Are farms worth it?

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I don't see many people actually use farms beyond getting the eurkas and insperation and often more or less ignoring city growth. So is farms actually Worth the builder charge past the eurkas and insperations?

 

[Starwars]

It depends on the city a bit. Sometimes a farm can really help a city get going if other tiles might be food-poor. They can definitely have their uses. Consider that you have to hit certain population levels to build a new district in a city for example.

But it generally doesn't take much. And given that both amenities and housing "limits" your growth, the use of food is very... well, limited to be honest. And not really representative of how important a resource it is in the world and in history. It'd be nice if there were more options for what to do with it, so that the really food-rich cities felt worth it. Trading it to other cities perhaps.

But all in all, I don't think Civ VI has done a good job of balancing its tile yields in that regard. I never feel that excited about finding a site that is really rich in food which is a bit of a shame in a game like this..

 

[Dotsworthy]

Farm tiles are only useful if the yields in your city are lopsided i.e. lots of plains hills woods and grassland flat tiles. It's also occasionally useful for housing but late game this becomes redundant.

I never look for massive food yields. I tend to beeline for spots with lots of 2 food + 2 prod or higher tiles.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

In all other civ games I have played, 3 and beyond, food is important if not the most important resource as it is very important to grow your cities in past civ games. However civilization Vi is clearly different in number of ways:

• Buildings give flat yield instead of increasing the yields gained from pops
• Builders are much more costly than workers in the long run
• Chopping scale, allowing pretty much any city get out a campus or something and combine with flat yields, even a small pop city can produce quite alot of science or other yields.
• No cost with cities and even encouragmenet to pack city centers close together mean each city will naturally be small with few workable tiles
• No national wonders or similar, governors can maybe be seen as the national wonders of civ 6 but they seldom actually have much to encourage city growth.

 

[criZp]

I like my cities growing even if it's not the meta.

 

[The Highwayman]

6 farms are needed for the Feudalism inspiration. Beyond that, it depends on the city's resources. If I can harvest my way to 10 pop, or there are other means to grow, such as a strong harbor city with fishing boats, then definitely not. However, some cities need farm triangles to hit 10 pop in a reasonable time frame.

 

[Bibor]

Some city locations will really struggle with population growth, especially if you build heavily along rivers, which are the "usual natural food spot".
Farming triangles can help with this.
I'd say whenever you settle a heavy-production city, that's the one that's going to have the most farms and mines.

 

[PenngwynXVII]

Build farms early (triangles if possible) to get city pops up to 10, then replace them with districts or Forrest/lumber Mills after that.

 

[knighterrant81]

Build farms early (triangles if possible) to get city pops up to 10, then replace them with districts or Forrest/lumber Mills after that.

This seems a bit wasteful of Builder charges?

Farms are useful for getting the Feudalism inspiration (generally by conquering rather than building yourself). They can also be useful when a city is between 1-4 pop (growth is strong at low pop levels, less so after pop 4). They can help with getting the Craftsmanship inspiration in a pinch, but shouldn't be a go-to option for that purpose. Sometimes a Farm triangle/square/rhombus is warranted, but generally river tiles get used up by Commercial Hubs, Dams, Aqueducts and Industrial Zones in my games.

 

[PenngwynXVII]

Getting to 10 pop early is worth the (relatively cheap) builder charges.

 

[Bibor]

Getting to 10 pop early is worth the (relatively cheap) builder charges.

Not really. This man has the right idea

Farms are useful for getting the Feudalism inspiration (generally by conquering rather than building yourself).

 

[kaspergm]

I like my cities growing even if it's not the meta.

I must admit, I'm a sucker for those big blankets of farms giving you +8/+9/+10 food each. It's a big flaw in the game design that they are mostly useless, but I like to build them anyway.

 

[Bibor]

I must admit, I'm a sucker for those big blankets of farms giving you +8/+9/+10 food each. It's a big flaw in the game design that they are mostly useless, but I like to build them anyway.

Well, not useless if, say, three cities get all their food from this "farm blanket" and otherwise work food-poor tiles in the hinterlands.

 

[kaspergm]

Well, not useless if, say, three cities get all their food from this "farm blanket" and otherwise work food-poor tiles in the hinterlands.

Yeah, but usually come mid- or lategame, the cities will be either housing or happiness blocked from growing, so they'll sit with +50 food that just goes to waste.

 

[Tech Osen]

Yeah, but usually come mid- or lategame, the cities will be either housing or happiness blocked from growing, so they'll sit with +50 food that just goes to waste.

I like big cities too but I won't build neighborhoods so I rarely hit 30. Problem with farm blankets is also the draught disaster. Though more a nuisance than anything else.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I like my cities growing even if it's not the meta.

It is quite strange that Civilization VI encourage infinite city sprawl given that all past civ iteration tried to discourage it in various ways. How many other 4x games would growth be considered to be not a good thing?

 

[MrRadar]

It is quite strange that Civilization VI encourage infinite city sprawl given that all past civ iteration tried to discourage it in various ways. How many other 4x games would growth be considered to be not a good thing?

Well, I feel that it is a bit too much to state that Civ VI effectively encourages ICS. How many cities do you usually end up with, for efficient wins? Somewhere betwen 50 and 100? No? Then it is not ICS. Civ III may have had the most draconian anti ICS rules, with corruption and penalties for having more than 40 cities, but players used to end their games probably with one of the highest city counts, so actually, ICS was really encouraged there.

In Civ VI ICS is very well checked by the UI, if not by anything else. Try to manage 40 cities empires from game to game, every game and you may end up in an asylum... or only play a game per year

But, yes, I would like to see food become more important, because now I also do not build many farms and usually don't get Feudalism eureka or just get it from a great scientist or a goody hut. They could also buff specialists much more than the last timid little buff for +3 yield when you have all three of them. Indeed, that was what it was about - the more abundant was food, the more free time some people had for other useful and specialized activities. Trade routes could also start moving real things, including surplus food or production, and not something that's arbitrarily made up.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I don't see ICS about the number of cities since each game have different placement rules, in Civ 3 you only need 1 space between 2 cities, in Civ 6 it is 3 spaces. I see ICS about trying to maximizes the amount of cities possible according to game rules and that is something I see many people doing in Civ VI. Civ V have same placement rule but in V people tend to settle cities more far from each other to increase the potential of each city.

Civ 3 is tricky, you want basically a core of cities placed quite optimally due to how corruption work but very corrupt cities you have good reasons to place ICS style, Civ 6 however don't really have anything that encourage core cities, other than perhaps Pingala + Oxford or so but I have not seen anyone employ such strategy. Even in a generous case of 2 science per pop in your Pingala city it is still not that good, a basic library produce atleast 2 science and often more as well as great people Points. And also this is just 1 city rather than several cities.

 

[UWHabs]

I must admit, I'm a sucker for those big blankets of farms giving you +8/+9/+10 food each. It's a big flaw in the game design that they are mostly useless, but I like to build them anyway.

Yep, I'm the same. Do I need a full farming area when my city doesn't grow past size 15 or 16, and I still only have 4ish districts, so it didn't have to be bigger than 10? No, probably not. But it's still kind of pretty on the map.

Same reason why I have so much trouble replacing like a +7 farm with a district because it feels like a waste. Or when Aluminum pops in the middle of my farm zone, it just irks me.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I used to be firmly in the "I try to conquer farms to get my feudalism bonus" camp and not really see much worth in them, but that has changed. especially with monumentality I think it's now worth to create one or two farming spots (I do more than triangles, if I'm having farms I want my bonuses to be good) in the cities you want as spaceport cities, and for the 10 pop / 15 pop Inspiration and Era Score, which you don't always get without farms. However, I think if a farm is not in a triangle or a city that really matters for your win condition, it's probably better to spend the builder on something else.