Liberty is very hard...

[GhostSalsa]

I don't disagree with the gist of your post but I think that comparing aztec growth to shoshone is a little unfair because the aztecs have the floating gardens for a lot of extra food, whilst the shoshone's benefit is for other things most of the time than growth. I think the most reliable test would be one with the same autosave start as the same civ but with different policies (trad/lib) respectively. That way all the controls are as similar as possible.

Yes. I did try to even things up a bit by sharing my Aztec Tradition open with Honor, haha. I've also had, as hinted, a lot of mediocre Aztec Liberty-jungle experiments (including one where I was unfairly settled on a no-freshwater coast, so you'd think skipping Tradition would make sense...). Mainly I think Tradition's capital-focus makes it better for jungle starts even when you'd think a free hammer and faster workers would come on top. A strong capital mothers over your other jungle cities, it takes care of them by finishing NC faster and making money for rush-buys etc.

 

[direblade99]

Yes. I did try to even things up a bit by sharing my Aztec Tradition open with Honor, haha. I've also had, as hinted, a lot of mediocre Aztec Liberty-jungle experiments (including one where I was unfairly settled on a no-freshwater coast, so you'd think skipping Tradition would make sense...). Mainly I think Tradition's capital-focus makes it better for jungle starts even when you'd think a free hammer and faster workers would come on top. A strong capital mothers over your other jungle cities, it takes care of them by finishing NC faster and making money for rush-buys etc.

Yes I find that as well, also it helps to have a decent sized capital by the time universities come around in a jungle start because that mofo will generate a TON of science in the likelihood there's a fair few unchopped jungles by that time. Also tradition can more afford to work the rare hammer tiles you might have in a jungle start because of the food bonus. I think there may be something to be said for faster chops of those annoying jungles with liberty as well as the extra production and more cities, but I think tradition would still come out on top most of the time.

 

[Thorak]

As a summary I would say that if you're going for a quick victory use the following guideline:
- For domination go liberty
- For all other go tradition

I could see a mix working as well, but the tradition finisher is REALLY strong and the earlier the stronger those aqueducts are.

As a sidenote, I feel Aztecs is one of the most underated civs. It can finish tradition a lot earlier thanks to the free culture and it outgrows any other civ in pop thanks to the broken floating gardens (I am still not sure it was really meant to be all food not just surplus food for the +15%).

 

[Cromagnus]

Yes I find that as well, also it helps to have a decent sized capital by the time universities come around in a jungle start because that mofo will generate a TON of science in the likelihood there's a fair few unchopped jungles by that time. Also tradition can more afford to work the rare hammer tiles you might have in a jungle start because of the food bonus. I think there may be something to be said for faster chops of those annoying jungles with liberty as well as the extra production and more cities, but I think tradition would still come out on top most of the time.

Farms > Jungle for science...

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Farms > Jungle for science...

Plain farms and the cost of growing the city will not make this true, its better to spend the happines on other cities and get the science from jungles

 

[hai 1]

Farms > Jungle for science...

Even after universities? I usually save a few jungle tiles because I just assumed it had to be worth it.

 

[Tiny Hands]

Farms > Jungle for science...

Is the point that growing population will benefit science output to greater degree, in the long run?

 

[BenitoChavez]

I prefer to keep a few jungles around and build trade posts on them. 2 2 2 are better overall than 4. Add in free thought in rationalism and the sacred sites pantheon and you can add an extra and . Those farms are still vital for growth though so you still gotta chop most of the jungle.

 

[Vitruvius]

"Incorrect" is probably the wrong word, inefficient would probably have been a better choice. I think building settlers when going tradition is a bad idea altogether. Instead of rushbuying archers, I feel it's a much better idea to build the archer and rush buy settler to avoid hindering capital growth. This way as I said, will get you settlers at roughly the same pace as liberty but you will not have as much gold early on but a bigger capital.

But yeah, beating the AI on deity is fairly simple. I'm not playing to beat the AI though (as the AI is kind of a joke anyway), I am playing to beat my own winning times, and this requires me to reroll until I get a good start, otherwise I won't beat my record.

Still, buying settlers will give much more control as it is instant and you won't risk the AI building a city the turn before your settler finishes.

Rushing buying settlers doesnt work in all situations. You would need some early dof to rush buy your first settler. Also, if you dont steal workers, you might want a worker first, and without a worker your capital growth is going to be really slow. Sometimes when you hit a certain pop and see that you need 15 turns to hit the next pop, might as well pop a settler in 6 turns. Are you also going to rush buy 3 settlers for 1500? This money could be better spent on CSs.

 

[adwcta]

Farms > Jungle for science...

... no?

Farms are +3 food; +4 after fertilizer (off the tech path).
Jungles are +2 food, +2 science, +1 gold; +2 food, +3 science, +2 gold after economics and rationalism (both of which you are going to get very quickly).

After schools, each population = 2 science. So, EACH farm has to be responsible for 1.5+ pop for the tradeoff to be worth it in strict science terms (the extra 1.5 pop'll get you ~3 food/hammer, but costs 1.5 happiness; the jungle gets you +2 gold). The problem is, you're never getting 1.5 extra pop. And before you reach 1.5 extra pop, the 2-science tile continues to win, for all those turns (which, as you'll see below, is all of the turns in the game). In fact, the effects of getting the science earlier, so you can hit science-buildings earlier probably snowball into greater benefits, but we won't go there.

By an endgame of 35 pop (conservatively), it's 800 food per pop. So, you need 1200 food to break even. On that extra +2 food, that's 600 turns (~450 turns w/ aqueducts). You may be able to cut that turn time down with Tradition or other growth modifiers, but you'll never get down to the ~120 turns left in the game by the time you hit rationalism/economics/fertilizer to make up the difference (or the ~180 turns by the time you hit civil service/education).

This is all not to mention that you're trading 1 food for 2 science on all non-riverside tiles for a good chunk of the game (and if 2 food for 2 science doesn't work to the farm's favor, I don't have to show you the math for 1 food 2 science).

Now, the balance is how fast your cities are growing. If you end the game with 20 pop city, it'll only take 500 food to get to the next pop, and farms would in all likelihood be better than jungle tiles.

So, the best way to treat a jungle city, is as you might expect, is to send ITRs once you have a happiness bubble to pump food while saving jungle. If you're really running out of tiles to work in the early game, chop the riverside ones, but keep the rest in tact. If you don't have ITRs to spare, because this is your 4th city or w/e, and you don't expect this city to every grow beyond 20pop, and there's not enough farmable land around... (first, why the hell did you plant this city in the first place?)... and you have zero happiness issues... then cut jungles as needed to farm. I never cut non-river jungles that don't have another resource.

On the other hand, if your cities are going to stay small, with a lot of time left on the clock, and you have no happiness issues, and you're going to build science buildings at least through schools, then go for farms, and by that, I mean avoid the damn jungle to begin with. This happens very rarely. You'd have to conquer an AI city at the exactly right period (after their cities are large enough that you wouldn't raze, but before the time when they've cleared the jungles...).

 

[kb27787]

... no?

Farms are +3 food; +4 after fertilizer (off the tech path).
Jungles are +2 food, +2 science, +1 gold; +2 food, +3 science, +2 gold after economics and rationalism (both of which you are going to get very quickly).

After schools, each population = 2 science. So, EACH farm has to be responsible for 1.5+ pop for the tradeoff to be worth it in strict science terms (the extra 1.5 pop'll get you ~3 food/hammer, but costs 1.5 happiness; the jungle gets you +2 gold). The problem is, you're never getting 1.5 extra pop. And before you reach 1.5 extra pop, the 2-science tile continues to win, for all those turns (which, as you'll see below, is all of the turns in the game). In fact, the effects of getting the science earlier, so you can hit science-buildings earlier probably snowball into greater benefits, but we won't go there.

By an endgame of 35 pop (conservatively), it's 800 food per pop. So, you need 1200 food to break even. On that extra +2 food, that's 600 turns (~450 turns w/ aqueducts). You may be able to cut that turn time down with Tradition or other growth modifiers, but you'll never get down to the ~120 turns left in the game by the time you hit rationalism/economics/fertilizer to make up the difference (or the ~180 turns by the time you hit civil service/education).

This is all not to mention that you're trading 1 food for 2 science on all non-riverside tiles for a good chunk of the game (and if 2 food for 2 science doesn't work to the farm's favor, I don't have to show you the math for 1 food 2 science).

Now, the balance is how fast your cities are growing. If you end the game with 20 pop city, it'll only take 500 food to get to the next pop, and farms would in all likelihood be better than jungle tiles.

So, the best way to treat a jungle city, is as you might expect, is to send ITRs once you have a happiness bubble to pump food while saving jungle. If you're really running out of tiles to work in the early game, chop the riverside ones, but keep the rest in tact. If you don't have ITRs to spare, because this is your 4th city or w/e, and you don't expect this city to every grow beyond 20pop, and there's not enough farmable land around... (first, why the hell did you plant this city in the first place?)... and you have zero happiness issues... then cut jungles as needed to farm. I never cut non-river jungles that don't have another resource.

On the other hand, if your cities are going to stay small, with a lot of time left on the clock, and you have no happiness issues, and you're going to build science buildings at least through schools, then go for farms, and by that, I mean avoid the damn jungle to begin with. This happens very rarely. You'd have to conquer an AI city at the exactly right period (after their cities are large enough that you wouldn't raze, but before the time when they've cleared the jungles...).

doesn't really work that way
After all, the scientist slots are more important and for your city to still grow while working them the early game food is important; food routes should strictly be for your capitol or for nascent cities; it's not worth it to waste a route on a mere satellite.
And end game capitol pop should be around 40+

 

[Justice1337]

He said to wait until t80 to plant cities on Deity, and that building them sooner is a sure sign someone is doing it wrong ... Let me be frank. I don't buy that he actually plays on Deity, because that is completely wrong and backwards. If you want to guarantee failure, sure. And to suggest building scout granary NC and only then troops?? You're going to get overrun every time doing that. Surreal conversation. You MUST get at least one settler out before NC if you want to have a chance... And realistically to secure 4 good TALL city spots, you need the other settlers out, ready to plant. Otherwise you'll have nowhere to expand. I dunno lol. Crazy.

I never said to wait until Turn 80 to plant cities. What I said was wait until Turn 80 to hard-build Settlers. Tradition will buy them, like it always has. And it will do that sooner than Liberty for at least 4 reasons 1) Monarchy, 2) Less building/road maintenance, 3) You trade initial luxuries for GPT to the AI because you don't need those 30 Turns of happy for expansion, and 4) You use Caravans for Beakers/Gold rather than ITR's, on top of building those trade units much more easily in the first place. Another one, Tradition probably gets more Gold-related space out of its build queue pre T-30 because it doesn't have to fit a Monument into its early queue. That means early Gold from Barb camps and CS's, earlier Gold from luxury trades due to building a Worker instead of waiting for the policy, so on. Tradition just buys Settlers much easier than Liberty.

Now, if you're going to throw a second or third Settler into your queue at around T40-T50, then you'd better be chopping it to not lose Food in that size 5'ish Capital, and even so, you're going to probably be waiting to plant it until NC is built. Why not just wait to chop NC or something else instead? Losing that Food that early in the game is just really not ideal.

On having space, that's probably the epidemic of over-ambitious city placement that 80% of Civ V players seem to suffer from. That site 7-tiles away that captures a luxury and a Natural Wonder on the third ring? No problem! You don't get there, it's your fault, right? Those same players will complain that an AI across the map settled an "ice-ball" 5 tiles away from their Capital. "Ice-Ball" in the sense of a 2-Fish, 1 Iron, multiple Hill site that's perfectly fine for a size 10 city.

People need to stop making placement decisions based on what's in the third ring, even more so if you're not even getting Tradition's reduced tile cost. Honestly, I can only remember one or two occasions of space issues preventing me from founding at least 3 cities. Probably zero since BNW buffed coastal cities. And on open maps also, in a few of the challenges I found myself wanting to settle 6-7 cities on the same amount of land that other players are founding 4 or so landlocked ones. It's only extremely late in the game that your city can start thinking about working all available tiles, but still, lots of players avoid coastal sites like the plague because there is "too much water in them", or some such. Really, the only time I've ever had a city work close to all of its tiles with Specialists slotted is the Capital as Tradition, feeding the Capital the whole time. I've also had games where I'm the minimum tiles off of an AI city and had no problem with making that city an all-star. All the while, I've seen guides that actively warn against settling any closer than 7 tiles in order to "maximize territory with no overlaps". As if what a city looks like on Turn 300 were the most important thing. Use the space the map gives you. Once the tiles are on their base yield, you'll have all the Chemsitry/Fertilizer techs kicking in, and until then, you're feeding your Legendary Start Capital with a Food Route.

Bad city placement is just bad Civ, and a strategy doesn't become bad if it's not as useful for playing bad Civ. And yeah, forward Settling T40 on two different AI's in order to get that "awesome" site with 2 unique luxuries in the third ring is definitely bad civ, bad for diplomacy obviously, but also bad for tile yield in the first place.

 

[Thorak]

Rushing buying settlers doesnt work in all situations. You would need some early dof to rush buy your first settler. Also, if you dont steal workers, you might want a worker first, and without a worker your capital growth is going to be really slow. Sometimes when you hit a certain pop and see that you need 15 turns to hit the next pop, might as well pop a settler in 6 turns. Are you also going to rush buy 3 settlers for 1500? This money could be better spent on CSs.

You don't really need an early DoF to rushbuy settlers, you need it to be competitive with the speed of liberty, but you will still get your settler out doing a 7 gold/turn deal. It is however, rather rare that you don't have a single DoF at around turn 35 or so.

If you don't steal workers, then obviously you will be a LOT slower. I don't really see any strategical reason to play like this though as you almost always can steal a worker from a city state at around turn 20-25. I usually steal 2-3 workers from AI/city states/barb camps, and I also usually plunder a caravan or 2 (yeah I do declare a lot of wars early on and I usually still have at least a DoF at around turn 30-40).

I don't rush buy 3 settlers, I usually rush buy 1-2 depending on the timing of NC. I usually build NC with 2-3 cities. If I build it with 2 I can usually rush buy the second settler a few turns before it finishes to be able to plant the third city right after. After NC is built the cap is a lot bigger in size with a lot of improved tiles = a lot quicker to build the settler and at that point, depending on the situation, I might build the last settler. If there is no space (this rarely happens but it could depending on the map) I make a decision if I want to steal a city from the AI or go on with 3 cities for a while.

 

[GhostSalsa]

doesn't really work that way
After all, the scientist slots are more important and for your city to still grow while working them the early game food is important; food routes should strictly be for your capitol or for nascent cities; it's not worth it to waste a route on a mere satellite.
And end game capitol pop should be around 40+

This is what I am actually interested in about satellite jungle cities. Scientist slots are 0 and 3/5 depending on when you get Secularism - and the payoff for GS before public schools is academies, which are 2 8 (usually only in capital), but raise your Great Person counter so that you have "less" scientists after public schools to bulb at high return.

Is it better for a satellite to just work 5 jungle tiles, which it can usually do without food caravans and without futzing up the growth stream from farm and banana tiles, and just produce the bulk of your GS after public schools?

It would obviously take a ton of worked jungle tiles to equal the return on 2 scientist slots and an academy, but the jungle tiles can be worked from the moment universities are done which might get you to ST at the same speed, and if so with a higher pop and lower cost for future GS's, even if your raw science rate is less than with strict farms/slots/academies.

I've tried it out but these games had other experiments going on (not opening Rationalism) so it was hard to get a sense of how it was working haha.

 

[kb27787]

This is what I am actually interested in about satellite jungle cities. Scientist slots are 0 and 3/5 depending on when you get Secularism - and the payoff for GS before public schools is academies, which are 2 8 (usually only in capital), but raise your Great Person counter so that you have "less" scientists after public schools to bulb at high return.

Is it better for a satellite to just work 5 jungle tiles, which it can usually do without food caravans and without futzing up the growth stream from farm and banana tiles, and just produce the bulk of your GS after public schools?

It would obviously take a ton of worked jungle tiles to equal the return on 2 scientist slots and an academy, but the jungle tiles can be worked from the moment universities are done which might get you to ST at the same speed, and if so with a higher pop and lower cost for future GS's, even if your raw science rate is less than with strict farms/slots/academies.

I've tried it out but these games had other experiments going on (not opening Rationalism) so it was hard to get a sense of how it was working haha.

I usually think of it this way: each citizen in your city eats 2 food, meaning that each 2 food tile simply pays for itself, while each tile less than two food requires tiles that are more than 2 food (or trade routes) to sustain it.

compare 2 jungle trade posts (no net food 4-6 science 4 gold with +1 science from trade posts)

with 1 generic grassland farm + one scientist slot

(no net food to +1 food with civil society , 5 science with secularism 7 if korea, scientist points which may be boosted by policies, but also +1 hammer from SoL)

and it really comes down to the scientist points actually that breaks the tie for me; I'd rather have the latter. You can argue you can work the trade posts and the specialist slots but somewhere else you're going to have to find a food tile to support the slot as the jungle tile provides no surplus food. (with tradition, pretty much all my satellites pop a GS some time in the game; of course the math is different if you have 10 cities intead)

Of course if you can help it, leave bananas in the jungle, esp. if they are on hills... but flatland bananas should be improved after fertilizer as +6 food supports 2 special slots (or 4 with civil society)

 

[direblade99]

Farms > Jungle for science...

Not neccesarily, farms are definitely better off when your city is small and you don't have universities yet, but since jungles take so long to chop you're likely to have a fair few remaining by the time education rolls around, (in a jungle start) whether by choice or not, at which point you have the choice of either a 2 food 2 science 1 gold with trading posts tiles, or a 2 food one production tile. (because your riverside tiles should already be improved as a priority) By the time fertiliser comes, the +2 science will mean a lot more by the end of the game anyway as there is less time to grow. So in my opinion it is definitely better to work non river jungle tiles after education than it is to chop them and work a non river farm plains tile.

 

[GhostSalsa]

compare 2 jungle trade posts (no net food 4-6 science 4 gold with +1 science from trade posts)

with 1 generic grassland farm + one scientist slot

well the comparison I'm more interested in is 4 farm + slot vs 4 + jungle tp ! I think it's interesting. I'm assuming maxed out river-farm assignment in either case. It's all about whether capitalizing on the early beaker parity (no waiting for academies) and better growth (neutral citizen grows you faster than unfed one) is better in mid-game. OTOH I know I've stunted some satellite jungle cities over-working TPs mid-game (even with only three jungle tiles) because it's very easy to stunt a city with Liberty open. (Another reason tradition feels stronger for jungle starts).

Either way I'm assuming a jungle capital wants to work jungle and scientist because it has food caravans, as long as you're willing to get most of your hammers from other cities between turn 110 and 180.

After ST all established cities will be, we all assume, maxed on scientist slots anyway, and who cares about growth, but yes a Freedom path certainly makes them even healthier.

 

[Justice1337]

Yes. I did try to even things up a bit by sharing my Aztec Tradition open with Honor, haha. I've also had, as hinted, a lot of mediocre Aztec Liberty-jungle experiments (including one where I was unfairly settled on a no-freshwater coast, so you'd think skipping Tradition would make sense...). Mainly I think Tradition's capital-focus makes it better for jungle starts even when you'd think a free hammer and faster workers would come on top. A strong capital mothers over your other jungle cities, it takes care of them by finishing NC faster and making money for rush-buys etc.

This too.

The thinking that the Liberty advocates seem to be suggesting is that the worse your Capital is, the more you need to expand. As if you will expand yourself out of a bad situation. In BNW, it's just the opposite. It makes zero sense to expand unless you've got the strength somewhere to make that investment worth it. As GhostSalsa put it, your Capital "mothers" over your satellites. And in BNW, that's how your empire works no matter what policies you opened.

With resources on Legendary, you'll get at least a couple food tiles and a 3-1 split of luxuries. On standard, it doesn't seem to be that far behind. The absolute worst start on any conditions though is all Grassland/Jungle, no hills, no river, Calendar luxury under Jungle. Maybe in that precise situation the only way is to expand out of it, but on higher diffs, a crazy hypothetical of zero Hammers on tiles just leaves you dead in the water no matter what you do. So take the next worst hypothetical, all Grassland/Jungle, Luxury under Jungle, some hills. The best thing to do there in all likelihood is Tradition, Worker first.

Why? Well, you have to make the best of what the map gives you, and this one gave you Food. Your terrain is the same 2-naked, 3-improved as the rest of the map. It's just giving you too much Food and Hammers are hard to access. Tradition grows you into those tiles that will eventually give you hammers. In addition to pop, what Tradition gives you in addition that makes this spot more survivable is cheaper tile-cost, free Monument, and 3 Culture in city. Those become more important the worse your start is. Those traits mean that you're not buying tiles and instead you can save up for a Settler purchase. Worker first isn't necessary, but you will probably want to clear Jungle. So, build one, steal one, build another is probably where you're going here. Tradition will give you a survivable but still below-average Capital, while Liberty CR first will give you two near worthless cities and twice the infrastructure burden. Teching Philo will be extremely slow for you, and building the NC nearly impossible anyway because you're not mining those 3h hills effectively for a long time.

In former versions, I actually tended to go Liberty only in the exact reverse spot - low Food, high Hammer Capital site. At least if my Capital was going to be weak on Science, I could offset that through a lot of productivity in the early game geared toward Domination. But I have not even done that in BNW thanks to the ability to use Food ITR's early game, and the consequent Hammer demands on the early queue in those games. It's only that the Food ITR's will go from satellites to Capital instead of the other way around on these high-Hammer low-Food starts.

 

[Vitruvius]

... no?

Farms are +3 food; +4 after fertilizer (off the tech path).
Jungles are +2 food, +2 science, +1 gold; +2 food, +3 science, +2 gold after economics and rationalism (both of which you are going to get very quickly).

After schools, each population = 2 science. So, EACH farm has to be responsible for 1.5+ pop for the tradeoff to be worth it in strict science terms (the extra 1.5 pop'll get you ~3 food/hammer, but costs 1.5 happiness; the jungle gets you +2 gold). The problem is, you're never getting 1.5 extra pop. And before you reach 1.5 extra pop, the 2-science tile continues to win, for all those turns (which, as you'll see below, is all of the turns in the game). In fact, the effects of getting the science earlier, so you can hit science-buildings earlier probably snowball into greater benefits, but we won't go there.

By an endgame of 35 pop (conservatively), it's 800 food per pop. So, you need 1200 food to break even. On that extra +2 food, that's 600 turns (~450 turns w/ aqueducts). You may be able to cut that turn time down with Tradition or other growth modifiers, but you'll never get down to the ~120 turns left in the game by the time you hit rationalism/economics/fertilizer to make up the difference (or the ~180 turns by the time you hit civil service/education).

This is all not to mention that you're trading 1 food for 2 science on all non-riverside tiles for a good chunk of the game (and if 2 food for 2 science doesn't work to the farm's favor, I don't have to show you the math for 1 food 2 science).

Now, the balance is how fast your cities are growing. If you end the game with 20 pop city, it'll only take 500 food to get to the next pop, and farms would in all likelihood be better than jungle tiles.

So, the best way to treat a jungle city, is as you might expect, is to send ITRs once you have a happiness bubble to pump food while saving jungle. If you're really running out of tiles to work in the early game, chop the riverside ones, but keep the rest in tact. If you don't have ITRs to spare, because this is your 4th city or w/e, and you don't expect this city to every grow beyond 20pop, and there's not enough farmable land around... (first, why the hell did you plant this city in the first place?)... and you have zero happiness issues... then cut jungles as needed to farm. I never cut non-river jungles that don't have another resource.

On the other hand, if your cities are going to stay small, with a lot of time left on the clock, and you have no happiness issues, and you're going to build science buildings at least through schools, then go for farms, and by that, I mean avoid the damn jungle to begin with. This happens very rarely. You'd have to conquer an AI city at the exactly right period (after their cities are large enough that you wouldn't raze, but before the time when they've cleared the jungles...).

Clearing jungles = plains. Not a great food source. But river plains farms can give you couple of extra pop before you hit education which can be used to work specialists. Besides, you get these hammers which are so precious in jungle areas. Clearing jungles is generally bad, but river jungles should be cleared.

 

[adwcta]

Clearing jungles = plains. Not a great food source. But river plains farms can give you couple of extra pop before you hit education which can be used to work specialists. Besides, you get these hammers which are so precious in jungle areas. Clearing jungles is generally bad, but river jungles should be cleared.

Bananas. With jungles, I try to keep at least 6 jungles alive and obtain food elsewhere.

The problem with science slots are that mid game GS are worse than GEs for all play besides science VC, so you're actually trying to avoid working scientist slots. Also, let's not bring Korea/Babs into this. In these discussions, I assume we're playing Mongolia peaceful.

The whole point of food is that its benefits roll forward into science. But, that logic goes out the window when you have actual science. That's why you work specialist slots. That's why science civs are better than food civs.

How many farms do you need to support 3 slots until hospital anyway? Oh yeah, 3. Or, 2 bananas and a granary. And if you have a river, instead of chopping, you already get an extra 2 food from the water wheel. Upkeep is fine with no farms, or 2 farms max. One ITR will grow you there. Then you can upkeep without worrying about growth.

I would only chop if desperate for hammers. But, I usually buy tiles (or a workshop) instead. Gold is less precious than science.