Grow forest?

[gavenkoa]

There are tundra tiles with Fur in the NC273 game.

Fur is initially +1G and requires Hunting for Camp, and Camp grants +3G.

Tundra is only +1F tile (effectively -1F xD).

So Tundra Fur Camp gives -1F+4G. Not that great.

But it can be better with Forest! +1H for final -1F+1H+4G. River Cottage plains is -1F+1H+2G and after 10T+20T it becomes the same. For non river plain it takes 10T+20T+40T to the same production.

People sometimes work Cottage pains. So it looks OK to work Tundra Fur Camps too ))

Camp doesn't remove forest.

QUESTIONS:

* how can I grow forest on empty tundra tiles?
* does Camp prevent forest grow on empty tundra tile?

We can discuss probabilities and investments looking to this spot:

 

[AcaMetis]

* how can I grow forest on empty tundra tiles?
* does Camp prevent forest grow on empty tundra tile?

Unless you're using mods, pray. The odds of a forest growing on a completely blank (I.E. no improvement, no road) tile are slim. Adding a road decreases the chance further, and I think putting an improvement on it nullifies it. There might be an exception for a Camp since Camps can exists on forests, most other improvements cannot, but I can't remember ever seening a forest grow on a tile with a camp on it (or a Fort, not that I build a lot of those).

 

[Snowbird]

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/forest-growth-and-the-roads.295749/#post-7362681

Camps on screenshot are not worth working them - with or without forests. Unless there are like multiple pigs southern part of the cross.

 

[coanda]

Because it borders one adjacent forest, that tundra fur has a 1/1000 chance each turn of growing a forest of its own. If forests spread to other tiles surrounding that fur, the chance of a forest growing on the fur will rise proportionally. Two bordering forests, twice the chance. Three, thrice the chance. Four, four times the chance.

If you build a camp on the fur, the chance becomes 0. Forests can never, under any circumstance, spread onto improvements. If you stand a unit on the fur, the chance is 0. Forests can't spread onto tiles holding units. If you build a road, there's still a chance but it is only half as likely (1/2000).

 

[gavenkoa]

1/1000 chance each turn of growing

So probability to get forest:

* during 100T: 1-(1-1/1000)^100 = 9.5%
* during 150T: 1-(1-1/1000)^150 = 13.9%
* during 200T: 1-(1-1/1000)^200 = 18.1%

Two bordering forests, twice the chance

* during 100T: 1-(1-1/500)^100 = 18.1%
* during 150T: 1-(1-1/500)^150 = 25.9%
* during 200T: 1-(1-1/500)^200 = 33%

Having 4 spots I posted above probability none grow in one turn (including adjustments for tiles having several surrounding forests) is:

(1-1/1000)*(1-1/1000)*(1-2/1000)*(1-3/1000) = 0.993

So in 100T at least one of them gets forest with probability: 1 - 0.993^100 = 50.4%. Definitely no one can build strategy around such rare events.

 

[krikav]

Ofcourse it's something you can't count on. But in almost all of my games I do take forest regrowth odds into account. All other things equal I always start with the forests that open up the largest chance for regrowth.
"If I chop here, how many more (or less) edges for regrowth do I get?"
Best case you chop down a forest with 4 adjacent forest, then you get 4 more edges that could spawn a new forest.
Worst case, you chop down the last forest that had 4 empty tiles around it, lowering the number of edges that can spawn forests by 4.

 

[Gumbolt]

1 forest equals .1% (+.1% for the first)
2 forests equal .4% (+.3% for the 2nd)
3 forests equal .9% (+.5% for the 3rd)
4 forests equal 1.6% (+.7% for the 4th)
Forests can not be diagonal to count for this. So N E W S only. Forests can only spread on certain resources, Same for jungle.

I think waiting 100-200 turns for a forest to grow is overkill.Even with 4 adjacent forest tiles you would a lot of luck!

That site looks terrible anyway as no food. If I was struggling for happiness I might settle?

 

[drewisfat]

Generally speaking forest growth odds can be ignored, because it's the very last consideration on a long line of considerations and it's actually quite rare for "all other things to be equal". In trying for HoF conquest slots though, I've flipped my reasoning on this and the conventional wisdom and made huge changes to my micro. This is because AGG AI allows such excessive working stealing that if I get a game with 5+ steals, I'm going to have a surplus of workers. Suddenly I no longer need to maximize worker turns. This has led me to make a bunch of changes in order to hopefully squeeze out an extra forest. The main change has been I now road/connect cities along forests and tiles that can't get a forest as much as possible. This kills worker turns, but means the roads which discourage growth are on as few potential-growth tiles as possible. I've also stopped building tile improvements ahead of time and try to wait until I'm actually going to work it. This has led me to group up multiple workers much more often, to minimize the time it takes to build improvements during which they're preventing growth. I'm even careful to make sure units are landing on tiles that forests can't grow on when moving between cities and stuff. Also taking more care to leave forests outside BFC (especially the 2x diagonal) until last, as these have reduced yields but may spread full yield forests to the BFC. In the case of wanting an improvement + forest chop, I'm now almost always doing the noob move of building the improvement immediately instead of chopping first (though this also has to do with unit maintenance and building in bursts).
Even though the odds of forest growth are super low, I shoot for maps with lots of forests already which has a compounding effect on how many forests you can expect to grow in a game, especially when coupled with a tech path that allows me to not chop a single forest pre-math.

Most important thing about growth in a normal game though, is to make sure you prevent jungles from spreading onto important tiles (rice/gems). It can be worth delaying getting a fogbuster into position just to block jungle until you can improve the tile, as losing gems or something can be devastating. Jungles spread 2x as often as forests, and even take precedence over forest spread in a rare tie.

In directly addressing the OP example, if you have AIs to trade with that don't have fur, all of this is a moot point. It doesn't matter if that city is doomed to be size 1 forever. If you can sell multiple furs for GPT this is going to be a profitable city with nothing but worker turn investment. If there were 4-5 AIs I could trade furs to (and no hidden food) I would settle 2N1W of the spot you selected without hesitation.

 

[Nogbadthebad]

Improvements do stop forest spread, but also any worker turns at all put into an improvement will prevent forest growth on that tile. This can occasionally be put to use (particularly on marathon) to stop jungle growth with 1T of an improvement, but is commonly found in captured land as the AI workers regularly wander around leaving work unfinished.

I have no idea how unfinished roads affect forest growth though.

 

[Gumbolt]

Yes if you can trade off all the fur for gpt then it can help economy greatly. Of course it's not a site you rush to settle. If you improve the furs you immediately lose any chance of forest growth on the furs. If you don't improve them that could be 5-6gpt you lose out on vs 1h gain. Given this is likely to be a low pop city the gain of 1h from forest is easily outweighed by gpt.

 

[krikav]

Improvements do stop forest spread, but also any worker turns at all put into an improvement will prevent forest growth on that tile. This can occasionally be put to use (particularly on marathon) to stop jungle growth with 1T of an improvement, but is commonly found in captured land as the AI workers regularly wander around leaving work unfinished.

Didn't know that partial improvements affected forest growth, nice to learn something new, and neat trick with jungle!

 

[Fippy]

Ofcourse it's something you can't count on. But in almost all of my games I do take forest regrowth odds into account. All other things equal I always start with the forests that open up the largest chance for regrowth.
"If I chop here, how many more (or less) edges for regrowth do I get?"
Best case you chop down a forest with 4 adjacent forest, then you get 4 more edges that could spawn a new forest.
Worst case, you chop down the last forest that had 4 empty tiles around it, lowering the number of edges that can spawn forests by 4.

Yup same, forest growth does happen cos early turns move by fast.

 

[gavenkoa]

Yes if you can trade off all the fur for gpt then it can help economy greatly

I haven't considered that. Even ignoring -1F+4G (working the tile is optional, it should be developed and hooked by road to enable trade) you can gain +10C (probably more, I have limited experience to witness greater numbers) or as there is excess of Fur tiles - swap it for Happy cap and boost profit in every city!

According to https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Culture_(Civ4) 10+100 Culture is required for the city 3rd ring. With library it is 55T - a bit too long to settle and wait for 3rd ring popup. Fur is available early in tech tree for hooking so any want to get at least one with lesser delay ))

 

[gavenkoa]

1 forest equals .1% (+.1% for the first)
2 forests equal .4% (+.3% for the 2nd)
3 forests equal .9% (+.5% for the 3rd)
4 forests equal 1.6% (+.7% for the 4th)
Forests can not be diagonal to count for this. So N E W S only. Forests can only spread on certain resources

Thx for refining! I wondered if diagonal direction counts...

So the best way to chop - by leaving forest tiles in chess order, by diagonal clusters. That way 2 Forests support increased growths of other 2 tiles:

0100
1F20
02F1
0010

Probability of getting at least one forest for above cluster is:

1T: 1-(1-.001)^4*(1-.004)^2 = 1.2%
5T: 1-(1-0.12)^5 = 5.8%
10T: 1-(1-0.12)^10 = 11.3%
20T: 1-(1-0.12)^20 = 21.3%
50T: 1-(1-0.12)^50 = 45%

If you have 10 such clusters (total 20 Forests) probability of at least one growth:

1T: 1-(1-0.12)^10 = 11.3%
5T: 1-(1-0.12)^50 = 45%
10T: 1-(1-0.12)^100 = 70%
20T: 1-(1-0.12)^100 = 91%

Expectation of income from chopping extra forest from that cluster: 30H*11.3%= 3.39hpt. It requires a worker and doesn't consume city Population.

If the probability of growth had been higher we would have had Forest farms - another complexity in the game ))

 

[krikav]

The spot is decent anyhow. With those clusters of resources I almost always aim to settle on one of the resources and then try to get all other resources within the second ring.
The city that claims them tends to become weak since it won't have a food source, so having as much as possible in close rings makes it possible to defend the tiles culturally.
And a minor nitpick too.. Cities like these don't stagnate at size1, they stop at size 2, working two furs. And that better than working a single gold/silver.

Often these weak cities can be somewhat tailored so that they can at least be drafted abit eventually too.

 

[Fippy]

If wanted and spare worker turns are there, could also chop in granary + LH and work FIN coast.
It's still not great for growth but will happen slowly.

 

[Gumbolt]

You can run artists later game. Or try to spread religion. I normally don't have a lack of resources to sell most games. You can normally cancel old deals after 10 turns and grab all their gpt on one deal. E.g. Cancel a 2gpt deal to grab 5gpt for same resource.

 

[5tephen]

@Nogbadthebad

It turns out forest can grow on tiles that have a partial improvement. In my latest game I improved cows, put a turn into a farm on a plains tile (out of habit rather than because I foresee a future farm there) and then moved to the next cow. A few turns later forest has grown on the pre-farmed tile. I intended to attach some comparison screenshots for ease of viewing but it transpires that holding shift allows you to name screenshots but then you can't see the queued worker actions - who knew? I've attached a save as proof instead - you'll have to queue a farm on the plains tile 1E of the worker vs any other forested tile to see this.

By the way, I've never knowingly come across a fellow Noggin the Nog fan - pleased to see I'm not alone!

 

[Lennier]

Often these weak cities can be somewhat tailored so that they can at least be drafted abit eventually too.

I thought a city had to be size 6 to draft? If they're stagnating at size 2, you might be able to occasionally 1-whip a unit.

You can normally cancel old deals after 10 turns and grab all their gpt on one deal. E.g. Cancel a 2gpt deal to grab 5gpt for same resource.

I like to try to do this, but every once in a while after cancelling the old gpt deal, the AI will recalculate their finances and when you go to ask for the higher gpt, you discover that there's less or no gpt available from them to give back. (Just a risk to be aware of.)

 

[gavenkoa]

AI will recalculate their finances and when you go to ask for the higher gpt, you discover that there's less or no gpt available from them to give back

I saw such situations in the late game when you deal with 1Resource => 12cpt. Early on It is common to jump into 1Health => 2cpt straight after Currency and a bit later you can improve deal to 1Health => 5-6cpt.