Grassland hill windmill vs mine

[AutomatedTeller]

You can cottage grassland hills. You can't cottage plain, desert, tundra or ice hills.

 

[futurehermit]

In production cities, you want mines.

In commerce cities with high food, you still probably want mines for some production unless you are just going for sheer commerce, in which case you could cottage grassland hills.

In commerce cities with low food, windmills.

In any other city with low food, either farms + mines if that will take care of the food deficit or farms + windmills.

If running environmentalism, windmills get a buff.

Usually I'll mine all hills except where I need food.

I don't make much use of windmills tbh.

 

[bestsss]

You can't build cottages on hills.

untrue!
w/ financial trait i do favor windmills over mines later w/ the electricity you get 3C from them, nifty.... and since i like to whip a lot: even better.

 

[Fluxx]

Depends on the map and civ.

Sometimes you got lots and lots of hills and a lack of food. Mills make you work those extra tiles earlier.

Cottaging grass hills is like cottaging non river plains. And you will only work those tiles far after you research machinery.

I had a game none to long ago with a financial civ where I ran environmentalism for the first time.
Those mills produced lots and lots of commerce/food/hammers.

River hills pretty much force me into windmills. The general idea of focused cities is imho outdated.
You will always build groceries/markets even in your prod cities.

 

[Silu]

You can't build cottages on hills.

Sure you can, on grassland hills. Sometimes if it's covered in jungle/forest you have to chop it before the option opens up though.

 

[JammerUno]

Enviromentalism, RP and electricitry make windmill a viable choice over grassland hill cottages. They don't need to mature and are foodneutral, and they give +4C to the tile instantly. Depending on when you plan to put down the cottage/windmill, they can surely outperform cottages.

 

[oyzar]

Wow quite the thread necromancy. That said windmills are a lot better than mines from the period you get replacable parts until railroad comes around. Even after rairoad windmills is still a lot better in some cities (working a windmill + workshop is better than a farm + a mine after all), and after electricity/enviromentalism windmills are probably the best impovement in the game.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

Wow quite the thread necromancy. That said windmills are a lot better than mines from the period you get replacable parts until railroad comes around. Even after rairoad windmills is still a lot better in some cities (working a windmill + workshop is better than a farm + a mine after all), and after electricity/enviromentalism windmills are probably the best impovement in the game.

Too bad that civic sucks imho :/

I really like the idea of "bein green" and the +2 but I'm rarely tempted by that civic (tho I usually don't play my games out that late heh).

 

[JammerUno]

Enviromentalism gives great health benefits, something not to be overlooked if that's holding back growth, and if you retool your terrain improvements to suit it, it can work very well indeed. It's not the best production civic, but economically, it does compete.

 

[Grey Fox]

I often use windmills while the city is still growing, and once it's at the happy cap or at a size where the city can use all tiles in it's BFC, which depends on overlap and terrain, I make a decision what tiles to turn into mines and which to keep as windmills.

As a financial leader I almost always make riverside hills into windmills for the commerce bonus

It's also nice for Golden Ages to have windmills on nonriver hills just to make the most out of the golden age.

 

[troytheface]

the more grandious the graphic- the better the benefit.

Windmill and Mine are almost equal - mine early -windmill late

 

[pi-r8]

the more grandious the graphic- the better the benefit.

Windmill and Mine are almost equal - mine early -windmill late

Sadly, I find that building too many windmills makes the game run unplayably slowly on my computer so I have no choice but to build mines.

 

[troytheface]

the mine graphic looks better up close (present)

the windmill graphic looks best far away (future)

perhaps just have one city with a Windmill that can use it- and leave it at that

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I tend to put windmills in cities that are low on food or in commerce/research cities. In my cap, for instance, if I have a bunch of hills and I'm using it as a super science, I'll windmill it. I may change it to mines and back several times to build stuff up and I may end up changing it to cottage late.

 

[6K Man]

This game is all about city specialization.

If you want production, build mines.

If you want commerce, build cottages.

Windmills are - as has been said - what you build when you desperately need food and that overrides the benefits of specialization. Or in the late game, when they start making sense as a commerce improvement.

 

[Fluxx]

This game is all about city specialization.

If you want production, build mines.

If you want commerce, build cottages.

Windmills are - as has been said - what you build when you desperately need food and that overrides the benefits of specialization. Or in the late game, when they start making sense as a commerce improvement.

I do not fully agree.

River hills pretty much force me into windmills. The general idea of focused cities is imho outdated.
You will always build groceries/markets even in your prod cities.

Last time I checked even binary research has been changed. Therefor rounding errors should not be influential to your overall infrastructure/specialization.

If you hybrid cities, you are more flexible and get your infrastructure faster online.

 

[futurehermit]

The idea of focused cities is not outdated. You need specialization. However, that doesn't mean you can't have a couple mines for producing infrastructre in your commerce cities. They can be converted to cottages/windmills when your city gets to size > 15.

 

[Beamed]

This thread was hilarious simply because fifty million people decided to correct a single poster, after he admitted his mistake.

Anyway, windmills are, unfortunately, more there for flavor than anything else. With environmentalism and electricity, they're a force to be reckoned with - but by that time you shouldn't have much need for windmills anyway. Still, pretty useful by that time, and you'll find a few within my cities.

 

[Artichoker]

Around the time they become available, Windmills are a good average tile to help round out land-poor cities with lots of hills. This is especially common when you conquer AI cities that have been placed in suboptimal locations. In optimal city locations, however, there are often better choices than Windmills, and a city specializing in commerce or production will have a high concentration of Cottages, in the case of commerce cities, or Mines + Farms, in the case of production cities.

The generic city is really where the Windmill shines, but by definition a "generic" city is not particularly great in any aspect, other than being able to survive and be productive given the mediocre land that it has available. With enough generic cities, however, you can get very good total production by combining the production of those cities. This is especially true when building military units.