Pottery is Underrated

Spoonwood

Grand Philosopher
Joined
Apr 30, 2008
Messages
5,489
Location
Ohio
Someone on reddit asked "What are the key advancements to your Civ 3 strategy?"

O. K., not by many forum veterans.

But, workers and settlers are the most valuable units in the game.
 
With a food-rich start, a Granary makes a Worker/Settler-pump even stronger -- and without a food-rich start, it's pretty much essential to REXing, so Pottery is definitely worth acquiring ASAP in almost any game that isn't intended to be OCC or 5CC.

That said, I don't usually build Grans everywhere: usually only in high-food, freshwater-towns -- and ideally I have some Forests to chop for at least some of those 60 shields...
 
With a food-rich start, a Granary makes a Worker/Settler-pump even stronger -- and without a food-rich start, it's pretty much essential to REXing, so Pottery is definitely worth acquiring ASAP in almost any game that isn't intended to be OCC or 5CC.
"REXing"?
That said, I don't usually build Grans everywhere: usually only in high-food, freshwater-towns -- and ideally I have some Forests to chop for at least some of those 60 shields...
I've taken to doing much the same thing. One of my favorite games involved a very early SGL that I used to get the Pyramids. I think I was playing Russia.
 
"REXing"?
Rapid Early eXpansion.

Basically, pumping out Settlers as fast as possible, to grab as much space as you can before the AI-Civs get there
 
Last edited:
I've taken to doing much the same thing. One of my favorite games involved a very early SGL that I used to get the Pyramids. I think I was playing Russia.
I usually play a civ that starts with Pottery but the drawback is that Masonry is usually left until well after changing governments, so when I get the early SGL I always have the dilemma of whether to backtrack and delay going for a government (I also often play very isolated starts)
 
I usually play a civ that starts with Pottery but the drawback is that Masonry is usually left until well after changing governments, so when I get the early SGL I always have the dilemma of whether to backtrack and delay going for a government (I also often play very isolated starts)
I think I'd traded for Masonry by that point (got the Republic slingshot), so I was able to get Pyramids very quickly.
 
I agree. Most often I get Pottery first, before starting on the Republic slingshot.

One exception may be floodplain starts, where I can easily get 7fpt (e.g. a wheat on floodplain and 1-2 other good tiles) and shields are the bottleneck. In that case, 2-turn growth is not necessary (as the shields don't suffice for a settler in 4 turns anyway), and 3-turn growth is sufficient, and that can be achieved without a granary at 7fpt. The scarce shields can then be better invested into some other urgently needed things.
But I'm not sure, whether this is the optimal strategy?! Perhaps a granary would be worth it, if the wheat tile can then be shared with another town to run both towns in a 3-7 cycle?
 
With a food-rich start, a Granary makes a Worker/Settler-pump even stronger -- and without a food-rich start, it's pretty much essential to REXing, so Pottery is definitely worth acquiring ASAP in almost any game that isn't intended to be OCC or 5CC.

That said, I don't usually build Grans everywhere: usually only in high-food, freshwater-towns -- and ideally I have some Forests to chop for at least some of those 60 shields...
I agree, but not so to the requirement of freshwater. Quite in a contrary, I prefer *non*-freshwater-locations for my grans for a specific reason: those freshwater-towns can become cities without a duct very soon, and then they end their pop production duty anyways. while i like to have those non-freshwater-granary-towns to stay on pop production duty for a very long time, sometimes even until the end of the game.
t_x
 
Last edited:
I must admit, I'm similar to templar_x here, though with a minor variation.

In the games I play, if the AI is aggressively forward-settling then they'll be up my behind well before anything can be built or even the first couple of settlers are out, whereas if I have enough room to explore a bit and assess the situation I find it's often better to use Warriors to block their settlers from entering my zone than it is to engage in settler races.

And I'll usually only prioritise granaries in towns which are struggling for food but have decent production, to bring them up to normal (5 turns per population) speed rather than spend a lot of effort getting a 2/3 turn per pop town up to 1/2 turns per pop. In that converting from 10 turns per pop to 5 turns per pop is a significant exchange for 1 gpt, whereas converting from 2/3 turns per pop to 1/2 turns just doesn't seem worth the 1 gpt extra when 1 gpt can be the difference between 10% on the slider (talking real early game here).

Of course, once government has changed then the 1 gpt isn't really impactful & then I'll build a granary.

Most commonly though, I find the best time to build a granary, other than the above, is at the point where a town has just built it's aqueduct and is slogging through the 'no-granary allowed' size 7 stage, and try to time it to be finished before getting to size 8. So for the 2nd ring of towns the priorities will likely be: temple (or library if after it's discovery), harbour (or harbour then temple), aqueduct, granary, library (if not yet built, otherwise temple or barracks).

I think a common mistake a lot of newer players will make is to start building a granary at size 4 and then build an aqueduct, just because that seems logical by the stages at which they likely have the technologies, not realising that a granary will probably be built just as they start size 6, meaning it wont have any use at all for another 10 or 20 turns.
 
Most commonly though, I find the best time to build a granary, other than the above, is at the point where a town has just built it's aqueduct and is slogging through the 'no-granary allowed' size 7 stage, and try to time it to be finished before getting to size 8.
I've never heard of a "no granary allowed" stage. What do you mean?
 
When a town changes definition, AKA from size 6 to 7, or 12 to 13, the 7th and 13th stage doesn't start with 50% of your food ready-filled, you start these stages of growth without a granary... even if you have a granary.
I agree that that the player doesn't get 50%, but if I recall correctly, the granary still gives the player an effect from the granary.

If you change size from 6 to 7, you get the effect of what granaries give you for 6 or less population. You get 10 food put into the box. But, the total food for growth changes to 40 food, so you only have 10 food in the box instead of 20 food in the box like when a city grows from size 7 to 8.
Checking:

1682123462717.png

Notice that it's 925 BC in the next save, with 10 food in the box:

1682123662604.png


So, the granary still keeps food in the box, but the box doubles in size. Thus turn-wise for producing settlers or workers, the granary doesn't have as great of an impact when a city grows from size 6 to 7 (unless a settler or worker gets produced, forcing city size back below size 7) as it does when a city grows up to and including size 6.

I would guess that a granary works similarly when growing from size 12 to 13. The granary keeps half of the food in the box that it had at the previous size. But, the box changes from 40 total food to 60 total food iirc. I checked on a save of Takeo's from the HoF and that test confirms that changing from size 12 to 13 keeps 20 food in the box while total food needed to grow from size 13 to 14 is 60 food.

Also, note in the first image above, that below 'granary' it suggests a certain amount of food that will get retained with a line, and on growth from size 6 to 7 exactly that amount got retained per the second image. Again, it was only that the size of the food box to grow to the next size changed.

So, we don't have evidence of granaries failing to work for changing sizes. Instead, we just have the food box changing, and the turn nature of game making it so that granaries aren't as powerful when cities change from size 6 to 7 or from size 12 to 13 as at other times.
 
Last edited:
Yes, that's the one, thanks for explaining it fully with the correct wording and going to the effort of providing visual assistance for even greater clarity. Yes, you gain a benefit, but not the benefit, so if you imagine a 2nd ring town with weaker production, the time it would take to build the granary at a lower population would likely result in the granary being produced at size 6:

1 pop (+4 food) - 2 shields = (60/2) = 30 turns
growth to 2 pop - 3 shields = (50/3) = 17 turns
growth to 3 pop - still 3 shields = (35/3) = 12 turns
growth to 4 pop - 4 shields = (20/4) = 5 turns
growth to 5 pop - granary built - but because it's built on the same turn as a new growth, growing from size 5 to size 6 doesn't get any reserved food. Start aqueduct, still 4 shields (100/4) = 25 turns. Also now paying1gpt.
growth to pop 6 - granary advantage, just 3 turns to go to size 7 instead of 5 turns (saved 2 turns of growth), (80/5) = 16 turns
growth to pop 7 - now delayed by aqueduct requirement, but can now move excess food onto production squares (65/6) - 11 turns. 11 turns later gain another 2.5 turns of food benefit.

vs

1 pop (+4 food) - 2 shields = (100/2) = 50 turns
growth to 2 pop - 3 shields = (90/3) = 30 turns
growth to 3 pop - still 3 shields = (75/3) = 25 turns
growth to 4 pop - 4 shields = (60/4) = 15 turns
growth to 5 pop - still 4 shields = (40/4) = 10 turns
growth to pop 6 - 5 shields = (20/5) = 4 turns, aqueduct complete one turn before needing to change to size 7, start building granary (for 1 turn).
growth to pop 7 - no delay, start building granary, (55/6) = 10 turns, growth to size 8 in 10 turns but convert food tile for shield tile for 1 turn to time the granary to complete 1 turn before size growth.

So the turns you save by building the granary first amounts to about 4.5 turns, but the delay to the aqueduct is 11 turns, with the 2nd example, there is no delay.

Obviously this is a very specific scenario related to an intent to grow mildly corrupt towns to size 7 as quickly as possible and the level of corruption plays very much into the scenario described, as does available food and etc. The above is just an illustration of how it's possible to mis-time a granary in a large number of 2nd ring towns when going for growth.
 
Top Bottom