Granaries

[marceagleye]

Granaries usually need not be built until just before hospital....Only if a city has very little excess food for growth do I build a granary before then. Often times if you build a granary too early in the game, the speedy growth will result in entertainers or tax collectors instead of working citizens, causing you to have to relocate your most productive citizen in order to feed the specialist, resulting in awefully diminished priduction....too early in the game. If I make this mistake I usually just let the specialist starve...

 

[Strider]

I never really notice the effects of Granaries in my cities... I've played with them in my cities for so long that my playing style now pretty much rely's on them.

 

[Woody]

I have to disagree, building granaries early in your core cities lets you pump out settlers at a much higher rate. It has been discussed here many times and was mathmaticlly proven that a city with a granary will produce more settlers than a city without a granary. The only exception would be on a very small map were you dont need to produce many settlers.

 

[Ronald]

Early granaries are the key for fast expansion. The rate a city can produce settlers with a granary is far superior than without.

If you don't believe, check the qsc timelines in the gotm forum. Most of the best players research pottery to be able to get a granary and build a few in their core cities to get the settlers out at incredible speed.

 

[superslug]

I build a granary in at least one city early so it can grow faster to build the Pyramids more quickly. That's how much I believe in granaries.

 

[Bamspeedy]

A granary isn't always necessary, and it isn't always best to build the granary before a settler. But..... A granary does double your growth, so you will build settlers twice as fast. Sometimes, however, building the granary may take too long, so it might be better not to build a granary.

marceagleye-
Use the luxury slider a little bit. By setting the luxury rate to 10%, you only devote 1 gold towards luxury, but this also allows you more citizens in your city to work the land and the new citizen that can now work usually brings in at least 1 gold, if not more. Depending on the shield production/growth, and difficulty level you play, you may need to go higher than 10% before you get the granary complete, but the new citizens will often bring in enough commerce to pay for the increase in luxury tax.

After the granary, you can build settlers (to drop the population back down) and you'll soon have more luxuries hooked up (or military police put into the capital, if you don't already have some there) and then you can turn the luxury rate back down.

 

[Hygro]

Oh man, early granaries... Bamspeedy you wrote Babylon's Diety Settlers right? With the whole early granary thing thus keeping up with a diety AI in expansion?

 

[newbiebad]

Bamspeedy is 100% right. The commerce from that extra worker will sometimes make up for the slight hike in luxury tax. Either way, you will most likely gain an extra shield or two and have the extra population to work with. Population/Food is a resource too... you need them to build workers and settlers. Luxury slider dominates the early game!

 

[BillChin]

Granaries are good. Novice players usually ignore them and their games suffer. The best players have an instant read on when and where a granary is best.

For the inbetween players, learning when and where to build a granary is a keystone, and may have more impact than any other single idea for improving their game.
+ Bill

 

[Bamspeedy]

causing you to have to relocate your most productive citizen in order to feed the specialist

Why do you need to do that, even if you don't use the luxury slider? There is no difference between a size 2 city with both citizens working tiles, and having a size 3 city with the 3rd citizen as an entertainer/specialist, while the other 2 are still working their original tiles. If the 3rd citizen is an entertainer, then you could get to size 4 (if you have enough food) and have 3 citizens working tiles. But I still recommend using the luxury slider a little bit or using military police (warriors are cheap and work just as good).

By having a granary at the start, you can get to size 12 about 50 turns sooner than without a granary, so a granary can be a good build even before hospitals. I wouldn't go overboard and build them in EVERY city (although the Pyramids are great), but certainly in some cities that are primarily worker/settler factories.

 

[kryszcztov]

@ marceagleye : One of my first posts here (less than 2 months ago) was about granaries, do I need them ? This, because I saw many players telling they were building some in their early cities, and because back in Civ2, I would never build one.
I don't have a theory about it (but there are some on CFC), but after 2 weeks playing a succession game with another folk, I saw myself converted to granaries ! I won't build ten of them on a standard map, but at least one in my settler factory (yes, I was converted to it too, no more the "1 or 2 settlers pumping per core city" strategy), and maybe a few more if I feel the need and I have the time.
Try it quickly, and, if you're not playing at Deity yet, you'll easy jump to the next level just by implementing this critical strategy.

 

[theGhost]

Are you people saying that if you build a granary, pump up the luxury setting, wait for your cities to be so full people are falling out the windows, and you can build the pyramids faster? does that work?

 

[marceagleye]

Bamspeedy the city had two grassland (one bonus) tiles, one mountain tile the rest tundra and coast. One of the Tundra tiles had game and two had forest. I built Temple first with one citizen on the bous grassland and the other on the mountain. (zero growth) After the Temple was complete I left the citizens where they were and began building granary. When the granary was complete I relocated the mountain worker to the Tundra/Game tile which had just been forested also. With the granary I had a third citizen back on that mountain again very quickly. At this point the city was only growing by one food per turn. I built a Warrior during this time. (This was an Island city still unconnected to the rest of my empire, but this island had four other cities on it with harbor under construction in one of them). Anyway this particular city producing 8 shields but four of them were being corrupted. So my three citizens were working mined bonus grassland, forested tundra with game and mined mountain. City was now producing Library. I wasn't paying attention when when the city grew and it went into civil disorder. What happened next? I was well into republic with a commercial civ and certainly didn't plan on spending entertainment money. So I turned the new citizen into a tax collector, but then I was only getting seven food per turn which isn't enough for four citizens. I had to make that citizen come down from the mountain and put him on the mined grassland tile to feed the tax collector, but when I did the number shields dropped from 8 with four uncorrupted to five with two uncorrupted, changing Library complete in 15 turns to complete in 30 turns. I said the hell with that and put that worker back up on that mountain and let the taxman starve.

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by theGhost
Are you people saying that if you build a granary, pump up the luxury setting, wait for your cities to be so full people are falling out the windows, and you can build the pyramids faster? does that work?

Yup. Allow your population to increase rapidly, adjust the Luxury rate to compensate, and push through completion of your Great Wonder.

Cleopatra, Queen of Thebes

http://www.zachriel.com/gotm9/bc1000-Pyramids.htm

 

[marceagleye]

The point is sometimes city growth results in diminished production. In the previous example even if i had turned the tax collector to an entertainer, and let the city grow to five citizens I would have had mined bonus grass (two shields), forested tundra with game (2 shields), forested tundra (two shields), and mined grass(1 shield), still one less shield than I had with only three citizens with one of them working on the mountain.

 

[BillChin]

Originally posted by marceagleye
The point is sometimes city growth results in diminished production. In the previous example even if i had turned the tax collector to an entertainer, and let the city grow to five citizens I would have had mined bonus grass (two shields), forested tundra with game (2 shields), forested tundra (two shields), and mined grass(1 shield), still one less shield than I had with only three citizens with one of them working on the mountain.

Marceagleye, you are missing the main point. Use the luxury slider to keep the people happy. An experienced player never has entertainers early in the game. He/she uses the luxury slider (F1 screen) to compensate. Again, avoiding granaries is a common mistake. In my opinion, learning when and where to build granaries is possibly the most impactful concept to master for moving up in difficulty levels. A player that learns to use granaries well (vs. players that shun them entirely) often sees their growth rate increase 20% or more.
+ Bill

 

[BillChin]

Originally posted by marceagleye
The point is sometimes city growth results in diminished production. In the previous example even if i had turned the tax collector to an entertainer, and let the city grow to five citizens I would have had mined bonus grass (two shields), forested tundra with game (2 shields), forested tundra (two shields), and mined grass(1 shield), still one less shield than I had with only three citizens with one of them working on the mountain.

Marceagleye, you are missing the main point. Use the luxury slider to keep the people happy. Build workers and settlers to keep the pop down in cities with corruption. An experienced player never has entertainers early in the game. He/she uses the luxury slider (F1 screen) to compensate. Again, avoiding granaries is a common mistake. In my opinion, learning when and where to build granaries is possibly the most impactful concept to master for moving up in difficulty levels. A player that learns to use granaries well (vs. players that shun them entirely) often sees their growth rate increase 20% or more.
+ Bill

 

[BillChin]

Originally posted by marceagleye
The point is sometimes city growth results in diminished production. In the previous example even if i had turned the tax collector to an entertainer, and let the city grow to five citizens I would have had mined bonus grass (two shields), forested tundra with game (2 shields), forested tundra (two shields), and mined grass(1 shield), still one less shield than I had with only three citizens with one of them working on the mountain.

Marceagleye, you are missing the main point. Use the luxury slider to keep the people happy. Build workers and settlers to keep the pop down in cities with corruption. An experienced player never has entertainers early in the game. He/she uses the luxury slider (F1 screen) to compensate. Again, avoiding granaries is a common mistake. In my opinion, learning when and where to build granaries is possibly the most impactful concept to master for moving up in difficulty levels. A player that learns to use granaries well (vs. players that shun them entirely) often sees their growth rate increase 20% or more.
+ Bill

 

[marceagleye]

Bill Chin you don't use the luxury slider this late in the game just to appease one citizen.

 

[anarres]

Your example is not a great one of when to use granaries either marceagleye.

Building them in cities with > 50% corruption is generally not a great idea, although there are times when you will want to.

If you don't use granaries very much before Hospitals, try building them in your core cities once they are at size 7 at the latest. Size 7 cities in the core can build them in 3 to 20 turns, not a huge outlay, and they can promote rapid growth from size 7 to 12. Building marketplaces in these cities can suddenly allow them to maintain much higher levels of happiness and growth also, marketplaces are a good friend to granaries.

The other main area to use granaries is in the cities with decent growth that you intend to use as settler factories. This can cause an initial slow down, but this is very quickly recouped when you can pump a settler every 4 or 5 turns, until you run out of space. This is ideal for early cities, and you should aim to keep the city size below 7 to minimise pop re-growth.