Grassland

[AmazonQueen]

But I'll bet nobody spends the early game looking for that perfect site with 20 grassland tiles. Grassland are the perfect chameleon tile - depending on what you need they can supply it - but in and of themselves pretty boring especially in the early game.

edit: It also occurs to me that its largely a function of the map how much grasslands or whatever you have available. I suppose that you could claim the tropical region that appears on most maps regardless of who you are playing.

 

[MyOtherName]

Depends exactly where on the tech tree you are.

Windmilled grassland hill=2f 2h each, and a bit of commerce.

Unless im running state property, what i do is build mines and workshops early on, then change them to watermills and windmills later when the population is high enough. Gives more overall production than mines, because they are food neutral.

(the following assumes bts)

Food neutral does not imply more production. The reason windmills and watermills are so good for the short period right after you get replacable parts is because of the relative strengths of the various improvements; everything gives 2 units¹ except the farm, so maximizing hammer output means avoiding farms.

1: assuming your workshops are giving -1 +3


The most straightforward way I know to maximize hammer output is to first imagine your land improved to give as much food as possible. Then, you replace food tiles with hammer tiles (by changing the improvement or changing which tile is worked) one at a time, always trying to get the best ratio.


With all possible bonuses (which includes caste system & state property), it doesn't matter what improvements you use, as long as you're working all of your tiles and have neither an overall food surplus nor overall food deficit. It turns out that every improvement trades 1 food for 2 hammers relative to the best food producing improvement for that tile:

Workshop = sacrificing farm = -2 food +4 hammers
Watermill = sacrificing farm = -1 food +2 hammers
Mine = sacrificing windmill = -1 food +2 hammers

If you're not running both caste system and state property, then you want to avoid workshops. If you're not running state property, you want to avoid watermills too. (in this case, workshops equal watermills without caste system, workshops are better than windmills with caste system)

 

[Ibian]

The commerce is the tiebreaker. Mines and workshops produce none. Of course, when we get improved farms its time to build mines and workshops again.

 

[Verge]

But I'll bet nobody spends the early game looking for that perfect site with 20 grassland tiles.

I do, I'll admit. But just for one city.

 

[DaveMcW]

With chemistry & caste system, and without state property and railroads...

If you can do 1 farm + 1 workshop for 4, then you can do 1 farm + 1 workshop + 2 windmills for 6 2, which is better than 6.

Ok, that makes sense.

I lump Chemistry in with the other industrial revolution techs, but if you're doing a beeline you could take advantage of it in a few cities.

 

[popejubal]

Which then translates to, "Citizens/Pop is power," no?

This is making me re-think the power of the Kymer UB, which basically reads "turn one plains into a grassland in every city."

It's even better than that when you think about speed of your population growth. The Khmer UB gives +1 food and that's not just an increased max population size, it's also a vast improvement on how fast you gain in population depending on the city.

Imagine a city that is entirely riverside grassland cottages. This is obviously going to be an immensely powerful commerce city eventually. You start out with a 2 food per turn surplus and as long as you don't hit the or caps, you'll keep a 2 food per turn surplus forever.

With the Khmer Aquaduct, you have a 3 food per turn surplus. In any particular turn, you are gaining food 50% faster than the other civs. You're growing population less than 50% faster than your counterparts because you presumeably have a greater population and therefore need more food to grow, but it's still at least 30% faster even taking that greater population into consideration.

Imagine you had to work a plains tile for some reason (perhaps you're growing the tile for the capital to work later). The Khmer building turns that 1 food per turn surplus into a 2 food per turn surplus. That's a 100% increase in per turn food accumulation.


I've noticed that cities which have only grasslands with either no access to fresh water or which have only cottages built are dismally slow to grow. Add in a food resource and suddenly you have a commerce powerhouse. That's because even though the max population that the city can support is not significantly greater between irrigated corn + grassland cottages vs. grassland cottages alone, the irrigated corn city is going to get those population points 3 or 4 times as fast as the city that builds only cottages.


To me, the formula is:

Improved land being worked is power.
Improved land being worked is power.
Improved land being worked is power.

...if you're not working it, what good is that land doing you? And if you haven't improved it, then you're not really working it.

 

[popejubal]

There's a very interesting map type of grassland only with 0 fresh water and 0 resources. The entire map is just a great big green featureless square.

Since you won't be putting down any farms and you don't have any health resources, the only thing you can do with your tiles is workshop or cottage. Cottage is absolutely the best way to go here and the only techs worth having are techs that give you wonders (stonehenge in particular) and techs that give you extra health (Mathematics) or military units that don't require resources (Archery and Feudalism). And Pottery, of course.

It's very interesting to see just how much the game changes with only grassland tiles available.

 

[Ashurdan]

I don't have BTS yet, can someone tell me what the Khmer UB does? is it just aqueduct with +1 food? and unrelated to the thread, what does the Sumerian Ziggurat do? Back on topic, I agree that land=power is a little too simplistic, as noted by the computer's fustratingly persistant need to put a bad city in the one square not yet in your borders. I am aware of the whole, lots of coastal cities strat but I just prefer that 6-7 good cities over the 9-10 average ones, the amount of hills is more important to me than grasslands, atleast during the early game.

 

[Phrederick]

I agree if you're going to take a game through the industrial age - but until you get all those bonuses that make grasslands so stinkin' versatile (as well as State Property), grassland is mostly just food or commerce - no hammers.

I agree. Pre-Civil Service, I'd prefer a ton of hills, with enough grasslands/other food sources to work them all; you can turn production into military power, but the only way to turn commerce into military is over the long term, by getting a tech lead and advanced units. If your start is commerce-poor but production rich, as long as you can tech to bronze/iron, you can field an army and conquer a neighbor, and then take their commerce-righ sites.

After CS, however, I'd agree that grassland tiles are tops. At that point, you should have a large enough empire that production per city isn't quite as important, and commerce rises in importance. It's not until levees/universal suffrage/state property that grasslands can provide meaningful production, but that's fine because in most of my games that's when I begin transitioning from a commerce-centered to a production-centered empire, and prepare for military supremecy and invasions.

 

[Ibian]

Guilds and caste system turns workshops into mined hills... You dont like mined hills?

 

[pi-r8]

I really love finding a nearby civ that is settling on a jungle. I know that the jugnle will stifle their growth, so they're easy pickings. I just wait and develop normally until I get macemen, then conquer them easily and clear out the jungle. Massive grasslands is amazing.