Lumbermill/Forest/Railroad vs Workshops

[Watiggi]

What advantage is there for keeping forests when you can achieve the same level of production with Workshops?

Forests give a bonus hammer
Lumbermill give a bonus hammer
Railroad on a Lumbermill gives a bonus hammer
----------------------------
for a total of 3 hammers for a grassland tile

The Workshop acquires all its hammer bonuses (for a +3 hammer bonus) before the Lumbermill is available, so there is no advantage there. You can also put the Workshop anywhere you wish. You need to build the Lumbermill anyway so there is no time saved with tile development. A forested plain hill with a railroad gives the same amount as a mine with a railroad so there is no advantage there either.

The ONLY difference I can see is the food issue (and health). State Property solves that, but having Farms on grasslands with Workshops on plains I found works really well without State Property anyway. With health, is the bonus health really that much worth it (considering the loss of bonus hammers from not cutting them down)?

So what am I missing with keeping forests? I can cut them down for the hammer bonus and build workshops where ever I want for the same hammer yield. The bonus for the Lumbermill comes after all the bonuses with the Workshop and I cannot choose where to put the Lumbermills.

Anyway, I would love to hear of any interesting insights into keeping and developing forests as I would love to explore this aspect of the game.

 

[drkodos]

There is no gaming advantage.

The only possible advantages could be to a person's fragile ego system that allows them to gain a sense of self identity and worth from role playing a computer game so that they feel they are a better person because their playing techniques epitomizes some philosphical barometer that they hope will be used by other people to judge them and thusly hold them in higher esteem.

 

[ABigCivFan]

Trees are good when the health cap is low. I cut most trees early to get workers/settlers/barracks early, i may chop 1 or 2 to speed up a wonder. But that is really all I need to chop for. I chop all the trees by rivers so i could build something to get the commerce bonus. I chop trees by the lake so I could irrigate. Typically you should have plenty of non-forrest tiles to work, so I leave some trees around(for emergency chops or wonders and health bonus).

Depending on situations, I never touch the forrest that is shared by 2 cities. When you have 2 shared trees for 2 cities, you get +1 heath in BOTH cities.

If you need the city to go hard on production, chop the trees, go workshop the plains and farm the grasslands.

So it depends on situiations.

 

[WuphonsReach]

One thing would be that for tundra forests, your only option is lumber mills. (Can't put anything on a cleared tundra tile.)

Forest also gives a +50% defense bonus. So I may use a lumber mill instead of clear-cutting for a workshop if I think I'll need a defense spot. (But only for tiles outside the inner ring of the city. No sense giving the AI a place to hide while he bombards my city.)

 

[Grimus]

If you need the city to go hard on production, chop the trees, go workshop the plains and farm the grasslands.

Question: (sorry if it's off topic) Why not workshop the grasslands and farm the plains instead? Is there an advantage to piling the food or production onto single tiles? Why not spread it out evenly?

Like for golden ages for example, it's good to have at least 1 commerce and 1 production on each tile.

 

[ABigCivFan]

Question: (sorry if it's off topic) Why not workshop the grasslands and farm the plains instead? Is there an advantage to piling the food or production onto single tiles? Why not spread it out evenly?

Like for golden ages for example, it's good to have at least 1 commerce and 1 production on each tile.

The golden age is a good point. But in the early stage(the most important stage) of the game, you need the highest food yield possible and you do not have the technology that adds hammer to workshops, so if you workshop the grassland, you get 1F + 1H only, but if you farm the grassland, you get 3F immidietly, so your net output is -1 with workshop on grassland. You typically need the 2 farmed grasslands to support your mined gold hill/plain hill, so with such a combo, you get the highest possible net food+hammer. The -1F penalty for the workshop means it will be useless before you get Chemistry. You are much better off using hills for the production.

After you get chemistry and other later techs, when the workshop becomes more useful, it would not make a difference where to build the workshop. But very likely you already have all grassland farmed/cottaged by then.

 

[Sisiutil]

It very much depends on the situation. I often find by the late game, when my cities are large, that I'm very glad I have preserved a couple of forest tiles to help with the health cap. And a city with a lot of flood plains usually needs some forests to stay healthy, because it will grow quite large by mid-game.

I've had other games where I was very low on health resources and I've been forced, late game, to run Environmentalism. In those situations, I'm very careful to preserve forests to maximize their benefits.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Question: (sorry if it's off topic) Why not workshop the grasslands and farm the plains instead? Is there an advantage to piling the food or production onto single tiles? Why not spread it out evenly?

When the happy cap lifts, and you can add another population to the city, it's good to be able to reallocate your citizens to maximize your growth rate.

 

[Grimus]

Oh, I see! Thanks Voice, I need to micro-manage more... so, grow to the limit quickly, then maintain that population while focusing on prod/comm.

 

[Bushface]

As my cities always seem to hit the health cap quickly, especially if they have flood plains, and I almost never get lots of forests, I keep the forests and build lumbermills when I can. Of course, forests on tundra (highly anomalous) get lumbermills anyway: what else can one do with such tiles ?
And I find better results from specialising tiles - farms on grass, cottages/workshops on plains - rather than balancing out. The benefits difference during a GA is slight, lasts for only 8 turns, and I've only ever had one GA per game (from the Taj) since I prefer to use Great People for their special abilities. That sais, I'll bet that this game will hand me an Artist and a Prophet when it's too late to use them for anything except a second GA.

 

[Elandal]

The differences between workshop and lumbermill are:

- Lumbermill can be built on forest, workshop on flatland. Therefore, to build workshop on the forest you get to chop the forest for extra hammers first.

- Workshop is FP=4 at Chemistry, Lumbermill is introduced at Rep Parts and is FP=4 immediatelly. It seems to be fairly common for people to research Chemistry before Rep Parts, although the teching choices can easily lead to Rep Parts before Chemistry (beelining Rifles for example - I'm guessing everyone ends up getting Rep Parts before Chemistry when playing England).

- Lumbermills reach FP=5 at Railroads (with Railroad built over them). Plains forest lumbermill is equal to no-resource grassland hill mine pre-rail and post-rail assuming both get equal treatment.

- Workshops reach FP=5 when running State Property (tech=Communism). Plains workshop w/SP is equal to railed no-resource grassland hill mine.

Whether you build lumbermills or workshops, you end up with exactly the same production. Pre-chemistry workshop is FP=3, which I don't think is usually worth working (this means that I don't like grassland farms either, FP=3 is definitelly on the low side for me). However, at times the post-guilds FP=3 workshop might be good enough. This depends heavily on the city sizes (happy and health caps) as well as city food situation, possible specialists I might consider, and so on.

As I tend to specialize my cities heavily, a production city will definitelly get as many hammer improvements as the food allows for, and will be configured for max hammers unless I have a specific reason not to. If the city can't work all the tiles (happy or health caps limit it to smaller size), I probably won't improve all the tiles, and will try to improve tiles that do not block either option first. When the city CAN work enough tiles this means workshops or lumbermills, depending on whether I have forests or not, the order in which I get Chem / RepParts, and whether I think Mercantilism or Free Markets is better than State Property for the game.

Large civ means almost automatic SP, compact civ probably Merc or FM. SP is a good engame civic, but it's NOT automatic for me. The other options do exist, and I try to choose my civics for the benefits they bring. Even Environmentalism is sometimes needed (although quite rarely).

Because of the civic dependancy, I think workshop is inferior to lumbermill all other issues considered. I simply don't like civic dependencies, EVEN if SP is common endgame civic for me reducing the dependency to nothing quite often.
If the dependency would be on tech or improvement over the tile (like railing is), maybe eg. remove the SP food adder and add hammer on railing (or assembly line - I guess industrialism is a bit too late even if it'd be closer to reality [and computers or robotics would actually be the best choice, reflecting the modern small scale automated machinery]), making a plains workshop equal to plains mine (instead of equal to grassland mine when running SP) and it'd be the same FP but different F distribution, thus a different calculation entirely.

 

[Watiggi]

A recent game I played, I had a production city with a farm on grassland/workshop on plains combination. I rather liked it. The game I am playing now, I am (for the first time in a verry long time) keeping the forests and I am going to develop them and see where it ends up, especially considering the railroad bonus that exists now since the patch.

 

[Grimus]

Workshops are great for flatland areas desperate for any kind of production and that aren't near a river to take advantage of a watermill. These areas usually appear after clearing jungle tiles. Otherwise, you're better off with other forms of improvements.

I guess they have a very specific use, which isn't used very often, but if you're in the situation where you need them, they're there for ya to help. Same with Windmills and other things.

Forests near cities with no hills or not even enough plains, I usually keep around for a long time. If a city has plenty of production and hills around it with forests, I chop 'em all up!