"Thou Shalt Not Work Unimproved Tiles"

[flipsix3]

Folks, I've been browsing numerous articles/games since discovering this great repository of knowledge, the plan being to take my rediscovered love for Civ IV to a new level.

Currently I'm slogging through a few games on Warlord to try out individual ideas, and when I get back from an impending holiday I will embark upon a serious attempt to put them all into play (probably stepping back a level and working my way up).

One thing that I've seen a few times, that has confused me. In several posts of advice given on the basics of the game I've read people saying "only work improved tiles".

Is this intended to be taken literally? I can appreciate that you would want to improve all workable tiles (as soon as physically able), and presumably work improved tiles ahead of others (food production permitting), but in the meantime surely it's better to work unimproved tiles than have population sitting around as citizens?

Am I missing something? Is the suggestion that you should pump out workers/settlers (thus holding back population growth) until the workers have improved tiles ready to be worked? What's the benefit of that over allowing natural growth? (assuming that you have the means to keep the growing populace happy and healthy)

Last point, I'm browsing at work - so I can read the forums, but can't get into the war academy etc, please don't diect me there right now

 

[Iranon]

Is the suggestion that you should pump out workers/settlers (thus holding back population growth) until the workers have improved tiles ready to be worked? What's the benefit of that over allowing natural growth?

Exactly. An unimproved forest will add a measly 1 hammer to your settler production, an unimproved grassland/plains tile will change nothing. You might as well give your additional cities a head start (which should ideally have an improved tile to work the instant they're founded).

If working more than 1 unimproved tile (perhaps there's nothing left better than a forest), you might want to consider establishing a whip cycle - work all good tiles all the time, work up to 2 marginal tiles to whip away periodically.

 

[carl corey]

Think like this: you're working unimproved tiles that only marginally help you grow, and add very few hammers/commerce to the city production/commerce output. So why not build a worker instead that will improve the tiles once he's done? I'm guilty too of not doing that often enough. I build enough workers at the start of the game, but as I expand I always find other things to build than workers. The problem is that at one point your new cities will grow/build/research very slowly, as you'll be better off improving the tiles in your older cities who have lots of multiplier buildings. So build a worker in the new city, maybe help him with a chop, and then the city can grow.

 

[Ormur]

Or use the citizens working unimproved tiles for scientist instead. If you don't have a library you can whip them to get it.

 

[oyzar]

You can work forest tiles in some cases, but often it is better to just get a worker to improve the tiles before you city grow.

If you are settling a city with no worker ready to improve tiles around it(and it doesn't have anything improved already) you are probably doing something wrong. Sometimes it is as simple as building that worker that was going to improve the city before the settler(it can road the way to the city while waiting for the settler to arrive).

Working any unimproved tiles without a forest is actually a no, no(obviously working a citizen is even worse though). The options for avoiding this is several. Either you stop growth by building workers/settler, you change the order you build worker/settlers in(more often than not you want workers ready for the settlers and not have to build them afterwards) or you whip! Often you can combine this so you whip a worker when you were growing to fast and hence close to working unimproved tiles.

All the articles in the war academy have a forum eqivalent link, so if you just get that, it should be no problem.

As for what your workers should do it is very often a case of improve food resources -> improve other resources -> (if you don't have any food yet farm a couple grassland, if you still don't have food odds are you shouldn't have settled the city there) -> improve other tiles(so your cities are always working improved tiles, or as close to always) -> chop. As you see due to the last step(chopping), it is very seldom the case that you have too many workers, there should almost always be something to do!

 

[flipsix3]

Fantastic stuff, thanks all, yet another basic that I've been overlooking.

I can see the "improved tiles + 2 = whip" scenario being a useful little tool both for worker/improvement discipline, and to encourage me to learn more about the whip/overflow mechanics - at least in the early levels, until I learn more on the technicalities of the game.

To think I used to leave all my workers on auto and just amass wonders/buildings - needless to say, I was in Dan Quayle territory on almost any difficulty setting

Already improved a fair way from that, but still a loooong way to go. This place makes the journey much less daunting though.

 

[Gliese 581]

You can also assign citizens as specialists once you have the required buildings/civics.

 

[flipsix3]

Yeah, Specialists are something I get up and running well - but rarley until late on - which is likely to be another issue with my past strategy. I tended to work on the basis of bringing them in only after my city was working as many tiles as it could and was producting citizens.

Big learning area for me is going to be the semi-micro management of cities, and running specialists off lower populations. Seems alien to me (or used to), but I'm beginning to see the light

 

[Dirk1302]

It's often a good idea to whip away or use as specialists citizens working unimproved tiles.

Natural growth is kind of useless and hurts on maintenance too if you don't do anything with it ,take for example a grass forest, city eats the 2 food and a single hammer is all you get. I often see people growing a city to 4 because the city'll build the settler faster. If the city works 4 unimproved tiles it still takes forever to build the settler, compare to a city at 2 that works a pastured pig and an irrigated corn, here the settler's done in decent time.

There is a good reason to grow the city to 4 of course, you can now 2 pop whip whatever you're building creating 60 hammers. Or you can keep on working 2 improved tiles while assigning 2 scientists. But on top of my head these are about the only reasons to do so.

 

[vicawoo]

It's often a good idea to whip away or use as specialists citizens working unimproved tiles.

Natural growth is kind of useless and hurts on maintenance too if you don't do anything with it ,take for example a grass forest, city eats the 2 food and a single hammer is all you get. I often see people growing a city to 4 because the city'll build the settler faster. If the city works 4 unimproved tiles it still takes forever to build the settler, compare to a city at 2 that works a pastured pig and an irrigated corn, here the settler's done in decent time.

There is a good reason to grow the city to 4 of course, you can now 2 pop whip whatever you're building creating 60 hammers. Or you can keep on working 2 improved tiles while assigning 2 scientists. But on top of my head these are about the only reasons to do so.

You can always use the extra population to work riverside tiles or better yet riverside cottages, that will always offset the maintenance.

 

[Dirk1302]

But a riverside cottage is an improved tile. Of course you can grow a city on unimproved tiles in anticipation of better things. Those better things should be just around the corner tough otherwise whipping is generally much better imo.

An unimproved river tile often yields an extra hammer & commerce for instance, still not good enough to compete with 60 hammers & grow back or specialists. With unimproved floodplains it becomes a bit better still but whipping becomes better too because of quick regrow.

Mind you i presume a city with a reasonable surplus on food, if you have a city grown to 4 with lots of trouble and it has 2 unimproved goldmines (for some reason) or just 2 hills it'd be madness to whip it to give an extreme example.

 

[vicawoo]

Oh, and there's threads about whipping efficiencies, which suggests grassland forests are better than plains/hills mines.

 

[Artichoker]

There's nothing wrong with having few workers, as long as you assign them to do the right tasks to make the right improvements...

Once the workers are finished with what they are doing, they will eventually get around to building the more "marginal" tile improvements.

The hammers you save on workers can be used for more pressing needs like Barracks or Axemen.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Oh, and there's threads about whipping efficiencies, which suggests grassland forests are better than plains/hills mines.

Hi Vicawoo,

grass FARMS are better than mines until ~size 10 ... grass forests?

Cheers,

Raskolnikov

OK: got it, you were suggesting that these threads are

 

[MkLh]

Not all unimproved tiles are bad. Some forested hills give 3 hammers, equal to mine in food poor hill. A lake gives 2f&2c, equal to grassland hamlet, decent in early game.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

At what point does a plains forest overtake the whip in terms of efficiency? I know it does eventually. Same for a caste workshop (and there may be other reasons one might want to run caste), although of course depending on city specialization you can just run a specialists there instead.

If you're using few workers, lean on special tiles, specialists, and the whip. Don't neglect cottages in all cities forever, but these things can cut down on the need for more workers, or get you more workers .

Edit: I forget at what point a plains hill mine becomes more efficient than the whip, but a grassland hill mine *always* is. Of course, efficiency isn't ALWAYS the focus (aka mass troops ASAP, theoretically the last one you'd make would be whipped to save time or something).

At pop 10+ the whip is pretty costly. I'm almost certain a plains forest is better than the whip by then, but that doesn't mean you should be working it.

 

[carl corey]

There's nothing wrong with having few workers, as long as you assign them to do the right tasks to make the right improvements...

Well, there's "few workers" and then there's "your-empire-is-grounding-to-a-halt-while-everyone-sails-past-you few workers". The problem is that the first one unattended usually leads to the second one.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

@MkLh:

if not bad while unimproved... they could be great with some worker turns...

Cheers,

raskolnikov

 

[Codex]

It's often a good idea to whip away or use as specialists citizens working unimproved tiles.

Natural growth is kind of useless and hurts on maintenance too if you don't do anything with it ,take for example a grass forest, city eats the 2 food and a single hammer is all you get. I often see people growing a city to 4 because the city'll build the settler faster. If the city works 4 unimproved tiles it still takes forever to build the settler, compare to a city at 2 that works a pastured pig and an irrigated corn, here the settler's done in decent time.

There is a good reason to grow the city to 4 of course, you can now 2 pop whip whatever you're building creating 60 hammers. Or you can keep on working 2 improved tiles while assigning 2 scientists. But on top of my head these are about the only reasons to do so.

Isn't trade revenue a function of population, too? And aren't Apostolic Palace votes in part a function of population?

 

[CynicalMagician]

Floodplains for new cities are the only exception in my mind, since you're getting the extra food no matter what.