Should my worker in my cities be improving something every turn? Should I be putting a farm on every blank tile (unless a specific resource, obviously)? Should I be leaving tiles blank for later use?
It seems I run into a situation where I have to start prioritizing energy (gold) in order to maintain all the buildings. So, am I building too much on empty tiles? Should I be NOT building farms?
I just need some general strategies for a Civ newbie. Or for a guy who played a lot of Civ but has to put it on easiest mode since I'm so terribly bad at it.
Farms, mines, paddocks, and quarries don't cost you anything ... so build as many of those as you can. Eventually you'll have access to improvements like Biowells, and you'll need to replace some of your farms with those, but in the meantime you are better off with an improved tile than an unimproved tile.
The bigger question is why you are running out of energy. You have a cash flow problem. If you put your mouse over the energy balance on the main screen, it will show you where your energy is going and where it is coming from.
Here are a couple of quick pieces of advice:
* Unlike in previous versions of Civilization, each section of road now has a maintenance cost. Each section is 1 energy per turn ... so it is not in your interest to totally cover the map with roads.
* There is a benefit to connecting cities ... equal to the population of the cities. So there is an interest in building cities closer together instead of having to run roads all over the map.
* Make sure you build a trade depot and then start building trade convoys/vessels. You will get energy per turn by trading with stations and foreign cities. [Note - your trade convoys cannot go through miasma, and your trade vessels cannot go through a square with fog of war.]
Yes, keep improving even if you really need to at the moment. An idle worker doesn't help you. But...
Don't build the improvements that cost energy unless you are going to use them. And then you should probably lock the tile so the AI is always working it.
Connect your inland cities to your capital. Coastal cities connect each other without roads so you only need to make sure one of them is connected to the capital. After you get magrails then you should connect the coastal cities with magrails.
When in doubt, build generators. Farms may grow your population too fast so generators are safe for getting something without having to worry about negative side effects.
Roads don't cost you if they're outside your territory. So a long road connecting two cities isn't as expensive as it many look as long as you don't own all the tiles between them.
Just remember to watch your energy income. If it gets too low do something to fix it.
Are you sure that road segments outside your territory don't cost energy? I'm not in a position to fire up a save game to verify, but in CiV that was definitely not the case -- you paid maintenance on all road segments inside your territory and on all road segments that you built outside your territory. Only exceptions were road segments you built in City-State territory (not relevant in BE) and road segments that you built in other civs' territory (where you needed Open Borders to have those segments contribute to a city connection).
I made a point to check before and after I built one and it did not increase my maintenance. Unless I was very stupid and forgot I had supremacy 3. Possible but unlikely.
EDIT: Just verified. Free outside of your territory.
PS: Looks like I solved my energy issue. I had city-states blocked by Miasma, so I couldn't trade with them. Once I cleared it up, trade routes brought in lots of energy (and culture, yay!). Then I had a perk point to spend and picked up the one that turns a % of culture into energy, which also netted me a synergy bonus netting more energy (and production and food, I think), so I went from +0 or +2 energy, to +100 in just a couple turns.
I research the tech for the costlier improvement when I want to use it, so the answer is "immediately". My cities end up with a mixture of basic and advanced improvements.
I think replacing existing improvements is a waste of worker-turns. If there are workers to spare, then that production could have went somewhere else. The exception is when changing the capital to maximising production for the victory-conditions (beacon, mindflower, the two gates).
I am not sure if city specialisation actually exists in CivBE. Science comes from population and buildings, and buildings with percentage (%) multipliers are too late and too weak. So every city is a mixture of mines and farms, with generators as needed and academies if playing supremacy, plus any resources.
To other posters that mentioned terrascapes: if my math is correct, they are weaker than other improvements, even in flat desert terrain with only 1 energy.
Spoiler:
Assume vivarium, flat desert and purity affinity. 6 terrascapes convert 42 energy into 18 food, 12 production, and 12 culture. Natural point of desert energy was lost, so a terrascape really costs 7. I then make-up the energy deficit with 21 generators. 6*18+21*6=234 worker turns to make.
Or, I can build 9 biowells, 6 domes, 4 manufacturies, 8 generators. The difference is 3 less energy, 5 more health, 238 worker-turns to make.
I ignored the ecoscaping virtue. If bonuses for all advanced improvements are included, then terrascapes compare even more poorly.
I only build them in two cases:
1) I am maximising production in a food-poor capital. The optimal combination of improvements will involve some terrascapes. For a normal capital, the optimal mix involves farms, mines, and manufactories, without terrascapes.
2) The colony has a large energy surplus and more advanced improvements of other types do not make sense. For example, there are enough biowells to address local health constraints and global health constraints do not allow for more manufactories. Spending the surplus energy on terrascapes is better than trading it to other colonies for science. The rate is around 100 energy for 1 science-per-turn which is horrible.
Don't forget if you have snow tiles they are zero resources but a terrascape will give the full benefit. Very often I find heavy concentrations of strategic resources near the top or bottom of the map and have snow to deal with.
Assume vivarium, flat desert and purity affinity. 6 terrascapes convert 42 energy into 18 food, 12 production, and 12 culture. Natural point of desert energy was lost, so a terrascape really costs 7. I then make-up the energy deficit with 21 generators. 6*18+21*6=234 worker turns to make.
Or, I can build 9 biowells, 6 domes, 4 manufacturies, 8 generators. The difference is 3 less energy, 5 more health, 238 worker-turns to make.
You don't have to make up for the maintenance with generators though, there are many ways of adding gold to your empire. The real strength of terrascapes is the amount of bonuses you get per population/worked tile. It's basically an "I pay gold to boost the overall output of my cities."-improvement. But even then it still seems to be underperforming quite a bit without the bonus prosperity.
@topic:
Chopping down forests can also be very useful if your workers don't have anything else to do in that early phase before the new improvements are available. Will save you a few turns later on.
Here's a beginer conquest tip. Pillage the maintenance improvements. You can't use them while the city is in martial law, you might not even want them, and they're quick to repair. Suddenly taking on someone's expensive improvements, especially terrascapes, can ruin your economy. The one good thing the AI gets out of its over valuing terrascapes is it really slows down invaders.
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