Can someone test something for me?

[Pinstar]

Being unable to get into the game at all right now, I've been unable to test a crop/house formation to see how effective it will be.

It seems some others have some limited success, so I was wondering if someone could run a test on this to see what the worker yields are.
If I find myself able to get into the game before anyone tests this, I'll post the results myself.

This layout would be an early-game food setup for 2 houses. It would NOT depend on the RNG gods giving you the world's most perfect map. You just need two plots of forest/water next to each other next to open space, which is pretty common from what I saw.
__c_
_cCc
whcG
whc_
_cCc
__c_


Legend:
_=Anything
w=Woods or Water, either works
h=house
c=unused corn field
C=worked corn field
G=Fully upgraded granary

If someone could report on what the productivity levels of this setup are (without civ bonuses) I'd be most curious.

 

[Glinda]

I have been told to tell you I'll do it IF you renew your legacy challenge domain.

 

[Pinstar]

I have been told to tell you I'll do it IF you renew your legacy challenge domain.

Somebody has the evil trait

 

[Glinda]

Okay, I tried your setup, and I hope I got it right. This is with 4 Great Prophets, so food at +20% from base, but no civics or era bonuses affecting food. Both of the mans come up as "very happy".

 

[zbgayumn]

Okay, I tried your setup, and I hope I got it right.

I think you may have missed the setup by one tile. If I'm reading it correctly, the corn field south of the granary should be one tile further south. That way, there will be two full crosses and both of the capital C's in Pinstar's post will be 30 food fields.

 

[Glinda]

It was 30 anyway, so no difference.

 

[stream_mm]

I would think a setup like this would be the best. I haven't tested it yet.



... and yea, I know I spelled Granary wrong.

 

[Pinstar]

Finally into the game and I've found the most ideal way to get early food pre-irrigation.
.......with production.

Seriously. Fully upgraded lumber mill bordered by forests. Throw down a few roads and you'll get more productive workers than you'll ever get farmers (golden orchards aside) in the early game. Smaller hammer investment to get that up and running.

Sell the extra production. Buy food.

 

[Glinda]

Best way to get food, I find, is to build towers until you find a good orchard spot.

 

[Pinstar]

Best way to get food, I find, is to build towers until you find a good orchard spot.

Agreed. After much experimenting, 40 and 50 food orchards seem to be the only real efficient way of getting food directly. Even setups with 45 food pastures are dwarfed by comparison due to the run distance needed.

Having at least one really good farmer is key, as they can both win you 'most productive farmer' contests as well as attract food dowries from other players.

I've also stumbled upon better layouts for production and science buildings.

For production:
Step 1: Scouting.
The wood wheel requires some specific terrain, but the requirement is very easy to meet, so you don’t need to be on good terms with the RNG gods to scout out. What you are looking for is two two-tile lines of trees offset from eachother in an otherwise open 9X9 area.

ww_
___
_ww

W=woods
_=anything other than water

This can be shifted or rotated in any way; it’ll still work. Also note that this setup works with stone and iron too…but finding stone/iron in this configuration is MUCH rarer than finding forests like this.

w__
w_w
__w



Once you have located a spot, it is time to build.

In the center tile, place a lumber mill (represented by a L). You’ll want to fully upgrade this once you have the resources.

ww_
_L_
_ww

Next, fill in the remaining spots in the 9X9 grid with houses working production. (shown as ‘h’s)

wwh
hLh
hww

Lastly, don’t forget to build a road in each of the 4 woods locations to get that all-important boost.

This works about 75% of the time. Why wouldn't it work? Sometimes the AI has two houses fighting over one of the wood tiles and ignoring one, causing one house to lose efficiency. It doesn't always do this, but it sometimes does. Not sure what causes that or how to fix it.

 

[Glinda]

Yes, a couple people have posted about how what should be an ideal layout doesn't work because one worker will go to the wrong woods.

 

[Bobz12]

ya i have the almost perfect setup going and it could be even better if it wasn't for that bug.. kinda pisses u off when u find a good stop just to find this bug

 

[dach2k3]

most of the time you are better off picking a spot with only 3 forests in optimal positions if there are enough water and forests adjacent to your homes to make your workers super ecstatic.

I read in another thread that forests that are built over will still give their bonuses.

So if the mill is built over the forest it might be best to lay the houses in a cross formation around the mill where the forests are on the diagonals around the mill.

 

[Boozie]

most of the time you are better off picking a spot with only 3 forests in optimal positions if there are enough water and forests adjacent to your homes to make your workers super ecstatic.

I read in another thread that forests that are built over will still give their bonuses.

So if the mill is built over the forest it might be best to lay the houses in a cross formation around the mill where the forests are on the diagonals around the mill.

This would actually be pretty big, can someone confirm this? What happens if you lay a house over it? Will an adjacent house get a +1 for forest?

 

[Glinda]

No, if you put a house, it gets a house bonus, which doesn't stack. I have tried this. Putting a house on one of the forests will reduce happiness if you have a house in one of the spots already.

 

[Verdisian]

Agreed. After much experimenting, 40 and 50 food orchards seem to be the only real efficient way of getting food directly. Even setups with 45 food pastures are dwarfed by comparison due to the run distance needed.

The RNG has never given me an orchard spot that could beat a pasture spot. Tons of spots to tie, but never beat and certainly not dwarf. The best layout I've found for pastures though is for the farmer to be working the 40 spot right in front of the granary. I'm going for the 24 population achievement in my current game so I'm going all food atm. You can see my best pasture setup here. All of the houses behind the granary's have max happiness. The secondary houses next to them suffer a little bit, but with the limit on the number of buildings not much to do about that. The scientist is there just to win contests. I'll go full science after getting the 24 pop achievement though.

 

[dach2k3]

I am leading in one of my 2 games. I have a lot of great people spread over Builders, Prophets and Scientists. I usually leave at least one very highly producing worker on each of these areas in order to win the most efficient worker contests. in one of my games just having ginormous museum and VG in an optimal spot was enough to win the culture contests too.

 

[Tatran]

@Verdisian
How is your trickle bonus rate?
From the 2k forum there seems to be a cap at 16 population.

 

[dach2k3]

after 16 population your citizens double up in houses. see his 104 producing workers are actually 2 each. so he has 20 population in that photo.

That is my understanding at least.

 

[Creepy Old Man]

In my city, with a population of 20, with a +5% gold bonus, trickle gives me 19 gold. This is in accordance with (16+2)*(1.05), so the extra four people are not trickling me.