The Granary (Thoughts & Strategy by PDog)

[Polobo]

The Granary

An ancient era building, unlocked by Pottery, that provides +2 to the city that builds it. It costs 1 per turn in maintenance.

While eventually the granary is going to be a key building in most cities it is an important decision as to when to build it in your Capital.

Advantages (of an early build)

More options for the use of flatland tiles.

The key advantage of this building is that you can work one or two additional production tiles without needing to have extra population working farms. However, this benefit requires significant production and so you still need to make a decision. A key factor in this decision is the availability of land around your capital. You get 6 tiles initially and in many cases 1 or 2 of those tiles will be unusable coastal tiles. Unless you are the French you will slowly get another 2 or 3 tiles during the timeframe when the decision is the most difficult.

Within this limited number of workable tiles you will have some production and some flatland. Now (EDIT: once you have Trapping you will be able to construct Trading Posts]. Like Farms these are often best when placed on grassland-rivers. Without the Granary you will need to use those limited tiles for farms and thus will have to forgo trading posts. With the Granary you can forgo the farms and instead build the trading posts. There are, of course, multiple possibility between all farms and all trading posts but the disposition of the Granary will heavily influence which way you will be drawn toward. Thus, once you get the mines setup you can put some farms in secondary locations (river-plains ideally) where they can create self-sustaining production tiles and leave the grassland-rivers for the Trading Post later (still 2 techs away if you go there immediately as Trapping is a second-level technology). But, it does enable the Camp as well and you get Animal Husbandry and Pastures in the first-tier so that, with favorable resources, you may even be able to skip Mining all together.

Delayed worker - planned purchase

Another possible strategy with respect to the Granary is to forgo a worker in favor of additional military units. Focusing your efforts on exploring and leaving Capital improvement for later. With a Pottery-first research path you can use whatever production you can find to slowly build the granary and then work unimproved production tiles; finally building the worker once you have mining researched (or, with the early exploring focus, purchase the worker once you have funds).

Sailing & Defense

Pottery opens up Sailing as well and, especially for the Ottomans, early Sailing has its own benefits for exploring and possibly an early military conflict against a coastal civ or city-state.

Note: Be careful here as courthouses come much later in the tree so you will need to make them a puppet. But, it can be a cheaper way to get their resources and culture compared with trying to make friends early on.

Anyway, with a range of 2 you can plop a Trireme right next to your capital and bombard any unit that gets too close without ever having researched archery. And, if you have sea resources, you can get them hooked up and guarded early.

Well Fed & Literate

Another gambit made possible by going down Pottery more directly (and building the Granary) would be to get to Writing and rush out a Library and stock it with specialists. For those civs with a Library UB (China) this is something to seriously consider. In this case, however, you will still want a couple of farms at least so that you can put specialists in the library and still grow the city using the farms or, better yet, Tradition. Then, push forward and grab Philosophy to enable the Piety social policy branch as well as Temples. You will need to get a worker and some other Ancient Era technologies besides the Pottery > Writing > Philosophy line which should give you time to get some units out, build a Granary and then a Library; however you still need to find time and production for the monument since it is a pre-requisite for the Temple (from the ciV guide threads).

Civ and Policy Considerations

In the following section I detail expected synergies between civs and social policies that make an early Granary gambit a Positive, Moderate, or Negative option. For policies it is assumed you have decided to pursue the specified policy first (+) and details how going for an early Granary would benefit from (+) or be hurt by (-) that policy choice.

EDIT: Keep in mind that the civ rating is mostly a function of their unique ability (UA) and does not consider any specific gameplay strategies other than those that would naturally extend from the UA (and, if relevant, any early UU/UB).

Civilizations

France: NEGATIVE - extra land for both farms and trading posts should be readily available.

Arabia: NEGATIVE – horizontal growth is important so you want farms and workers early on.

English & Ottomans: POSITIVE – on the way to sailing; likely coastal start so fewer than normal flatland tiles.

Siam: POSITIVE – need gold to get city-states to friendly; can then get increased food from them. Sailing helps in locating maritime city-states to make friends with.

America: POSITIVE – gold is very important so having room for trading posts is good.

China: POSITIVE – leverage the fact that Pottery is on the way to writing and that the Granary provides the necessary food to run specialists.

Songhai & Germany: MODERATE – focus on getting as much military as possible early means sacrificing the early worker is viable and so Granary > Mining.

Greece: MODERATE – going for sailing makes meeting a greater number of city-states easier; Patronage comes at the Classical Era so horizontal expansion is somewhat detrimental.

India: MODERATE – you will probably want farms AND the granary sooner rather than later; exploring is going to be neglected.

Social Policies

Tradition:
+/+:As a first policy choice you can combine this with a Granary to grow quite quickly without the need for a worker. Especially useful if you have a few hills or forests that can be worked for moderate production.
+/-: With +3 food from the city anyway you can slow work production without the need to spend hammers on the granary. You can work a mine and still have some growth early on.

Liberty:
+/+: NONE
+/-: Liberty is good for horizontal expansion and hammers should be used toward that end. Pottery and Sailing take a back-seat to Mining/Wheel/Animal Husbandry.

Honor:
+/+: A focus on early exploring makes a worker a weaker hammer investment. Scouts and warriors should do you just fine early while you research Pottery and then slow build the granary. Get out maybe another pair while the city grows and hope you earn enough gold to purchase a worker. Alternatively, you can purchase additional military as gold becomes available and then build a worker immediately after the granary. Meanwhile you should have gotten mining and you can focus on building mines then trading posts since your immediate growth needs will be taken care of.
+/-: NONE
 
Further Notes:
For the most part I have ignored the presence of resources for this analysis. The happy that a resource would give is not that important in the timeframe we are discussing. Nor are the strategic benefits. The main value would be productivity and that needs to be compared to investing in a worker and technologies. Their inherent bonus, however, is important.

Additional food makes even needing a granary less important in the boundary +/- cases (Tradition and Liberty) and further reinforces the mutually beneficial cases (Tradition and Honor).

Additional gold has less effect but makes it more likely you will be able to simply buy a worker when you finally have something for them to do.

Additional production makes actually executing the gambit easier since the Granary will be built faster and you will also have more production available for the units that you want to build instead of the worker.


Further comments, thoughts, and maybe some help with numbers (once the game is released) are very much welcomed.

Thanks for Reading.

 

[SirTurtle]

I doubt it will compete with warrior/scout or worker for a good use of early hammers (or gold).

I think a key question will be: Monument before Granary or Granary before Monument?

EDIT: Good analysis btw

 

[Schuesseled]

I'm not really sure what is so important about the decision on building a granary.

got spare hammers> Yes
got spare gold per turn> Yes
need more food> Yes

Build Granary.

Whats so complicated about that.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

@Schuesseled
I play just like how you described (well, a little more sophisticated, but almost).

The thing is that this play style lacks a lot of foresight, and will be crushed by players going about it the way the OP does.

 

[Schuesseled]

Perhaps, but i don't tend to play multiplayer, so its not really an issue.

And even if I did play multiplayer games, im not sure how my play style would get trumped.

If you can't afford a granary don't build it, if you have plenty of food don't build it, vice versa.

As long as your aware that you can't build everything you don't need to use a spreadsheet analysis to have some foresight.

 

[Polobo]

From the classical era the need-it/build-it mentality works quiet well but most of the analysis is an early-game gambit where you need to decide between exploring/city-growth/empire-expansion and between building a worker/more units/building.

I did not factor in the monument into the decision making since in the timeframe in question if you feel you need the monument the granary will almost certainly take a back seat both due to the hammer requirements and the fact that you should be getting tiles just a little quicker and so farms will be more viable.

 

[Ahriman]

France: NEGATIVE - extra land for both farms and trading posts should be readily available.

This argument doesn't make sense to me.

You're not constrained by the number of farms you can build, but by the numbers of citizens you have working those farms.

A granary lets you allocate one less citizen to working a farm, and have them work as a specialist instead.

I don't see how this is not useful for France or Arabia.

 

[Shurdus]

Perhaps, but i don't tend to play multiplayer, so its not really an issue.

And even if I did play multiplayer games, im not sure how my play style would get trumped.

If you can't afford a granary don't build it, if you have plenty of food don't build it, vice versa.

As long as your aware that you can't build everything you don't need to use a spreadsheet analysis to have some foresight.

You do not at all provide any clues how to decide on the issue when you have the spare hammers. The OP does attempt to provide such clues. You yourself explain that there are decisions top make since you cannot build everything, then the question when to build a granary is as valid as any. If you do not see that, then I am afraid I cannot help you.

 

[Shurdus]

This argument doesn't make sense to me.

You're not constrained by the number of farms you can build, but by the numbers of citizens you have working those farms.

A granary lets you allocate one less worker to working a farm, and have them work as a specialist instead.

I don't see how this is not useful for France or Arabia.

Once again you completely lost me. Why would the amount I'd workers be a restricting factor? Do you man citizens?

Also there will be do many considerations tip make before deciding when to build a granary that I doubt either the OP method our your solution will cut it.

 

[Schuesseled]

You do not at all provide any clues how to decide on the issue when you have the spare hammers. The OP does attempt to provide such clues. You yourself explain that there are decisions top make since you cannot build everything, then the question when to build a granary is as valid as any. If you do not see that, then I am afraid I cannot help you.

Well it's quite simple, if you have no special goal in mind, i.e. building an army, constructing a wonder, or current plans like i might be planning on ordering the commision of a monument at that present time. Then your city isn't building anything specificly needed then you can go ahead and build a granary.

Its the sort of descision you have to make in civ every turn or so. I don't have a spreadsheet with all my cities build queues all ready printed out for the match, i make my desicions on the fly. This of course doesn't mean i don't put thought into the matter, but gives me more flexibilty than some one basically working off a script.

The desicion on wether or not to build a new building is addressed repeatedly throughout the game, every time current production has finished, i think what should i do next.

That better?

 

[Polobo]

This argument doesn't make sense to me.

You're not constrained by the number of farms you can build, but by the numbers of citizens you have working those farms.

A granary lets you allocate one less worker to working a farm, and have them work as a specialist instead.

I can see where if you are doing a Pottery-Writing beeline were the Granary would be especially useful for the reasons stated. I'll probably want to incorporate that into the "Advantages" section as extended gambit (like I did for Pottery-Sailing). It would support an early Great Scientist gambit fairly well.

The gambit in question is pretty much restricted to pre-Classical gameplay. I also did not look at many of the second level technologies simply because the initial insipration for this came from my decision to play the Ottomans first with a Pottery-Mining?-Sailing gambit.

It is the gambit, not the Granary itself, that is WEAK for France and Arabia. For both of them it would be better to focus on acquring more land instead of focusing on exploration and capital development. By extension, you do not want the capital to grow that fast (well, you do but is it worth the costs of building a Granary when you already should have farms and workers) since it will take away happy that can be used to found additional cities.

And of course there are many geographic considerations but outlining an initial gambit at least gets people thinking how (or even if) it can work. I'm also purposedly avoid the actual production numbers and instead estimating those and focusing more on the benefits of the different alternatives.

 

[Polobo]

Added the following to the OP (further edits made to the OP not reflected here)

Well Fed & Literate

Another gambit made possible by going down Pottery more directly would be to get to Writing and rush out a Library and stock it with specialists. For those civs with a Library UB (China) this is something to seriously consider. In this case, however, you will still want a couple of farms at least so that you can put specialists in the library and still grow the city using the farms or, better yet, Tradition. Then, push forward and grab Philosophy to enable the Piety social policy branch as well as Temples. You will need to get a worker and some other Ancient Era technologies besides the Pottery > Writing > Philosophy line which should give you time to get some units out, build a granary and then a library; the monument is hopefully optional and you can instead just build the more useful temple once you have Philosophy.


China: POSITIVE – leverage the fact that Pottery in on the way to writing and that the Granary provides the necessary food to run specialists.

 

[_hero_]

IMO this needs to be looked at in terms of opportunity cost. Now, early game, you are likely going to be getting +2 food per turn from your capital for quite some time. Thus, a granary effectively doubles your growth rate. Now, once you get farms up, get a maritime ally, or get the tradition SP, the effects become greatly negated.

Now, a worker takes 70 hammers, a granary takes 100. You'll be getting anywhere from 2-6 hammers early game depending on how you distribute your citizens and what type of bonus resources you start with. If you have no resources, and are going for maximum growth, you'll only have the two from your capital as grassland provides 0. In that scenario, a granary takes 15 extra turns to produce compared to a worker. Now, I don't know exactly how many turns a farm takes to build, but if it takes 7 or fewer (a likely proposition IMO) then you will have +2 food from farms before the granary would have even been completed had you chosen to delay your worker. Alternatively, you can pop out the worker and farm plains, thus holding your food constant and increasing your production which can then speed a granary.

As for your original point, choosing to go with a granary and trading posts over farms is ultimately a trade off of gold for science as a granary + farms would lead to maximum population and thus science. This may be viable but we'll have to know what various purchase prices are to know if that extra gold is ultimately more valuable than the extra population. It may ultimately be situational. For instance, if you have a city state type or two nearby who fit perfectly into your strategy, you'll want the extra gold to rush them to allied status faster. If, on the other hand, you are stuck with a city state that is less desirable, you may be better off going for growth.

 

[Polobo]

IMO this needs to be looked at in terms of opportunity cost. Now, early game, you are likely going to be getting +2 food per turn from your capital for quite some time. Thus, a granary effectively doubles your growth rate. Now, once you get farms up, get a maritime ally, or get the tradition SP, the effects become greatly negated.

I thought I was (though admittedly I am focusing mostly on the benefits of particular gambits and letting the player and map determine whether it is viable and cost-effective).

A maritime ally is probably too expensive to consider in the relevant timeframe.

The big kicker is whether you want to go Tradition; as mentioned my initial thoughts were that you'd be going Honor and focusing on exploring. Tradition + Super Science Capital is also good but in that case the Granary further strengthens it benefits and the lost opprotunity is more likely to be the exploring in which case those early hammers should go toward a worker and whether you decide to build farms or trading posts will be game driven.

Now, a worker takes 70 hammers, a granary takes 100. You'll be getting anywhere from 2-6 hammers early game depending on how you distribute your citizens and what type of bonus resources you start with. If you have no resources, and are going for maximum growth, you'll only have the two from your capital as grassland provides 0. In that scenario, a granary takes 15 extra turns to produce compared to a worker. Now, I don't know exactly how many turns a farm takes to build, but if it takes 7 or fewer (a likely proposition IMO) then you will have +2 food from farms before the granary would have even been completed had you chosen to delay your worker. Alternatively, you can pop out the worker and farm plains, thus holding your food constant and increasing your production which can then speed a granary.

The actual numbers and trade-offs will be game specific and basically make for a go/no-go on the gambit itself. I guess what I need to do at some point is setup a couple of goals and favorable scenarios and determine whether the gambit would pay off in those favorable conditions.

As for your original point, choosing to go with a granary and trading posts over farms is ultimately a trade off of gold for science as a granary + farms would lead to maximum population and thus science. This may be viable but we'll have to know what various purchase prices are to know if that extra gold is ultimately more valuable than the extra population. It may ultimately be situational. For instance, if you have a city state type or two nearby who fit perfectly into your strategy, you'll want the extra gold to rush them to allied status faster. If, on the other hand, you are stuck with a city state that is less desirable, you may be better off going for growth.

I actually see it more along the lines of early mines vs. farms; with trading posts in play after for growth periods (instead of farms) so that each citizen can feed itself. A delayed worker with the early production going toward units and instead of having to "catch-up" by building farms first you can simply start on the mines.

Agree on the "value of gold" stuff but I actually forsee using the early gold either for tile purchases (since you'd be skipping a monument) or units; and with a (maybe lucky) streak with the initial exploration the worker itself.

 

[Polobo]

Well, the Temple without a Monument does not appear to be possible since the former requires that later. Probably still makes going early Temple viable will wait to see final game numbers.

 

[iop]

This argument doesn't make sense to me.

You're not constrained by the number of farms you can build, but by the numbers of citizens you have working those farms.

A granary lets you allocate one less citizen to working a farm, and have them work as a specialist instead.

I don't see how this is not useful for France or Arabia.

I agree with you. Especially since France gets more tiles more quickly, you want the city to grow faster in order to be able to benefit from the large amounts of tiles.

 

[King Jason]

The actual numbers and trade-offs will be game specific and basically make for a go/no-go on the gambit itself. I guess what I need to do at some point is setup a couple of goals and favorable scenarios and determine whether the gambit would pay off in those favorable conditions.

Personally I don't think so. With the gap in turns between worker Vs Granary, plus it requiring a tech, I think worker first will always trump granary first in the capital.

Now, at new cities it won't be an issue because tradition will probably dictate that we bring a worker to improve tiles of new cities as soon as it's built. So building a granary first would then be a good investment in terms of overall growth for the entire game. 2 food per turn amounts to 400-1000 food within a game (depending on speeds), plus the bonus of how that food affects what tiles you work of if you run a specialist, etc.

With the research being acquired solely through population... I don't see valid justification for not building a worker first and establishing farms in the capital city before Pottery is even researched. Perhaps scouts will prove themselves worthy of being built first due to the nature of ruins always granting rewards. But Surely I would build a worker next.

Also The benefit of that worker will snowball to the rest of your empire in a greater way than the granary can.

 

[Polobo]

OK; so somehow I got the idea that Trading Posts became available with Pottery as opposed to Trapping. Doesn't change the initial thoughts that much other than it will be a little longer before you can get the gold boost on food-neutral tiles (riverside grassland ideally) which is where they are best constructed for maximum effect.

Gonna quick fix the part where I actually messed up but it is too late to do any further public thinking on the topic.

 

[Caeserportugal]

I really think the Granary will become a very key important building in all cities especially the capital.

 

[Shurdus]

Well it's quite simple, if you have no special goal in mind, i.e. building an army, constructing a wonder, or current plans like i might be planning on ordering the commision of a monument at that present time. Then your city isn't building anything specificly needed then you can go ahead and build a granary.

Its the sort of descision you have to make in civ every turn or so. I don't have a spreadsheet with all my cities build queues all ready printed out for the match, i make my desicions on the fly. This of course doesn't mean i don't put thought into the matter, but gives me more flexibilty than some one basically working off a script.

The desicion on wether or not to build a new building is addressed repeatedly throughout the game, every time current production has finished, i think what should i do next.

That better?

So badically what you are saying is that you are not planning a thing because you just decide what to build whenever the previous build is finished and the best time top build a granary is when you have nothing better to build...

It is still not explaining a thing, yet I find it amusing that you call your lack of planning as being flexible. Whatever you need to tell yourself is finel of course...