SmartMuffin said:
It seems to me that almost every strategy discussed on this board makes very liberal use of the worker-chop. Whether it's to get the first settler, the Oracle, or a military conquest unit.
However, of the three main resources (food, commerce, production), production always seems to be the most lacking in the vast majority of my cities. Forest tiles seem to be plentiful in game, hills not as much. Removing a +1 production modifier from a tile for a +30 bonus when there are some 400 turns left in the game just seems odd to me, especially when, after the discovery of Replaceable Parts and Railroad, you can then add another +1 prod and +1 com to the tile.
Am I completely insane? Can someone please explain to me why chop-rushing is worth it?
Well, first of all, you only get the +1 production if your citizens are actually working the tile. So if there are better tiles to be worked, you may not be getting that +1 anytime soon (or at all). Especially depending on difficulty level -- you hit a pretty early happiness limit on the higher difficulties, so you're only going to be working a handful of tiles until AD. If you have 2-3 hills, those are going to be more productive earlier, and you're not going to be able to work more hammer-dominant spaces that early anyway.
Second, getting 30 production early has a cumulative effect. Say you're building a library, if you chop a forest instead of working it, you get that library several turns earlier (if it's your first library, probably 15-20 turns earlier). That's several turns of increased science, giving you an edge on getting the next Wonder, worker improvement, military unit, whatever.
Third, you have to take into account that the forest can be replaced with something else. If you want to take the long view, a cottage will eventually give 6-8 commerce (and 1 hammer, under US). You're better off taking a tile with 8 commerce and gold-rushing your production than you are with a 1 production tile. Or you can replace it with a farm. If you find yourself short on production, you can chop 2 forests and replace one with a farm, the other with a workshop. You'll get more production earlier, and by the end of the game this will tie for production and possibly on food. Plus, as noted above, you get that Wonder done, get your settler out earlier to claim a better spot, or conquer your neighbor by outproducing him in military.
Finally, maybe this goes without saying, but you don't have to chop inside your city's radius. It gives diminishing bonuses the farther out you get, but +15 hammers is still pretty significant in 3000 BC and doesn't cost you anything.
This isn't to say I support an always chop mentality. Honestly, the biggest penalty I see to chopping is that you have to tech to bronze working to do it. Depending on your other plans and your starting techs (i.e. if you don't start with mining and you're trying to get an early religion), that can come at a high price if you want to do it early.
There's also the health limit to be considered on higher difficulties. Especially in circumstances like an OCC, where health is a severely limiting factor, it's usually worth keeping some forests around. Like everything else with C-IV, you have to examine your position and determine the best strategy from there. There isn't an always right answer. Always chopping is just as foolish as never chopping.
. But that's with pretty large cities, hence alot of improvements.
