why are watermills good?

[Gorey]

other than the ubiquitis mines, farms & cottages... i really only use workshops, lumbermills, and forest preserves (the later for my national park city) for fine tuning my cities.

i'll also put up a few windmills mid-game if i see a need for them.

but watermills, i dunno. never really built many. i just dont "get it" i guess. why should i put a watermill when i could put something better like a cottage?

should it really be for river plains tiles?

 

[Gorey]

i guess i could use some watermills in state property, i could tear down some farms and put watermills instead. but.. biology will get +1 food to my farms, allowing more specialists.

but if it's commerce im after, and dont need the food.. nothing beats a cottage.

only time i really see it being beneficial is for a riverside plains tile. it will be as a good as a railroaded mine (with a levee).. will be self sustaining (state property).. and give some decent commerce. if there are a couple of them (plains watermills).. i wont need to put any workshops in my commerce city with no hills. or i could windmill the hills for the food and commerce.

 

[Ghpstage]

Another very useful feature of watermills is they can be built on ice or desert (non flood plains I mean) tiles, where cottages and farms can't be built. In SP coastal ice cities working a seafood like fish can become pretty productive late game.

 

[Gorey]

thought about it some more.

seems like windmills and watermills go hand in hand. putting the watermill down, will let you windmill the hill.

you get about the same production, but get more overall food and commerce between the two.

Seems like it works out better than having the cottage and the mine.

all necessary techs avail & Levee built:

Riverside Grass Cottage & Mine: 4F 6H 6C (8C with Free Speech)
Watermill & Windmill: 5F 5H 7C (6F with State Property)

So if im in state property.. that extra 2 food could be used to run a specialist. moreover.. if i dont pan on switching to free speech.. i actually wind up with more commerce than i did than with the cottage.

the 1 loss in hammer isn't that big of a deal in my science/commerce city this late in the game. it's already built most of what its going to build. sure i'll lose that hammer for converting to science/gold.. but being able to run another specialist negates that completely.

am i on the right track here about watermills?

i've never really stopped to give it alot of thought before until now.

my current game, i've got an all grassland science city with 4 hills and a river through it (it was jungle infested). i could replace 4 cottages with watermills , and replace the mines with windmills. i'll get 4 extra specialists... have alittle better commerce, and lose the equivalent of 1 hill, which i could mostly replace by adding one more watermill if i really wanted to, but i think i'd rather keep that mature cottage.

 

[cracked]

I think it depends upon your tactics. I tend to use them if I have a city that doesn't have a great many production tiles and only if have electricity and have no intention of using universal suffrage. Even then, they are more useful if you play with the financial trait.

From a production point of view you will get more hammers and food. But the money you get from towns on floodplains knocks the stuffing out of watermills.

Windmills are only really good if you're running environmentalism. Late game, switch to enviromentalism and spam all the hill tiles with them. Then replace some of those farms with cottages, in preparation for running a ce.

Why?

You'll be able to build power plants with less health penalties so you won't be penalised as much in terms of production. Towns will produce hammers with universal suffrage.

So, you replace two of your mines with windmills then build a town over one of your farms.

two hills with mines and one flood plain farmed will give you a maximum of:

8 production (with railroads) and six food (with biology). Six production without railroads and five food without biology.

two windmills with a cottage will give you (with environmentalism and universal suffrage and free speech):

4 production, six food and 11 commerce, increasing to 17 commerce and five production once it's a town. So you loose 3 production but gain 17 commerce.

However, without environmentalism and uni suffrage and free speech.

4 production and 11 commerce.

without electricity, replaceable parts, printing press :

2 production and six commerce.

The above example considers grasslands and grassland hills. I'm not entirely sure how this changes if the hills are railroaded but I don't think railroads improve windmill production.

As such, building windmills only makes sense once you have the technologies and civics in place to take advantage of them.

Mines and farms give an optimum resource value of 14.

windmills and town provide a optimum resource value of 27.

And as such can represent much better use of the land.

 

[Gorey]

alot of good info there.. but you kinda went off on a tangent about windmills specifically and not much about watermills.

my city doesn't have any farms built (the food resources provide all that is needed, even enough for a few specialists). it's mostly all prime jungle bannana country with a few hills. would replacing some of the riverside cottages with watermills and the hills with windmills (assuming i have the appropriate techs / civics) a decent idea?

or should i just stick with the mines and cottages?

p.s. in my original post, when i said riverside plains tiles.. i meant actual 'brown' plains.. not flood plains. anyway, it seems to me that a watermill on that 'brown' tile would eventually give you the equivalient of a grassland mine with some commerce thrown on top. if you are in state property it even becomes a self sustaining mine.

 

[sydhe]

Another very useful feature of watermills is they can be built on ice or desert (non flood plains I mean) tiles, where cottages and farms can't be built. In SP coastal ice cities working a seafood like fish can become pretty productive late game.

I hadn't realized that. It would be nice to get some production out of a desert-river tile, not to mention those cold locations with fur.

 

[Willem]

I build Watermills everywhere I can, I think they're a great improvement for any city with a river running through it. They have a nice mix of both production and commerce by the end of the game so your city ends up getting good results from both ends. Toss in a Levee and any river city can become a production powerhouse at the same time it's generating alot of commerce. Plus you can only place them on one side of a river so that still leaves the other side free for Cottages or Farms. As far as I'm concerned they're a no brainer. They're a bit weak when they first go in but by the end of the game they provide quite a bit.

 

[Willem]

Windmills are only really good if you're running environmentalism.

Windmills along a river are excellent improvements if you're playing a Financial civ, especially on a Grassland Hill. You get an extra commerce from them right off the bat and with a Grassland Hill you get enough food production that you can possibly run another Merchant specialist in that city.

 

[sydhe]

I don't build many watermills for a really stupid reason. The graphic is so inconspicuous that I keep building something over them.

 

[Crusher1]

I don't build them.

 

[cracked]

Having checked the civilopedia....

You only get the commerce boost on watermills once you get electricity. As a financial, this works out as four commerce. For typical civs this works out as three. Before that, you might as well build a forge or a town.

Windmills without electricity and enviromentalism only improve the tile by one commerce. For a windmill on a hill next to a river, this will work out as three commerce in total. the tactic you describe would work brilliantly with Elizabeth (financial, philisophical).

On plains or grasslands, you can get better production with workshops rather than watermills (late in the game, they get 1 hammer bonus with guilds and then chemistry, +1 hammer with cast system and +1 food with state property). If the city is on a river and then build towns on plains will, with uni suffrage, give you three production when on a river tile and a better resource return:

maximum of twelve for towns on plains or grassland, (add one for financial)(11 on non river tiles)
only eight without civ modifiers and levees, (add one for financial)(seven on non river tiles)
seven without tech modifiers (add one for financial) (six on non river tiles)

seven for workshops on plains or grassland, (six on non river tiles)
only five without civ modifiers and levees (on non river tile four)
a measly two without tech modifiers unless on river tile, when it's a three.
(although the improving techs come way before the ones for watermill)

nine for watermills on plains or grassland (add one for financial)
seven without civ modifiers and levees, (add one for financial)
only four without tech modifiers.

so watermills are better than forges but watermills are only better than towns if you're not going to run as u.s. or free speech (if you have electricity).

If you look at it on individual terms, towns represent the better use of land. The drawback is that towns give you neither food nor that great production, and can take a while to build up (initial resource value for cottages is three or four if on a river tile (five if financial)).

As far a windmills on plains is concerned, you'd swap the food for production when looking at plains. And building them sooner when financial isn't necessarily a bad idea of their on river tiles (they're still much more powerful in the modern era than when you first develop machinery).

I'm not seeking to criticise anyone here. But let's all be honest, Why build forges or watermills if you've got plenty of hills in the fat crosss unless you're going to run as a state property or caste system (or both) and are going all out for production (at the expense of commerce) and happy to use specialists for tech developments.

Building windmills before any of the tech modifiers is only worth it if you have loads of hills and trees and could do with the food for more towns or specialists and can build them on river tiles if you're financial.

That's not to say I don't build watermills or forges: a watermills or forges best use is for cities that lack hills or forests and wouldn't have any production but for that. And where possible i'd build watermills (unless I've got loads of food from crops and no plains/river tiles, and don't have electricity).

Please note, resource value includes all food, production and commerce. Also, if the math doesn't quite work out for individual tiles, please feel free to correct.

 

[cracked]

Now, in reply to the specific situation.

If you run as a state property and representation, then replace those towns with windmills. BUT

You won't be able to have corporations....

Your production will suffer if you don't have environmentalism unless you're content to have unhealthy people because you won't be able to build power plants or industrial plant without suffering ill health. (unless you're playing an expansionist or a leader with a health boosting unique building and have the hanging gardens to offset this).

You won't get the commerce boost from the windmills as you won't be playing as an environmentalism.

You'll absolutely have to reject environmentalism as a un proposal, otherwise all that food from the watermills will be wiped out.

In short, you would end up with less commerce, less production (or unhealthy citizens) and without corporations to boost your food, production, commerce and science values. This would not just affect this city, but every city in your civilisation.

I would replace those mine with windmills, go for environmentalism and then make sure it's powered. You'll then have the choice of running as a U.S. or representation (depends just how many specialists you have and how much excess money you have). I'd definitely run as free speech, and then it's a toss up for whatever religious civic you think best

Does this help?

 

[sydhe]

so watermills are better than forges

You mean workshops, not forges, don't you?

 

[cracked]

You mean workshops, not forges, don't you?

Of course. Silly me.

 

[Sisiutil]

Watermills are one of the best improvements for plains riverside tiles. They provide a hammer boost and a bit of commerce without sacrificing the 1F from the tile (unlike a workshop).

Windmills are a pestilence upon the face of the earth and should be replaced by mines unless the city is desperately short of food. For their measly +1F, you sacrifice hammers AND the possibility of discovering a resource in the mine that should go there.

Where I really like using watermills is for my mid- and late-game production powerhouse. I pick my city with the most riverside tiles and stock it up with watermills, workshops on the flat tiles that can't take watermills, and mines on the hills. This city inevitably gets the Ironworks. I'll use either State Property or Sid's Sushi to boost the food level of the city and run Engineer specialists once all the tiles are being worked.

Most production cities, you see, run into a food problem because mines and workshop tiles have low food output. With watermills, the food remains at its default (or, under SP, increases), ensuring you can work all the tiles.

(You can read more about the Riverside Ironworks city in my Intermediate Tactics and Gambits article. Link in my sig. )

 

[sydhe]

I play global highlands a lot, so I have to build some windmills.

 

[Willem]

I don't build them.

You should, they're a good improvement. Probably one of the best in the game, at least IMO.

 

[GoodGame]

Watermills complement a production city. An ideal city to use watermills has an s-bend river that lazily wraps around the city ( but not tightly like a fort). If the majority of the river tiles or floodplains are grassplains, then it can support working on the tiles as watermills. Even better if you get a levee. Couple that with several mined/windmilled hills and you have a nice hammer economy city. But you do have to micromanage maximum tile usage, so if there's may have to sacrifice some watermills in order to have enough food to work all the production tiles that you want.

They're slightly better than forges, before forges get a bonus, slightly useful if the city needs some short term production and you have surplus workers who can flip tiles between watermills/farms at will.

Otherwise, no I don't use them a lot as farms/cottages are more useful in most cities, city specialization is prefered for efficiency, and the small bonuses of watermills aren't really worth it in 1s and 2s per city. As a matter of timing, again, surplus workers might help get a building up quickly before converting the tiles to something more permament.