Can anyone persuade me to build watermills or workshops?

[ck07]

BtS, Monarch.

I have not been able to find any situation where i am not better off with some combination of farms/windmills (SE), or farms/cottages/mines/lumbermills (CE).

I have once or twice let stand a worskhop on aplains tile in a captured city that had no hills and had eaten all of its forests before I captured it.

Otherwise the payoff is crappy without State Property, which comes late and isn't as good as alternatives anyway. 10% hammers is nothing when you have buildings, civ abilities, wonders, or other civics contributing 50% and up (and up, and up in certain situations).

I know that this view is not a consensus, so my Q is: what is my mistake?

CK

 

[oldsaxon]

(i) This would be better in Strategy & Tips

(ii) On large maps or archipelagos, you may well be in State Property for the Maintenance bonuses (which are for more important than the 10% production). In that case, Watermills and Workshops are some of the best improvements in the game.

 

[Roxlimn]

Try this: Get Chemistry early, use Caste System. Workshops are ungodly for mid-game production if you get the right techs and Civics up. No need for State Property. The Chem and Caste bonus is enough to get you +2 hammers per workshop.

Watermills are another thing entirely. Mainly, you can use them after Electricity to get an immediate tile output boost. Less that a Town, but it depends on how much time you have to work the tile and how much you need the immediate boost. Definitely no better improvement on a tundra riverside tile.

 

[MyOtherName]

BtS, Monarch.

I have not been able to find any situation where i am not better off with some combination of farms/windmills (SE), or farms/cottages/mines/lumbermills (CE).

Scenario: You have researched chemistry and replaceable parts, and are running caste system. You have not researched railroads or biology.


Under these conditions, a workshop gives -1 +4. This is the best net production of any improvement available

But the "right" way to compare is relative to food producing tiles:
Farm vs workshop: -2 +4
Farm vs watermill: -1 +2
Windmill vs mine: -1 +1

As you see, mines are extremely inefficient during this period in the game. (or more accurately, windmills are very good)

Conclusion: in this setting, you want to put windmills on all of your hills, and use any combination workshops / watermills for production, and only use farms/mines if you have no other option.

Example: 4 farms + 4 mines = +4 +8
4 windmills + 2 farms + 2 workshops = +4 +12

 

[Refar]

VoU's Article on Production can.

 

[Wejer]

When I conquer a city under State property I usually let the villages and towns be and replace the hamlets and cottages with either windmills or workshop. It gives a very nice mix of production and commerce.

 

[1889]

Workshops are quite nice for latter in the game when I'm trying to control growth in some of my cities. By that time their production is quite good too.

I would be interested to hear of some good situations to build watermills though.

 

[ainwood]

Moderator Action: Moved to strategy & tips.

 

[DigitalBoy]

I don't understand why you need State Property to make workshops useful. I'll be the first to admit that workshops are garbage when you first gain access to them (being at best an engineer specialist sans great people points). But once you research Guilds or adopt Caste System they become useful in production cities, provided you can find food for them (chain irrigation may be necessary). That they are not nearly as good as hill mines is made up for by the fact they can be built on flatlands and therefore give a specialized production city something to do with tiles that could not normally receive + improvements.

 

[Polobo]

Late Game (Spiritual is really nice)
Police State + Nationalism: I prefer watermills over cottages/towns so my city can assist in the war effort. With State Property this is just sick since a couple of them let you run an engineer as well.

I like watermills when I'm going to run a hybrid economy (usually). I can cottage one side of the river while I watermill the other. This may not maximize either commerce or hammers but they are food neutral and unless I am dealing with a National Wonder city I don't necessarily WANT to choose which one to maximize. Since I don't know early game what I am going to want late game I try and leave watermill tiles open during the initial phase. I eventually chain irrigate where I can for necessary food and put cottages on the non-watermill river spots and then off the river if I have room/food. Its not usually a large number of tiles (per city) that are eligible so I don't feel I am giving up much in order to have a very flexible tile late game (i.e., powerful regardless of civics - with SP being a bonus)

 

[Gliese 581]

If you are using a strategy of expansion, consolidation, expansion, consolidation via rex and war then you're likely to be growing to fast to have a worker force capable of transforming your land to "upgrade" old improvements unless you happen to capture a ton of workers. If you have a small empire and are going for a diplo/space/culture win that relies on quality over quantity, you can actually switch your tiles back and forth in cities that do not specialize in cottages.

Watermills
However as you mentioned the greatest use for these improvements are under State Property which becomes more useful if you have cities on multiple continents and on big maps with big distances in general. The most difficult imo is to predict ahead of time what civics you should run so that you can adapt your empire with this strategy in mind during the mid and late part of the game. Early on when you don't have the civics you don't need to be as focused on an overarching strategy.

Spiritual like Polobo mentions is obviously great for this as you have better control over what civics you're running at any given time.

Imagine this situation: You're going for domination on a multiple continents map and have few allies to trade with. You're using a cottage economy. A riverside grassland cottage that is fully matured will at best give you 2 food 8 commerce (9 as financial). A watermill will give you 3 food 2 hammers and 3 commerce (4 as financial) so you trade 5 commerce for 1 food 2 hammers. This is obviously good to get some production and food in for example a jungle grassland river commerce city.
That's just one example I made up, I'm sure you can think of more examples.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I don't use mills as much (though I do, just late game), but I love workshops.

Look at it this way:

If you're in caste, and you've researched guilds, a workshop = a mine (and with chemistry is better!). Any city with food can turn into a production center. I'm playing a game on emperor right now where I went really heavy on the workshops for the hell of it as boudica. I'm so far behind in tech . I also have the largest civ on the map though, and just recently overpowered an 8 city nation defending with rifles using knights/maces/spies X_X. It wasn't even that hard, since barracks/theo/vassalage = CR III maces for charismatic, which are pretty effective actually . I'm in a bit of a jam though, because the final opponent I actually need to fight has blimps (but only just got gunpowder...what the hell?!), and they do their stupid air strikes. My solution? Steal chemistry, steal military science (from rome, my vassal of all things), and mass up grenadiers. I'm around 1800, but it looks like a good winning position as I may cross the domination threshold just through this war, or if not the rest of the world is budhist, so I might just count up the votes and see if I can just vote myself out an AP win.

I suppose, since I'm going EP anyway, that I could just steal my way to parity then dogpile the last AI. That'd certainly get me domination if I made ANY headway, but it'd be a last resort.

In conclusion, workshops = troop spam (or whatever you want).

 

[slaze]

workshops in caste system with guilds and chemistry are better than mines up until rail

 

[oyzar]

Windsmills are quite alot better than mines until you get railroad and due to the severe health limitations you can often get medicine before railroad(for enviromentalism) and as such windmills become monsters. With financial or golden age(or both) + electricity windmills on non-riverside hills potentially produce 1+1+2+1+1=6 commerce and 7 on riverside titles. With 2 food and 3 hammers(2 without ga) for grasssland and 1 food and 4 hammers(3 without ga) for plains they are probably the best titles in the game at that stage of the game(much better than towns/mines for sure), similarly building workshops or watermills + windmills(on hills) means you won't need any farms and as such will produce way more in your production cities). With state propery workshops and watermills are the best production improvement in the game. Workshops are very good alot earlier though as with caste system + guilds + chemistry they are better than mines until you hit railroads(at which point they are the same as mines, but since you can't workshop hills it is better to windmill the hills and workshop the flatland). Similarly lumbermills allow you to run more workshops while at the same time providing health and as such can be warranted since you don't have infinite health or food in any given city...

 

[Nares]

Build watermills and workshops or else...

 

[Gliese 581]

<snip>Windsmills are quite alot better than mines until you get railroad <snip>

Well yes but hardly when you get machinery. After replacable parts which belongs to the same era as railroads. It all depends on your tech path if the window is big enough to bother.

 

[oyzar]

You are right of course, most of the time that is, quite often the insane number of extra commerce from windmills(+5-6) makes them alot better than mines... also there is a long time where windmills + workshops are better than mines + farms...

 

[Nares]

In Soviet Russia, workshops build you.

 

[thefais]

It really seems like this is very age-dependent - I'm still a little hazy on when windmills, watermills & workshops get their bonuses.

I only really build workshops later in the game, and watermills & windmills never.

I should probably start, but it's new territory, and I don't know exactly how to optimize territory with them.

 

[Polobo]

Both get their major boost in the industrial era. Replaceable Parts (on the way to rifling) gets you a hammer for the 'mills and electricity (after scientific method and physics) gets you a commerce bonus. Oddly state property does NOT affect WINDmills but affects the other two...increasing the food by 1 (which makes workshops food neutral and watermills food positive)

For workshops you get them at guilds and chemistry, both of which are along the "bottom" tech path and lead into steel/military science (for chemistry). Guilds is somewhat out of the way unless you need banking on your way to economics but knights are powerful in their own right. Additionally, under Caste System (available with Code of Laws - i.e., the courthouse) you get an additional hammer plus the ability to run limited infinite specialists.

For me if I can watermill I do, although I keep in mind the need for chain irrigation access and the desire to have at least a couple of cottages on the river. I am still figuring out my technique for windmills. I tend to place them on riverside hills but otherwise it really depends on the amount of food a city has access to. If I plan to commerce specialize I'll emphasize them more.

I tend to avoid replacing improvements generally so even if a tile is sub-optimal early on generally I either won't be working it anyway due to health/happy caps or at least that tile is better than being unimproved, and once I get the appropriate tech I already have the improvement in place and get an immediate benefit instead of trying to time the construction with the tech or building it afterwards.