Improvements... cottages... farms... workshops...

[AppleTheMan]

I'm slowly learning to use my workers properly. I have to say it is very long giving orders to every worker every turn, and once the game is rolling and I have many of them, I just can't help automating them all. (I make sure they leave the old improvements though).

I've been learning that it is best to "designate" certain cities for commerce, and then others for production. For the commerce I do cottages.

What is the best way to work efficiently? I am guessing that there are different strategies... I recall reading years back about people liking the watermill and workshop combined with state property. What I really question is where are farms necessary? I used to just put farms EVERYWHERE. A bit like egypt. I'm learning not that this is not the best.

So what are the advantages and disadvantages to everything, and what is the best way to play?

Also... what's the deal with forests? I notice that they don't give as much hammers as they used to in vanilla. Is it really necessary to keep forests around?

 

[mystikmind2005]

I do not have any super advanced strategies at all. My difficulty level is usually Noble but i can give prince a run for its money if i am feeling adventurous.

Obviously the terrain itself is lord and king of determining what you should build improvement wise. But generally speaking, my main improvements will be cottages and lumber mills.

1) I will try and leave forrests in play as much as possible for lumber mills later on.
2) Early on i will spawn cottages all over except some river tiles - well cottages is all that is allowed anyhow so you get no choice - strange for a 'strategy' game i know!!
3) Depending on how slowly a city is growing and how my finances are going, i may try to start replacing some cottages with farms on grassland here and there as the game progresses.
4) Windmills are wonderful for 'no food' hills like desert and tundra but not plains or grassland unless the city needs growth.
5) Mines are wonderful on grassland and plains hills.
6) There are no other improvements that i use.

 

[CCRunner]

I usually mine all the hills, improve resources with pastures or whatever, and cottage everything else. I only use farms in order to support more cottages. As for the forests- If you mean chopped hammers when you research math you get 50% more per forest. I think that's a change from vanilla but it's been so long I can't remember off the top of my head.

I've been learning that it is best to "designate" certain cities for commerce, and then others for production. For the commerce I do cottages.

This is good.

 

[Polobo]

Yes, vanilla (not sure about warlords) generated 30 hammers per chop at normal while BtS generates only 20. Math increases this by 50% back to the original 30. The big advantage of forests is that they give you health; plus good production once the mid-late game rolls around.

Both windmills and farms give you food. I like to be able to generate 4-6 surplus food per turn during growth so I'll build these as necessary to be able to get that surplus while working my preferred set of production/commerce tiles (or specialists).

There is no best way to play. What improvements are best and what tiles to save for later (i.e., forests for lumbermills/preserves; riverside for watermills) are highly land and technology dependent. Farms are generally best placed off-river but without civil service you cannot do this. Riverside cottages are great in that you get the river commerce as long as you are working the cottage (which should be always) but you then forgo a watermill. Workshops are monster production with the right techs and civics but it takes a while (after you research Metal Casting) to get them. Depending on needs and terrain various beelines to the key improvement techs are useful while others are less so. That is one of the major decision making areas this game presents.

 

[Iranon]

City specialisation is important for two things: National wonders and cottages.

Naturally, you want national wonders that give a specific boost in cities where they are doing a lot. Building mostly workshops in my Oxford cities and building troops there while building mostly cottages in my Ironworks city doesn't make much sense.

One city working 10 cottages and one city working 5 farms and 5 workshops all the time is better than two cities alternating between either since the first version will be working villages and towns more quickly. Hence if you rely on cottages you will probably want a few dedicated production cities to crank out units so your cottage cities can do their thing all the time.
Yes, there are exceptions, particularly in times of heavy war weariness. Not the point, it still pays to specialise... and in wartime you want production cities anyway.

***

In a farm-based economy with few cottages, you can specialise your cities in research/gold/production cities but you don't have to. You could run caste system, build only the relevant multiplier buildings in your 'commerce' cities and throw in a few production/military cities like a Cottage Economy player would. This seems to be the more popular variant.

Alternatively, you could stay in Slavery, prioritise Granaries and Forges everywhere and switch back and forth between running specialists and whipping things. This allows every city to be a production powerhouse if you need it to be one, and it's my preferred playstyle.
Since you won't get much research/GP farming done before you you build infrastructure, your research might lag a little at the startthough.

 

[AppleTheMan]

Wow! Thanks Iranon! Lots of really good ideas...

So...
1. Cottage cities and workshop cities + Emancipation, Universal suffrage, etc
2. Workshop and watermill cities + State property etc
3. Big farm cities + caste system, representation (maybe also pacifism?)
4. Farm cities + slavery (maybe also monarchy)

How is that?

 

[mystikmind2005]

Sounds ok, I havn't tried most of those strategies though.

I never use workshops because of the negative food aspect, and in most cases i will have enough forrest or hills so that i will not miss then 1 iota anyway! And if i ever have a problematically low production city, it is very easy to guess what the cause will be.... ocean!! (where is my ofshore platform technology??? ARRRGGGh)

 

[CCRunner]

The food penalty goes away if you use State Property though.

 

[Iranon]

Always glad to be of help!

Re 1.: Well, food is generally the most valuable resource there is; I mostly mentioned workshops in the examples to keep hills out of the thing.
If you run Emancipation and Universal suffrage, you will want to cottage almost literally everything.
Workshops are horrible unless they get most of the bonuses. Workshops with Caste System and Guilds is usually inferior to Farms and Slavery for production.

2. and 3. sound good.

Re 4.: I don't get the combination. If you need Hereditary Rule to sustain the whipping, you are producing units you can't use. this sounds like an emergency action more than anything else.
One beautiful thing about farm cities is that they lend themselves to specialists as well as production through whipping; so I'd prefer Representation.
Drafting changes this a little, cities need nothing but Farms, a Granary and a sufficient happiness cap to support that well; much more efficient than using Slavery.

 

[MyOtherName]

I never use workshops because of the negative food aspect

I don't understand; in all other aspects you seem to strongly favor improvements that are not food maximal (e.g. cottages and lumbermills instead of farms, and mines instead of windmills), and seem to have no problem working tiles that yield a net food deficit. So why do you suddenly become obsessed with food when you consider workshops?


Actually, I think that's the explanation: it sounds like you don't get enough food in your cities, and so you simply can't afford the workshops.

 

[mystikmind2005]

I don't understand; in all other aspects you seem to strongly favor improvements that are not food maximal (e.g. cottages and lumbermills instead of farms, and mines instead of windmills), and seem to have no problem working tiles that yield a net food deficit. So why do you suddenly become obsessed with food when you consider workshops?


Actually, I think that's the explanation: it sounds like you don't get enough food in your cities, and so you simply can't afford the workshops.

Not at all, my primary goal is always money. So once i have money under controll, only then will i take a serious look at food production. I will typically try to have at least 2 farms for each city + food bonus tile and 4 farms per city with no food bonus tile. Cities with no fresh water will not get any farms at all, because it is not allowed early on and then money will be the priority after that, so they don't get farms untill money is better.

 

[Yxklyx]

Always glad to be of help!

Re 1.: Well, food is generally the most valuable resource there is; I mostly mentioned workshops in the examples to keep hills out of the thing.
If you run Emancipation and Universal suffrage, you will want to cottage almost literally everything...

Except for plains right? I don't know about you guys but I usually play with climate on random so I get a lot of worlds with few grasslands and lots of plains/deserts. I see the importance of cottaging all the grasslands but when it comes to plains it seems like you should farm that - and a lot of times you'll need to farm a grassland so that the plains can get irrigated. Seems the cottaging strategy only works when there's an abundance of grasslands.

 

[Vynd]

Different improvements are more or less important depending on what stage you are at in the game and what you're trying to do. You can win a game via early conquest or domination without ever building any cottages. Build lots of farms and mines to maximize production, chop forests like crazy to boost production further, and kill everyone with your huge army.

If you're playing a longer-term game then you need to worry more about science and commerce. You can go the specialist economy route, build lots of farms, and run scientists and/or merchants. Or you can build cottages. Or some of both. You also have to delay gratification somewhat. Sure, you could work the Desert Hill Gold Mine and boost your commerce and production right away. But if that leaves your city stuck at 5 population forever you might want to consider working a couple of riverside farms instead while your city grows more, even though they generate less commerce, and then assign population number 7 to the gold mine. And while there's little reason to leave forests in place in a fast-paced game you do need to consider their health benefits or the long-term potential of lumbermills if you're in it for the long haul.

Workshops do suck early in the game. But they can be very powerful during the late game, and especially if you are running State Property. Let's say your economy is already very strong and you capture a so-so cottage city from an opponent. If you go in and replace the cottages with a few farms and a bunch of workshops you'll see that city rapidly grow into a production powerhouse.

 

[Iranon]

@ Yxklyx: Plains are worth working... barely.
In an All-Plains city, you could farm everything but the last two, building cottages there. such a city will be pretty marginal unless you have a lot of per-city bonuses though.

It gets more interesting for a plains city with a few grasslands thrown in. Here I would farm the Grassland, which makes the city grow more quickly to the target size and helps whip/draft shenanigans. Plains split between food and cottages so I can work them all (number of grassland tiles + 2 cottages before Bioloy).
There's a downside though: Plains farm + grassland town would produce one hammer more during a golden age under US.

If you care about peak production capacity rather than sustainable production, you could build up to (0.5*number of grassland tiles + 1) plains workshops in place of farms. Per workshop, you lose 1 hammer when running commerce.
I will probably do this because growing past a certain size for 1 more hammer per turn isn't worth the delay on the cottages.

 

[Yxklyx]

@ Yxklyx: Plains are worth working... barely.
In an All-Plains city, you could farm everything but the last two, building cottages there. such a city will be pretty marginal unless you have a lot of per-city bonuses though.

It gets more interesting for a plains city with a few grasslands thrown in. Here I would farm the Grassland, which makes the city grow more quickly to the target size and helps whip/draft shenanigans. Plains split between food and cottages so I can work them all (number of grassland tiles + 2 cottages before Bioloy).
There's a downside though: Plains farm + grassland town would produce one hammer more during a golden age under US.

If you care about peak production capacity rather than sustainable production, you could build up to (0.5*number of grassland tiles + 1) plains workshops in place of farms. Per workshop, you lose 1 hammer when running commerce.
I will probably do this because growing past a certain size for 1 more hammer per turn isn't worth the delay on the cottages.

Now Plains and a River is a no-brainer right? Watermill with State Property? Start with farms then convert.

 

[Iranon]

Definitely... many plains/river cities are a solid argument in favour of State Property, because watermills are the only good thing you can do with that kind of land.

 

[MyOtherName]

Definitely... many plains/river cities are a solid argument in favour of State Property, because watermills are the only good thing you can do with that kind of land.

That's patently false.

When you are running state property, it doesn't matter whether you use farms, watermills, windmills, or mines on your land; as long as you work all of your tiles and produce just enough food, you will get the same number of hammers. (of course, windmills / watermills are worth a few extra commerce)

Workshops are also on that list if you are running caste system and have chemistry.

 

[Yxklyx]

That's patently false.

When you are running state property, it doesn't matter whether you use farms, watermills, windmills, or mines on your land; as long as you work all of your tiles and produce just enough food, you will get the same number of hammers. (of course, windmills / watermills are worth a few extra commerce)

Workshops are also on that list if you are running caste system and have chemistry.

We're talking about a city with all Plains.

 

[MyOtherName]

We're talking about a city with all Plains.

That doesn't change what I said. e.g.

Farm + workshop = 3/1 + 1/5 = 4 food 6 hammers
Watermill + watermill = 2/3 + 2/3 = 4 food 6 hammers

The only difference plains makes is that your maximum food output is lower, and you are correspondingly limited to fewer hammers overall. e.g.

2 * Grassland workshop = 4 food 8 hammers

 

[Yxklyx]

That doesn't change what I said. e.g.

Farm + workshop = 3/1 + 1/5 = 4 food 6 hammers
Watermill + watermill = 2/3 + 2/3 = 4 food 6 hammers

The only difference plains makes is that your maximum food output is lower, and you are correspondingly limited to fewer hammers overall. e.g.

2 * Grassland workshop = 4 food 8 hammers

Don't watermills give more commerce (with Electricity) though than farms and workshops?