Watermills and Levees

[blitzkrieg1980]

The Watermill is certainly a good use of a tile, even under less than ideal conditions. Also, note it takes awhile to build that town while a watermill can be built.

It's all about city specialization. If the city is mostly a production city, watermills are better built on those tiles. If the city is more of an economic city, put a town down. If it's your GP city, or specialist city for economy, use a farm. Also, the farm gets another food point after Biology (i think).

 

[Tirse]

Watermills work for me in:
- purely production cities (overall better benefits than workshops)
- frontline "fortress towns" (pillaging them gives little benefit, they can be rebuilt in no time)
- late game (towns take time to mature, watermills give full bonus instantly).

Early game it's usually cottages or towns on those tiles.

 

[Blaarg]

Watermills work for me in:
- purely production cities (overall better benefits than workshops)
- frontline "fortress towns" (pillaging them gives little benefit, they can be rebuilt in no time)
- late game (towns take time to mature, watermills give full bonus instantly).

Early game it's usually cottages or towns on those tiles.

Actually, those are pretty much the guidelines I use as well, except I'd add

-Non-production cities that have so little production that building all neccessary city buildings is becoming prohibitive.

 

[Crighton]

Personally I've only just started using them with great frequency, watermills are nice but I would think that in reality there'd be a point at which they'd become obsolete. I can't say I've seen many working watermill's around lately.

 

[Blaarg]

Personally I've only just started using them with great frequency, watermills are nice but I would think that in reality there'd be a point at which they'd become obsolete. I can't say I've seen many working watermill's around lately.

Good point, after electrity became widespread, what was the point. Ironically, the tech electricity improves watermills.

 

[Bushface]

Not exactly pillage: you can build something else to replace the previous improvement, but get no gold for doing so.
Edit: this was a reply to a post which seems to have disappeared . . .

 

[Stylesrj]

Grassland- Farm
Plains- Cottage
Flood Plains- Farm
Hill- Mine

That's my improvements for any tile. You might disagree, but that's how I roll with it. I only farm plains if it's a part of an irrigation chain (and the plains is the only one available at the time)

Windmills are useless on hills. I'd rather gain the production and the chance to get a cool resource. More mines, more chances, more resources, more production from Mining Inc.

 

[Venger]

Love Watermills, the key is smart placement to maximize them, as noted.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

As already noted, they are for a warlike empire, not a peaceful one. To add on to the previous point, the civic that buffs them is the one that you're supposed to use if your empire gets really fat from conquest.

 

[zenspiderz]

Good point, after electrity became widespread, what was the point. Ironically, the tech electricity improves watermills.

With electricity water mills become hydro-powerplants!

 

[TheWilltoAct]

Grassland- Farm
Plains- Cottage
Flood Plains- Farm
Hill- Mine

That's my improvements for any tile. You might disagree, but that's how I roll with it. I only farm plains if it's a part of an irrigation chain (and the plains is the only one available at the time)

Windmills are useless on hills. I'd rather gain the production and the chance to get a cool resource. More mines, more chances, more resources, more production from Mining Inc.

Hm... well first I'll say that your point about the chance of discovering a resource beneath a mine is quite interesting! I had never really factored that into my thinking... and I do agree that Mining Inc. can be awfully sweet as I am in a position to get 10+ hammers out of it in my current game

I just wanted to give windmills some props though... I used to share your opinion of them to some degree, but now I am realizing that their food benefit is awful good, and should be factored into your production equation. Food = specialists (and of course more worked tiles) and ultimately you can have your specialists be engineers, so 1 extra food could mean 1/2 an engineer or 1 hammer. The gap is closed somewhat more by the windmills ultimate generation of 2 base commerce. In my current game i got a lot of hilly land which I covered in windmills, and I am now running environmentalism... so a windmill generates a whopping 4 commerce! Now granted, environmentalism is actually pretty sucky imo... it can be quite useful for if you really need healthiness resources but if you are using it you probably have corps and you are being charged extra... so free market really competes with it strongly imo. I think adding in the National Park, while an interesting idea, really nerfed environmentalism. Now your main GP farm has basically no need for any health resources at all whatsoever o.O

Anyway I'm just ranting now (I think I'll turn this into a thread lol) but I just thought I'd flesh out the windmill idea some on this watermill thread

 

[Stylesrj]

There's a limit to how many engineers you can get. Factories and Industrial Parks and Forges, don't they give out a max of like 6 engineers? Or 7 if you count the free one? That's not really much if you can get a lot of resources by mines or conquering the enemy

 

[Blaarg]

There's a limit to how many engineers you can get. Factories and Industrial Parks and Forges, don't they give out a max of like 6 engineers? Or 7 if you count the free one? That's not really much if you can get a lot of resources by mines or conquering the enemy

1 - Forge
2 - Factory
2 - Industrial Park (not counting the free one)
4 - Ironworks

That's it, I think.

 

[Ormur]

I put watermills on every tile I possibly can. The exceptions are farms that I really need and towns in my pure commerce cities although I tend to mix my cites.

In a city that's mostly geared for production I can often do without farms because of the food bonus State Property gives to watermills and it never hurts to have some commerce too. Besides with levees watermills still generate a lot of hammers.

I even put them in my commerce cities to give them some productions without loosing too much commerce.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

erm... probably your main production city isn't going to be a gp farm o.O

So I'm pretty sure the game limit on engineers is irrelevant...

 

[Stylesrj]

Mines are more important than windmills then... if you need food, Sushi or Cereal Mills does the trick... although I get more from Cereal than Sushi because of my Pangaea maps

 

[Diamondeye]

I almost never run US anymore, Representation's +3 science per specialist is just too big to give up.

I don't really see your problem... We are talking of SP here?

 

[TheWilltoAct]

Mines are more important than windmills then... if you need food, Sushi or Cereal Mills does the trick... although I get more from Cereal than Sushi because of my Pangaea maps

If you need production Mining Inc does the trick

 

[Say_my_name]

Watermills are great for OCC games. You need production badly, and watermills can turn a city with many river tiles around into a powerhouse. A machinery slingshot can be very, very powerful in OCC, especially with a flood plain heavy start.

 

[Stylesrj]

Mining Inc. would do the trick, however you can make it even better by having mines all around so you might find a resource Mining Inc. consumes, making even more production for your cities, along with the mines.

Farms don't get that small chance of finding food you know