City Tile Management

[sourboy]

Okay, so it appears that the tile favorite in Civ4 is the cottage... but when do you choose a cottage over a farm?

Also, when is a windmill preferred over a mine?

Are there certain tiles or situations where you always build one improvement?

other?

thanks!

 

[futurehermit]

DaveMcW's rule of thumb: If a city can support 10 cottages (and still grow normally) pre-biology then every floodplain/grassland tile gets a cottage. Add farms after this where necessary to sustain growth. All hills in a commerce city get windmills unless you have enough surplus food to put cottages on the grassland hills.

Windmills are used when the extra food is necessary or in commerce cities (see above).

Mines are always preferred in production cities (cities that cannot sustain at least 10 cottages pre-biology) except when there is not enough food to work them in which case they get a windmill, which gets changed to a mine post-biology or if you get a corp that adds food.

 

[njorls]

Try and specialize your cities. Make cities with lots of hills production cities, and flat cities commerce cities. For production cities, you'll want to end up with no cottages at all and work workshops and watermills for as much production as you can.

For determining cottage vs farm in commerce cities, put as many cottages in riverside tiles as you can for the +1 commerce bonus. You will need to calculate how much extra food you will need to work all the tiles in the fat cross radius. There's a guide on doing that in the Strategy Articles sectioin. So determine the farms you will need and make the rest cottages.

I personally hate windmills and try to never build them. Mines can pop resources, I've had gems and silver pop in my current game (didn't have either) within 10 turns of each other. I build more farms to work mines.

 

[alex sword]

FutureHermit:
"DaveMcW's rule of thumb...".

I still do not have a good model which would allow good criteria between SE/CE but so far am 99% sure that right choice among number of cottages/farms should be depend on whole set of your cities and resources rather than on one particular city tiles and resources. I.e. the question is how many cottages and great people your *civilization* has rather than one *city*. Please let me know if you think this idea is wrong

 

[futurehermit]

Tbh I look at it city by city because I believe that, ultimately, hybrid econ is strongest. You play each city to its strengths. If a city has a very nice food surplus (e.g., more than 2 food specials, or lot of floodplains) then it makes sense to make that a gpfarm. If the city has 1-2 food specials and can support at least 10 cottages pre-biology then it gets cottages. If it has 1-2 food specials and can't support 10 cottages, it is a production city.

Your overall economy is then contingent on the proportion of commerce vs. specialist cities.

I think that is better than trying to force an economy on a map that isn't suited to it.

Following this strat I've had some games where I have mostly production cities. In those cases I worry less about tech and focus more on commerce planning on teching better later after I've captured some territory. Build gold is also handy in these situations and then you raise your science slider.

You have to be careful though because if you don't have enough production cities early following this plan of action you can have serious expansion problems.

 

[MestreLion]

I think this way: unless for GP farm cities or SE economy (none seems to be your case), a farmed tile provides nothing but support for another tile. So, its a "waste" to build farms unless they are needed. So build the least you can to blanace the food defict for other tiles.

This said, i follow this rule of thumb:

- if i want a commerce city, that means i want as many cottages as i can. So i count all the food avaliable on tiles (including resources as if they were improved, and excluding the crappy tiles i will never work). If the balance is -2 food, then i need 2 farms pre-biology, 1 farm after. The rest (workable and non-resorce) are cottages. Hills can either go windmills (for evening food balance and more commerce) or mines (for a lil production for basic buildings)

- If i want a production city, i want all hills to be mines, and all flat to be workshops/lumbermills. Again, i do the food count to see how many farms are needed. Sometimes even farming all flats is not enough to balance food, so i sacrifice some hills building windmills on them.

A common exception to this rule is for new cities when my empire is large enough to have a big pop cap: sometimes i build more farms than necessary just to promote faster growth, then after they reach a decent size (10, 15), i replace the farms to cottages/workshops (depending on the chosen role for the city)

 

[sourboy]

i count all the food avaliable on tiles. If the balance is -2 food, then i need 2 farms pre-biology, 1 farm after.

What exactly is the optimal food amount? City's have 20 tiles to work... so how many is the ideal food amount? You say you want to reach a -2 balance... so population is what # prior to the -2 modifier?

 

[Meateater]

Dang been a while since I've posted.
I think what he is talking about is that it takes 2 food for 1 pop. So if you want your city to be size 20 you need 40 food. Thats why you need those extra food resorces in the city so you can work other tiles with less or no food.

 

[oyzar]

Optimal food amount is food amount is 4 surplus for as long as the city is growing. Higher is fine but under 3 and the city is just going to grow very slow.

 

[Cer]

What exactly is the optimal food amount? City's have 20 tiles to work... so how many is the ideal food amount? You say you want to reach a -2 balance... so population is what # prior to the -2 modifier?

If you start your game in Ancient era (that's the default) then you will probably found most of your cities early on, and not found many toward the end of the game. The cities you found should usually be founded without much priority for what you'll do with them once you discover biology and come up with enough happiness boosts to make the cities huge. On noble level, a city that's not your capital is likely to be unable to grow past 14 population due to food shortage (possibly unhealthiness as the cause), or happiness or just a lack of really useful tiles.

I find I like to grow my cities at about 2-food-surplus speed, rather than 4 or more. (But more food is better if you use slavery rush-builds in the city). With a granary, a 2-food-surplus city hits its population max fairly quickly. Bigger surpluses early in the game will get you to the point of unhappy unhealthy citizens more quickly.

 

[MestreLion]

What exactly is the optimal food amount? City's have 20 tiles to work... so how many is the ideal food amount? You say you want to reach a -2 balance... so population is what # prior to the -2 modifier?

I want to reach a 0 balance after the city reaches its optimal size, thats why, in your example, i would have to build 2 farms: they produce +2 food (pre-bio), just the total net food is 0. "optimal" is usually 20, but may be less in case of deserts, tundras, ice, mountains, ocean (and coastal for non-coastal cities) or any other tiles that can be worked, but its not worth doing so. Also, may be more than 20, if theres a beefy corn / fish / wheat / etc (or 2, or 3) and a lot of grasslands.

Lets say you have 17 workable tiles. Then you need 17*2 = 34 food. If the bare tiles + improved farm/pasture resources + 2 (from city center) gives you that, good: no farm needed at all. If its 30, then u need 4 farms (pre-biology), 2 afterwards. You dont have to actually count the total food, just the balance: 0 for each grassland (as they provide enough food for its own pop), -1 from plains, -1 from hills, +1 from floodplains, +X for a given improved resource.

But, im talking about the final state. I mean, how many farms this city needs after it reaches its optimal size.

While the city is still growing, you may build extra farms to promote faster growth. I usually build enough farms so it can grow at a +4, or, after bio, even +6 rate. After city reach optimal size (or close to that), i change the extra farms to cottages/mines/workshops/whatever (depends on city role)


But this is only good if your empire health and happy limit cap are high enough, or if you want to use whip a lot. Otherwise, theres no point in making them grow faster if it wont go past 8, for example. So the era of the game has a big influecen on how i improve my tiles. But thats part of the strategy, we agre going a little off-topic here

Improving tiles are a dynamic thing... you will constantly be changing some tiles back and forth so the city can make best use of them. New resources, techs, growth, era, and even civics may lead you to change things to get more efficiency. Rembemer: extra farms makes you grow faster, thats (usually) good, but at the same way it means you will be working more farms (that yield nothing but food) instead of more cottages and mines. So its a trade-off you must evaluate depending on the circunstances (techs, needs, hapiness limit, whip, etc)

There some awesome articles on the Strategy Articles subforum. Everything im telling you, i learned there. Look for tile management, impromevent and city growth articles... you will find tons of great info.

 

[MestreLion]

oh, last hint1 try to specialize the tiles too!!! I mean... if you need 3 farms in a commerce city that has a mix of plains and grasslands, preferably build the farms on the grasslands and the cottages on plains. This way, while your pop is growing (say 8 pop while max is 17), you can jiggle around the tiles actually being worked (used) by the pop. Want max commerce? use all cottages you can and minimum farms you need. Need to recover pop after whipping? Send them all to farms for some time. Need a production-burst before a war? Send them to the few mines avaliable and to the farms. So the city can suit your short-term needs in many completely different ways. and it does not require micomanagemen: just use the advisor button on city screen and pick an emphasis (food, hammers, commerce, beakers, etc).

 

[vale]

oh, last hint1 try to specialize the tiles too!!!

Agree with most of the post and it is almost word for word (but much more succinct) than the post I had planned to reply to this with.

Only issue I have is that in BTS, the city governor really does not listen to you at all. If you say emphasize hammers, he will still put you on growth tiles over mines if you are below the happy cap which can be inordinately frustrating. For the most part I would say micromanage for best results.

Also about the idea that 4F surplus is optimal. I don't know where that really comes from and am wondering what the numbers behind it are. For sure there are diminishing returns in terms of growth speed with additional food surplus, but 4F seems awfully arbitrary and low for optimality over time.

 

[Diamondeye]

Depends alot if you run SE or CE obviously - in my hybrid games I rarely build cottages where a farm can be built instead - maybe sometimes if I am Fin (but the I'd go for the CE)

 

[MestreLion]

Only issue I have is that in BTS, the city governor really does not listen to you at all. If you say emphasize hammers, he will still put you on growth tiles over mines if you are below the happy cap which can be inordinately frustrating. For the most part I would say micromanage for best results.

I dont have BtS or warlords, so all my posts are about vanilla. Yes, the governor always try keep the city growing, even if that means 1 less mine being worked. But i can handle that, and generally i think its a nice approach to always keep the city growing, even if very slowly. If i REALLY want max production i can always click on "Avoid Cirty Growth". This way the governor will use all mines avaliable, even if the city gets stagnant.

And yes, i agree that micromanage always give you the best results. But makes the game really boring, specially when you have many cities. Also, if you dont keep a close eye, if the city grows and theres no governor, the new pop can be assigned in a really dumb way. So if you micromanage, you must commit to that and re-check cities every turn.

Also about the idea that 4F surplus is optimal. I don't know where that really comes from and am wondering what the numbers behind it are. For sure there are diminishing returns in terms of growth speed with additional food surplus, but 4F seems awfully arbitrary and low for optimality over time.

True, true, true. I think a +4 surplus is common sense. Its not a rule, and i dont have any mathematical proof to back me up, but i think +4 is "popular" because:

- Its fairly easy to achieve. A single farmed food resource sometimes can give you that for the whole city. Even for cities full of hills and plains it wont be too hard.

- Gives you a decent, fast growth rate, so its good for long-term.

- Its not too fast, so you dont reach pop cap too soon

- You dont need to work on too many farms, so your city is always working on a decent # of productive tiles (cottages, mines, etc)

So +4 is a nice avarage growth rate under normal conditions. Less than that, you may be more productive on the short term, but it takes too long to grow. More than that, and are being less productive than you want, and you will face hapiness issues sooner.

Now for the exceptions:

- On Early game, specially on harder dificulties, happiness cap is very low, and your (few) cities must be productive. So +4 may be too much.

- For GP farms, the more food, the better. For SE economy too...

- On late games, you dont care about newer cities to be productive from the start. And your empire have enough hapineess and health to afford a faster, +6 (or even more) growth.

- Some cities do have a LOT of food. 2 food resources or 4 floodplains are already massive food. So these cities WILL grow faster, no matter what you do. Build as many cottages / mines / workshops ASAP.

- Newly conquered cities need lots of culture to expand borders, so a few Artists are vital. And usually they are big enough, and have more pop than tiles. They dont need to grow at all, they need to expand . A few turns later, borders are expanded, more (or all) tiles are avaliable, and city suffered starvation. Time for ultra-fast growth (+8, +12)

 

[pat4]

I don't build cottages on river tiles as I usually build watermills later in the game and it is realy annoying to destroy a town.

 

[MestreLion]

Depends alot if you run SE or CE obviously - in my hybrid games I rarely build cottages where a farm can be built instead - maybe sometimes if I am Fin (but the I'd go for the CE)

If you are running a Specialist Economy, then theres no doubt: forget the cottages, farm-em-all! The most food, the better!

But i guess the OP is talking about traditional, old, trusty, classic CE.

 

[MestreLion]

I don't build cottages on river tiles as I usually build watermills later in the game and it is realy annoying to destroy a town.

I almost never build a watermill. They have a poor FPC value, and its too balanced... id rather specialize my tiles. Farms for food, mines/lumbermill/workshps for hammers, cottages for commerce.

As for the watermill, i only buld them when i cant build anything else (like a desert/tundra tile with river and no forest), or when i need +1 food to achieve optimum, stagnant and stable city size. And in that case, only if theres no hills with mines to convert to Windmill. watermills are, at best, equal to windmills.