Terraforming land...

[teefn]

I build roads and irrigation on the same tile then do the same thing until the area around my city is full and also any mines on mountains.

My questions are:
1. Is this the right thing to do?
2. What should I be doing when it comes to terraforming land?

Sorry for flooding with newb q's.

 

[Peaster]

Teefn - There are different ideas on this. But if you want to conquer early, you need to use your settlers mainly to make cities, on sites near good land (or near "specials" like whales, etc). Focus on expansion until 1AD or so. I never irrigate or mine (unless an evil tournament moderator, like the Duke of... ermmm...whatever... gives me a really awful map).

I do make enough roads to connect my cities and provide a few extra trade arrows, but would not surround a city with roads. I never make SSC's or trade routes. But if you do, improving the land probably makes sense.

 

[ElephantU]

Try to stay ahead of the needs of the city, but don't worry too much early on; focus on sending Settlers out to found new cities when still in Despotism and Monarchy. Later on make sure you have some surplus food and shields with some irrigation and mining. If you are getting into Early Conquest or Early Landing (spaceship) you will eventually evolve a style of play to maximize production or research. Don't worry about that right now; get used to the play system, read threads on improving your play, and experiment with different ideas. Don't worry too much about winning early on - I often learned more from the games I lost than the ones I survived. Work your way up the difficulty levels, playing each one until you feel you have gotten a few good wins under your belt before you move up. At the higher levels it is more about "Just In Time" improvements rather than improving everything.

Another great suggestion is to join a "comparision" game like the Game Of The Month (GOTM) here at CFC. This month is Deity level, which might be a bit much, but you can look back through the recent threads to find a few at Prince or King level (don't try #45 - it was Prince level but the terrain was a killer!). Play it yourself, then read through the Spoiler thread and look at some of the save games to see what other players did with their cities. Try to emulate some of the other games, and ask more questions about how things were done.

 

[Peaster]

Play it yourself, then read through the Spoiler thread and look at some of the save games to see what other players did with their cities. Try to emulate some of the other games, and ask more questions about how things were done.

Elephant - How do you look at the saved games? I know how to do it at Apolyton, but not at CFC.

 

[ElephantU]

Check the Archives for a Zip file of all the submitted games, and extract the ones you want. The file names start with the player's name, followed by the GOTM number and the date.

 

[sethos]

Cities with poor production will get some hills.
I usually build them
a) on grassland with a possible special field
b) on non-shielded grassland
c) on grassland on river tiles (you keep the trade bonus!)
Target: A production of 50+x (to support some units and to produce a caravan per turn)

 

[Conrino]

I usssually og for an all out engineering style of play ( hundreds of cities THOASANDS of engineers. Make everything grassland or hills unless its a special resource square.

 

[Doghouse Reilly]

I build roads and irrigation on the same tile then do the same thing until the area around my city is full and also any mines on mountains.

My questions are:
1. Is this the right thing to do?
2. What should I be doing when it comes to terraforming land?

Sorry for flooding with newb q's.

I've found it useful to terraform mountains into hills. The latter is much more productive.

 

[EquinoxOmega]

Before I invented railway I never improve my terrain except the surrounding of my captital(I always try to maximize my captital city). When I get railway I create a railway network between all my cities and I also start to irrigate the land near river or special regions(mostly small oder medium island or the vicinty of my important cities). Finally I a make them to farmland. If there a mountains in my "special regions" then I'll build a mine there but I don't terraform them. I also cover my farmland with railways.

 

[Conrino]

Interesting approach. However, I find that once you have around 25 cities the routine maintanence gets quite bothersome.

 

[ElephantU]

EquinoxOmega: you can get more trade arrows from Grass, Plains, and Desert tiles by building a road on them (takes one Settler two turns, or an Engineer one turn), and get an extra trade arrow by buiding a road on any special tile that already has at least one arrow. Irrigating Grass tiles earlier can help support more Settlers and Engineers when they cost two food each.

 

[rysingsun]

i think your strategy of irrigating and roading is good. it is debatable how much is "just enough" and how much is "too much" but i would rather err on the long side. if i dont build much irrigation its only because my large production of settlers is rushing outward to form new cities.

in my view there are two units you can never build too many of. settlers and caravans.

 

[The Person]

I just fill all my city squares with irrigation/farmland/mines and roads, with railroads between my cities and on terrain which produces at least two shields. I don't care if it's needed or not.

 

[Terrapin]

Teefn - I hope you do not mind taking advice from a shell dwelling reptile. Like EU says, early in the game, you do not want to spend time building land improvements. Instead, just move settlers as quickly as possible to the most desireable city sites you can find. The exception to this rule is a city with no trade-producing specials and no rivers running through grasslands. In this case, the settler who builds that city should build one road on a shielded grassland space on his way to the build space. This is so that the city's first citizen will be working a space which produces a trade arrow, crucial for staying ahead of the early tech race. (Your city area has no specials AND no shielded grasslands? Why did you build a city there?) Irrigating in despotism is useless. Grassland already produces two foods. And a space which produces more than two of any one resource (i.e. arrows, shield, food) will produce one less under despotism. So irrigating a grassland will cause it to produce 2food(for grassland)+1food(for irrigation)-1food(for despotism). Once you have a few cities established, it is usually worthwhile to have some of you 'second wave' of settlers build a few more roads to connect your cities, but there is no reason to go crazy. I often build early roads which are not straight because I want to make sure that I have all (or as close to all as possible) of my citizens working shielded grassland or specials. As a result, my roads weave drunkenly from one shielded grass to another.

Once you enter monarchy, it is time to start irrigating. The confusing 'one less than more than two' resource rule is lifted and your irrigated grasslands will give three food each. Before switching to a more advanced form of governement, it is very important to make sure that at least two citizens of each city are working irrigated grasslands because after monarchy, your settlers will need two food each turn and under every strategy I have ever heard of, it is important to have at least one settler per city active at all times. Without irrigation, your food based city growth will grind to a halt. As much as possible, I try to irrigate the same grasslands I previously built roads on. (You may be limited by the presence/absence of water. Plan, plan, plan...) Once you reach this 'necessary' plateau, you can start looking for place to put mines and other improvements.

 

[sir_schwick]

Because of the growth limits of despotism, expansion is much more important. Keep building Settlers and Warriors(so you do not waste turns waiting for growth). If I start with two settlers, I will road one of the grassland/shield squares. Usually after my second or third city, I will make sure each city has a least one roaded square before having it build a city.

Here is also where I have a question:
What if you settled a city and then built a settler, but realize that settler has no where to settle?
I usually have him road three productive squares and then build connecting roads to other cities.

Make sure you have good infrastructure before jumping to Republic. If you are ready than the jump will accelerate your game greatly. If you are not it will slow you down a lot. Remember, the martial law happiness from warriors and one food settler support are gone.

 

[The Person]

I always try to fill my continent with cities, radii covering every tile. First when that is done I start terraforming. But often I start terraforming around the innermost cities before I'm done colonizing because they're too far away from colonizable land.

 

[Old n Slow]

Hmmm

Settlers need to build cites early on, and to a lesser extent always. However, a size one city works one additional space besides the city site -- so roading a shielded grassland space might make sense before founding.

Similar thought for a size two city -- I'll often road an extra space before founding the second city depending upon the available spaces to work.

Repeat...through four to six cities; now two things happen -- one there is a need for connection -- thus build a road network to link all the cities (preferably one that maximizes trade payoffs) and two the nation should be in an advanced form of government, say monarchy and thus irrigation can make sense. I generally irrigate the working spaces of the SSC starting around this time period & don't seem to get around to irrigating anything else until Mikes or engineers are on the table.

I'll irrigate grass & plains, irrigate swamps to grasslands & build mines on hills during the peaceful expansion phase while we loving & trading; much much later, I'll look into terraforming mountains done to hills and turning tundras to deserts & then againg to plains, etc. -- maybe when the wars are completed.

 

[sir_schwick]

Once I started playing higher levels I did not love all flat land so much. Forests are very useful on the higher levels because they level growth with good shields for no investment.

 

[Trev]

As a general rule, the payback for establishing a new city is much greater than for irrigation, and even roads, if roads are to be used for trade only, but if roads accelerate settlers moves to new cities, that is worthwhile, so 1st priority must be to establish plenty of cities, also research the quickest route to Monarchy to rid yourself of Depotism inefficiencies. At Deity level this method has problems with happiness as cities are established, so consideration needs to be given to building HG to assist with that. Once a republic gov't is established, ensure there is always one unused food resource to add to granary box and 1 shield for production. build harbours for trade and food off the sea, and grow cities almost solely with celebration bursts, and rushbuy units, buildings with money. But apart from a few roads, terrain improvements should generally wait until all suitable terrain has been settled, avoiding sites that need irrigation or mines until last.

 

[sir_schwick]

What about if you built a settler expanding into a dead zone, i.e. he can only reach desert/plains or ocean territory in 10 turns or less? is it worth adding a road to a couple cities then? The trade from road can really boost research with early techs