Building Builders

[cephalo]

I'm finding myself neglecting builders once all my bonuses are covered. Is that a big mistake? The builders are so gosh darn expensive, but I see that the AI improves every tile.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Mines get pretty strong as the game progresses and farms gain adjacency bonuses from other farms, in addition to increasing your housing limit so yes, you should continue to build builders. You shouldn't build too many before feudalism thought and then use the +2 charges card whenever you need a new "batch" (you can change cards pretty often).

 

[Montymolethedog]

I pretty much have a policy that I should always have a builder around (except for early game where I'm focusing on expansion), and once I've used all of the charges I build a new one. This way I always a builder to repair things, and improve cities if they need it.

 

[RubbeRNL]

Farms give you food and housing. Mines give you production. So yeah, only improving resources is a mistake.

 

[Qin Shi Hung]

I don't build many before feudalism (and the +2 build actions policy), but then I try to improve every tile ASAP.

Unless I'm playing China, then I build several to rush wonders.

 

[Japper007]

I try to improve every tile in my empire, leaving some spots that have boosts for districts (this requires some forward thinking, but you can use the map-pins to make it easier to remember). Mines are a very strong improvement, and farms can at least give you some housing, and after feudalism they can get great yields through adjacency.

 

[Virtual Alex]

Does a special resource farm count as a farm for adjacency bonuses? Does a triangle of 2 farms and 1 rice farm perform the same as 3 regular farms (in terms of bonuses)?

 

[Qin Shi Hung]

Does a special resource farm count as a farm for adjacency bonuses? Does a triangle of 2 farms and 1 rice farm perform the same as 3 regular farms (in terms of bonuses)?

Yes

 

[T-J]

Does a special resource farm count as a farm for adjacency bonuses? Does a triangle of 2 farms and 1 rice farm perform the same as 3 regular farms (in terms of bonuses)?

Also they don't even have to be your own farms. Had the adjacency kick in along the border with a CS and a rival civ.

 

[alpaca]

Obviously if you have no pop working on unimproved tiles, there's no need to get more builders (unless you want to chop or harvest, which can be powerful). Do a cost-benefit estimation: how much would this builder add, how many turns until you recoup your cogs invested (and remember, cogs are often worth more than other resources). In fact, harvesting bonus resources can be more useful than improving them in many cases.

 

[mehukatti]

What makes builder more expensive to build? Is it the same formula as district cost (number of techs or civis)?

(How about settlers?)

 

[Furycrab]

You aren't alone. I'm finding more and more that my early games are about just building enough builders to get my Luxuries online and the key Eurekas/Inspirations.

The thing with builders that I'm finding is that initially, they compete with almost nothing... Build farms, you need 6 soonish so you can't really lose, build mines, you need 3, and then you probably want 1 quarry, and 1 pasture. All of these things give immediate, incredibly tangible results.

However you reach Political Philosophy and things sorta turn on you. You need/want 1 wonder for Drama and Poetry, 2 Campuses for Recorded History, you need Construction, which means you need a Water Wheel somewhere. You probably want an encampment somewhere, with the eventual plan to get an Armory if you want to reveal Niter early.... You need 1 wall to get to Aqueducts which are also needed for something else... 4 trade routes going for Medieval Fair... List is fairly extensive and meanwhile your Builders are getting more and more expensive and no longer seeing nearly as much return.

I find myself trying to cut making new builders and instead focus on getting new cities running faster via trade routes since it lets me build districts. However I try to find time where I know I'll be 8-10 turns between civics where I'll swap a card for the bonus worker charges, put 3+ cities to making a new builder, then go back to doing whatever else after.

 

[Xenotitan]

What makes builder more expensive to build? Is it the same formula as district cost (number of techs or civis)?

(How about settlers?)

The cost goes up with the number you've built, unlike districts that goes up with the higher of tech % or civic %. Builders I believe start at 50 cogs and the cost increases by 4 cogs for each builder. Settlers start at 60 cogs and increase by 20 cogs for each settler. I haven't ever found the increase to builder cost to be a deterrent to building them, and rarely for the settlers.

 

[Gtdead]

I spam builders like crazy, both building and buying them, especially if there are lots of forest tiles. I also tend to harvest resources, especially stone.