Bonus resources, harvest or improve?

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I find bonus resources not to be particular good, like only +1 yield and the improvements are seldom all that great like quarry vs mine, also by harvesting you get the resources now which mean quicker snowballing, so in what case would you improve the bonus resource rather than harvest it?

 

[criZp]

I only keep them for the sake of map decoration.

 

[Loerwyn]

I never harvest, always improve. I may be doing it "wrong", though.

 

[Kibikus]

I tend to improve them, although I have no problem with harvesting stone, especially on a hill, to rush a wonder. Also, from time to time, some deer might get sacrificed for the greater good. Other than that, I don't find much use in harvesting food resources with the way housing works, I leave crabs since sea tiles are crap otherwise, and I only remove copper if it's in the way of a good district.

 

[konokono]

An interesting principle to think about is that if you finish the game with harvestable resources left, then you played sub optimally

Which means personally I never play optimally

But that being said, the hard question isn't to chop or not to chop. The more interesting question is what's the optimal time to chop? For that, I usually save chops for wonders or in emergencies, but I'm not sure if that's the best strategy

 

[Archon_Wing]

Ignoring them for a while is also a viable option.

Builder charges aren't cheap, especially before feudalism and increase the cost of future builders. Also Magnus cannot sometimes travel fast enough and other times you have nothing good to chop. But you don't want to waste build charges on mediocre improvements.

Obviously at the end of the game you'll want to chop it all, but they're still better than generic tiles, so they can serve their purpose until then.

 

[Goodenuf]

Unless Magnus is available in a city, I'll generally improve unless it's a prime location for (say) a campus up against the mountains. Forests are an interesting one since the lumbermill is +2 production so if you're getting close to Construction it may serve you better to wait until it's researched. Early game though, they can really help the early district or wonder with Magnus' assistance.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I usually don't harvest or remove features unless I know I want to build a district on that tile or possibly a wonder.

 

[apocalypse105]

General rule if stone is on flat land you harvest it if its on a hill then quary it. or if its next to a mine close to other cities where you can put you're industrial zone then yes

 

[bite]

I only harvest if they are in the way for a district or wonder that I need to put down

 

[Victoria]

They are a ‘better than nothing” improvement (apart from to Kupe) which you get a nice benefit settling on.
They provide a nice addition for pantheons albeit a little weak in comparison to the top few.
A nice addition to eurekas
Not everything should be OP in the game and this is just another example, they add flavour.

 

[Sostratus]

so in what case would you improve the bonus resource rather than harvest it?

Assuming you are looking for a “math” answer, pretty much the only reason is if the following is true:
1) one of your pops is working the tile and the best unworked tile sucks in comparison (sheep in the middle of a desert or something)
2) it’s before the Middle Ages (roughly 1/3 through the tech tree)
3) you’re getting some ulterior benefit like a Hansa adjacency, pantheon, wonder benefit (temple of Artemis, Zimbabwe, etc.)
4) you aren’t trying to rush something critical

The math is here. Basically just work out how much yield you’d lose by clearing the tile. A piece of stone when you’ve got tons of mines to work? Yeah, you’re only losing 1 yield. A critical deer tile in otherwise flat tundra? You’re losing several points of yield.
Take that number and look up the value in the green bar chart. The turn number on the X axis that corresponds to the green bar of the same value as your lost yield is when you should chop. (1 yield corresponds to around turn 100, or 1/3 through the tech tree. 2 yield is like turn 170, or closer to 55-60% of the way through.) Gold counts for half. IE 3 gold lost would be 1.5 yield points.

Not that I advocate playing this way, because resources are pretty and make the numbers on the empire lens bigger.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

But that being said, the hard question isn't to chop or not to chop. The more interesting question is what's the optimal time to chop? For that, I usually save chops for wonders or in emergencies, but I'm not sure if that's the best strategy

Yes that is correct, the value of chops go up and so if you keep resource around you can get more resources in long run, meanwhile the yield from resources become less and less signifcant as the game progress.

Builder start at 50 and increase by 4 per builder, this mean a builder charge cost:

N = builder number
XC = x number of charges of the builder, right side is cost (cost with 30% production bonus)

• N = 1, 3C = 17 (13), 5C = 10 (8)
• N = 10, 3C = 30 (23), 5C = 18 (14)
• N = 20, 3C = 43 (33), 5C = 26 (20)
• N = 30, 3C = 57 (44), 5C = 34 (26)
• N = 40, 3C = 70 (54), 5C = 42 (32)
• N = 50, 3C = 83 (64), 5C = 50 (38)

So at start builder charges cost nearly as much as chopping would yield while tile improvements have a payback time of around 20 turns. The payback time is probably still around 20 turns even in late game as cards keep builder cost down while tile improvements get better. However that assume that builder is used to improve the city it is built at, in fact builders should probably be seen as a way for a city to use its production to help out other cities, generally the more developed a city is the less valuable production is in that city, for example you can only build 1 campus + buildings per city so if you want to increase your science you want to develop other cities and a builder is maybe a better investment than a campus Project in terms of science.

Harvesting seems to start out giving about the same as what a builder charge cost but increase in value much more quickly than what builder charges increase in cost, but it is maybe not cost effectivness you are looking for but to help out new cities or "store production" in preperation for a wonder. The lost resources from working a chopped tile only Count if you was actually working the tile.

Another thing to keep in mind is that having stuff in production don't contribute to anything Before they are finished, which make harvesting and chopping more powerful than just their resources in raw numbers, like getting a campus out 10-20 turns earlier mean getting maybe 50-100 science and 10-20 great scientist Points which is a significant amount of resources.

 

[kb27787]

Improve sheep (always hills) and copper (mainly only because I don't want to waste the charge to harvest it, so just mine it). Production is great.

Leave alone (neither harvest nor improve): bananas, fish, rice/wheat (unless Egypt), deer (if the base tile is good, aka wooded/rainforested hills or reefs or enriched flood plains then it is a good tile even unimproved... can be harvested later as needed or if the base tile is crap). Wheat on flood plains especially... a farm yields a measly 1 food and causes you to potentially lose pop if it floods and it is pillaged.

Harvest: stone (empty mines are better due to apprenticeship; cannot spawn in woods or rainforest which makes it useless), crabs (lousy tile which cannot spawn on reef), cows (always flat grassland... terrible!).

 

[AntSou]

Improve sheep (always hills) and copper (mainly only because I don't want to waste the charge to harvest it, so just mine it). Production is great.

Leave alone (neither harvest nor improve): bananas, fish, rice/wheat (unless Egypt), deer (if the base tile is good, aka wooded/rainforested hills or reefs or enriched flood plains then it is a good tile even unimproved... can be harvested later as needed or if the base tile is crap). Wheat on flood plains especially... a farm yields a measly 1 food and causes you to potentially lose pop if it floods and it is pillaged.

Harvest: stone (empty mines are better due to apprenticeship; cannot spawn in woods or rainforest which makes it useless), crabs (lousy tile which cannot spawn on reef), cows (always flat grassland... terrible!).

Aren't you ignoring housing?

Quarries also provide better adjacency to industrial zones and extra gold and unharvested stone can provide 2/2/2 tiles with Reyna. Pretty useful with Australia as well.

 

[Dotsworthy]

For the most part, they are normally a net plus on the tile they are on and don't have the downside of being unremovable like luxuries.

I will harvest one if they are placed somewhere I intend to build something on later.

Buenos Aires popping in the game makes them more desirable than some luxuries as there are a number of luxuries with ineffective yields.

 

[enKage]

It depends. From Cree perspective - never harvest deer, don't harvest early - you need early bonus food as 2 bonus give +1 food for mekewaps. After cartography and establishing trade net, harvest like crazy, as you would use mekewaps for gold generation and you would have crazy growth anyway