To cut down forests or not to cut down forests?

[Uniqueuponhim]

In the early game, cutting down forests can give you a significant boost to production, but as soon as you get lumbermills, and then railroads, those forests will be adding 3 shields to your production. If you cut them down, the best you can do is a workshop that adds that but takes away 1 food, or a farm which just adds 2 food, or a cottage, which once it reaches a town, will be 6 gold. For any science/gold cities, you'll definitely want to cut them down, but what about cities you want to build units in, or cities you want to build wonders in? Is it best to cut them down early for that nice boost, or keep them right until the end of the game without touching them?

 

[LabMonster]

It's no problem, I leave enough forests so a forest can spawn. I also don't build over land i want forest. Anyways mines are great.

 

[Bocelli]

Basically I plan ahead. Generally, if there is forest next to river, I will not touch it in anticipation of placing lumbermills later.

Other wise I chop 'em down, being mindfull not to eliminate forests altogether. Allways leave some, especially just beyond city work limits. The defensive bonus alone can be worth it at your civ boarder cities.

 

[André Alfenaar]

I only cut down forrests when I want to build an improvement on the square that doesn't allow forrests.

The best improvement on a grass square (in general) is a town (with Free Speech). But if your city is lacking in food to work all squares or to force the spread of fresh water a farm is better. And if your city is on a hammer low small isle you had better leave the forrest untill you could build an improved Workshop (need the necessary advances for that).

But forrests on tundra: leave them at all cost! Forrests (with Lumbermills) are the best improvement for tundra that is not adjacent to fresh water. For the latter a watermill or farm might be better.

And don't road squares you want forrests to spread to. (It won't be possible anymore for a forrest to spread a worked tile.)

 

[André Alfenaar]

Basically I plan ahead. Generally, if there is forest next to river, I will not touch it in anticipation of placing lumbermills later.

Lumbermills don't require water. And forrest besidess a river don't give the extra coin from the river. All other improvements do (except maybe Workshop). So chopping down and improving riverside forrests early on is a good tactic!

 

[Gazaridis]

Well you can't build lumbermills until replaceable parts. At that point a lumbermill forest gives +2 prod, a watermill gives +2 and the chop bonus, while workshop provides +3, chop bonus and -1 food. There is no point leaving a forest next to a river, put a watermill there instead as you get the forest chop bonus. If you have plenty of food spare in that city, build a workshop. If a forest is on a hill, just mine it. To be honest, there aren't many times where you will want to leave a forest alone. If the city has a lot of flat land, you should make it a commerce city and build loads of cottages. Your production cities should be in hilly areas, and then you will need to farm the flatlands to feed the population working the hills.

[EDIT] Just a quick note - once you have replaceable parts, a workshop gives exactly the same stats as a mined hill: -1 food and +3 production. But if you have state property the -1 food becomes +1. Also a windmill on a hill turns it into the equivalent of a forest tile, but with +1 commerce. Somthing to think about.

 

[Grogs]

[EDIT] Just a quick note - once you have replaceable parts, a workshop gives exactly the same stats as a mined hill: -1 food and +3 production. But if you have state property the -1 food becomes +1. Also a windmill on a hill turns it into the equivalent of a forest tile, but with +1 commerce. Somthing to think about.

With 'State Property' you get +1 food with a workshop/watermill. For the workshop, that makes it -1 + 1 = 0 food. It's still an awesome improvement at that point. A workshop/grassland gives 2f/3h and a watermill gives 3f/2h.

One nice thing about chopping forests is that they don't have to be in the 'fat cross' to give you the hammers. You can even chop forests outside your cultural boundaries (neutral territory - not somebody else's.) If I think I want to leave some forests for a city to work, I'll send my workers a bit farther afield in search of lumber.

 

[Gufnork]

Watermill gets +2 commerce when you develop Electricity, making it eventually superior, especially with a financial civ.

Forests are pretty much always worse than the best improvement for the square. They are better once you get railroad for that 0.4 health bonus, but that's marginal compared to the early chop bonus. Chop away.

 

[Rirse]

What I do with forests now in my game are to leave them be until I get lumbermills, then I start placing mills on the titles. If it near a forest, then I put a watermill. But a note...if you have jungles, remove ASAP! In that case, put a cottage on it.

 

[Astax]

I noble I would chop it remorselessly. However on noble I might not need the early production boost, since its so frikin easy. Then agian I wouldnt need the health bonus either probably. On higher level the health bonus is a major influence. But the map size also has a lot to do with it. On a bigger map you will end up with a larger volume of resources thereby larger variety. So your health will be ok.

Once agian its not even a discussion about lumbermills. The production value late in the game isnt on debate, its not that awsome. True in soem areas which are unussaly flat you might argue for it, but you also get stupid workshop Its pretty good for what you need later on anyway. But the discussion should be focused around the health benefits, that can cripple you in early game on higher level. Othre than that its mearely preference.

 

[ackum]

I haven't yet played on any difficulty level higher than Noble, but it seems to me the higher your difficulty rating (and correspondingly the lower your automatic city health bonus is), the more important it becomes to not cut down forests near your cities because of the health bonus it gives you. As it was, I played a game on Noble recently with an Oasis map, which features lots of jungle on the poles interspersed with forests. The forests for the most part were cancelling out the negative health bonuses I was getting from the Jungles, but like an idiot I cleared them anyway and suffered greatly because of it.

The way I've been playing it lately is to not touch forests for at least my first three cities, which I try to expand to the highest population level possible; then as I expand, I cut forests occasionally to help new cities build stuff they need like Granaries for quick population expansion or Temples for quick border expansion.

 

[Zhahz]

Forests are pretty much always worse than the best improvement for the square. They are better once you get railroad for that 0.4 health bonus, but that's marginal compared to the early chop bonus. Chop away.

I pretty much agree. Situations vary but I often chop early jumpstart my civ and continue chopping. The only place I ever build the late appearing lumbermills is on tundra tiles that would be entirely useless if chopped. I like to use watermills for their all around bonuses where possible. I pretty much only use windmills in tundra/ice hills too where food is scarce. By mid game I usually have every non-tundra tree within my cultural borders removed for the chop production.

I rarely rely on forests for production as I prefer mines. If a city has weak production I'll just focus it on cottages/commerce/research with some extra food for quicker growth, and later on those towns can give nice production via civics.

 

[spiceant]

as a warmonger forests are absolutely neceserry in their chopped form to allow you to expand fast enough so that you dont fade away on the scoreboard. if you dont chop forests almost all rivals will outproduce your military

 

[TLHeart]

Forests are pretty much always worse than the best improvement for the square. They are better once you get railroad for that 0.4 health bonus, but that's marginal compared to the early chop bonus. Chop away.

Sorry, but the health bonus begins as soon as you place your city. 3 forest squares will give you +1.2 health in your city, and can be a great advantage early to grow a city. Later as I have plenty of health bonuses for my cities, then I chop for wonders, and chop outside my city production radius. Leaving a forest next to a city can be bad, for when an enemy attacks, they will attack from the forest for the defensive bonus. Forests add another stratagy level to the game.

 

[Astax]

Sorry, but the health bonus begins as soon as you place your city. 3 forest squares will give you +1.2 health in your city, and can be a great advantage early to grow a city. Later as I have plenty of health bonuses for my cities, then I chop for wonders, and chop outside my city production radius. Leaving a forest next to a city can be bad, for when an enemy attacks, they will attack from the forest for the defensive bonus. Forests add another stratagy level to the game.

Yes of course, anyone who leaves a forested hill next to their city is a bonnified moron. Also I would say I always chop forests on hills first. Then the ones near my city.

 

[Shillen]

Well you can't build lumbermills until replaceable parts. At that point a lumbermill forest gives +2 prod, a watermill gives +2 and the chop bonus, while workshop provides +3, chop bonus and -1 food.

This is very misleading. You forget that you lose the 1 production when you chop the forest down. So a workshop is not giving +3, it's only giving +2 net. Also, early in the game the workshop only gives +1 so it only gets the shield back that you lost chopping and you lose the food also. Workshops are not substitutes for forests early in the game. Once you get to state property sure start dropping workshops over all your forests if you want.

 

[Padmewan]

This is one of the best "interesting decisions" that the Civ4 team put into the game. Chopping down a forest is essentially taking a loan out now and paying in the long term for lowered health and possibly production (depending on terrain).

One thing I didn't realize is that you don't have to WORK tile to get the heatlh benefit / penalty. I found this out when my jungle cities started stinking up even though they weren't "working" the jungle tiles. This is different, I think, than the Civ3 pop losses.

 

[Skippa]

This is one of the best "interesting decisions" that the Civ4 team put into the game. .

Yes it is. Health and hammer production square vs commmerce or mine etc. I'm still figuring this out in fact.

My philosophy in chopping is the following
1/Any special resources on a forest square (eg silks)
2/all hills with forests
3/forests outside of city radius
4/forests on grasslands

Reasons being
(1) any special resource is better than a forest once you can build the plantation etc.

(2) hills give less food but production wise are +2 hammers when mined

(3) Forests outside of city radius don't give health bonuses so the loss is minimal but the gain is alot

(4)Grasslands IMHO can be used for better (farming or cottages)

Overall I only cut down forests when I need something important such as a settler/workers or to rush a Wonder.

 

[Gazaridis]

It's not misleading at all, you just misread it Shillen. I'm not taking a forest tile as the base, Im taking a normal plains/grassland tile. The forest gives +1, the lumbermill +1, making a total of +2, as I said. As soon as you get Machinery the only reason to keep forest alongside a river is for health reasons as a watermill will give you the same +1 production and lets you have the +1 river commerce that forests don't get. As soon as lumbermills (+1 prod) become available, your watermills are automatically upgraded to +2 production, equal to a forest+lumbermill.

As for forest v workshop, if you have a large food surplus this can become worthwhile with Guilds, when workshops are +2 prod, one more than a forest. As I said in my edit, at replaceable parts a mined hill = workshop and windmill hill = lumbermill/forest (in terms of food and prod). At the start of the game you would improve your unforested tiles but there are few occasions when you would have a lumbermilled forest after replaceable parts. How many times do you put windmills on your hills in a city where you are maximising production?

 

[lawren65]

This may be obvious, but its important to keep the number of existing forests in mind when keeping forests for health. Each forest in your city radius adds 0.4 health _rounded down_.

BTW does anyone know what the game does for overlapping cities?

So chop away if you have any number but 8,5, or 3 forests in your radius.
And think long and hard before chopping away at your 5th (or 3rd) forest (and then chop multiple tiles)

Personally, I chop away but I try to keep 3 forests around until I get enough health from other sources.