Keeping Forests...

I am always wary of cutting down forrests as I find that if you cut most down on grassland tiles, there is a risk that you will end up with very uproductive lands.

Am I thinking wrong? Or would I be better in spcializing and getting rid of forrests if appropriate? (For example, city on grassland river, lots of forrests around could become a good GP farm, cottage with no need for shields, therefore forrests can be chopped down safely)

 

I hold on to plains/forests if I can, but other than that I feel it's usually wise to chop most forests to boost your early game. Clear-cutting an area that has no other means of production is usually a bad idea, but if you've got several production cities already and want some commerce, it can be worth it to cottage spam a city and partially cash rush its improvements.

 

2 forest = 1 health. If you have a shortage of health resource, then leaving a few forest in densely populated cities would be nice. People usually cut forest to rush things, such as axeman, library, courthouse, or early wonders.

Cutting down forest on grassland usually means you are going to either put a farm (need more food) or cottage there. Cottage is always a good idea.

Early-mid game, you can leave forest on plains (before cut it is 1 bread 2 hammers) if you have a shortage of hills. This is especially true when you have some grassland and some plains. 95% of the time, you want to harvest on the 2-bread grassland to make your pop grow, instead of the 1-bread plain. Late in the game, those plain forest will get lumbermills, so they will be as goo as mines.

If you get a lot of food surplus, I would suggest you to cottage spam the entire city. They are perfect commerce cities.

 

It's a bad idea to save forests most of the time, but I'll try to explain how to see it. Say you have 2 grassland forest tiles. You can save both and get 2 hammers each. Or, you can build farms on both and work a mine for 4 hammers. The downside is that you need 1 extra population which you may not be able to afford due to health or happiness restrictions.

In the early game, the hammers you get from the chop is worth so much that you should chop every tree in the surrounding area. There are no exceptions to this.

In mid-game, it may indeed be better to save a forest or two for lumbermills in the future. After all, two grassland forest tiles with lumbermills will have the same function as having farms on both and then a mine, except that lumbermills can produce more later on, the 2 forests will add around 1 health to the city, and you need one less population.

Then comes the late game with universal suffrage. When this arrives, typicaly all forests must die. Although some civs like Cyrus can do very well with farms and representation, in which case it may be better to build lumbermills instead.

 

Always chop forests on hills. Always chop forests on grassland. Usually chop forests on plains. Leave at least two forests if you really need the health. I'm still new to the game, but this always seems to work for me. When I very first started out I thought that leaving the forests for the hammers was a good idea, but then I figured it was better to chop them.

 

On the higher difficulty levels, forests are great ways to fight the health restriction. As usual, evary start will be different. Jungles (negative health), flood plains (negative health), hill availability (no hills = no production) and health resources (positive health) will all affect your need.

personnally I try to keep four forests, but will go down to two.

Many will argue that the early hammers from chopping forests are more valuable, however there are mitigating factors including hammers saved from not building aquaducts/hospitals.

 

Forsest TIPS:

1.) Leaving Forests: Unless your expansive, you will want to save at least 2 forests per city. If your not expansive and you have an unconnected inland city with no forests, it has 1 health only... pretty bad.. ALso, not so later on, lumber camps give +1 hammers which is pretty good.

2.) Overlapping: People say its bad. I duno why. How many cities have you gotten to 21 population to use all the sqaues. Overlap your cities so that they share forests. If 2 of the same forest sqarues are in the limits of both cities, both cities share the health bonus. You could chop generally in the close square of the city and leave the outside squares to share with other cities.

3.) Cut all forests near rivers: Everything is better about this. Any mprovement other than forest yields +1 commerce near a river. Also, if you build a farm, yea its the same power (3) but it becomes 4 after biology. Also, if you build a mine or a watermil or a workhouse, they get upgraded with tons of bonuses. Lumber camps and forests do NOt get the +1 hammer bonus when a railroad is on it.

4.)Plain inland forests: These are the ones to keep. In thte early game, chopping reduces the square power from 3 to 2 with the same amount of measly food. After lumber camps they become like a grassland hill which isn't to bad.

5.) What to cut: You shuold really only chop non growing units like workers and settlers but wonders are ok if u need to get it fast. If you chop warriors or anything else, your wasting hamers and while building these units your city could be growing. If your city produces 8 or more hammers, its pointless to chop for the city. It only takes 4 or 5 turns from the process and you should save the forests instead.

 

Cottage spamming + universal sufferage = high production.

You can get high production through hammers, but I prefer do get the same effect through economy.

 

Another consideration is military, specifically, the +50% defense bonus forests get (not to mention the +75% if it's on a hill, and the Woodsman promotion).

For these reasons, you generally don't want ANY forests on tiles immediately adjacent to a city tile. It's a haven for the enemy and makes him difficult to dislodge. I often save a few forests for health reasons, lumbermills, and/or later chopping, but never next to the city itself.

 

I posted a reply to a similar question in this thread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=163401&page=3

 

I ranked the forests I am most likely to chop at http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=4350283#post4350283

 

In general, chop every forest asap. If you need health, trade or conquer more health resources. If you need production, pop rush. There's almost always something better to do with the tile than having a forest on it. The exception is a forest on non-river tundra, because you can't do anything with that tile anyway, so at least you get +1 (or +2 with lumbermill) hammer from it. You might also want to keep forests for extremely unhealthy cities, such as those that have 8+ flood plains.

 

I generally regard it as best to remove just about all forests, except for the ordinary tundra forests. The only exception would be a city that is really desperate for health, but forests are not an efficient way of boosting health. As Zombie69 says, except for a very heavy floodplain city I can't see this being advisable.

The bonus hammers from clearing a forest in the early stages are simply too valuable to be ignored. There is also the fact that a forest tile is always suboptimal use of a tile (except non freshwater flatland tundra) until the invention of Replaceable Parts. Any hill will give an extra hammer by being mined instead of leaving the forest (and you never know you might get a resource from a mine as well). On any flatland tile I regard it as preferable to trade the hammer for the substantial commerce a cottage can give.

Leaving a forest being used by a city wastes a hammer every single turn if it is on a hill, and potentially a huge amount of commerce in the case of flatland, until the invention of replaceable parts. Even after that the only case where lumbermills are better is on hills adjacent to river, where they will give one extra commerce.This doesn't repay what you'll have lost by leaving the tile unimproved till then. I don't see the point in this approach of hanging onto two forests for the +1 health. It just doesn't seem enough to compensate for throwing away a hammer or two, and/or a chunk of commerce every turn for about half the game, in addition to the loss of the chop bonus.

 

The only forests I don't chop right away are the ones on Tundra, simply because a forest is better and I can build a lumbermill later.

I always seem to stary near the icy area of the world so I get those more often than not.

 

Yes they do. Mines and Lumbermills both get a +1 production bonus from a railroad, and are the only ones that do.

Fully developed forests are basicly the same as developed hills.
Plains-forest with lumbermill = Grassland hill with mine, 1-food 3-hammer +1 commerce next to river.

 

Yes, but only if ALONGSIDE the river. If only touching 1 corner of the river mines will get gold but lumbermills will not.

 

Another use of leaving the forests intact is for chop rushing the space parts

 

You sir are an absolute

 

Actually, he has a point. Once you've discovered your last tech, say Ecology, you want to build that last part in one turn to win as fast as possible. I chop my last two lumbermills to achieve this.

 

Just so you guys arent forgetting anything. A workshop under State Property is just as effective as any railroaded forest tile.

Effects of grassland with workshop under state property:

2 food 3 shields

Effects of forest/grassland with lumbermill and railroad.

2 food 3 shields.

Theres no reason to keep the forests if you plan on running state property.
The health benifit is not worth it unless you play on a very high level difficulty.