What Lord Emsworth said here might not seem like it will affect your gameplay since you could have a bad setting and theoretically change all cities by hand. But, even if you do that, it might take a lot of time, and then you might feel rushed at other parts of the game. Notice all the "mights" here, just a guess.
Emphasize Food vs. Emphasize Production
- Thread starter Spoonwood
- Start date
I played around with this a bit more, and I think the rule behind that behavior is something like this:
If "Emphasize Production = Yes" is set, then the governor will pick the forest, if afterwards the town has still at least +3 food. Otherwise he will pick the highest food tile.
To illustrate, try out the attached sample sav file, which is one turn before growth. In the first test arrange the citizens as follows:
and then hit enter. Result: the governor picks the forest.
Second test: load the same sav file again and this time change one citizen to a coast tile:
Hit enter again, and now the governor picks the other cow tile, because with the forest there would only be +2 food.
Lanzelot
If "Emphasize Production = Yes" is set, then the governor will pick the forest, if afterwards the town has still at least +3 food. Otherwise he will pick the highest food tile.
To illustrate, try out the attached sample sav file, which is one turn before growth. In the first test arrange the citizens as follows:
and then hit enter. Result: the governor picks the forest.
Second test: load the same sav file again and this time change one citizen to a coast tile:
Hit enter again, and now the governor picks the other cow tile, because with the forest there would only be +2 food.
Lanzelot
templar_x
usually walks his talks
@ Lanzelot - ok old man, i understand that you´re about to yield that your memory has lied to you and the templar guy has not 
honestly, i would have bet that the governor would still pick the other cow in this case. it´s just too powerful a tile usually. but in general, the 3f-rule your test supports is what i understood was how the emphasize production setting will work.
templar_x
honestly, i would have bet that the governor would still pick the other cow in this case. it´s just too powerful a tile usually. but in general, the 3f-rule your test supports is what i understood was how the emphasize production setting will work.
templar_x
Optional
Deity
Boohh!!! I already uploaded pictures of Tenochtitlan and Teotihuacan that contradict this. Okay, Spoonwood observed correctly that in my pictures Teno was a town upon growth, and Teo was newly founded, and this may be of influence, but here is Teno when it was newly founded, and already here the governor went with +3 food for this town...
..while in the case of Teotihuacan the governor continued picking the forest, also upon growth:
(until growth I had let Teotihuacan use the grassland tile, overruling the governor, as the forest tile just lost me food, while the extra shield got corrupted away - at least until the road was in place).
I've also taken Lanzelot's Karakorum save, and can show that the governor picks different tiles sometimes, depending on what's already being worked. This is the same town a bit later. Karakorum is about to grow again, and the worker is about to finish a road on the river-forest tile:
This is after growth:
The governor has picked the river-forest tile, accepting going back to +2 food.
My hunch is that it's the commerce that makes him pick the forest tile over the grassland tile here. To back this idea up we can go back a turn and swap forests.
Here's Karakorum before growth again, but now it's already working the commerce-rich forest tile, and the only other forest available gives no commerce at all:
Here's after growth:
The governor has shunned that commerce-poor forest, and picked the river-grassland instead.
Still this is by far not enough evidence to make any firm conclusions, but it seems that the governor doesn't have any strong preference between +2 or +3 food and that other factors come into play then.
I played around with this a bit more, and I think the rule behind that behavior is something like this:
If "Emphasize Production = Yes" is set, then the governor will pick the forest, if afterwards the town has still at least +3 food. Otherwise he will pick the highest food tile.
To illustrate, try out the attached sample sav file, which is one turn before growth. In the first test arrange the citizens as follows:
and then hit enter. Result: the governor picks the forest.
Second test: load the same sav file again and this time change one citizen to a coast tile:
Hit enter again, and now the governor picks the other cow tile, because with the forest there would only be +2 food.
Lanzelot
I think that as templar_x said, the cow is just too powerful.
I wonder what would happen if the citizens were set up cow/cow/coast. I'd bet a very small sum that it would go to the forest in that case.
Optional
Deity
Only a very small sum??? I would be willing to bet more than that!
Lot's of interesting stuff here! It looks indeed like commerce is playing a role here as well. (And finally someone showed an example, where the forest is picked, even though food goes down to +2! Hurray, my memory did not lie to me...
)I wonder, whether the scientist in your example has some influence as well?
But then, there's one point I still don't understand: in my original example from SGFN-08, Königsberg choose a 2/0/0 grassland over a 1/2/3 roaded silk forest, which means he rather took 1 food than 2 shields + 3 commerce
To me it looks like in the Karakorum example the cow is just too powerful. You prevented the governor from picking the cow by assigning a citizen to it and making another citizen a scientist in order to get the food below +3. But I bet, if you "leave the cow open" and set that citizen and the scientist onto grasslands to have the same number of food, then the governor will again pick the cow over the roaded river forest!
Optional
Deity
I couldn't find that exact example, but I'm seeing Königsberg has no foody tiles available, so choosing any forest tile would then mean going back to +1 food. I've never seen the governor do that voluntarily, no matter how many shields and commerce he can gain by it.But then, there's one point I still don't understand: in my original example from SGFN-08, Königsberg choose a 2/0/0 grassland over a 1/2/3 roaded silk forest, which means he rather took 1 food than 2 shields + 3 commerce
I always tried to get the town at exactly +3 food upon growth, because I think that that's the 'swing' number; the governor might do this and he might do that.
At +4 he will choose shields every time. Templar x and DWetzel were surprised that in your original example the governor chose the forest over the cow, but the town was already going +4, and then the shields will win it every time.
I think indeed you're right that at +3 the governor will choose the cow when it's available. I haven't tested it, but especially with the 2 commerce he will always pick it. Maybe when it's at +3 and he has the choice between a cow without commerce and a forest with 2 commerce it would be different.
Templar_X said:
DWetzel said:
Lanzelot said:
I take this to mean that Hinduism qualifies as the protoypical religion of civ III. Others may work, but to put things in a way that Goethe might have "When we play civ III, we are Hinduists."
