Forest Preserves

[mariogreymist]

I find myself in the early part of the industrial period with little productive capacity. I am playing Willem, and have acquired Dikes, and that will help...but I want more. I have decided to try to take the few remaining forests in my region and preserve them for spreading.

Does anyone know: is the bonus cumulative? (Does a tile that touches two FPs have twice the chance of sprouting a forest as one that touches only one?)

 

[Silu]

Does anyone know: is the bonus cumulative? (Does a tile that touches two FPs have twice the chance of sprouting a forest as one that touches only one?)

AFAIK preserves simply double the normal spread probability, which is cumulative (for every forest, there's a chance each turn it spreads in a cardinal direction with no forest/jungle), and not scaled to speed so on Marathon you end up with more spread. Roads on the target square halve the probability.

 

[mariogreymist]

Thank you very much. That is all very helpful, and when I have railroaded lumbermills pumping bombers, tanks and battleships, it will be a credit to your advice.

 

[NonPrayinMantis]

I remember seeing somewhere that a preserve increases the chance of spreading forest by 8 times, a road (in the "target" tile) reduces the chance in half, and only forests in tiles that are either north, south, east, or west of the "target" tile count (not SW or NE or SE or NW) for spread increase. Unfortunately you can't pillage a road in your own borders.

NPM

 

[harry_flashman]

why not switch to state property and build watermills/workshops?

 

[mariogreymist]

Because I built a free-market economy, and I want to use a free market economy.

 

[pi-r8]

Because I built a free-market economy, and I want to use a free market economy.

You could still use workshops, and use corporations to make up the food difference. Or use Kremlin + rush buy. Or farms + kremlin + slavery + drafting. Lumbermills are extremely inefficient.

 

[Koning]

AFAIK preserves simply double the normal spread probability, which is cumulative (for every forest, there's a chance each turn it spreads in a cardinal direction with no forest/jungle), and not scaled to speed so on Marathon you end up with more spread. Roads on the target square halve the probability.

Is it really 100% turn based? I always have the feeling that forests spread faster in the BC age, and almost never see them spread after the 1500's. (except when building forest preserves ) It kinda makes senses, since those early turns take 40 years, and the latest turns only 1 year. Or is it just my altered perception, since turns go much faster in the ealry game than in the late game?

 

[UWHabs]

Is it really 100% turn based? I always have the feeling that forests spread faster in the BC age, and almost never see them spread after the 1500's. (except when building forest preserves ) It kinda makes senses, since those early turns take 40 years, and the latest turns only 1 year. Or is it just my altered perception, since turns go much faster in the ealry game than in the late game?

I think it's turn based. Just that early, you have lots more open space. And lots more forests. I know after I've developed my land, the number of possible squares for a forest to spread in my territory is tiny, if any.

 

[mariogreymist]

You could still use workshops, and use corporations to make up the food difference.

This is what I ended up doing mostly. I got about half the forests I'd hoped for, and built LMs, which are not bad with RR, and give a much needed health bonus. I decided to go ahead and research medicine, and pop the GM I'd been 50-50 on founding sid's sushi or cashing in overseas. (partly becasue Shaka is in full unit producing glory, and I don't want his next DoW to coincide with one of his frigates discovering my GM in a caravel) Even though Sid's will be weak as a food producer on the map, it's a nice corp to bring on an overseas invasion, as newly captured cities with Sid's can compete culturally without capitulation. And make no mistake about it...Shaka will not reach AL without kissing my ring. And I won't need SP to do it.

And when Sid's is at it's weakest for lack of fish, it becomes an AWESOME financial tool via foreign spread. Use money to buy units...use units to kill Shaka, then others in turn. Free market war-mongering is fun.

 

[Ian Kognitow]

And when Sid's is at it's weakest for lack of fish, it becomes an AWESOME financial tool via foreign spread. Use money to buy units...use units to kill Shaka, then others in turn. Free market war-mongering is fun.

True. But really I'd think you should be aiming for Mining Inc before Sushi. Of course, having both is great and I regularly aim to win the Economics race even more than Liberalism just to have a G Merchant waiting around for decades or centuries just to help ensure being able to build Sushi. The same is the case with keeping a Great Engineer in reserve unless there is solid odds of popping another one in advance of getting Railroad.
Anyway, articularly with Willem being financial, generate commerce through the trade routes and mass cottages. Your cities should already be pretty well off in terms of productivity if you use Universal Suffrage to get the town hammers, in addition to dikes and whatever mines you may have - If you can land Mining Inc on top of that you should suddenly find yourself completely dominating production once you can build factories, at the same time that a financial leader's towns (rather than privitized workshops), operating under free market, should have already made your civ a premier commericial power.

 

[mariogreymist]

Oh, I got them both. I took a beeline to AL for the Pentagon and to begin construction on the SoD. So I had factories up and running before I had railroad, resulting in a not-to difficult time in generating a GE. And everyone was just willing as could be to trade away their fish...so I got a respectable (not great) 8 food sushi going, and a (for now) weak mining inc underway. The early AL also meant I was already shooting ahead in production before getting mining inc. My capital is one of those really sick ones...three food resources, all but two land squares on a river, two total water (one coast fish, on fw lake)....is very nice. Also have a fully cottaged WS town with both Corp HQs, and if i ever get a GP, a shrine.

 

[NonPrayinMantis]

I like to try and save 2 forests per city, in which overlapping BFC forests count 1 for two cities, for the +1 health bonus. I usually save 4 if there are 3-5 floodplains (if possible) or none if the city will be small. Saving 1 or 3 is not worth it. I lumbermill them all except for the NP city.

NPM

 

[harry_flashman]

In my game at the minute Ive just plonked down a city, very late game, 1800's, near 1 food resource, 1 coal, and loads of tundra forest. I plan on having 10 or so forest preserves, then building the national park. I figure ill use all my specialists as spys, as they can get really big multipliers. - not sure how much it will add, but it could be a viable tactic.
getting a few specialists running in a late game national park city is the only time i use forest preserves.

another thought i just had is using forest preserves on the outskirts of your empire. try to grow a few extra forests for chopping. might give that a go.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You could still use workshops, and use corporations to make up the food difference. Or use Kremlin + rush buy. Or farms + kremlin + slavery + drafting. Lumbermills are extremely inefficient.

Lumber mills are 2F 3H with railroad + replaceable parts (or 1F 4H for plains forests). Unlike workshops, which require civic combinations to get better than 1F 3H, lumber mills get this benefit regardless of civic choice. On top of that, they're the healthiest hammer improvement available.

The only downside is that you have to leave forests instead of chopping them. That carries a significant opportunity cost for early era starts.

Anyway, 2F 3H or even 2F 2H is not what one calls "extremely inefficient". These tiles beat the crap out of slavery if the city has any decent size, and are probably better than drafting after rifles. Kremlin is good if you can get it, which is not always.

 

[Taeryn]

I like to try and save 2 forests per city, in which overlapping BFC forests count 1 for two cities, for the +1 health bonus. I usually save 4 if there are 3-5 floodplains (if possible) or none if the city will be small. Saving 1 or 3 is not worth it. I lumbermill them all except for the NP city.

NPM

I tend to do the same thing when possible. I usually lumber mill all of them, but in my most recent game, the map has been super stingy with resources, so I built some FP to help. Maybe its a bit less efficient than a fully developed cottage, but I guess I just like some variety on the map... and I'm not playing on a high enough dificulty to have to squeze out every drop of efficiency yet.

 

[6K Man]

I like lumbermills and try very hard not to chop plains forest - especially if the city isn't a food-rich one. Plains lumbermill + RR are great, plains workshops aren't, unless you have food to burn. But I have to say, building forest preserves in the hope of getting forest spread is a bit of a stretch. Sure, the tiny reforestation chance is doubled, but meantime, you're losing production from the forest with the preserve on it (it could have been lumbermilled).

I only build forest preserves in my NP city - usually some godforsaken tundra land.

 

[harry_flashman]

remember you get one extra if you lumbermill by a river. Though by that stage in the game 1 extra ain't going to make much difference.

 

[Lenowill]

To be honest, if you're looking to pump up production at that late stage, you might try going for Lumbermills with Railroads on whatever forest tiles you have remaining and then using Shops/Watermills for the rest--if only because it's still so improbable that the forest is going to spread quickly enough just from being preserved.

If, on the other hand, you were running Environmentalism, the forest preserves would have at least a nice commercial bonus and you could leverage them for pushing happiness caps in the city in question while waiting for your forests to grow.

Don't let that stop you from experimenting with it if you would like to, though; it's also possible that we ourselves are underestimating what forest preservation can do in that regard.

And of course, do make a nice National Park / Forest Preserve town if you're able to at all; free specialists are always yummy. When I play sitting bull I tend to incorporate it into either my Oxford town or my National Epic town (which in either case is usually my capital or one of my other earliest-founded cities) but that's just part of my playstyle. I'm a lover of keeping forests unless I absolutely need to chop them for some reason, and I preserve or (more often) lumbermill them like crazy later on for late game wondering and space racing. I also tend to go for Environmentalism as well though.