Watermills?

[AfterShafter]

Tabarnak and Strategist, I'm getting the vibe from you guys that you're trying to rebalance the watermill with the intent of turning it from a situational building to a standard. I can understand why, but I'm not sure that's necessarily how it was intended.

Settling near or on rivers is already reward enough in itself - they really don't need to sweeten the pot for all that early game gold. Watermills, as they stand, have clear and multifaceted benefits (flexibility of the extra population plus a production that's just gravy - only early game building to offer both). They're also cheap, and can be built in locations that people would oftentimes settle even if watermills didn't exist.

As it stands, they're a building with no overwhelming downside except that they cost a pretty penny in maintenance. That 2 gpt is significant in the early game, and leaves the player thinking "Ok, do I want to pay that off the bat?" Sometimes they'll say no, but oftentimes (as this thread is showing us) they'll give an emphatic yes. This makes the building situational and a real choice - cost VS benefits. If you drop it to 1 maintenance, or ESPECIALLY zero, it becomes a complete no brainer, and the choice is gone - it's just always a good idea to build them.

There are already some situational early game buildings. Stables are ones you (obviously) won't be building in every city, and even not some cities with horses or cows. Several of the production oriented buildings will be no-goes either, and obviously barracks/armories are not every-city kind of buildings. Civ V places a fair bit of emphasis on selective building, unlike Civ IV, and I think the Watermill - as it is - fits well into that schema. It's a cheap to build early game building that offers both food and production (unique in this) but is offset by costing 2 gold per turn in maintenance. Take that away (which isn't wrong, but I'm not sure it's right either) and it's a building you'd be crazy not to build. For now, at least, it's a choice.

 

[Tabarnak]

Yeah i'm just throwing blind ideas to let others what they think about boosting or nerfing watermill. I sincerely think that watermills are perfect like this. Someone said maintenance can easily be paid off by working an hill with a trading post on it.

In fact, that's 1(watermill)+2(extra hill)=3 hammers over time with no maintenance(but with no extra growth). You need one more citizen though.

Watermills are perfect for riversided capitals. Landed Elite+granary+watermill is insane early on.

 

[bhavv]

More food from tiles is very helpful as France, because early Monarchy removes the happiness pressure. Deer/Hills/Camp/Granary is a 2F 3H hex, which is fantastic early game (equivalent to a pre-patch manufactory!). Mines are a great complement to more food heavy tiles, like 4F 1H from wheat/granary (which changes to 5F 1H after civil service!)

Epic amounts of Food is not very helpful, I agree. But Civ is all about maximizing F+H. Civs with less cities can do great timing attacks, which will punish a civ that expands very fast. I almost always get more food and hammers than other civs, while frequently having less cities. Concentrated hammers are also better, because then the heroic epic helps more, and national wonders are easier to get.

Wide Civs will always win Steady State analysis contests. But tall Civs get that transient advantage.

Early monarchy is far weaker than early meritocracy. Monarchy really doesnt make a lot of difference, its maybe +2-3 happiness, and very little gold. If you ask me, its a complete waste of policies to spec towards monarchy first, this seems like a very weak opening compared to Meritocracy + Manufactory.

Deer on hills are far too rare to rely on them as a valid reason for the weakness of the Granary bonus early on in the game. The granary bonus is much more useful later on when you have enough happiness to grow your cities over size 6.

If you agree that epic amounts of food is not useful, and maximising F+H is better, then you are agreeing that Watermills are more powerful than granaries (though in any city where a watermill is built, building a granary after maximises the free food bonus allowing you to work lots of production tiles without the city starving).

The question, it seems to me, is: Isn't it unfair that the Water Mill costs 2 gold? Shouldn't that be 1? As has been discussed, Granary is superior if certain resources are near.

NO! The 2 gold maintanence isnt unfair. The granary doesnt give you any free production like the watermill does.

The Granary is not superior unless you are actually working the tiles, and working food tiles with 5+ food at the start of the game is not ideal when you only have small cities and are trying to stunt your growth while you have low happiness. You take the +2 food from both the granary and watermill and use it to work as many extra hills tiles as you can, I havnt played any game where working food tiles was more advantageous in the early stage of the game than working production tiles, Cities are small, they cant grow much because you dont have Colosseums yet, and you need to be maximising production, not food in this stage. The Watermill is far more useful than the granary for getting cities built up, and both of them together is even stronger.

Seeing how easy it is to do the 4 city rex with a monument, library, watermill, granary, temple, monastery and university set up (depending on riverside + wine), I dont believe that the maintenance costs need reducing. This strategy is massively powerful and easy to run.

I also noticed how flawed the Watermill vs Granary argument is. It revolves around the assumption that you are only going to build one and not both. This assumption is wrong because in any riverside city, it is hugely powerful to build BOTH of them. If you build the Watermill first, then every building built after that will be produced faster, so Monument > Library > Watermill > Granary is more ideal than building the Granary first.

 

[Tabarnak]

If you ask me, its a complete waste of policies to spec towards monarchy first, this seems like a very weak opening compared to Meritocracy + Manufactory.

It's only 1 policy from Landed Elite. Good synergy between these 2 policies. Cities have an extra 3-4 happiness instantly and 3-4 gold per turn(in multiplayer it has a great impact because of no possible trades for gold). Manufactory is best with 1 or 2 cities. Liberty with 2 cities(1 free settler and worker let your cities to build other useful things) with a manufactory is different than 4 cities under LE with extra 12 hammers from food bonus. It implies different strategies.

4 or more cities under LE is i think better for King or lower difficulties. You can relay a lot more from trades for higher difficulties and need less hammers.

 

[bhavv]

Yea I take Monarchy after I have Meritocracy, Landed Elite and Representation if I havnt yet unlocked the Renaissance branches, but it isnt worth taking prior to those.

Though I'm actually wanting to try and find a way to reach Renaissance for secularism + freedom tree unlocks before I end up having to take Monarchy. I find the gains from Monarchy far too small in comparison to other policies.

I dont see Monarchy as being more important for any specific strategy than Merotocracy + LE are.

Though I can easily afford it when I have the four free temples with filled artist slots.

I want to try and get Meritocracy > Landed Elite > University + Specialist boosts from secularism + freedom ASAP.

Production is just so massively powerful in Civ V, I just started another Babylon game with a double Academy start, and while it techs far faster, my capital is developing far too slowly to keep up.

 

[Smote]

Early monarchy allows you to keep happy with 2 fast growing cities, or 3 cities, allowing a delayed luxury tech, and a delayed luxury improvement, which allows for worker actions to be used for creating production rather than happiness, and tech choices to be aimed at creating production rather than happiness.

I find this is be very powerful. It usually gives 3 happiness when I take it (pop 5-6). This bonus stays with you throughout the game, and can improve to +15 happiness...

I see your point about getting a manufactory w. meritocracy. However, thats 3 policies away. It takes a long time. By that time, I need Theocracy, for its additional 10+ bonus happiness.

Also, a key difference between Tradition -> Collective Rule -> LE vs Liberty -> Worker -> Meritocracy is the 15% growth. I find that adding an additional 1-5 food in cities, later in the game. This makes LE better than manufactory, even if you stay at 1-2 cities.

Another key difference is that Tradition and Collective Rule help you get LE faster than Liberty/worker helps you get meritocracy.

 

[Smote]

Production is just so massively powerful in Civ V, I just started another Babylon game with a double Academy start, and while it techs far faster, my capital is developing far too slowly to keep up.

I've learned from a previous game where I beat rifles with a horde of longswords and crossbows that hammers are king. A sizable production advantage will usually beat a sizable tech advantage.

Yes, this implies strategies that emphasize NC too early instead of production are flawed.

High production civs can always catch up on tech by building new cities + collosseums + libraries + universities and using science specialists, though war is usually the easier option.

 

[Strategist83]

I also noticed how flawed the Watermill vs Granary argument is. It revolves around the assumption that you are only going to build one and not both. This assumption is wrong because in any riverside city, it is hugely powerful to build BOTH of them. If you build the Watermill first, then every building built after that will be produced faster, so Monument > Library > Watermill > Granary is more ideal than building the Granary first.

It never is that simple. Everything in this game is situation dependent, there is no 'correct' build order. Water Mill before Granary always, you say? Watermill costs 70 hammers and produce only one - we're looking at a 70 turn timeframe to even break even over a game that will last no more than 500 turns. Simultaneously, during all these turns, you have 1 gold less. That's 1 gold per turn not going towards research agreements. Compare that to a Granary having access to two wheat resources: You lose 1 production compared to Water Mill, but gain 2 food and 1 gold.

There will be many situations where the Water Mill is both useful and a better decision than Granary, but it certainly won't always be the case.

 

[Smote]

Size 4 city: Granary + Water Mill + Landed Elite. Work 4 mines. Make 15 production. Win.

 

[grandad1982]

With the right SP (can't recall the name) a Water Mill is 2 specs, which is can be 1 with SPs and the bonus hammer as well. All for 2 Not bad IMO but maybe no so great as a very early build.