River vs Non-River City Settling

[Stalker0]

The recent patch had a nerf on the Watermill, which has promptly a lot of discussion about both the building and river settling in general. This thread is to review those points.

First let me summarize the difference between the two spots. Please let me know if I missed anything.

Update: Including some new info into the summary.

River vs Non-River

1) Baths (192 hammers): 3-5 culture (+2 with Tradition Branch), +1-3 gold, 10% culture during GA vs 0 culture/0 gold.

While I think it can be argued whether the gardens and temples are needed in every city, the amphitheater is a building I consider useful in all cities simply because culture is so useful, so that's what I'm basing the numbers on. I also think people underestimate the GA bonuses because GAs are hard to get early, but I find they tend to snowball towards later game if your working your guilds well.

2) Watermill vs Well: +1p vs 63 fewer hammers to build and earlier build. So with the new change the watermill and well now provide the same population bonus, so this is the key change we have now.

Its always hard to assume exactly how many hammers a city will have but if we assume 5 hammers for a pretty new city (1 for city center, +2 for progress or authority, +2 from terrain), its 12.6 extra turns to build the watermill (and that is assuming that we have technological access to both). So that's a loss of 25.2 food and 12.6 hammers when the well would be done but the watermill would not be, so ultimately the watermill takes about 76 turns to pay off the total hammer cost (the food debt is never paid). We could potentially add on another 15-20 turns for tech delay in some cases if we want to for very early cities.

3) Non-River can in some cases gain the benefit of a river tile, gaining +1 food (+2 for flood plain) once civil service is reached, or possibly +1 g or +1p from villages/mines with their river tech bonuses.

4) River +1 food vs Non-River +1 gold.

5) Hydro Plant (River) vs Wind Plant (Non-River):

+5 prod; +2 food, prod, science vs river tile vs +5 prod; +2 prod, science, gold on each grassland and plains tile.

 

[ElliotS]

2) Watermill vs Well: +1p vs 63 fewer hammers to build and earlier build. So with the new change the watermill and well now provide the same population bonus, so this is the key change we have now.

Actually the watermill provides 1 food, not production, which is even worse. 1 food isn't a huge difference early, and by mid-classical when you get the watermill it's nearly non-existent. Edit: Sorry, got mixed up in my head. I don't think it really changes the equation though.

The Baths do get stronger later with eternal golden ages, but by that point the game is basically decided regardless. The early game is where every advantage and optimization you can get as a player matters to offset the 7 and 8 difficulty AI's bonuses.

The baths are a useful building in the meantime for sure, doubly so for civs like the aztecs. That doesn't justify the weakness of the watermill versus a well.

While I think non-river/lake towns shouldn't be crippled to uselessness, I think that rivers should be beneficial, not debated if they're worse.

That not only rewards good settler placement, but means that sometimes it makes sense to war over fertile lands and good spots. If your towns are placed in non-river, non-sea areas it would make sense that they suck comparatively.

Look at every prosperous town in history, they're pretty much all on rivers, lakes and/or the sea.

Hell, the entire ancient Egyptian society formed around the Nile. There's no surprise that Egypt and later societies like the Mamluks had such a huge lead in technology and civilization over the people in Africa, their land was just much more fertile and their crops more nutritious.

For gameplay reasons towns not on rivers shouldn't be crippled, but rivers should provide a substantial advantage imo.

 

[CrazyG]

Just want to point out that this isn't necessarily a river vs non river conceptually, if you are 1 tile off of a river its still a very important feature of that city. I am often very close to a river but choosing not to settle directly on it. I think its a simple choice of hammers now vs culture later, which I will almost always favor hammers now. Perhaps when settling the last few cities I can afford to get the baths, but for those early cities its an easy choice for me. I cannot see any logic in the water wheel costing more hammers

It was mentioned in the other thread that rivers are a pain to move across, if a river is right in the middle of your city it can cost your worker a turn or two. With that said, putting the city right there does give you a free bridge early on, which comes in handy moving early military.

 

[Stalker0]

Actually the watermill provides 1 food, not production, which is even worse.

I looked at all of tooltips, city resources, and the civilopedia. According to all that, the Well provides +2 f/+1p, Water mill provides +2 f/+2 p. Unless this was changed in the most recent patch (which is an undocumented change), then I believe I was correct initially.

 

[tu_79]

Again. In a map so small of a world so big, small rivers aren't shown. So, when we see a river in the map, that's a river like Trigris, Nilus or Mississipi. IRL, those rivers provided a huge advantage in mobility, specially for traders. The real watermill does increase production where they are built (it turns wheat into flour effortless). Exactly the same thing as the Windmill. Windmills are a little better because they can be placed nearer the farms.

So, if they are going to be something like in reality, wells are for food and mills are for production.
Well: more food and some production per population.
Watermill: production on river tiles. It doesn't require to actually settle near a river, just having one near.
Windmill: production per population (because it can be built anywhere), much later than the watermill.

In this sense, a bath doesn't require a river, just settling on a tile with fresh water, grass or plains.

But gamewise, there are two approaches: some locations (rivers) are much better than others, so we fight to get them, or every location is viable, but in its own way. I believe Gazebo tends to the latter. Right now, non-river cities have more food and production, while river cities have more culture. Whether this makes sense or not, it's just how much reality we want on it.

If it were for reality, I'd let the well be built anywhere, but providing different bonuses (food for non-river, production for river). Then, choose between watermills (early, production on river tiles) or windmills (later, production per population). The reason is that a city with watermills doesn't really need to invest in windmills, while wells are built even in river cities to have an easier access to water.

 

[Txurce]

Again. In a map so small of a world so big, small rivers aren't shown. So, when we see a river in the map, that's a river like Trigris, Nilus or Mississipi. IRL, those rivers provided a huge advantage in mobility, specially for traders. The real watermill does increase production where they are built (it turns wheat into flour effortless). Exactly the same thing as the Windmill. Windmills are a little better because they can be placed nearer the farms.

So, if they are going to be something like in reality, wells are for food and mills are for production.
Well: more food and some production per population.
Watermill: production on river tiles. It doesn't require to actually settle near a river, just having one near.
Windmill: production per population (because it can be built anywhere), much later than the watermill.

In this sense, a bath doesn't require a river, just settling on a tile with fresh water, grass or plains.

But gamewise, there are two approaches: some locations (rivers) are much better than others, so we fight to get them, or every location is viable, but in its own way. I believe Gazebo tends to the latter. Right now, non-river cities have more food and production, while river cities have more culture. Whether this makes sense or not, it's just how much reality we want on it.

If it were for reality, I'd let the well be built anywhere, but providing different bonuses (food for non-river, production for river). Then, choose between watermills (early, production on river tiles) or windmills (later, production per population). The reason is that a city with watermills doesn't really need to invest in windmills, while wells are built even in river cities to have an easier access to water.

Game, set, match.

 

[Funak]

Again. In a map so small of a world so big, small rivers aren't shown. So, when we see a river in the map, that's a river like Trigris, Nilus or Mississipi. IRL, those rivers provided a huge advantage in mobility, specially for traders. The real watermill does increase production where they are built (it turns wheat into flour effortless). Exactly the same thing as the Windmill. Windmills are a little better because they can be placed nearer the farms.

So, if they are going to be something like in reality, wells are for food and mills are for production.
Well: more food and some production per population.
Watermill: production on river tiles. It doesn't require to actually settle near a river, just having one near.
Windmill: production per population (because it can be built anywhere), much later than the watermill.

In this sense, a bath doesn't require a river, just settling on a tile with fresh water, grass or plains.

But gamewise, there are two approaches: some locations (rivers) are much better than others, so we fight to get them, or every location is viable, but in its own way. I believe Gazebo tends to the latter. Right now, non-river cities have more food and production, while river cities have more culture. Whether this makes sense or not, it's just how much reality we want on it.

If it were for reality, I'd let the well be built anywhere, but providing different bonuses (food for non-river, production for river). Then, choose between watermills (early, production on river tiles) or windmills (later, production per population). The reason is that a city with watermills doesn't really need to invest in windmills, while wells are built even in river cities to have an easier access to water.

This sounds unnecessarily complicated. Yeah I understand that it is more realistic, but it just feels like an unnecessary rework.


Also I believe this thread somehow missed one of the core differences between river cities and non-river cities. The access to either the hydroplant or the windplant later on. The windplant, while providing worse yields than the hydroplant does usually affect way more tiles (as it buffs both river and non-river tiles alike). This to me was one of the bigger factors in my early settling, settling off a river gave me access to the well (which imho was just as good as the watermill, because of the lower cost) and later on the better plant, while settling on a river gave you a trade-bonus (only really needed in one city) access to the baths building (which is really nice, don't get me wrong). To be this was really balanced, and I never really felt like it affected my decisions directly.

This being said, even if the river-placement could be considered stronger, that alone doesn't bother me. I mean there is a reason why historically pretty much every major city ever was built next to rivers, rivers just rules.

 

[Gazebo]

Good discussion. Surprised a 1per4 -> 1per5 nerf prompted this, but hey, stranger things. Also worth noting that cities founded on freshwater v. nonfreshwater get different starting 'buffs' under the tile:

UPDATE Yields
SET MinCityFlatFreshWater = 1, MinCityMountainFreshWater = 1
WHERE Type = 'YIELD_FOOD';

UPDATE Yields
SET MinCityFlatNoFreshWater = 1, MinCityMountainNoFreshWater = 1
WHERE Type = 'YIELD_GOLD';

So freshwater get an extra food under em, and non-fresh an extra gold.

 

[ElliotS]

I looked at all of tooltips, city resources, and the civilopedia. According to all that, the Well provides +2 f/+1p, Water mill provides +2 f/+2 p. Unless this was changed in the most recent patch (which is an undocumented change), then I believe I was correct initially.

Huh, I could have sworn I checked last night. You're right on that.

I don't think it really matters though, 1 production isn't worth the numerous downsides of the watermill. There's no reason to have the watermill be much worse than the well.

 

[Txurce]

This sounds unnecessarily complicated. Yeah I understand that it is more realistic, but it just feels like an unnecessary rework.

Everyhting else you wrote made sense to me. What's compliacted about what tu wrote?

Good discussion. Surprised a 1per4 -> 1per5 nerf prompted this, but hey, stranger things. Also worth noting that cities founded on freshwater v. nonfreshwater get different starting 'buffs' under the tile:

UPDATE Yields
SET MinCityFlatFreshWater = 1, MinCityMountainFreshWater = 1
WHERE Type = 'YIELD_FOOD';

UPDATE Yields
SET MinCityFlatNoFreshWater = 1, MinCityMountainNoFreshWater = 1
WHERE Type = 'YIELD_GOLD';

So freshwater get an extra food under em, and non-fresh an extra gold.

Since I basically never min-max, or think about how my city placement may affect a later choice of wind vs hydro plant (I usually never build either), I wind up thinking the watermill nerf is minor, and what a well-balanced game this is.

 

[infidel88]

For me solution should be very simple - allow non-river buildings to be build in river cities. I just don't get it how come you can't build well in river/lake cities. Because you don't need it? If so - city should automatically get the benefit of well.

You guys say every city is next to river, just small one, not visible on map. In that case how come not every tile is fresh water tile? You don't really need Nile to make irrigations, just a fresh water source will do.

 

[ElliotS]

Since I basically never min-max, or think about how my city placement may affect a later choice of wind vs hydro plant (I usually never build either), I wind up thinking the watermill nerf is minor, and what a well-balnced game this is.

The point of balance at this point IS min-maxing. The game is extremely playable right now, and if you settle on a river or off of one you'll have very similar chances of winning. Even though I think the well is about twice as good as the watermill (due to the tech difference mostly) it's still only 1 in over 100 buildings. (I'm actually not sure, but that sounds right.)

The difference isn't unnoticeable, I AM settling 1 tile off rivers for now because I value the well's early timing over the bath's later culture, but that's only because I'm inherently a min-maxer.

In short while it's not a huge deal, it's still worth balancing. Sorry for being such a drama queen.

You guys say every city is next to river, just small one, not visible on map. In that case how come not every tile is fresh water tile? You don't really need Nile to make irrigations, just a fresh water source will do.

Great point.

The thing with Civ is that everything is so abstracted that sometimes it's hard to remember that some parts are literal.

2k Games originally wanted settling on a river to be extremely beneficial. They tuned it down with the release of BNW, but it was still a heavy factor there. (Gardens only on rivers for example.)

From what I've heard civ 6 actually makes it more important, so their stance is clear.

It's already not viable to settle on a tile of tundra surrounded by snow, or a desert with no real resources. Why shouldn't we get special buildings to make settling there 100% viable too?

Whatever your answer is: For that same reason settling off a river doesn't need to be as good as settling on one. Snow sucks. Deserts suck. Rivers and lakes are extremely important, so having none sucks too.

 

[tu_79]

I said there is small rivers in lands like grass and plains, that's why you can farm them. Nothing I said about desert and tundra.

 

[Coilean]

I am not sure if you want to compare the other effects of river vs non river settling when balancing the well vs the watermill. That seems too complex to really ever answer concretely.

Taken head to head just as city improvements, there should be no doubt if you had the option to choose to build either a well now or wait 80-100 turns to build watermills in your early cities, you should always choose the well now, and I would have said that even before the 11-17 nerf. Why? Simple: the lost opportunity cost of having to wait 100ish more turns to build the watermill in your early core cities, combined with it's greater hammer cost simply means you won't even recoup the lost turns of bonus hammers/food + extra cost before the game is already decided.

Put simply, getting 100 extra hammers/food right now is a lot better than waiting 100 turns (and spending extra hammers) to get 125 hammers/food. Combine that with the effect of the extra 1-2 population each city might have gained before the watermill was even available, and there are further compounding snowbally effects that are not easily measured, but provide even more advantage for an early well over a later watermill.

 

[Coilean]

To be clear, I think the watermill nerf really was quite insignificant, as the fact that watermills come 100ish turns later than wells is so much more impactful as to make the nerf relatively meaningless.

 

[Funak]

Good discussion. Surprised a 1per4 -> 1per5 nerf prompted this, but hey, stranger things. Also worth noting that cities founded on freshwater v. nonfreshwater get different starting 'buffs' under the tile:

To be clear, I think the watermill nerf really was quite insignificant, as the fact that watermills come 100ish turns later than wells is so much more impactful as to make the nerf relatively meaningless.

Like Coilean said, the change itself is quite insignificant, but the fact that you nerfed the building that should be stronger but wasn't really is at least what triggered me.

With the old watermill, you could at least pretend that you're getting something out of that delayed well, that maybe over the rest of the game it will at some point pay off, now it is quite sure that this will never happen.


As for the city-placement thing, freshwater or non-freshwater doesn't matter, you always get an extra hammer because you always settle on a hill

 

[Txurce]

The point of balance at this point IS min-maxing. The game is extremely playable right now, and if you settle on a river or off of one you'll have very similar chances of winning. Even though I think the well is about twice as good as the watermill (due to the tech difference mostly) it's still only 1 in over 100 buildings. (I'm actually not sure, but that sounds right.)

The difference isn't unnoticeable, I AM settling 1 tile off rivers for now because I value the well's early timing over the bath's later culture, but that's only because I'm inherently a min-maxer.

In short while it's not a huge deal, it's still worth balancing. Sorry for being such a drama queen.

We're basically on the same page. I agree that some changes now are min-maxing (for example, nerfing siege weapons is not). And as long as Gazebo is into it, I'm happy the game continues to be tuned. I happen to agree with Coilean's posts above, in that the watermill itself is such a subset of a complex equation as to be definitively imperfectible. It's also what makes the river/non-river conversation interesting even to a non-min/maxer: the exchange spills over into how best to build, and all the factors that go into it.

 

[Gazebo]

Not to sound base, however what's the word on watermill reversion? I'm thinking about increasing its flat yields to 3/3 to give it a clear immediate gain (without making it a scaling-superior version of the well).

 

[tu_79]

Good discussion. Surprised a 1per4 -> 1per5 nerf prompted this, but hey, stranger things. Also worth noting that cities founded on freshwater v. nonfreshwater get different starting 'buffs' under the tile:

UPDATE Yields
SET MinCityFlatFreshWater = 1, MinCityMountainFreshWater = 1
WHERE Type = 'YIELD_FOOD';

UPDATE Yields
SET MinCityFlatNoFreshWater = 1, MinCityMountainNoFreshWater = 1
WHERE Type = 'YIELD_GOLD';

So freshwater get an extra food under em, and non-fresh an extra gold.

Nice to know. I find the gold on non-fresh water starts a bit weird, but whatever.

Still, a river is a different thing. It is the mobility, the commerce, the defense.

The well isn't really related to rivers. I'd say that a city needs the well technology to be able to settle on arid lands, but I don't see worthy a change in the mechanics for this. (It would be too difficult to settle the capital if you can't find fertile lands).

What I see is a well in any city, that helps with food per population, and maybe a small flat production bonus. Some to make up for the lose of hammers invested in the building, but not scaling on pop so they end up being more productive than a river city.

If baths give culture by the time windmills are available, and watermills give production much earlier in river cities, I'd make windmills exclusive for non river cities, with its engineer slot, and its bonus for buildings. So the difference is still there, but it is more noticeable in middle ages. Setting on rivers would make a cultural and early production advantage, and the others would have more raw production and buildings.

 

[Stalker0]

Not to sound base, however what's the word on watermill reversion? I'm thinking about increasing its flat yields to 3/3 to give it a clear immediate gain (without making it a scaling-superior version of the well).

So you 3f/3p, +1f/+p per 5 citizens?