When do I want to build a workshop?

[erikthecelt]

Hmmmmmmmmm???

Most answers to questions in CIV can be it depends or Hmmmmmmmmm???

Workshops are ideal for a city with ironworks where you are building the big parts. I often rip up towns and replace them with workshops to shave one or two turns off those critical parts. I have a game going right now where I am aiming for conquest, so I am building workshops on the river side tiles. I need more than I need so I build workshops. I have other cities with nothing but cottages - specializing cities is the way to improve your game.

 

[Ibian]

Happy cap, health cap, presence of extra high food tiles makes whipping more efficient even above the "cutoff" for farms vs mines. All things you are ignoring.

Show me a realistic scenario with a happy and health cap of 10 or higher where slavery makes more sense than some combination of farms and mines/workshops.

You are also ignoring the fact that your core production cities will have been built with hills (mines) in them so they won't need the workshops. Other core cities will be working cottages or specialists and will leave the production to cities better suited for it.

No, those core cities will be increasing their production with access to 3 hammer workshops. Another point in favor of dropping slavery.

Your satellite cities will be small. They need time to grow and infrastructure to be productive. Slavery helps immensely here at great hammer to food ratios. Caste system workshops are slower production for these cities and they will take longer to get up to speed under Caste System.

Build a granary and then grow. The start may be (but not necessarily) a little slowed from not being able to whip a granary, but thats only a meaningful problem on water heavy maps where you dont have room for workshops and in no way justifies weaker core production cities.

So the problem is you are taking one tiny piece of data (hammer to food ratio at population 10) and making an incorrect claim based on that while ignoring so many other factors. That would be the problem.

And i repeat, show me a realistic scenario with a happy and health cap of 10 or higher where slavery makes more sense than some combination of farms and mines/workshops.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

And i repeat, show me a realistic scenario with a happy and health cap of 10 or higher where slavery makes more sense than some combination of farms and mines/workshops.

Probably belongs in a separate thread, though.

 

[vale]

Show me a realistic scenario with a happy and health cap of 10 or higher where slavery makes more sense than some combination of farms and mines/workshops.

Oh no no no no.

You can't drag mines in with workshops.

See I get to use mines even when I'm running slavery. Its a pretty cool feature of the game.

So a production city that has enough hills? Gains nothing from workshops at this point. A commerce city that is working cottages? Gains nothing from workshops at this point. A city that is running specialists and has hills to deal with excess food? Gains nothing from caste system.

How about a newly founded or captured city. It wants to get a granary and appropriate infrastructure up asap to grow to the caps and become productive. How is it gaining from caste system? It isn't at least not relative to slavery. (Ok maybe caste can pop borders quicker but we are talking about workshops vs. slavery and I'll just say I'm creative to render that moot).

 

[Ibian]

A guilds+CS workshop is a mine. And i am calling you on trying to split hairs to avoid the point.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Very rarely is one strategy always more effective than another. Unless you're talking about rushing AI's with workers or something.

If you get ENOUGH STUPID LANDLESS ISLANDS, slavery will be better for a long, long time. A capitol with 3 tiles to work besides its city square?! Sign me up? . It had 4 seafood though. You use what you get.

You only make so many new cities though. You DO want them to become core productive cities ASAP, but if you're looking at 1-2 of these vs 7-8 "core" cities, and you see an opportunity or wish to strike an AI, it's probably time to leave slavery for the workshop hammers. At that point you'll have more workers which means these newer cities will be working improved tiles and should grow quickly anyway. You'll be wanting the hammers in core cites, either to build stuff like university/observatory most efficiently or to make units.

As you pointed out, this also depends HEAVILY on the tiles the map has available to you. If you have 5 grassland hills in your production city along with iron and enough food, what's the need for workshops? Minimal. If you're in one of those (ZOMG MASS JUNGLE RIVER) types of deals, you can't rely on the whip forever .

It's one of the reasons I like civ so much. The map variance is so great that it's improbable that 2 games will be alike, and the fact that the optimal strategy will vary adds a lot of depth to the game.

 

[vale]

A guilds+CS workshop is a mine. And i am calling you on trying to split hairs to avoid the point.

My point is that your early production cities are likely to have more than enough mines to render the ability to turn flatlands into more mines moot.

Which you seem to be ignoring.

If you don't need extra mines in your production cities, then caste workshops are essentially useless.

 

[Ibian]

If you have 5 grassland hills in your production city along with iron and enough food, what's the need for workshops? Minimal.

Whats the use for slavery in such a city? Even less than extra workshops.

 

[Ibian]

My point is that your early production cities are likely to have more than enough mines to render the ability to turn flatlands into more mines moot.

Which you seem to be ignoring.

If you don't need extra mines in your production cities, then caste workshops are essentially useless.

Show me a city with enough hills to optimize production at size 20+. It has yet to happen in any of my games.

You wont, of course, find such a city short of WBing it, and its irrelevant to the point anyway. So again, show me a situation where slavery beats guilds+CS workshops past size 10.

 

[vale]

Whats the use for slavery in such a city? Even less than extra workshops.

True. Which I already mentioned. Essentially, in the well developed core cities, it is a debate of which is better, nothing or nothing. And slaveries nothing wins there because of the potential to frontload hammers in some select situations (like whipping out caravels when optics is in etc.)

In the less developed fringe cities, what is the first thing you typically improve? (I'll give you a hint, it isn't random grassland tiles to become workshops). It is food bonuses. Which of the two civics allows you to use those food bonuses to rapidly transform the city into a core city. It is slavery. Slavery will get a granary faster, will get other infrastructure faster and will get to population 10 faster.

If your empire has no fringe cities, then sure caste workshops might be better. But many empires have fringe cities for a long time. It isn't like this is a ridiculous situation that never can happen. Wars create many fringe cities that needs lots of love before they can really help you.

 

[vale]

Show me a city with enough hills to optimize production at size 20+. It has yet to happen in any of my games.

You wont, of course, find such a city short of WBing it, and its irrelevant to the point anyway. So again, show me a situation where slavery beats guilds+CS workshops past size 10.

Size 20+ at guilds and CoL? Are you joking? How are you bypassing the health cap? How are you bypassing the happy cap (probably HR, but for instance if you are running Representation there is almost no way you will have that happy cap in any city).

And I've already answered your question repeatedly. In a single city, caste workshops may beat slavery. But over a larger empire, slavery can easily destroy caste workshops.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Whats the use for slavery in such a city? Even less than extra workshops.

It IS still relevant to vale's argument however, because the opportunity cost of running slavery vs caste system is lowered as you add more hills, meaning you can "have cake and eat it too" by working the hills and still whipping in new cities. Nevertheless, I've had plenty of experiences in games where there were NOT sufficient hills for the level of production I wanted (especially true in my warmonger middle age-to-early gunpowder troop spam games). Of course this argument ignores potentially negative slave revolt risk too. (I miss rigged low upkeep no event slavery!). It also ignores the potential of extra specialists in specific cities under caste (getting a relevant GP of your choosing quickly is certainly not an insignificant side consideration).

At some point caste overtakes slavery, faster when you have less hills. If you want production, as in serious military or infrastructure in core cities, it's probably time for caste as you start getting closer to 1000AD.

Seriously vale, it's not that hard to put up some workshops. How much room do you get to expand in your games ?

 

[vale]

How much room do you get to expand in your games ?

Well its extreme there, but a whole continent well before 700 AD in the MC save. If I had guilds it would still be clearly correct to remain in slavery there. Way too many fringe cities. And guilds isn't really that far off in that save if I wanted it. I would say I have like 6 core cities and 13 fringe cities? I don't remember the exact numbers offhand. And my core cities don't even really have enough hills. I just have too many pressing needs outside of them and no pressing production needs in the core cities.

When I go to caste it will be for the extra scientists capacity not the workshop boost.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Well its extreme there, but a whole continent well before 700 AD in the MC save. If I had guilds it would still be clearly correct to remain in slavery there. Way too many fringe cities. And guilds isn't really that far off in that save if I wanted it. I would say I have like 6 core cities and 13 fringe cities? I don't remember the exact numbers offhand. And my core cities don't even really have enough hills. I just have too many pressing needs outside of them and no pressing production needs in the core cities.

When I go to caste it will be for the extra scientists capacity not the workshop boost.

You might as well make use of workshops if you DO decide to go caste though .

Well yeah, I saw your save. The circumstances under which you managed to wipe out an entire continent are not always viable or optimal, but if I were playing your save of course I'd hold off on caste while still whipping infrastructure in new cities. I'd still go to it eventually (before emancipation is forced), after getting enough workers and basic improvements in every city to make caste superior. It's worth noting that the hills are plenty in that game also . Like you said in that game though, by the time you get everything set up for caste you may be at or near chemistry already. Not every game goes like that.

 

[Ibian]

And I've already answered your question repeatedly. In a single city, caste workshops may beat slavery. But over a larger empire, slavery can easily destroy caste workshops.

Only if you dont want some of your cities to grow big for a very long time. A size 20 commerce city with no infrastructure is more useful than a size 10 city that has whipped all the multipliers into place. For that matter, a size 15 city is more useful than the size 10 city because it will have villages or towns instead of still being stuck with cottages.

Which is another thing to consider. What is the value of a cottage? Ever since i started using slavery, my midgame research has slowed down. Recent games where i only use slavery very situationally outside of my early production cities have shown an increase in my research rate. Slavery is overrated.

 

[vale]

Only if you dont want some of your cities to grow big for a very long time. A size 20 commerce city with no infrastructure is more useful than a size 10 city that has whipped all the multipliers into place. For that matter, a size 15 city is more useful than the size 10 city because it will have villages or towns instead of still being stuck with cottages.

Where is this 20+ happy cap and health cap coming from. I don't get future tech 1-20 to start my games so I usually have some more constraint to my growth than you.

Slavery speeds the growth of small cities to their cap because their infrastructure is done quicker and from that point they can focus on growth + appropriate tiles.

If you are working caste workshops in a small city that is stunting your growth in a very real way just like whipping does in a more obvious way. But your infrastructure will take longer to complete so you will spend a lot more time stunting your growth and thus leave those fringe cities at unproductive low populations for longer.

Whipping is not something you do much of out of your developed cottage cities. I think I've already mentioned this. If you are whipping something that lets you break a health or happy cap thats good. Otherwise, it isn't worth it. Make sure you are leaving enough room for growth if you do whip out of one of those cities.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Only if you dont want some of your cities to grow big for a very long time. A size 20 commerce city with no infrastructure is more useful than a size 10 city that has whipped all the multipliers into place. For that matter, a size 15 city is more useful than the size 10 city because it will have villages or towns instead of still being stuck with cottages.

Which is another thing to consider. What is the value of a cottage? Ever since i started using slavery, my midgame research has slowed down. Recent games where i only use slavery very situationally outside of my early production cities have shown an increase in my research rate. Slavery is overrated.

It isn't, IMO. It's just mis-used. It's very relevant for early workers, the granary, etc - basically during early, heavy horizontal expansion. Also if using it for units means getting a commanding # of cities quickly, then really nothing else compares even if it's technically less "efficient".

 

[vale]

You might as well make use of workshops if you DO decide to go caste though .

I definitely will be doing so. The funny thing is I love workshops. They are about my favorite single improvement in the game. But that doesn't mean I ignore another love (slavery) just to use them in suboptimal moments.

Well yeah, I saw your save. The circumstances under which you managed to wipe out an entire continent are not always viable or optimal, but if I were playing your save of course I'd hold off on caste while still whipping infrastructure in new cities.

Yeah but the burden of proof for me was just one example. His claim was that caste + guilds + workshops is always better than slavery. That is one example (once guilds is researched) which is all I need to to disprove a claim of something always being true.

 

[Ibian]

Where is this 20+ happy cap and health cap coming from.

Set some limits if you want them, or deal with it. Your choice.

Slavery speeds the growth of small cities to their cap because their infrastructure is done quicker and from that point they can focus on growth + appropriate tiles.

And i say again, give me a scenario. Show me a specific scenario at happy/health cap 10+ where slavery is better than workshops.

If you are working caste workshops in a small city that is stunting your growth in a very real way just like whipping does in a more obvious way. But your infrastructure will take longer to complete so you will spend a lot more time stunting your growth and thus leave those fringe cities at unproductive low populations for longer.

More general statements. Again i ask for a scenario that proves your point. We have not even talked about the kind of infrastructure we want yet.

 

[Ibian]

It isn't, IMO. It's just mis-used. It's very relevant for early workers, the granary, etc - basically during early, heavy horizontal expansion. Also if using it for units means getting a commanding # of cities quickly, then really nothing else compares even if it's technically less "efficient".

Quick whipping to build an army doesnt really seem meaningful this late in the game. Maybe if you wanna dogpile someone or backstab someone who just ended a war with someone else, i guess. But this can be a dangerous gambit since it stunts your production for a while after you are done whipping, while normal production would send a constant stream of reinforcements.