[Vanilla] Chopping - what and when?

Abaxial

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I never considered chopping resources at first; I would always save forests for lumber mills. From reading threads here I see it's a useful tactic.

What are people's guides on when to chop and when not to? And do you only chop forests or other resources as well? Also, what happens to food when chopped?
 
Chop everything you can. Forests, rainforests, cows, wheat, stone, anything.

Chop when it's advantageous. Chopping for production is good when building something that can't be bought with gold like districts or wonders. It's also good for getting early settlers out or if your neighbor declares war on you and you don't have much of an army.

Chopping for food is good when it puts a city over the pop limit needed to build an additional district. Being able to place it earlier means that it needs less production to be built. If the best tile for a wonder/district is a tile with a resource then it is ideal to chop that resource before placing so you get that extra resource boost
 
I can't bring myself to destroy bonus resources unless it's fatally important.

You can still improve and work the tile if your city needs it, but eventually there will be few enough turns left that it is worth more hammers to harvest than keep. Saving them for an important wonder, or a space project can be a good idea, just remember that if you don't harvest it before the end of the game you're leaving hundreds of hammers on the table.
 
Trees don't regrow naturally in Civ VI as they did in IV right? They can only be regrown by builders, and even then, clearing the grown forests doesn't give any production right?

It's usually not a big decision for me to clear forests for wonders or settlers--the extra production from leaving the forest alone isn't usually worth keeping around. But in some greedier games I've kept them around for mill improvements. But the Cree mekewap means that there isn't much need to keep forests around.

Do wish forests would give adjacency for say, Holy districts--might make it a more interesting decision on where, when and if to chop.
 
I wouldn't chop everything, there's resources that interact with other game mechanics that you might want to keep, so you need to think about what you might miss later. You want Camps and Pastures as the Cree, for example.


Woods specifically, you should only keep if your city have no other sources of productions and even then only woods that are on a river tile, which give it +1 production. Keeping a wood that isn't on a river is only for completely desperate situations, like no hills at all, no river,no nothing. They are a really bad source of production for most of the game, they get +1 production only in the atomic era!! You don't need it, you don't want it.

Another situation you might want to keep woods is if you care for appeal but that's a really specific scenario. Do you plan to build a national park? Decide where early, if there's woods there don't chop it, it will get +1 appeal later because it's an old-growth wood. This +1 appeal is only applied to the tile where the wood is, not around it like the inherent +1 appeal woods have, so it's only useful for national parks (I learned this the hard way. RIP my Chemamull spam strategy, I kept all that forest around for nothing). Unless you want appeal in early game, you can plant woods in late game, so no reason to keep it around if you only need appeal for Sea Resorts or Neighborhoods. If you gonna keep woods for appeal in early game, if possible keep a wood that is on a river, at least it will be a decent tile.
 
I chop a lot and all the time. However, if I choose god of the open sky, I don't chop cows and sheep. Similar with the stone circles - although I might chop them later.
Trees don't regrow naturally in Civ VI as they did in IV right? They can only be regrown by builders, and even then, clearing the grown forests doesn't give any production right?

It's usually not a big decision for me to clear forests for wonders or settlers--the extra production from leaving the forest alone isn't usually worth keeping around. But in some greedier games I've kept them around for mill improvements. But the Cree mekewap means that there isn't much need to keep forests around.

Do wish forests would give adjacency for say, Holy districts--might make it a more interesting decision on where, when and if to chop.
They do. 2 forests = 1 adjacency. Could be expanded on harbors though.
 
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You can chop cows and sheep? Oh my God, what about horses???

Seriously, I only ever knew about trees, stone, rice, and wheat...never considered the others...
 
You can chop cows and sheep? Oh my God, what about horses???

Seriously, I only ever knew about trees, stone, rice, and wheat...never considered the others...

You can chop any bonus resource. Cows, sheep, copper, crabs, etc. I believe horses are considered a strategic resource and isn't choppable.
 
It would be nice if they balanced the resources so that chopping is not always such a clear winner, but as of right now I would say it's almost always preferable to chop or harvest. I chop nearly all forest, jungle and harvest most stone. I probably don't utilize the food harvest nearly as often as I should since I don't like running over amenity and housing caps but it's probably worth it for an extra district. There really isn't a bad time to chop - it always helps, but I tend to save most forest for when Magnus visits the city. Of course you have the trade off of having to wait 5 turns.
 
I chop everything but almost exclusively only when Magnus is in the city which means I’m constantly moving Magnus and juggling builders around his arrival. Chops are particularly valuable for early settlers and essential wonders like the Colosseum, Terracotta Army, etc. Food chops are also a favourite for getting a city over a population cap so I can build an early extra district.
 
I chop everything but almost exclusively only when Magnus is in the city which means I’m constantly moving Magnus and juggling builders around his arrival. Chops are particularly valuable for early settlers and essential wonders like the Colosseum, Terracotta Army, etc. Food chops are also a favourite for getting a city over a population cap so I can build an early extra district.

This.

I've discovered I'm somewhat enjoying moving Magus around, timing his visits with the arrival of Builders purchased from whatever city Liang is in. It's OC as all get out, but a little mini game in it's own right
 
Chop everything when Magnus is in.

Magnus is busy moving, for late-game chopping he can only manage few cities, at that time I chop without considering him, and only let him help chop space projects.
 
Harvest everything, basically. Whether or not you do it immediately depends on your strategy, but you want to do it before the game ends.
if you don't harvest it before the end of the game you're leaving hundreds of hammers on the table.
Pretty much this.
 
Consider those reasons NOT to chop:
1. Requirements for specific wonders and unique improvements.
2. Wheat and Rice near city with Water Mill. Those give +2 food with Farms and could help sustain high population in Farm blocks.
3. Appeal planning for Neighborhoods and National Parks.
4. If you have a pantheon associated with those resources' improvement.
5. Getting Eureka/Inspiration.

Otherwise, immediate gain of food and production is almost always better than slow output of improvements.
 
I'm surprised I've beaten Emperor level and not chopped a single tile the whole game. lol
 
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