How many farms do you build?

[Warlord Sam]

In my games, I generally only place a farm when its called for to harvest food resources... but I read the thread about farming plains, and realize that I've been using plains poorly in my games (generally with cottage spam).

In my last game, I grasped the concept of using farms to get up to at least size 21 in a city that's able to use all of its squares.. but I feel like my learning has just begun.

Where is that war academy that I loved from Civ3!?!? I desperately need help to improve my gameplay :/

So other than using farm on plains for the reasons discussed in the other thread, are there other situations that a farm is good to use? In particular, I'm wondering if the food bonus is nice early-game for getting your cities to quickly grow and thus quickly utilize its resources?

Thanks!

AND HAPPY ST PATTY'S DAY EVERYONE!!!!

 

[al_thor]

Farming grassland is situational for me. If the city only has a couple of green squares, well then they get farmed.

80- 90% of plains get farmed, otherwise cottage.

Flood plain is rarely farmed.

I used to farm a lot more than I do now.

Sure, corn, wheat, rice always get farmed.

 

[cardin411]

Greap People and city growth other than that, beats me. I usually build a farm or two in every city if I can just for growth purposes

 

[Kalleyao]

I don't build farms, only cottages because of my early wars.

 

[Samson]

I specialize my cities, so in each of the 3 catagories -

Production - irrigate all flat land, mine all hills. Change some farms to workshops / watermills when the city gets to full size (happiness limit or all workable land tiles).
Commerce - Irrigate enough to get up to size, then cootages. Chaneg some farms to cottages when it gets up to size.
Great person - Irrigate every square possible.
OT -

AND HAPPY ST PATTY'S DAY EVERYONE!!!!

I have always wondered why PATTY'S day in america, not PADDY'S day? I have assumed it is political correctness, as Paddy is sometimes used as an insulting description for the Irish, but would so many people use it if it is PC gone mad?

 

[SenhorDaGuerra]

thats like asking why the hell do americans say aluminum instead of aluminium. beats me, must be a cultural thing. its not clever of you america! the english invented the damn lanuguage! all in jest.

take it easy dudes.

 

[GiantRaven]

That doesn't really work in text form

Anywho, i only tend to build farms around cities where i feel there is a lack of food

 

[Wreck]

Yes, the food bonus is important to get cities to grow faster. If a city doesn't have a decent food resource, I usually irrigate at least one, often two grasslands to create an extra food surplus. When it hits its happiness or health limit, then you move the pop off the non-resource-tile farm(s) and work cottages or mines.

Extra food means extra pop, so as I said, usually once you get to a pop limit you stop using the farm tile. However, if you are in slavery and the city has no mines/forests to generate hammers, you'll want to continue growing while whipping to build things. In this situation you can think of a farm as a somewhat inefficient mine.

One other use for farms (once you've got Civil Service) is to spread irrigation to other farms, most particularly farms on resources tiles (corn, wheat, and rice). If these tiles are not immediately adjacent to water (or to a city on flatland which is next to water), then it is well worth it to spend a tile to get water to them.

 

[GABB]

I’m agree, farms aren’t the best improvement, but its can be powerfull in the correct city, spiritual trait (for best micromanagement) and with the correct civic. An specialiced city (with food resources, floodplains, farms…) can be used for this:

1.- The most common use is for the “GP Farm”. You know, enough food + caste system = more specialist support = more GPP…. I prefer Super-merchants for join the city for more food + gold…

2.- In the early game, I use that for pop out workers and settlers with Pottery (Granary) and BW. Yes, BW but not from chopping “my dear forest”, I prefer to switch to slavery and kill the unhappy and unhealthy population….

3.- After Built Globe Theater (No unhappiness), this city could be a great production city with slavery (and Kremlim by hurry production) and with Nationhood (drafting 3 units per turn w/o unhappiness) and recovering population fast for more hurry and drafting…

In this sence, I don’t urdervalue the farms (food), if I have a city placed in NO hammers place, I don’t cry and turn food (population) into hammers…

The farms are less critical in case of enemy pillages, after you kill the pillager team, you can rebuild and use them almost inmediatly and don’t give much cash to the pillager (not like towns-hamlets pillaged)

I said that farms (food) can be usefull in some cases (like many things in Civ IV), I didn’t say that this replace to all. You will need research cities, production cities and commerce cities too…

 

[naterator]

i usually only farm when my growth stops and there are still tiles to be worked. unless i have other plans at the time.

 

[ChicagoCubs]

I have always wondered why PATTY'S day in america, not PADDY'S day? I have assumed it is political correctness, as Paddy is sometimes used as an insulting description for the Irish, but would so many people use it if it is PC gone mad?

In America, the short version of Patrick is Pat, not Pad. In Ireland (and I am no expert), I think the name is Padric; therefore, they get the Paddy.

 

[SenhorDaGuerra]

its the same in the UK and Ireland. Pat is always short for Patrick.

Paddy and Shaun were walking down the street throwing stone at the ground. Paddy missed.

I've never really known what to do with farms. I used to only build them on resources and when i needed to get growth. i never used to get cities bigger than about 20, at most. But i recently playeed a friend of mine on multiplayer, and he farmed all grasslands and plain and mined all the hills, and he had 4 cites size 25 and over. i had no way of competing, cos the sheer size of those cities meant that not only was he spamming GP's left right and centre (not to mention the Science bonus u get from spcial citizens) he had prodution of between 120-200 in each city. mind you, he did start in quite a good place. but still, showed my tactic up a treat, so im trying to re-learn the game so i can compter with him.

take it easy dudes.

 

[GreatSquid]

I like to farm all of the plains usually. I usually just judge square by square which one would be the most effective for that city.

I like my cities to have a lot of pop.

 

[PublicEnemy]

Paddy and Shaun were walking down the street throwing stone at the ground. Paddy missed.

Don't they realise how valuable stone is?
They could have been building the pyramids.

 

[Pantastic]

For a commerce city, I'll cottage all of the grasslands (and flood plains) to start. If the city lacks food resources I'll farm a grassland or two to give it some growing space, and if it lacks hills I might stick some watermills in for pre-US production. Plains get a cottage if there's enough food for it, otherwise they get a farm. Hills get mines or windmills depending on how many there are, whether they're on a river if I'm financial (windmill on a river is 3 commerce for a financial civ), and how the food situation looks. I'll also give up a few cottages for an irrigation path if I think some other cities need it.

I'll generally have 1 great person factory, and I oftem capture it instead of building it since I tend to need my starting cities to be some mix of commerce and production to fuel expansion. For that city, every space gets a farm/windmill unless it's really short on shields, then I might do some mines or water mills.

Production cities get mines on all hills and enough farms to work them. I generally don't like even having cottages on a production city because I always seem to catch the computer using them over mines. Watermills (and workshops if you're short on rivers). There are odball production cities, a lot of times I'll have early cities with a good number of mines plus some cottages that will be mainly production early then switch to science later, I've had an almost-all-hills cities that used a plethora of windmills since there was virtually no flat land, and there's a few others that don't follow the usual pattern.

I use a lot fewer farms than the AI, I tend to replace a lot of captured farms (and workshops) with cottages but rarely replace cottages with farms.

 

[Leifmk]

Enough farms to allow the city to grow to a reasonable size and work tiles with 1 or 0 food -- the exact number will depend on whether the city has any food resources, typically 0 to 4 farms per city.

 

[Bezhukov]

You want farms available to grow quickly when the opportunity presents itself, but the bulk of the time, you want to be working towns, mills, and mines.

 

[Solo4114]

I haven't bothered strategizing specifically, and I don't specialize my cities, but in the past what I've done is to farm the green and cottage the tan. In one game I tried building rings of cottages at the edge of the city and farms on the interior (which is probably backwards, but what the hell). On the other hand, I was playing at the easiest level and had completely beaten the pants off the AI.

Also, I tend to leave forests untouched on certain tiles and build lumbermills later on. So maybe I'm just wacky. (I will chop here and there, but only to put a different improvement down)

 

[AL_DA_GREAT]

I like a lot of farms. I spam with farms

 

[Gherald]

corn/wheat/rice aside, the average number of farms I build per game is LESS than ONE.

Of course there are those rare games where I'm stuck in a spot with just a few grasslands for food, then I need farms.