food questions

[dorkynorky]

I've been trying to deal with weaknesses in my game and I've determined that I'm not optimally growing my cities.

Growth isn't a problem if you've got a five or six food resource in every city but that's not always the case. Making the most of your capital (growing pop, working cottages and running a couple scientists) isn't hard if you've got a couple of 5 or 6 food resources. Based on these ideas I've got a couple of questions.

1) How much excess food is reasonable to promote optimal city growth? In other words, when you get a city with no food resources, how many grasslands do you farm?

2) Whats the best way to think about and make use of capitals that aren't rich in food? Ones that have a couple of resources similar to plains/grassland cows or non riverside rice? Actually I guess there are two separate cases, those that are both food and hammer poor (having rice or grassland gems) and those which are food poor but hammer rich (cows, horses, grassland copper/iron)

 

[carl corey]

1) Well, you'll want at least +2/turn if you don't want to wait forever. A better way is to have a rate of growth that's comparable with the gap to your happiness cap. For example you won't need the same growth if you only need to grow one more population, compared to when you need to grow 5-6 population.

2) What's a "not rich in food" city site? If it's full of plains, then you just got screwed by the game. If you have lots of grassland, then you're not low on food. Farm some if they're irrigated and cottage the rest. The resource tiles are a bonus, but the rest of the tiles matter just as much when you're evaluating the overall quality of the city.

 

[dorkynorky]

1) I'm not thinking too much about cases where there are happiness cap issues, so I'm talking about cities after city 4 or all cities after getting HR. In cities with ample grassland to grow (like cities claimed from jungle) I've had a tendency to just start cottaging. However, if you farm one grassland you've got a continual 3 food surplus and the city grows faster to make use of subsequent cottages (right?). If you farm a couple of grasslands then you've got the 4 food surplus that gets future cottages working even faster.

2) I guess I've seen plenty of starts where my capital could have 30-50% one food tiles (plains, hills with forests of course). Obviously you can grow these to nice sizes if you've got a couple of decent food resources. But you don't always get that type of resource help in your capital. In my current game I've got three resources in my capital's BFC. Riverside corn (thank goodness), hills gems (no food) and plains marble (one food). I used the gems/corn to fund early research and the marble has been nice to speed the construction of HE, NE and GL (which got me free scientists allowing me to put other scientists back to working commerce tiles).

I guess what I'm getting at is with two good food resources in a capital you can count on working more production or commerce tiles and get a great Beurocracy cap, but with only a single good food resource or a couple of marginal food resources this isn't the case. I'm looking for a way to think of such low food capitals in a positive way. Said differently, I definitely do better on challenging difficulty levels with capitals with lots of food than with capitals that are hammer heavy and food/commerce light.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

1) I'm not thinking too much about cases where there are happiness cap issues, so I'm talking about cities after city 4 or all cities after getting HR. In cities with ample grassland to grow (like cities claimed from jungle) I've had a tendency to just start cottaging. However, if you farm one grassland you've got a continual 3 food surplus and the city grows faster to make use of subsequent cottages (right?). If you farm a couple of grasslands then you've got the 4 food surplus that gets future cottages working even faster.

2) I guess I've seen plenty of starts where my capital could have 30-50% one food tiles (plains, hills with forests of course). Obviously you can grow these to nice sizes if you've got a couple of decent food resources. But you don't always get that type of resource help in your capital. In my current game I've got three resources in my capital's BFC. Riverside corn (thank goodness), hills gems (no food) and plains marble (one food). I used the gems/corn to fund early research and the marble has been nice to speed the construction of HE, NE and GL (which got me free scientists allowing me to put other scientists back to working commerce tiles).

I guess what I'm getting at is with two good food resources in a capital you can count on working more production or commerce tiles and get a great Beurocracy cap, but with only a single good food resource or a couple of marginal food resources this isn't the case. I'm looking for a way to think of such low food capitals in a positive way. Said differently, I definitely do better on challenging difficulty levels with capitals with lots of food than with capitals that are hammer heavy and food/commerce light.

Refer to the guide "Cottages!!" By DaveMCW. It has an extended analysis if you scroll down. There's also some info relevant to this in the body of the guide itself.

 

[carl corey]

Ah, yes, I knew I saw such analysis in a thread, but didn't remember which one it was!

 

[dorkynorky]

Thanks for directing me to the 'cottages' thread. It looks like it answers most of my questions.

The only thing that seems to remain in my mind is how do I look at starts where my capital doesn't have the requisite food or grassland tiles to get up to the 10 cottage tiles. I guess the two cases that come to mind are capitals with 1) lots of coast and only a single seafood, or 2) tundra/plains type starts.

I guess the solutions are to 1) move before settling and 2) focus on a military solution and move your capital (as the 'cottages' thread seems to suggest)

Again, thanks.

 

[carl corey]

Yeah, I sometimes move my settler if I see I'll have tons of plains in the original location. I didn't do it in one game and I ended up with one of my weakest capitals ever, I had 4-5 overall better cities than it in that game. The problem is, the map generator will fill your original location with lots of forests if it thinks it's not good enough, so uncovering all the tiles (to be sure you're not losing one-two food resources) in the fat cross might require a couple of turns. Overall, a sucky situation, but one that happens rarely enough that it doesn't bother me.

 

[futurehermit]

See my thread on capital city specialization. BTS is fond of giving the "production capital" where you don't have much food, but have very high production potential.

In these cases your initial expansion may be considerably slower. Often these cities have a lot of forests in which case you can chop out workers and settlers.

Alternatively, especially if you are industrious, you can go for the wonder route a la Obsolete.

 

[vicawoo]

If you have no food resources, farm to size n-2 then switch to cottages, where n is your optimal size)

 

[slobberinbear]

@ OP:

I generally don't settle cities without a food bonus resource (i.e., a tile that will yield 4+ food when improved) unless I have a really good reason -- it's a blocking location, it grabs a resource or two that I don't have, etc.

I like to maintain a 4-food surplus or more until I get to the happy cap.

In the early game, it is common to have more food than you know what to do with, especially in your capital. Use the food to crank out workers and settlers and get a better government civic (HR, Representation) so that you can use the food to its potential and grow vertically.

Floodplains are interesting in that they can be used as food or commerce sources. On these forums, cottaging floodplains is the standard approach, but there will be times when you will get more out of them with farms to get your city growing. Don't be afraid to change tile improvements as your needs change.

 

[QuixotesGhost]

@ OP:

I generally don't settle cities without a food bonus resource (i.e., a tile that will yield 4+ food when improved) unless I have a really good reason -- it's a blocking location, it grabs a resource or two that I don't have, etc.

I like to maintain a 4-food surplus or more until I get to the happy cap.

In the early game, it is common to have more food than you know what to do with, especially in your capital. Use the food to crank out workers and settlers and get a better government civic (HR, Representation) so that you can use the food to its potential and grow vertically.

Floodplains are interesting in that they can be used as food or commerce sources. On these forums, cottaging floodplains is the standard approach, but there will be times when you will get more out of them with farms to get your city growing. Don't be afraid to change tile improvements as your needs change.

You want to do two things with a Flood plains city:

A. Build improvements that prevent the city from growing stupid large and blowing right past its health and happiness cap. Cottages are one way, but floodplains workshops are incredibly sexy as well.

B. Have a way to manage that health (forests are great if you can get em) and happiness and put down farms to make an amazing GP farm beyond your wildest dreams.


In fact I kinda think that cottaging a floodplains city is a bit of a waste. The best commerce city is not a floodplains city; it's a natural harbor, a city that has ocean access but relatively few actual ocean tiles in its fat cross. Whereas floodplains cities can be turned into absolutely insane production centers or amazing GP farms without peer.

 

[carl corey]

Well, food is king, so a city with lots of food can serve as pretty much anything once enough techs have been researched. But workshops don't come into play until Metal Casting, and they're not really viable until they get two more hammers: two of Caste System (but what if you want to use the whip?), Guilds, Chemistry. Granted they're a bit better on flood plains, but they will still not have enough production early on to consider that city a production city. And considering the inherent unhealthiness due to the flood plains the city won't have too much to go up to reach its health cap, which admittedly is not that much of a problem if the happy cap isn't reached; but it won't be the best GP farm. With two-three food resource tiles (coastal city for example) you can easily get a good GP farm working only two-three tiles + specialists. How many tiles do you think are needed for the floodplain city to equal the previous one?

 

[QuixotesGhost]

Sorry my connection bites, accidental doublepost.

 

[QuixotesGhost]

Well, food is king, so a city with lots of food can serve as pretty much anything once enough techs have been researched. But workshops don't come into play until Metal Casting, and they're not really viable until they get two more hammers: two of Caste System (but what if you want to use the whip?), Guilds, Chemistry. Granted they're a bit better on flood plains, but they will still not have enough production early on to consider that city a production city. And considering the inherent unhealthiness due to the flood plains the city won't have too much to go up to reach its health cap, which admittedly is not that much of a problem if the happy cap isn't reached; but it won't be the best GP farm. With two-three food resource tiles (coastal city for example) you can easily get a good GP farm working only two-three tiles + specialists. How many tiles do you think are needed for the floodplain city to equal the previous one?

Here's what it comes down to. Floodplains sites have crazy amounts of food. GPs farms need crazy amounts of food, Production cities need crazy amounts of food to eat the food penalty from hills and workshops, Commerce cities do not need crazy amounts of food what they need is lots of tiles to work and ocean access if at all possible. Floodplains sites often do not have a lot of tiles to work, you need to keep the forests for health, and there will often be deserts around.

My personal best GP farm was a heavily forested floodplains start with Ghandi. Something like 150 GPPs a turn from the beginning of the midgame. On the type of locations you describe I normally only pull 90-110 GPPs a turn with a philosophical leader.

 

[DaveMcW]

Floodplains sites have crazy amounts of food. GPs farms need crazy amounts of food.

Wrong.

Floodplain food is not concentrated enough for a GP farm, you are looking for 5 or 6 food per tile.

 

[Skallagrimson]

They're 5 after bio.

 

[Joshua368]

They're 5 after bio.

I hope you aren't waiting until bio to make your GP farm.

 

[Babibo]

I like to have 5-6 surplus food in my cities (which is easy to reach with 1 food resource + 1 or 2 farms). With that much food, you can whip a lot, and as soon as the basic infrastructure is built, grow your city fast.
This approach is more efficient than letting your city grow to size 8, for example, and use your food surplus to work mines.

 

[Skallagrimson]

I hope you aren't waiting until bio to make your GP farm.

I hope you aren't waiting for the map to give you a city with 2 pigs and 2 rice and grassland everywhere else.

 

[carl corey]

Well, you get 2 from the city center. Two good food resources can get you up to +10 , which means 5 specialists (size 7). More than enough for a GP farm early on. Another "medium" food source gets you +3 ; add a grassland farm for +1 and you can run 2 more specialists for a total of 7 (size 11). That is already an exceptional GP farm. Remember, some of those resources will probably be seafood, which means the city already has some useless coast/ocean tiles, which means specialists is the way to go even if the city will end up as secondary GP farm. Next you get the post-Calendar GP farms, with bananas as the main asset. Either of these choices is better than waiting for Biology, or using one floodplain for each specialist (size 10 for 5 specialists, size 14 for 7 specialists pre-Biology).