Tips on Terraforming?

[TIMechaSonic]

I'll come right out and say it: I'm an idiot when it comes to terrain improvements. Maybe it stems from Civ 2, where I transformed all terrain to grasslands and filled them up with farms, or perhaps from the forest rush of Alpha Centauri... but I'm just horrible when it comes to terraforming in Civ 4.

Generally, I just mine all hills and farm all flatlands, which I've come to realize is stupid when I have cottages, watermills, windmills, lumbermills, workshops, and more at my disposal. I understand I need to utilize these in order to boost my game, but I just don't know which improvements are the best and where.

Do I farm plains and cottage grasslands? Or do I farm grasslands and cottage plains? Do I farm or watermill river tiles? Chop grassland forests? Chop plains forests? Keep them and build lumbermills? I'm just at a loss.

I understand that a lot of these decisions are situational, but is there a general pattern to follow?

 

[Finite Monkey]

You have some good questions. In short I think you are on your way to figuring it out. Try to have your cities specialize a little bit more (Production/Commerce/GP)

To really get into the nuts and bolts:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=144029

This link will explain the works.

I loved Terraforming in Civ 2 it gave you ultimate control over your landscape. Happy reading.

 

[Glinka]

Leave some forests for lumbermills. Also leave at least one undeveloped plot next to a forest, so it can "seed." If you chop everything and/or develop all land, you'll have no more forests. That can mean climate warming, and those nasty desert tiles showing up aruond a city.

 

[jerry247]

I chop it all and I've never seen climate warming, never seen the land change either.

 

[automator]

my rules of thumb (which are never followed exactly):

If the tiles along a river are floodplain, farm 1/3 of them, cottage the remaining 2/3.

If tiles along river are plains, farm.

If tiles along river are grasslands, 2/3 farm and 1/3 cottage, until after biology and watermills, then 1/6 farm, 1/6 cottage, 2/3 watermill.

Split hills evenly between mines and windmills.

Most tiles not adjacent to rivers should be cottages.

Always save at least one tile of forest per city (put in woodmill at appropriate moment).

Tiles with bonuses should always have the appropriate improvement (though in an absolute emergency, this can be modified).

I still haven't found the best place for a workshop. I suppose in your production city, especially if the production city is lucky enough to have floodplains available, some workshops could go in the appropriate tiles?

The main idea is: make sure you are developing your tiles according to what the city whos "fat X" owns those tiles will be doing. If that city isn't going to be involved in commerce or science, don't bother putting in cottages, as they won't reach potential. Likewise, if a city will be churning out research, skip the mines on hills in favor of windmills.

 

[Corbeau]

My simple strategy is to mine hills, farm plains, and cottage grassland. Works as a starting point that can then be tweaked with other improvements as needed.

Though if I've got a ton of rivers I'll watermill them all, go State Property, and build a bunch of workshops instead of farms. Then I build a massive army with that production and go stomp a neighbor or two.

 

[Amourek]

I usually just try to keep a healthy food surplus of at least +3. Then plan the rest accordingly whether you want more production or lots of coins.

 

[BigCMan]

Some important points:

1. City specialization - if you are focusing on gaining great people in a city, you want a big population (for lots of specialists). You would want more farms in this case. If you need a city to help your finances, you want more cottages (eventually towns). Obviously, growth is always important, so you need balance.

2. maximizing benefits of a piece of terrain - make improvements that make sense. Putting a cottage on a grassland is fine, but only if you don't need that grassland to grow. Oftentimes, the additional food from a grassland serves itself better as a farm, while plains work better as grounds for cottages.

3. Keep forests around! They give you health benefits. when you learn how to build lumbermills, they become especially useful. If I need a city that is big on production, I will build it around a heavily forested area to get a lot of hammers (as well as get necessary city improvements like a forge, ironworks, and factories). The health from forests will also help offset the loss from things like a forge.

4. Your improvements change in value over time. The obvious example is the working of cottages to towns. But also keep in minds that things like a watermill gain additional commerce as you progress through the game. You are by no means committed to a particular improvement for the rest of the game once you make it (exception: forests, all the more reason to keep them).

5. Know when to chop rush - forests are great for long term production, but if you really need a wonder or something, it's ok to chop them for the additional production. Just make sure that the short term benefits outweigh the longterm costs of that chop (you wouldn't want 30 hammers now to sacrifice being able to have faster production down the road).

These guidelines are pretty general, but they will help you make decisions in your games. Good luck!