Platinum Onyx
Chieftain
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- Feb 3, 2008
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How many farms do you need to keep a city growing? Or does the number of farms depend on the location for your city?
How many farms do you need?
- Thread starter Platinum Onyx
- Start date
Depends on your city
If its a floodplains and/or grasslands city you may well not need any (unless you decide to make it a GP Farm), if theres lots of plains and hills you will
A good rule of thumb is does the city have enough food in its BFC to support 20 POP w/o farms, if not you need enough for it to grow to POP 20 and use all of its tiles
If its a floodplains and/or grasslands city you may well not need any (unless you decide to make it a GP Farm), if theres lots of plains and hills you will
A good rule of thumb is does the city have enough food in its BFC to support 20 POP w/o farms, if not you need enough for it to grow to POP 20 and use all of its tiles
More helpful for a good part of the game, when happy and health caps exist, is enough farms such that when you want to grow your city to the next level you can generate 4-6+ surplus food per turn. Once you start nearing 20 this becomes less effective since you'll have fewer commerce/hammer tiles to assign to citizens when you don't want to grow. Depending on the city and game you probably want to head for biology around this time to get the farm boost.
greenpeace
Peacelord
Here is the most precise way:
For every every pop you have the amount of food you need is two times that amount. Your city naturally provides two food. So look at all the tiles you want to work and for each one subtract the amount of food it has by two. The total of all the tiles plus two (from city) equals the amount of food you would have if you worked them all. If this number is negative you will need farms (or other source of food). A farm on grassland will give you basically +1 to that number. So lets, say you want to work 3 grassland mines and a 2 plains hills. A grasland hill mine provides 1 food, and a plains hill provides none. So the amount of food you would have leftover if you worked them all would be -5 (thats -3 food for 3 grassland hill mines and -4 for working 2 plains hill and +2 from the city). That means you would need 5 grassland farms (pre-biology).
For every every pop you have the amount of food you need is two times that amount. Your city naturally provides two food. So look at all the tiles you want to work and for each one subtract the amount of food it has by two. The total of all the tiles plus two (from city) equals the amount of food you would have if you worked them all. If this number is negative you will need farms (or other source of food). A farm on grassland will give you basically +1 to that number. So lets, say you want to work 3 grassland mines and a 2 plains hills. A grasland hill mine provides 1 food, and a plains hill provides none. So the amount of food you would have leftover if you worked them all would be -5 (thats -3 food for 3 grassland hill mines and -4 for working 2 plains hill and +2 from the city). That means you would need 5 grassland farms (pre-biology).
TheLastOne36
Deity
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2007
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- 14,045
depends. I Irrigate Grassland tiles with no river, Cottage River grassland tiles, watermill plains river tiles, and workshop plains tiles without river.
But there is atleast 1-2 exceptions in each city.
But there is atleast 1-2 exceptions in each city.
Hammurbabble
Warlord
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- Jan 31, 2008
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- 239
These folks are all giving you good advice, but there are two other considerations that mean even if the city is on good food land that can support 20 pop without farms, you may still want to make some.
First consideration is how quickly do you want to get to that 20 pop level. The faster you accumulate food, the faster you grow. Of course this is often at the expense of production and commerce.
Second consideration involves specialists. And that's not just after you get to 20+ pop, either, it's also along the way. Having those two scientists working in your library can be really important in the early game, and popping a GM or GE can be real nice. Specialists produce no food, so you want extra food production from the tiles that are being worked, and since that won't be ALL of the tiles until you hit 20 pop, you need the ones you ARE working to produce as much as possible.
So those calculations above are good to know, but don't be enslaved to them.
First consideration is how quickly do you want to get to that 20 pop level. The faster you accumulate food, the faster you grow. Of course this is often at the expense of production and commerce.
Second consideration involves specialists. And that's not just after you get to 20+ pop, either, it's also along the way. Having those two scientists working in your library can be really important in the early game, and popping a GM or GE can be real nice. Specialists produce no food, so you want extra food production from the tiles that are being worked, and since that won't be ALL of the tiles until you hit 20 pop, you need the ones you ARE working to produce as much as possible.
So those calculations above are good to know, but don't be enslaved to them.
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