Irrigation or mine/forest?

[Sargon of Akkad]

Hi, This is a newbie question I guess.

Well, everytime I play, I build mines/forests everywhere with one or two irrigations near my cities. This tactic has worked fine for the first two difficulty levels, but now that I am playing on prince difficulty level, the ai seems to always out produce me, remain ahead of me in tech, as well as always have more money then me. What's more, I see that the AI always builds Irrigation.

I've come to the logical conclusion that having more food via irrigation can increase your population thus increasing your science rate, as well as tax earnings.

My question is this: When should you build irrigation, and when should you build mines? I know that mines are in the game for some reason or other, I just can't figure out what.

 

[gerryandersson]

I recomend that you bild mines on hills and montins and irigation
on grasland and plains.
In the bigining I use forests to get more shilds and when Factory's
get avalibel I irigate the forests (burning them) to get more fod but still some shilds. (irigated forest=plains but you are not that new to the game are you)

This is how I play. Others might have bether sugestions.

 

[JuicyCivNewbie]

I prefer irrigation to forest, generally. And never turn grassland to a forest unless you think there is a resource there, especially shielded grasslands!

 

[Old n Slow]

Actually, if you are having some pressure at the Prince level & below, then your main flaw may be too few cities (which is my weakness right now). I recommend that your early priorities be:

Maintain a searcher per city (until you have 8-10 in the field).

Build settlers to grow to 6, 8, 12 cities. Post a defender in the outer ring of cities. Depending upon your level of Barbarianism/unfriendly neighbor civs, you may want a few offensive units at hand as well.

(Develop the monarchy technology & revolt to that government.)

Now you can "afford" the luxery of a spare settler or two (this number will grow of course) to: build roads (shield grassland spaces & special plains spaces first).

Now to your question -- when I'm in Monarchy, and I have a settler hanging around where a new city won't be, my priorities are ususally to irrgate the shield grasslands (already with roads), plains spaces, then mine a hill in that order.

 

[Sodak]

In CivII, population is key - more cities means more trade arrows, which are the backbone of success.

In despotism, irrigation does you no good anyway. Just build roads and mine if you know you will use that tile - for instance, a hill with wine or coal. Once you get monarchy, irrigation will bring you an extra food per grassland or plains tile. Irrigate! You are right that a larger population is beneficial.

 

[monkeyman116]

of the ai cheatin. a few months ago, i found an ai forest square which weas mined AND irrigated WITHOUT cuttin down the trees
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh an then there was the paradroppin riflemen saga...

 

[ArmOrAttAk]

Seems to me that you're reasoning that a big city produces big science due to it's size. You could collect the shields from forests, mines, plains, whatever -But that isn't gonna produce you one iota of science. You need to put your laborers to work on something that produces trade arrows. Roads, ocean, river,etc. Check it from the very beginning -if you're first city is around a lot of flat land build some roads on the tile that you're laborers are working, and the next tile when the city grows one, etc. Better even to find a whale, best to find a river. I build roads in the beginning only to connect cities, or to make sure my city produces trade arrows on flatland. Forests are bad as they are you have to irrigate them, then road, irrigate again hehe Well at least i do unless i'm in a serious shield shortage. Hills with mines are better I mine a few in the beginning for producing wonders A mountain with iron, or gold is good too. Don't forget that trade arrows also contribute much to keeping the population happy. I could go on but i think i'm rambling hope it helped.

 

[Sargon of Akkad]

Thanks everyone, I shall incorporate these suggestions into my strategy.

Now off to play civII...

 

[Sodak]

Originally posted by monkeyman116
of the ai cheatin. a few months ago, i found an ai forest square which weas mined AND irrigated WITHOUT cuttin down the trees

This can happen if a civ starts or re-starts in a spot without enough food production to grow. Voila! the squares immediately around the city square are irrigated.

 

[Simon Darkshade]

As has been said, irrigate and roads to get more populace and trade should be the mainstay. Big production cities are nice, but trade is better.