I don't see the value of hill cities

[Octonde]

A 25% defensive bonus sounds nice, but in my experience, if my core cities are under significant attack, I'm probably losing anyway. That comes at the cost of windmills. Two production isn't huge, but it's something. 10% production on buildings is a nice boost, and less time spent on buildings is more time for units.

The engineer is the kicker for me. That's another two production (though at the cost of a tile) and great person points, running through whatever multipliers you have. With Freedom specialists are amazing, eating less, being happier, spawning faster great people, and with increased production; throw in some rationalism for good measure.

A hill that I build on is a 2 food, 1 hammer tile, so relative to a mine there I'm trading 3 hammers for 2 food. If I'd go on a grassland instead, that's trading 2 food for 1 hammer. That makes the hill even more expensive.

Am I missing something in terms of how I'm valuing the production? Would moving from Immortal to Deity make it worthwhile somehow?

 

[dragonxxx]

Its not only the 25%, enemy archers cannot attack from non-hill tiles 2 tiles away ...
Also, you get bonus production, thats vital early game - you make scouts for 5 turns instead of 7 etc.

edit: I dunno why I had that assuption

 

[Browd]

Well, archers' ability to hit a city (whether on a hill or on flat land) depends solely on the terrain of intervening tiles, not the terrain of the city tile.

Your second point is the most important. City on a hill gets 1 additional hammer vs. city on flat, all game long. Given the importance of early production and related snowball effects, many players (most?) will prefer the early production boost from the hill vs. later production from a windmill (even before taking into account the 250 hammer cost of a windmill, where the additional 2 hammers will take 125 turns to repay that investment, so the most practical impact of a windmill is the 10% production boost, which applies only to buildings, not units or wonders, and the additional specialist slot, which is only helpful if you are aiming for more/faster Great Engineers).

 

[Syailendra]

if you are playing for 300 turns, you'll rake extra 300 hammers free! That is more hammer than you'll get from a windmill, try to calculate the 250 investments as browd said.

 

[justanotherturn]

Would moving from Immortal to Deity make it worthwhile somehow?

before BnW it was more common to get early war and so hill for early city was a good way to be safer in "high" difficulty level.
now, with the passive AI, it's (at least to me) more a question of early hammer, like the other are saying.

 

[Browd]

Even with the more passive AI in BNW, we shouldn't undervalue the defensive bonus from settling on a hill. All it takes is one aggressive neighbor to make you realize that a city on flatland without walls is a candidate for a quicking sacking, while settling on a hill may give you enough defensive advantage to refrain from ever building walls. No walls can represent a savings of either 400 gold or 75 hammers -- 75 hammers is nearly the cost of 2 archers (80 hammers -- and equals the gold cost of 2 archers (200 each)), and 2 mobile, upgradeable archers are far more useful over the course of the game than walls in a single city.

So, settle on a hill, get the extra hammer, redirect what might have been wall-building hammers (or gold) to churn out a couple more archers, and enjoy a more resilient, and flexible, game.

 

[budweiser]

Sometimes you want that extra flat land for a farm so you settle on a hill. Most of the time, I prefer the option to have a windmill.

 

[civ54lyfe]

i violate the Hill Rule about 40% of the time, even knowing that it's probably the wrong decision. if i see maximizing the best 1st-3rd ring tiles narrows it down to a flat tile, too often i just give in and settle on it.


i should add, closely tied with good tile maximization, are River tiles. even though River yields were nerfed, i personally value Garden+Water Mill and it will often make me violate the rule as well.

Windmills aren't even in the same solar system as 'worth it' for settling a flat tile.

 

[Browd]

Candidly, I'll do the same (not sure about 40%, but quite a decent percentage), particularly if I can get a plains wheat or grassland stone tile in the first ring, so early production is not adversely affected. But, when I do it, it isn't because I want to preserve my ability to get a windmill -- I just don't find them that compelling, given the windmills' poor ROI and the need to build so many other things.

 

[budweiser]

Dont discount the windmill's effect on your ability to win world's fair. Its right on the path of 3 factories>BNW.

 

[Browd]

Does the WM's 10% production boost apply to World's Fair?

 

[budweiser]

I doubt it, but it still gives more hammers.

 

[GamerFlair]

Haven't tested but I am 99% sure it doesn't. It might be plausable that wonder boosters will help World Fair (and the other hammer for reward proposal) as they might be listed as wonders, but not normal building boosters.

@bud: yeah, one hammer more. Assuming that you didn't use the hammer advantage you had for all those turn's prior to boost your hammer growth.

Which won't happen, because that hill meant earlier scout, earlier worker so earlier cap growth, earlier settlers so earlier city foundings which grow early etc etc all leading to way more then +1 hammer.

 

[Browd]

Welcome to CivFanatics!

I would generally agree, but there are a host of variables that make this a less-than-obvious/no-brainer conclusion. The fact is, I've bought windmills for the very reason Budweiser states (can't recall hard-building them -- the payback time is just too painful), at least where gold was plentiful enough to justify the investment (using gold to buy hammers sometimes DOES make sense).

Circling back to the questoin that drove this discussion, I still don't use windmill as a reason to settle or not settle on hills vs. flatland. If I'm on flatland 150-200 turns later, I might buy a windmill for production boost, but that doesn't really enter into my initial settlement calculus.

 

[Octonde]

Well, archers' ability to hit a city (whether on a hill or on flat land) depends solely on the terrain of intervening tiles, not the terrain of the city tile.

Your second point is the most important. City on a hill gets 1 additional hammer vs. city on flat, all game long.

I didn't know a city on a hill gained +1 production. That's a pretty big deal early on.

It isn't a big deal, but if there is a forest or hill between the enemy and my city, then my archers in the city could still hit it. Most likely that means one extra turn to shoot at them.

 

[Tich]

Windmills are crap. They come too late, they're too expensive to rush-buy and they take too long to build given that then come out on turn ~160 at the earliest when the game figures to end by turn 250 at the latest. I'd rather have an extra hammer in my cities for the first 160 turns of the game where production is at a premium than pump out my final few buildings at a slightly accelerated pace. Well, I mean, working a mine beats working an Engi slot (they're going to be 4+ production in the very near future) so it's really just about the science from Secularism at that point. All science is helpful obviously but that's a LOT of hammers to invest for not a lot of science return. I don't value Windmills highly at all in that sense and so I'll always settle on Hills if it's an option.

 

[joshua43214]

Hills give you 5 turn scouts instead of 7 turn scouts, it times perfectly with ending pottery.
Hills give defensive bonus and are the difference between surviving an early DoW and not.
Hills give added visibility to your range units, so you can shoot over other stuff.
Windmills come late, and add marginal improvement.
A flat is better used as a farm, than a hill is as mine in the early game.

 

[FrostK]

1 hammer at start is good for cap and awesome for other cities. If u go tradition city on hill has two times more production [if citizen is on cotton or cow].

Windmill is not bad actually, but when it comes, you need to build factories and public schools, and after I often want Hermitage or smth. So really no time to get it. The only building which is mandatory after public school is lab. Stock exchange or solar plant or other buildings are not bad, but usually you do not want to rush them, so this 10% from windmill is actually lost, you get 2 hammers for 2 gold, which is not that impressive.

I am neally never short on specialits slots. Even with Korea on freedom. University, school, market, bank, factory, workshop - already 8, it is usually enouph for non-cap and in cap there are usually guilds.

 

[Octonde]

I am neally never short on specialits slots. Even with Korea on freedom. University, school, market, bank, factory, workshop - already 8, it is usually enouph for non-cap and in cap there are usually guilds.

I've been making a dedicated specialist city, with most of the land used for food. This allows me to leave my capitol or some other high-production city for wonders. I hated having to give up my culture specialists to build wonders in a reasonable time, especially when I'd gone for aesthetics.

 

[Nick Carpathia]

Biggest problem with windmills is they boost only buildings, not units as well. So I'll damn well take the free hill production where possible.