City tile management

[Foussa]

Hi everyone,

I'm totally new to Civ 6 and the last civ I played was Civ 2......
I was wondering what are the best practices / optimal usage of city tiles by type (with river or not and so on) and without thinking about districts?


Thanks for your feedback!

 

[Victoria]

Some things are still argued about so optimal use is a good question. Lets take a simple one

Grassland with stone

You need one quarry for the eureka so you need to at least mine one quarry somewhere to get the eureka.
The quarry with stone on grassland will give you 2 food / 2 production which can be a good starting tile but as time goes on and your hills start making 4/5 production per tile this quarry becomes outdated.
At some stage it is a good idea to harvest (we call it chopping) the stone for a one of supply of production which gets larger as you discover more techs/civics. The later you harvest it the better the production.
Many people will harvest it early because they need the production quick early and have lots of other production tiles
Also many people will harvest it mid game because they will get more production that way and could afford to wait
Some people will never find a spare worker charge to harvest it although this is not optimal.
Some people will not harvest it because they get extra gold if the city has built Great Zimbabwe.
Sometimes it is not harvested if there is little other production around
Placing a district on the tile before harvesting it is not optimal and stone harvest give good production.

So you see @Foussa that just one simple example can cause a lot of decisions based on situation and play style.

Grassland hill with stone will have a similar set but has an extra production. However quarries produce less production late game than mines so normally harvesting the stone and replacing with a mine is a good idea.
Is this the type of thing you were after?

 

[Spudsie74]

Dunno if this is a GOOD idea, but before I settle, I try to consider what ALL the citys' tiles value will be; settling on a luxury may stop you from improving it (1 less gold), or settling on a desert square adds 2 food 1 prod to a useless tile. The terrain features are eliminated by settlement, so I try to avoid settling on woods, ect. Settling on a luxury may stop you from improving it, but you could also get a tile that has gold, food, production, and maybe culture, science or faith. Location is king in Civ 6, IMO.

 

[Japper007]

I disagree on chopping anything on flatlands, stone, forests or otherwise apart from rainforests. Rainforests get chopped because they can't be improved beyond their base 2/1 or 2/2 yields and their Appeal demerit, unless you're Kongo (Mbanza's) or Brazil (who get bonus Appeal and adjacency instead)

Farms are a horrible substitute for the production from quarries, pastures or lumbermill. At best it's a 5/1 or 6/0 tile, useless beyond the early game.

Hills though, chop all the things! A mine is without a doubt better, unless you're saving forests for Holy Site adjacency or something.

 

[Victoria]

Farms are a horrible substitute for the production from quarries, pastures or lumbermill. At best it's a 5/1 or 6/0 tile, useless beyond the early game.

That only holds true if you intend to work the tile..... but let's take forest grassland as a great example.

It is 2 food 1 production... maybe at turn 70-100 you can lumber mill it for 2/2

At that stage of the game you can chop it for 100 production. That 50 turns at 2/2 amd you save a citizen having to work it, save the citizen amenities and you get that 100 production at turn 100, not slowly through til turn 150.
It's just a no brainier to chop your land rather than grow your population.

Sure if you only have a few produtionntiles do not chop it.

 

[Japper007]

Sure if you only have a few produtionntiles do not chop it.

Well, that's the thing isn't it, since optimal play involves settling cities at minimum distance allowed, I'll only have a few production tiles per city, especially after building the "required" districts (Campus, Commercial/Harbor) , I also settle absolutely anything available even if it's tundra or desert. Maybe it's the difference between SP and MP? In MP every city with at least a single production tile is worth settling because they'll allow you to build more units, while in SP it's about fastest victory times?

 

[Victoria]

In MP every city with at least a single production tile is worth settling because they'll allow you to build more units,

So you do not chop in MP?

 

[antimony]

One thing to keep in mind with lumber mills is the +1 prod if along a river, which on a river-hill makes them better than mines. It doesn't mean you never chop, but you would always chop the non river ones first.

 

[Japper007]

So you do not chop in MP?

Nope, I prefer flow over burst when it comes to economy, I prefer cities that can churn out archers every turn with agoge or horsemen every turn with manouvre, over cities that can get a few out fast and then have no more hammers because all they're working are farms. On slower speeds than "Online", this effect becomes even more pronounced: building units takes a few turns (4-5) vs several (10-20) with a well-improved city there. In multiplayer it's often how fast you can replace units rather than how fast you can get them out initially, this is different in SP of course, where you can expect absolutely no losses in a war if you're even above a "Prince" level player.

Also I didn't say I don't chop at all, on hills, both stone and forests get chopped. On flatlands jungles are removed and sometimes even resources and forest, if they're in a spot with excellent adjacency for districts.

 

[Victoria]

I prefer flow over burst when it comes to economy,

Chop with a 50% or 100% card, the chop is doubled and overflows but I'm sure you use that. Chop with the 100% wall card with Monarchy?
But yeah MP is a different puppy but my understanding is once you are winning everone quits so chop lots in early?

 

[stinkubus]

One thing to keep in mind with lumber mills is the +1 prod if along a river, which on a river-hill makes them better than mines. It doesn't mean you never chop, but you would always chop the non river ones first.

That's only true until Industrialization then mines catch back up. Once that's the case there's no reason to leave the lumber mill. It's really a waste of a builder charge, imo, and missing the Mass Production eureka is no biggie, as I can usually tech that quickly regardless.

 

[sirponsford]

This thread has been illuminating! My city and tile management game is my weakest area I would say. My current game (Standard speed, Continents, Emperor, Standard size) I'm playing as Sumer. I have several flatlands woods tiles around Uruk, but I'm unsure of the best way to use them. The vibe I'm getting is that harvesting these tiles would be optimal?

 

[Victoria]

that harvesting these tiles would be optimal?

You are at 9 pop. Harvesting jungle would get you to 10 which is 4 districts but you do not yet have 3 but there is a eureka at 10 pop. T132 you are past that and personally I would chop the lot.
Harvesting woods that are not next to river is a must, the longer you delay the harvest the more you get.
The ones next to river get great production with lumber mills, what I do is bang the lumber mills in for about 30-50 turns and then harvest them when the production yield will be greater than what they will give for the remainder of the game. You can always plant more trees for lumber mills with conservation.
The thing is if you want it a high production city it's just not well placed so the decision about keeping all the trees a while is what other cities can produce and what you want to do how fast.

When I started seriously chopping combined with only targeting what was needed my game improved hugely. T132... you are certainly not doing it enough.

 

[sirponsford]

You are at 9 pop. Harvesting jungle would get you to 10 which is 4 districts but you do not yet have 3 but there is a eureka at 10 pop. T132 you are past that and personally I would chop the lot.
Harvesting woods that are not next to river is a must, the longer you delay the harvest the more you get.
The ones next to river get great production with lumber mills, what I do is bang the lumber mills in for about 30-50 turns and then harvest them when the production yield will be greater than what they will give for the remainder of the game. You can always plant more trees for lumber mills with conservation.
The thing is if you want it a high production city it's just not well placed so the decision about keeping all the trees a while is what other cities can produce and what you want to do how fast.

When I started seriously chopping combined with only targeting what was needed my game improved hugely. T132... you are certainly not doing it enough.

Thanks for the advice. lol I fully expect the veterans to cringe at various choices I've made, kind of funny from my perspective. In hindsight I probably should have chopped Terracotta Army, and perhaps harvested one or two of these stone resources. Not that I can't still do that. Sub-optimal choices aside this game is going well for me, I have a rather large empire and army, though it's 90% knights that were upgraded from War Carts. I have 11 Knights total, all of which have 2 - 3 promotions. I have quite a bit of fun planning and orchestrating new conquests, but tend to get caught up in that at the expense of empire management.

 

[Victoria]

Thanks for the advice.

NP, and no cringing. I respect everyone journey and everyone's style. We all learn new things and do not have to adopt them

 

[Esperr]

Well, that's the thing isn't it, since optimal play involves settling cities at minimum distance allowed, I'll only have a few production tiles per city, especially after building the "required" districts (Campus, Commercial/Harbor) , I also settle absolutely anything available even if it's tundra or desert. Maybe it's the difference between SP and MP? In MP every city with at least a single production tile is worth settling because they'll allow you to build more units, while in SP it's about fastest victory times?

Err in MP everybody chops and harvests ASAP to not die. You need the production in case you get ganged up on. I mean if your playing some peace game or something maybe, but standard games are a constant slugfest.