Lumber mills vs. other Production buildings?

[ModernKnight]

Hi folks,

In vanilla Civ4,

If we ignore the issues of chopping down trees for Resources, the +.5 Health from forests near a city, and the defensive bonus of forest...

Also we assume we have railroads...


On a resource basis,

Is it better to have Lumber mills or Mines on Hills?

Is it better to have Lumber mills or Workshops on flat ground?

This is with all improvements for everything, such as the Workshop.


Also, it's my impression that forests always "suppress" the extra gold due to being by a river, correct? So you get gold by having something besides a lumber mill next to a river.


Thanks if you can help clarify! I think I've got a handle on this, but am not sure.

MK​

 

[UWHabs]

Forests take away the gold, but lumber mills next to a river give it back. I'm pretty sure that hill + mine + railroad = hill + forest + lumber mill + railroad. Then with the health bonus, it's better to keep the forests. The only problem is keeping them around for that long and not going for the sweet sweet hammers from chopping...

 

[Ormur]

Lumbermills on hills equal mines and the same goes if they are both railroaded. Lumbermills give health but mines give the possibility of a resource. On flat land railroaded lumbermills are equal to state property late game workshops and also give health, however there is also the caste system bonus for workshops.

I you can afford to save the forests until lumbermills (I often beeline them on the way to rifles) they are the best production source since production cities are often short on health.

 

[Belisar]

rule of thumb:

hills: mine
grass flatland: cottage, farm or workshop, depending on city spec.

Why: those come way before lumbermills.

plain forest are the only tile where I might preserve the wood (if I don't need the chop urgently) and may put a lumbermill+railroad later.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

I know chopping gives me hammers early, but for me, saving wood is a role playing decision.

I love saving my wood if it is on a tile I can't work due to my food cap (not all cities have enough food sources to use all 20 tiles before biology). The capital tends to get cut further back, but I'm not a wonder builder, and I don't need to chop everything in sight on Monarch difficulty.

(caveat: When I play Emperor, I intuitively know I need the early hammers to rex/rush/keep-up, but I haven't played that level in over six months.)

 

[ModernKnight]

Thanks guys, I think I'm seeing the picture... lumber mills will ultimately be equal, but they're available long after the others.

Then again, sometimes you take land long after you've got lumber mills, at which point, just do whatever otherwise works.

Thanks bros!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'd keep some of the plains forests for health. Plains are marginal tiles to work if farmed, cottaged, or workshopped, so it just depends how much you need those hammers NOW.

 

[JTMacc99]

I'd keep some of the plains forests for health. Plains are marginal tiles to work if farmed, cottaged, or workshopped, so it just depends how much you need those hammers NOW.

That's the way I play it as well. If you see one of my cities with a lumber mill on a hill, it's probably because I didn't found that city until so late in the game that I could pretty much have the mill up and running right around the first opportunity that city would have to actually work that tile. (Otherwise I would have chopped that forest and mined that hill a long time ago.)

 

[Skallagrimson]

I used to be a little more extreme on keeping woods, and now I'm more of a moderate, leaning slightly in the direction of keeping woods in particular targeted situations: Iron Works city, you need all the freaking health you can get, as that wonder will nuke your health. Forests, forests, more forests, please and than you.

Other cities are relative and "as needed", and I think it's more an art than a hard science as to how many woods to keep. You do want to chop some (and far more along borders than in the back cities for military tactical reasons), and grass woods are less optimal than plains woods, but a lot of it is a case by case basis relative to the health situation. Herbalism event and hanging gardens allow more chopping; without those you need to keep more for mid-game growth.

One other thing to keep in mind is that when you're in a strategy that involved more chopping, you need to build more workers (gotta have someone to DO the chopping without leaving tiles unimproved for far too long!)

 

[noto2]

It depends. It's difficult to save forests on hills for lumbermills, because mining it gives you an extra hammer for the first 2/3 of the game. On flatlands, however, forests do as well as workshops for a while. If you are running caste system and/or state property, workshops start to overtake lumbermills and you might chop those forests down. If you aren't going to run caste system or state property and you know that the city will be a hammer city, leave the forests if you can. The extra health will allow you to build all those production bonus buildings, like factories, coal plants, etc.

 

[Iranon]

For people who like to settle their cities tightly, some forest tiles can give their health bonus to multiple cities. This makes keeping them more attractive and in some cases warrants fitting them with forest preserves in the late game.

Forests also tend to be fairly useful tiles for regrowth after whipping. I generally like to save forests unless I'm going cottage crazy and intend to forgo production for rush buying.

 

[UncleJJ]

I often keep forests in the BFC of my largest cities just for the health bonus. If they're going to be unhealthy then 2 forests is worth 1 food. That means it is common to have 2, 4 or even 6 forests in some cities with flood plains and a forge even though they are seldom worked. Later in the game when farms get the Biology boost these forests are available and they get turned into lumbermills and the city gets a significant boost in productivity just when buildings and units cost a lot more hammers.

I usually chop forests off hills first as that increases the hammer output early on and also riverside forests to give access to the commerce. So any forests left for lumbermills will usually be non-hill and non-riverside.

Incidentally, lumbermills together with hills, workshops and watermills are all tile improvements and not "production buildings" as the thread title says

 

[futurehermit]

I always lumbermill tundra forests. I will only lumbermill other forests if I capture a large city with unimproved forests in the BFC. Late in the game the benefits of chopping are not as significant, so I will lumbermill them instead--if the city will be designated for production (otherwise, I chop it and cottage).

 

[EmperorFool]

BTW, the +1 next to a river doesn't apply to Lumbermills when they touch the river at a corner. They must be alongside the river (like a Watermill) to get the bonus.