The Chopping Imperative

[Bliss]

If you want "later" cities to be productive, you need something special to them. I have had medieval+ cities that actually become core parts of my empire, but they basically need some sort of excessive yields. So if you can settle a city and chop in a desert hills/Petra, or even if you can rush in like a +8 seaport and work some high mine tiles, they can become valuable members of the empire. But you need to put some serious effort there for them to be anything but a resource colony.

Did you mean +8 shipyard? So basically you are saying that you need huge production for medieval+ cities to become relevant. I think that domestic trade routes should fill this gap by mid to end game but their value doesn't scale well (non-gold wise).

 

[Victoria]

If you want "later" cities to be productive, you need something special to them.

Settle a medieval+ city and give it a +4 production trade route, take a 6 or 7 charge builder, 3 farms and 4 mines. Force these 4 food farms at first and before you know it you have a 25+ production city.

Now play to the renaissance and look at how much production your average city makes and you will be surprised that is just fits in nicely.... Petra would take 16 turns, your districts, about 8

This whole power production is a bit OTT. You need that in your main prod citieswhere you want 50-150 production. If you have that strength everywhere it’s overkill and you end up building for the sake of using production.

 

[Sostratus]

This whole power production is a bit OTT. You need that in your main prod citieswhere you want 50-150 production. If you have that strength everywhere it’s overkill and you end up building for the sake of using production.

I can confirm as a Germany player that you really don’t need 100+ production in every last city...
The reality is that 25-50 production isn’t hard to get from a handful of mines or lumbermills. But people forget that you need a nice cluster of farms to skyrocket the population before you shove them off to the mining pits. Pop is what new cities lack more than infrastructure in most cases.

 

[cvb]

But people forget that you need a nice cluster of farms to skyrocket the population before you shove them off to the mining pits.

And now I can't get the pictures of Saruman's workshops out of my head!

Maybe we should reintroduce the older game's "foodbox" to visualize the farm effect on pop growth ...

.

 

[Victoria]

Pop is what new cities lack more than infrastructure in most cases.

And at 25 prod, granaries and monuments sort it out nicely, quite likely with a congress bonus for city centres.

 

[Tech Osen]

And at 25 prod, granaries and monuments sort it out nicely, quite likely with a congress bonus for city centres.

When settling new cities in the late game (for resources) I usually have enough coin to just buy monument/granary/sewers/watermill. Free builder from ancestral hall and gtg. It's buying landtiles that's often the bottleneck.

 

[Victoria]

It's buying landtiles that's often the bottleneck.

Tip of the day
It takes 20-40 culture to grab most tiles. A couple of Kumasi trade routes, moving Pingala into a city or having some pretty parks very very quickly grabs those tiles. Gold is much more valuable.
You want a pretty chart? It’s been a while

 

[Tech Osen]

Tip of the day
It takes 20-40 culture to grab most tiles. A couple of Kumasi trade routes, moving Pingala into a city or having some pretty parks very very quickly grabs those tiles. Gold is much more valuable.
You want a pretty chart? It’s been a while

Still prefer tradelines boosted through democracy or communism for food and production though with democracy I could send them to the cultural ally.

 

[Velvet glove]

When you are speaking of farms and population boosts - is this to reach the almighty 10 or what's the reason? I very rarely build farms, they seem a waste... But I tend to pack my cities very close and often am short of good tiles to work. And the captured cities already have farms.

Culture per tile from the formula thread (10+(6*n)^1.3) should be at lifetime culture of 10, 30, 65, 118, 190, 284, 400... so it is quite a lot past the first few.

 

[Victoria]

Culture per tile from the formula thread (10+(6*n)^1.3) should be at lifetime culture of 10, 30, 65, 118, 190, 284, 400... so it is quite a lot past the first few.

I get this when I use excel
Farms are used to get to 10, for an SV only however you are in plains you need farms or you will never grow. Growth is so important, not only for the jscience and culture per pop but each pop gives a couple of production.

 

[Velvet glove]

I don't know if the formula is correct but for n = 29 it should be: 10+(6*29)^1.3 = 10+174^1.3= 10+818=828

Summing for n=0 to 29: ~11,025 culture for a non-Russian city to open all three rings on its own.

 

[Victoria]

should be at lifetime culture of 10, 30, 65, 118, 190, 284, 400

Are you sure it is your way and not mine? You are probably right and I am under a misconception.

 

[Velvet glove]

That's what the formula says, but a quick test makes it look incorrect and more like 10+6*n^1.3 which is in-between. 487 for the last tile. Needs a proper test, can do tomorrow. 10, 16, 25, 35, 46, 59, 72... according to this formula.

 

[Esperr]

This is a debate as old as time. The more early the production, the more exponential. Your not just getting an early settler out three turns early, your creating a cascade of stacking benefits. Unless your roleplaying or something there is no reason not to chop all you can except in some wierd corner case. That early forest is way more then just 20 hammers.

 

[Velvet glove]

Tested and the original formula is correct:

• 1: 10
• 2: 20
• 3: 35 = 10+(6*2)^1.3
• 4: 52 = 10+(6*3)^1.3
• 5: 72 = 10+(6*4)^1.3

This is how much new culture just for that tile. So to get to 2 you need (10+20=30), to get to 3 you need (10+20+35=65), etc.

 

[Velvet glove]

...exponential. Your not just getting an early settler out three turns early, your creating a cascade of stacking benefits.

Yes and no. The exponential part is checked part with the settlers growing in cost and part with the growth cap for each city. For example you settle desert Uluru with your first settler to get 4 culture, 4 faith, but you get zero growth and 2-3 production. In this case 3 turns later is simply 12 culture/faith and 6-9 production that isn't going through the roof because it will take so long to produce a settler or anything meaningful. For a regular city it's less pronounced but still there. So yes, it's exponential in principle but in practice there are limits and other considerations that interfere so it's not just about churning settlers as fast as you can.

 

[Victoria]

so it's not just about churning settlers as fast as you can

No but you need a base to balance. No settler = no growth.
As lily said, if you find a good place for a settler, build another one.
Balance to a degree is key but an eye on your VC helps too.
Granaries and monuments

 

[pkaem]

You can absolutely play without chopping, but "crucial" things are districts too. And having your primary in every of your cities chopped out with a t2 building, 50 turn before this new city would've hard built it wins over a super productive lumbermill at t175.

 

[steveg700]

I definitely think this is a key point: It comes very much down to how much you "roleplay" and how much you "play to win".

I think "roleplay" is an abused term in Civ.

I mean, some folks want Civ to be more than an isolationist exercise in speeding through the game, so they have to impose their own house rules.

So, for me, it's like:

• No +0 districts (which is a roundabout way to curb settling cities just to spam HS's, Campuses, and TD's).
• No Rationalism.
• No gifts (except during an aid emergency).
• No aircraft unless I see an AI deploy them.

And some other sundry rules.

Chops are handy, but they are not infinite and have to be used judiciously. I miss lumber mills getting a bonus next to rivers.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Yes chopping is a one-off action.

However, if you manage to chop everything on the map, you get so much benefit that you already won the game.

If you really wish to do lumber mill you can plant trees in late game.

However, time is the real one-off thing, no matter how you play at T100 cannot change your game at T50.