[BTS] Watermills vs Lumbermills

[SaintSaens_Op61]

What are the advantages/disadvantages of watermills and lumbermills? When should I build watermills, and when should I make lumbermills? Or should I stick with farms, cottages, windmills, and mines? Also, is there ever a time to build lumbermills that aren't next to a river?

Since neither watermills and lumbermills can harvest resources, this is purely a question of //.

Before someone says that I should have chopped all of my forests by replaceable parts, let's assume that there are forests from either new growth or the capture of a city that has forests nearby.

Thanks for the help!

 

[AcaMetis]

Watermills are +1 when you're running State Property, Lumbermills are +1 if you put a Railroad on them, Watermills are +2 if you have Electricity, Lumbermills are +0.5 because of the forest on them. Watermills can be build at Machinery, Lumbermills require Replaceable Parts.

The only time I'd take a Lumbermill over a Watermill is on a forested Tundra tile that cannot have any other improvement build on it (well, Forest Preserve, but I don't see that competing with a Lumbermill). If I capture more forests after Replaceable Parts comes in than that's just more work for the Workers to do as they pave my empire in Farms, Watermills, Windmills and Workshops. Why, yes, I'm a big fan of running State Property in this game .

 

[lymond]

I'd still chop the forests

First, keep in mind that these improvements come about rather late in the game and usually are only of import for Space games.

Watermills can be quite powerful especially with State Property. Allows one to balance the food in a city to the workshops, but I'd take a workshop first if I have the food to support them.

As I capture cities as the game progress, I will likely choose watermills/workshops over cottages, and will even bulldoze cottages to do so in those cities. (AIs tend to build a lot of cottages but often leave them poorly developed in many cities). Watermills/workshops play into the concept of moving more toward a hammer economy late game, so I will usually tailor captured or newly settled cities in that regard as opposed to ..say..cottage which don't have to time to pay back at that point in the game.

Lumbermills are something I just generally ignore.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

I've built lumbermills once. It allowed to build the National Park somewhere along my railroad, at the other end of the world.

 

[6K Man]

If you are talking about either/or for a particular tile, it's Watermills by a mile. Chop the forest for some instant hammers, and afterwards the Watermill produces better than the Lumbermill, anyway. State Property + Electricity makes Watermills just too good.

And for me, one of the fun things about Watermills is the way you have to plan ahead with twisty rivers, to maximize the number of Watermills you can build on that river

I'll sometimes put Lumbermills on non-irrigated Tundra Forests because the tile is useless without the forest, but received wisdom suggests you're better off taking the hammers from chopping up front and ignoring the tile afterwards. In fact, you could make the case that chopping is always better.