Farms on hills?

[Dactyl]

As many have written about Civ6, production is key. However, late in the game, when you place a builder on a hill the game suggests that you build a farm, not a mine. Why is it making this suggestion? Is it good advice?

 

[ShakaKhan]

Is it good advice?

I'd say probably not. I think it makes the suggestion because it thinks food is more valuable than it is and production is less valuable than it is. However, the ability to farm hills doesn't come until much later in the game, when you're starting to get close to neighborhoods and may want your cities to grow quickly for the extra research, culture, and probably district slots as well. Also remember that mines get 2 big bumps from certain technologies (and Ruhr in a single city), whereas farms get adjacency bonuses which has the potential for a higher total yield. That being said, 3 food and 4 hammers is usually preferred over 6 food and 3 hammers.

You also have to look at those beefy city location that have tiles and tiles of plains/hills... They need food from somewhere and other cities may need the trade routes more. So it's a case-by-case basis.

 

[Ben Vimes]

The recommended tile improvements in general aren't great. If you ever gain access to a unique improvement (Chateau, Colossal Head, Monastery, Sphinx etc.), you will almost always be suggested to build it, even in really stupid spots. Incidentally, this may be one of the reasons the AI is so poor late-game.

As for actually building farms on hills, I wouldn't recommend it in most cases. Production is more valuable than food due to the globally increasing cost of districts and units, so you'll want all the mines you can get. In some rare cases, though, putting that farm down on the hill will give you a huge overall food increase due to adjacency bonuses. It's a call you'll have to make on a situational basis, though I normally come down on the side of mines.

 

[gettingfat]

As many have written about Civ6, production is key. However, late in the game, when you place a builder on a hill the game suggests that you build a farm, not a mine. Why is it making this suggestion? Is it good advice?

The suggestion from the computer is usually a bad one. That's said, building a hilled farm can sometimes be better if: 1. This forms a farm triangle so you gain 2 additional foods, 2. You want the adjacent tiles to have good appeal as after the newest patch a mine reduces the appeal of adjacent tiles by 2, 3. This city has enough hills and is lacking in foods and housing and you don't want to spend trade routes on this city.

 

[Leyrann]

Don't look at recommended tile improvements if you want to do well. That's basically all.

 

[KmDubya]

If you need production but also don't want the mine lowering the appeal of all adjacent tiles then a farmed hill might not be a bad choice. The adjacent -2 tile appeal from mines is new in the latest patch.

 

[Leyrann]

If you need production but also don't want the mine lowering the appeal of all adjacent tiles then a farmed hill might not be a bad choice. The adjacent -2 tile appeal from mines is new in the latest patch.

It's also a bug, as it should be -1, but that's a different case of course.

 

[Kyro]

You should NEVER buld farms on hills, period. Hills are for Mines/Lumbermills, always. Production is the single most important stat in Civ 6.

 

[Leyrann]

You should NEVER buld farms on hills, period. Hills are for Mines/Lumbermills, always. Production is the single most important stat in Civ 6.

What about that city I built to fill the gaps between other cities that had an industrial zone + 4 plains/hills around it with mines on them and only 3 other land tiles, all other tiles being water? I'd say there's quite good reason to use those other land tiles for farms, even though they're hills too. Production was handled by mines + adjacency bonuses already, but the city gotta be able to grow to use them.

 

[Kyro]

What about that city I built to fill the gaps between other cities that had an industrial zone + 4 plains/hills around it with mines on them and only 3 other land tiles, all other tiles being water? I'd say there's quite good reason to use those other land tiles for farms, even though they're hills too. Production was handled by mines + adjacency bonuses already, but the city gotta be able to grow to use them.

Which brings me to the next point. Never settle right beside the coast. If you must have access to the sea, keep the coast on the third ring. It's very unlikely you would lack arable land that way. If by any chance you still do then it means you have more than 16 hills near your city and you won't have a choice but to farm a few. Of course that's a rare exception rather than the rule and not sufficient to dent the sweeping statement "NEVER build farms on hills".

Also if you're at a stage when you're planting cities between gaps it means trade routes should be your main source of food by now and any available citizens should be building that commercial hub.

Of course if you're playing on islands then I would say you never settle near the coast without Fishes etc. so you have to build farms on hills. In this regard I would avoid playing island maps at all because you can't really build productive cities in those without Auckland.

 

[Leyrann]

Which brings me to the next point. Never settle right beside the coast. If you must have access to the sea, keep the coast on the third ring. It's very unlikely you would lack arable land that way. If by any chance you still do then it means you have more than 16 hills near your city and you won't have a choice but to farm a few. Of course that's a rare exception rather than the rule and not sufficient to dent the sweeping statement "NEVER build farms on hills".

Also if you're at a stage when you're planting cities between gaps it means trade routes should be your main source of food by now and any available citizens should be building that commercial hub.

Of course if you're playing on islands then I would say you never settle near the coast without Fishes etc. so you have to build farms on hills. In this regard I would avoid playing island maps at all because you can't really build productive cities in those without Auckland.

I was playing Australia, so that was something of an incentive, and there weren't that many possible tiles anymore, to the point where the city now already has quite a few overlapping tiles. That said, I'm not really a min-maxer, I also built the city there because I liked the idea of the flat land industrial zone surrounded by four hills and the city center. I named it "Coal Valley" after coal spawned in one of the hills.

 

[Yzman]

Which brings me to the next point. Never settle right beside the coast. If you must have access to the sea, keep the coast on the third ring. It's very unlikely you would lack arable land that way. If by any chance you still do then it means you have more than 16 hills near your city and you won't have a choice but to farm a few. Of course that's a rare exception rather than the rule and not sufficient to dent the sweeping statement "NEVER build farms on hills".

Also if you're at a stage when you're planting cities between gaps it means trade routes should be your main source of food by now and any available citizens should be building that commercial hub.

Of course if you're playing on islands then I would say you never settle near the coast without Fishes etc. so you have to build farms on hills. In this regard I would avoid playing island maps at all because you can't really build productive cities in those without Auckland.

Australia would strongly disagree with that statement. And plus, sounds like you are severely limiting housing if you don't have fresh water. Sure +3 isn't amazing, but it is a lot better than nothing you may get 1 tile in. With Australia it isn't even a question as far as I am concerned.

 

[Kyro]

I was playing Australia, so that was something of an incentive, and there weren't that many possible tiles anymore, to the point where the city now already has quite a few overlapping tiles. That said, I'm not really a min-maxer, I also built the city there because I liked the idea of the flat land industrial zone surrounded by four hills and the city center. I named it "Coal Valley" after coal spawned in one of the hills.

Australia would strongly disagree with that statement. And plus, sounds like you are severely limiting housing if you don't have fresh water. Sure +3 isn't amazing, but it is a lot better than nothing you may get 1 tile in. With Australia it isn't even a question as far as I am concerned.

Well that's why I don't find Australia that overpowered. You're technically encouraged to bottleneck yourself by settling near the coast. That and the incentive Not to build mines/quarries because it would destroy your districts' appeal makes for very bad synergy. Bonus yields at the cost of Bottlenecking and Low Productivity? Not my cup of tea. You need a lot of land if you want to avoid deciding between mines and high yield districts and to have more land you have to avoid the coast as much as possible.

Oh and I didn't make mention of settling without Fresh Water; that's a given for any city placement.

@LeyrannThat aside how you're placing that city now is more fun than actual function so anything goes really. What the OP is looking for is what works and what doesn't for winning so that was my answer.

 

[joncnunn]

As many have written about Civ6, production is key. However, late in the game, when you place a builder on a hill the game suggests that you build a farm, not a mine. Why is it making this suggestion? Is it good advice?

Definitely terrible advice for Civ VI with Housing Capacity for most situtations.
As to why it might suggest it, because in Civ V when it was possible it was generally a good idea; so cut and pasted from Civ V and not updated during development is the most likely reason.
Not noticed until now because most experienced players turn off AI tile improvement recommendations entirely.

Note though that mining in the patch does lower the appeal of neighboring tiles with the new patch; and so you don't want to add a mine next to an existing neighborhood and also if playing Australia you need to be very careful about where you place them.

 

[Victoria]

I rarely even build triangles on grassland atm,it just forces me to build an ED. I would rather snother district.

I will happily build straight on the coast without fresh water also as long as there is lots of hills.

15+ cities are meh

 

[UWHabs]

I haven't played on the new patch yet, but I will say that most of the time I mine hills. However, at some point I basically have a look to see how much food/housing I have in the city, and make the judgement call. Sometimes you can get a case where putting down one farm can be worth 5 or 6 food (say, 3 for the tile, and then 1 each on 2-3 adjacent tiles), and that can be more valuable than the 3 production you get from the mine. Sometimes it's not - if I have enough flat farms to feed the city, then I'll usually still mine it. But it's definitely not an always/never situation, all depends on the city.

 

[ferenginar]

I find it annoying that you don't get a choice of what to build, some options are simply greyed out. If you have a city that is short on production, you cannot just build a mine anywhere. You can say, it is poor city placement, but there are times when you want to fill in those gaps so the AI doesn't use it.

 

[Leyrann]

I find it annoying that you don't get a choice of what to build, some options are simply greyed out. If you have a city that is short on production, you cannot just build a mine anywhere. You can say, it is poor city placement, but there are times when you want to fill in those gaps so the AI doesn't use it.

Let's mine this flat land without stones anywhere. Very useful.

 

[ferenginar]

Let's mine this flat land without stones anywhere. Very useful.

My point in this case was that I didn't see this as being any different than building a farm on the hills. Who knows what you will find until you dig a hole. As it is going to take a builder life to dig the hole why not, and have a random chance of getting 0, 1, of 2 production.

 

[Leyrann]

My point in this case was that I didn't see this as being any different than building a farm on the hills. Who knows what you will find until you dig a hole. As it is going to take a builder life to dig the hole why not, and have a random chance of getting 0, 1, of 2 production.

In flat land, it's just not gonna work. If you dig a hole on flat land, you have some 4-5 meters at most before reaching groundwater level, and good luck getting any deeper without modern equipment. Though you probably won't find anything useful anyways, as flat land is formed typically by sedimentation, and sedimentation means you just have dirt of varying kinds.

Farms on hills on the other hand... Ever been in mid-Germany? That's nothing but farms on hills. (edit: well okay. west-mid-Germany. The area that's on route from the Netherlands to the Alps)