Farms increase housing?

[rschissler]

I have a couple cities that don't have any water access, with a pop of 5-6. I also have several grassland tiles that are unimproved. Is it true that if I build farms on those unimproved tiles, that I will get an increase in housing? I had thought that since I didn't have enough citizens to work those tiles, that there was no reason to improve them, but I think I read somewhere that the extra farms will increase housing and thus growth?

 

[Piruparka]

Yes it is. Each farm yields +0,5 housing.

 

[mazz0]

That's a point - I never actually checked whether the housing is always present or only when the farm is worked. I assume the former.

 

[isau]

You don't have to work the tile to get the Housing. But, what can be confusing is depending on how border pops happen a different city may "own" the tile than you think sometimes.

 

[mazz0]

That's true, they should maybe highlight the current tile-owning city when you're telling your worker what to do.

 

[Forbiddentwo]

Actually, is there a list of which tile improvements don't require you to actively work them in order to get their benefit(s)?

 

[joncnunn]

Actually, is there a list of which tile improvements don't require you to actively work them in order to get their benefit(s)?

1. You can extract the luxury & strategic resource via the improvements without working the tile.
2. You can get adjacency bonuses related to resources without working the tiles.
3. You can get all housing capacity bonuses to improvements without working the tiles.
4. Some natural wonders have passive effects that don't require working the natural wonder tile(s)

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

Not only farms, but mines and fishing boats also increase your housing.

Dunno if quarries, lumbermills and other improvements also count, though.

 

[isau]

Actually, is there a list of which tile improvements don't require you to actively work them in order to get their benefit(s)?

You don't have to work a tile to get:

• Housing
• Tourism
• Adjacency bonuses (e.g. a Quarry next to an Industrial Zone provides its adjacency bonus even if you don't work the quarry )
• Access to the resource for luxury/strategic/trade purposes

There may be some other things, but those are the main ones.

 

[NukeAJS]

Not only farms, but mines and fishing boats also increase your housing.

Dunno if quarries, lumbermills and other improvements also count, though.

I'm 90% sure mines don't increase housing. I'm 100% sure that fishing boats do increase housing.

Quarries don't and lumbermills also don't.

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

I'm 90% sure mines don't increase housing. I'm 100% sure that fishing boats do increase housing.

Quarries don't and lumbermills also don't.

Pastures, and I believe Camps improve housing at the same 0.5 as farms and fishing boats.

 

[darkace77450]

Not only farms, but mines and fishing boats also increase your housing.

Dunno if quarries, lumbermills and other improvements also count, though.

Mines, quarries, and lumber mills don't increase housing; farms, fishing boats, camps, pastures, and plantations do.

 

[rschissler]

I think it is a given to improve all resources. However, what I've learned is that it is very important to improve all open flat tiles with farms, whether citizens work them or not. Keeping the housing 2 above the number of citizens maintains the maximum growth rate. It's hard enough to keep producing enough builders, but I'm finding it even more important now.

 

[UWHabs]

I think it is a given to improve all resources. However, what I've learned is that it is very important to improve all open flat tiles with farms, whether citizens work them or not. Keeping the housing 2 above the number of citizens maintains the maximum growth rate. It's hard enough to keep producing enough builders, but I'm finding it even more important now.

Sometimes it's a question if it's really worth building the builder, going to put down a couple farms, just so that your city can grow one more tile. Especially if later that farm was going to get replaced with something else. I don't tend to "waste" builder charges if I don't need to, but then again, my cities do tend to stagnate at a certain point.

Sometimes it can definitely make sense (pushing the city to pop-10 so that you can lay another district down), but other times, I feel that I can either wait, or swap in one of the housing policy cards instead to push the growth a little more.

 

[WillowBrook]

It can also be helpful to swap tiles between neighboring cities. If you're trying to grow a city and the neighbor city doesn't need to work the farm, camp, pasture, or nets, you can swap it to the city you want to grow to get its housing up, even if you don't work the swapped tile.

 

[Pythakoreas]

Sometimes it's a question if it's really worth building the builder, going to put down a couple farms, just so that your city can grow one more tile. Especially if later that farm was going to get replaced with something else. I don't tend to "waste" builder charges if I don't need to, but then again, my cities do tend to stagnate at a certain point.

The way I see it Food and Housing are very similar - they both come from farms/fishing boats/pastures, and both are needed to grow the population in a city. Now that Happiness is called Amenities and is city-specific in Civ6 we have to micromanage 3 stats in every city to make it bigger. If either one of Food or Housing disappears things would be far less confusing. That way we might avoid wasting builders on farms that won't even produce food and are set to be destroyed once Neighborhoods are out. It would bring a gameplay change, when it comes to cards - some cards give a bonus on food, some cards on housing, but I don't remember one that gives bonus in both Food and Housing.

I thought the idea behind Housing was to put a cap on guaranteed population growth from abundant Food you can get from internal trade routes in BNW. But as soon as I played my first game and discovered Neighborhood district that can be placed multiple times I got confused... why are there 2 resources for pop growth?

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

The way I see it Food and Housing are very similar - they both come from farms/fishing boats/pastures, and both are needed to grow the population in a city. Now that Happiness is called Amenities and is city-specific in Civ6 we have to micromanage 3 stats in every city to make it bigger. If either one of Food or Housing disappears things would be far less confusing. That way we might avoid wasting builders on farms that won't even produce food and are set to be destroyed once Neighborhoods are out. It would bring a gameplay change, when it comes to cards - some cards give a bonus on food, some cards on housing, but I don't remember one that gives bonus in both Food and Housing.

I thought the idea behind Housing was to put a cap on guaranteed population growth from abundant Food you can get from internal trade routes in BNW. But as soon as I played my first game and discovered Neighborhood district that can be placed multiple times I got confused... why are there 2 resources for pop growth?

Neighborhoods come pretty late, so housing is still a cap for most of the game. Also, it uses up a tile and can't be worked, which might be critical depending on the city (too much water or mountains, for example).