[GS] Lumber mills vs removing forests and food surplus

[rinelkind]

Sorry for the newbie question... i was curious. From what I understood, at the start its always better to remove woods to speed up production. But when you can build lumber mills, is it still worth to just remove forests or you guys actually build them? Right now i use lumber mills on cities with a lot of surplus of food.

Also I'm wondering, right now i try to keep surplus of food to 10/15 top when cities are above 13-15 levels, what do you guys suggest to do? Is there a certain rule to balance to decide how much surplus of food to have?

And is it worth to, lets say in a city with a lot of food surplus, to remove a farm to build trees and then lumber mill? That takes 3 builds so im wondering if its actually worth.

thanks!

 

[pkaem]

I don't think this is a dumb or newbie question in any way. One thing I learned from this forum here, is that there is not one go to strategy. You have to analyse what the game throws at you and adapt.

Regarding your question. I build lumbermills, not as many as mines but I do. It depends. I mostly chop woods on hills to build mines. Plains hills especially. For regual plains or grassland woods I'am not that quick with the axe. If they are adjacent to a river they become worth more, because lumber mills next to rivers yield +1 production. For the Rest of them, it's a trade off.

Do you need to chop something urgently? Like a wonder or an army. Maybe worth to give them up for the extra hammers.

Do you have a costal citiy with close to zero hills? Maybe better leave them, build mills to have at least a tiny bit of production. Note that they will boost appeal (old growth +2 later). So you can put some sea side resorts in front of them. Situational for me. Rainforest almost always dies in a regular game.

 

[rinelkind]

I don't think this is a dumb or newbie question in any way. One thing I learned from this forum here, is that there is not one go to strategy. You have to analyse what the game throws at you and adapt.

Regarding your question. I build lumbermills, not as many as mines but I do. It depends. I mostly chop woods on hills to build mines. Plains hills especially. For regual plains or grassland woods I'am not that quick with the axe. If they are adjacent to a river they become worth more, because lumber mills next to rivers yield +1 production. For the Rest of them, it's a trade off.

Do you need to chop something urgently? Like a wonder or an army. Maybe worth to give them up for the extra hammers.

Do you have a costal citiy with close to zero hills? Maybe better leave them, build mills to have at least a tiny bit of production. Note that they will boost appeal (old growth +2 later). So you can put some sea side resorts in front of them. Situational for me. Rainforest almost always dies in a regular game.

Thank you for the reply and the hints! I have another question... i didnt know lumber mills give +1 prod next to river... and i feel sometimes im actually missing some bonses, is there a place where its listed every bonus in the game? Or at least the main ones, from terrain to things you can improve with builders? Thanks again.

 

[pkaem]

Thank you for the reply and the hints! I have another question... i didnt know lumber mills give +1 prod next to river... and i feel sometimes im actually missing some bonses, is there a place where its listed every bonus in the game? Or at least the main ones, from terrain to things you can improve with builders? Thanks again.

Hehehe, I don't know such place sadly. I think there are terrain modifier sheets to be found on the forum here. Have a look around. The lumber mill question reaches back to civ IV I think. The game makes you to ask the ethic question if to preserve or short term huge benefit with it Before we fall back into tge deepher philosophical question:

Grassland: 2 food
Plains: 1 food 1 hammer
Tundra: 1 food?
Desert: nothing
Oasis: 3 food and 1 gold imo
Floodplains: 4 food

Hope this is mostly correct and I didn't forgot all too much.

Modded by:
Hill: 1 hammer
Woods: 1 hammer
March: 1 food
Various bonus and strategic resources

Now you interact with your worker and add or remove bonuses. Mine and lumber mill will plus one hammer, farm one food. The river gives one hammer to the lumber mill, not the terrain. So if you have a plains hill with forest you have one food from plains, one hammer from plains, one hammer from hill, one hammer from woods. Is 1/3. Remove the wood for production and add a mine gives you the same. Put a lumber mill on it gives you 1/4 but no chop. Is this tile on a river you can have a very early 1/5 tile with a lumber mill. This must be thought through. Every info about terrain modifications can be found in the civiolpedia ingame.

 

[Stylianos]

This might help
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/tile-yield-reference-sheet.640583/

 

[pkaem]

This might help
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/tile-yield-reference-sheet.640583/

Thanks,thats the sheet I was mentioning.

 

[Boyan_Sun]

If you really want to know the most efficient way, you have to be prepared, because it's very counterintuitive. Maybe most people will think I'm exaggerating, but trust me, try it.

All the fastest plays are based on mass chops with Magnus, which is unfortunate. Everything should be harvested, maybe only +3 adjacent bonus to campus can save some jungles.
There was actually some discussions on Vanilla, pastures, lumber mills along rivers were worth keeping the forests/resources, but Magnus ruined them all.
I know most people won't agree, but math is always so cruel. The reason is that your chop/harvest yield will increase to 10 times as much as your science/culture progress.
In GS, pillage is also 10 times larger. Gosh. Let's just say that the designer didn't want to make the game a widely-chosen game because there are one strategy so mindless and overpowered that there was no other choice.

Regard to population, it is even more brutal. In Vanilla, 6~8 pops was the preferred configuration in large cities, whereas 2~4 was preferred in later small cities.
In RF and GS, we need 10 people to trigger rational +50% bonus, so you can see in the fastest SV game that all cities are kept at 10 pops.
More pops are wasted and meaningless, because the major source of yields is from harvest, pillage and districts, population yield too small but waste amenities.

However, for the first 50 turns, it was perfectly fine for the pops to work on some high-quality tiles before Magnus' grand tour.

 

[Victoria]

However, for the first 50 turns, it was perfectly fine for the pops to work on some high-quality tiles before Magnus' grand tour.

Your english is coming along great @Boyan_Sun ,that made me smile.

 

[rinelkind]

If you really want to know the most efficient way, you have to be prepared, because it's very counterintuitive. Maybe most people will think I'm exaggerating, but trust me, try it.

All the fastest plays are based on mass chops with Magnus, which is unfortunate. Everything should be harvested, maybe only +3 adjacent bonus to campus can save some jungles.
There was actually some discussions on Vanilla, pastures, lumber mills along rivers were worth keeping the forests/resources, but Magnus ruined them all.
I know most people won't agree, but math is always so cruel. The reason is that your chop/harvest yield will increase to 10 times as much as your science/culture progress.
In GS, pillage is also 10 times larger. Gosh. Let's just say that the designer didn't want to make the game a widely-chosen game because there are one strategy so mindless and overpowered that there was no other choice.

Regard to population, it is even more brutal. In Vanilla, 6~8 pops was the preferred configuration in large cities, whereas 2~4 was preferred in later small cities.
In RF and GS, we need 10 people to trigger rational +50% bonus, so you can see in the fastest SV game that all cities are kept at 10 pops.
More pops are wasted and meaningless, because the major source of yields is from harvest, pillage and districts, population yield too small but waste amenities.

However, for the first 50 turns, it was perfectly fine for the pops to work on some high-quality tiles before Magnus' grand tour.

Well first of all thanks to @pkaem and @Stylianos for the table thats what i needed.

If possible I'd like to ask you few questions about what you just wrote. I'd like to try to be more efficient so I'll definately try what you said on next game. Few things tho:
1 - Correct me if im wrong, but it takes 8 turns for a governor to take place in a city, right? I know it applies the pressure before he gets there, but what about the removal bonuses? Can i just start chopping stuff as soon as i move him to a city or i need it to actually be active there? I'm askin because if you have to wait, i guess you need to keep magnus in one city until you chopped everything, if you dont have to wait you can just move it between cities. This is an issue for me because i tend to conquest a lot of cities so i'm not sure i'd be able to "abuse" magnus in most of them that way.

2 - When you say "10 pops" you mean 10 extra food per turn or you actually mean 10 population? I usually end up having a lot of cities (as i said before, i tend to conquest and pillage the ones i dont need and keep the ones with useful resources and amenities), and they have between 15 and even 30 population, should i actually be more strict about that?

Thanks again!

 

[AngryUSAMan]

@rinelkind To benefit from a governor's promotions including Magnus with his chop bonus, he needs to be established in the city which takes 5 turns for Magnus. When they say 10 pops they are talking about the total city size or population count. Apparently, it's better to stay at 10 than go over since like they said, most of the yields come from harvesting, pillaging, and districts rather than the paltry yields that a few extra pops/tiles worked would give.

 

[rinelkind]

@rinelkind To benefit from a governor's promotions including Magnus with his chop bonus, he needs to be established in the city which takes 5 turns for Magnus. When they say 10 pops they are talking about the total city size or population count. Apparently, it's better to stay at 10 than go over since like they said, most of the yields come from harvesting, pillaging, and districts rather than the paltry yields that a few extra pops/tiles worked would give.

Thanks! I have 3 more questions then...
1 - So i guess the efficient way, at the start of the game, to put magnus in a city with a lot of removals, and then move to next one with most removals? But while you do this, older cities will probably gain new territories with something to remove, i guess you do it without magnus then? I dont think would be worth to move him just for 1-2 forests right?
2 - You use magnus to remove not just forests but even resources? Is there a rule to that? I mean, if you have 2x amenities of the same kind i understand, same if you have many iron or many horses to actually build some numbers, but if you have 1 of each is it still worth to remove them?
3 - Whats the best way to keep cities to low pop other than forcing everything into production? Any other way? Thanks!

 

[pkaem]

If you really want to know the most efficient way, you have to be prepared, because it's very counterintuitive. Maybe most people will think I'm exaggerating, but trust me, try it.

All the fastest plays are based on mass chops with Magnus, which is unfortunate. Everything should be harvested, maybe only +3 adjacent bonus to campus can save some jungles.
There was actually some discussions on Vanilla, pastures, lumber mills along rivers were worth keeping the forests/resources, but Magnus ruined them all.
I know most people won't agree, but math is always so cruel. The reason is that your chop/harvest yield will increase to 10 times as much as your science/culture progress.
In GS, pillage is also 10 times larger. Gosh. Let's just say that the designer didn't want to make the game a widely-chosen game because there are one strategy so mindless and overpowered that there was no other choice.

Regard to population, it is even more brutal. In Vanilla, 6~8 pops was the preferred configuration in large cities, whereas 2~4 was preferred in later small cities.
In RF and GS, we need 10 people to trigger rational +50% bonus, so you can see in the fastest SV game that all cities are kept at 10 pops.
More pops are wasted and meaningless, because the major source of yields is from harvest, pillage and districts, population yield too small but waste amenities.

However, for the first 50 turns, it was perfectly fine for the pops to work on some high-quality tiles before Magnus' grand tour.

So I settle, let's say, 10 cities at around T100. I will need another 50-70 turns to finish magnus grand tour. Every food chop beyond pop 10 ain't worth it.

When do you place your districts ? Often the placement is suboptimal without chopping. And I'll often need the food chops to be able to place them. When I start chopping out districts city by city the later one will get expansive while the first cities finish multiple ones.

Further, when I have production overflow from a magnus chop, a) is it brought over in any way? b) if a=yes is it overwritten while chopping more the same round? c) full chop only with fudalism or start before?

If feel like I have to chop and move magnus so much my districts are delayed to much. Or do I hammer them down with suboptimal placement and/or chops below them?

 

[Victoria]

Apparently, it's better to stay at 10 th

The only reason to get 10 pop is the Rationalism science card gives +50% science to a city if it has 10 population.
11 means an extra amenity and that is wasteful because you also risk losing 5% for a happy city for +0.5 science. You are also possibly warring so amenities get harder. Coliseum is a great help.

@pkaem have a read of the post linked to in the chopping example words above my signature, that should help re districts, when to chop and more importantly, why.

 

[pkaem]

@pkaem have a read of the post linked to in the chopping example words above my signature, that should help re districts, when to chop and more importantly, why.

Ok this was one of the most useful pieces of read I ever got to this game. I just had an all standard pangea game and picked japan to be kind of standard. Well, assuming I performed mentioned aspects to use the mechanics far from optimal the results were overwhelming for my experience. I restricted myself to not use the samurai and just fight defensively. I didn't even pillage. Wow.

Thank you very much for this hint and your omnipresent help to pepole who ask stupid questions here (pointing at myself).

Good day to you Sir.

 

[WideCoast]

The only reason to get 10 pop is the Rationalism science card gives +50% science to a city if it has 10 population.
11 means an extra amenity and that is wasteful because you also risk losing 5% for a happy city for +0.5 science. You are also possibly warring so amenities get harder. Coliseum is a great help.

@pkaem have a read of the post linked to in the chopping example words above my signature, that should help re districts, when to chop and more importantly, why.

Sorry, but english isnt my first language so did you point to what Boyan_Sun just said above about chopping? I want to learn also
Also if I have a city of 3pop with entertainment district I can "move" those Amenities to higher pop cities right?

 

[Victoria]

who ask stupid questions

We all have to learn, there is no stupid questions, just stupid answers

so did you point to what Boyan_Sun

Look below this line and you see the words “chop example and tables”, click on that.
The problem is it is long and complicated but the important tip is...
Place a district as soon as you can, but do not finish it, wait a while.
Then later use a builder to chop down trees to finish the district
At feudalism builders get 5 charges, this is a good time.

 

[WideCoast]

We all have to learn, there is no stupid questions, just stupid answers

Look below this line and you see the words “chop example and tables”, click on that.
The problem is it is long and complicated but the important tip is...
Place a district as soon as you can, but do not finish it, wait a while.
Then later use a builder to chop down trees to finish the district
At feudalism builders get 5 charges, this is a good time.

Ahhh... It doesnt show up with my phone. No wonder I couldn't find it.

Thanks!

 

[Jarms48]

It depends on the city. If I have a lot of production from mines or resources than I’ll totally chop them. If they’re my only source of production then I’ll keep them.

The exception to the above rule is if I don’t care about that city, say I founded it purely to get a resource I didn’t have or give me a staging ground for an invasion (somewhere to quickly heal my troops). The other exception is if it’s so late in the game and I’d be better off chopping for victory districts.

 

[WideCoast]

Do you guys keep forests now? I wasn't the best "chopper", but I did it to everything, xept riverside lumber mills, but now that lack of forestation kicks in if you chop too much I'v been trying to conserve atleast a bit forest even tho it wouldn't be next to a river.

 

[Victoria]

In 80% of my games I keep a lot because I just want to play that way.
In 20% I want to play fast and efficiently so I chop everything.
Chopping is still rather strong and keeping does not pay off well because 50 or so turn on when they have made their chop money back that 50 turns of additional benefit to what you chopped has boosted your game so much.