idea what the OP is talking about there.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

Maybe he's just trying to say that he has fresh water, lol.

 

[fossil_god]

I've never really found workshops to be terribly useful. They don't become an acceptable tradeoff unless you have state property. I usually run a specialist economy, so I figure that the slight gain in hammers is less valuable than the food I forgo.

 

[MarcoPollo]

I'd say the reason for building workshops depends largely upon what the city has to offer in terms of its BFC.

If you need it to produce some hammers, and it can't produce much at all, then workshops on grassland river tiles may be in order. Sometimes you need a city that can do a little of everything.

Otherwise, I workshop plains tiles and just wait till the tech makes them better. Then if I need to switch to production mode, I micro the city screen appropriately. If I don't I will continue to grow cottages or GP.

With a potential of 20 upgradeable city tiles, it never hurts to build them if you have the opportunity.

 

[deathturnip]

You know those times that you have no production in your entire empire? You start drafting infantry right? Well, I supplement it with workshop based siege. I also workshop some tiles in perfectly flat cities, you know the ones that are grassland as far as you can see? Textbook cottage cities if they had a river? Well, when whipping becomes expensive, i go caste and workshop a few tiles. Then when guilds comes around, I can get multipliers in them.

Oh, and Kossin, caste lets you use scientists, merchants, and artists. None of those offer production.

Or where you trying to say that your surplus food is better spent on scientists than hammers?

 

[kossin]

You know those times that you have no production in your entire empire? You start drafting infantry right? Well, I supplement it with workshop based siege. I also workshop some tiles in perfectly flat cities, you know the ones that are grassland as far as you can see? Textbook cottage cities if they had a river? Well, when whipping becomes expensive, i go caste and workshop a few tiles. Then when guilds comes around, I can get multipliers in them.

If you're drafting Infantry, workshops should already be at full power where they are second only to Kremlin rush-buying. This is of course the better alternative unless you need the units *now* and not in 4 turns -> whip. It's a matter of timing which allows you to catch an AI with obsolete units, but if you delay 10 more turns, your cannons are up against Rifles which makes it a whole lot harder.

Oh, and Kossin, caste lets you use scientists, merchants, and artists. None of those offer production.

Or where you trying to say that your surplus food is better spent on scientists than hammers?

The point I was raising is if you're not running Slavery and you don't have Guilds or Chemistry, you're not getting good production out of Workshops. Either wait out the time it takes to generate your GP or go to Slavery. You can still argue that you can get some production out of 3 workshopped plains but it's just not as efficient as alternatives. I prefer farming in this era as I usually whip/draft my armies and the regrowth time is faster this way. I bulldoze over with workshops after the war and after the cities have grown back to a respectable size.

tl;dr
Early Caste is better suited for running specialists than sub-par workshops. It's okay with Guilds and rocks with Chemistry, but just one of the three isn't good. You might as well not chop the forests and use those for production.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

Just so we're all on the same page, Caste System gives you +1 from workshops.

 

[andersw]

Question:
At the times when some of you decide to "bulldoze all the farms/cottages for workshops", how many cities do you do that for? It takes a huge amount of workers to do this fast.
Do you go all workers for one city at a time or do you gradually workshop a couple of cities?

Also, is there ever a reason to workshop a hill? or is the window until railroads generally too small?
I drool too much over the random resource discovery that I always mine the hills (should probably windmill more).