Windmill, watermill, workshop, lumbermill

[sakhmet]

Hey guys

I'm a mine, cottage, farm-kindda guy. I've begun thinking that I don't really use some of the improvements to the full.
The fact is that I rarely use anything other than mines, cottages and farms. I might throw a workshop or two down on a plain in one of my commerce cities lacking hills, but that's about it.
Any ideas for using the mills and shops better?

Mines, cottages and farms seem to do the trick on my emperor level, but it feels like I'm missing something.

Best regards
Jeppe, Denmark

 

[Birdman6]

I think you're not alone. I generally build as many cottages as possible, with enough farms to grow the city big and mines on the hills. I've never liked windmills because they don't provide nearly as many resources as other improvements. I sort of feel similarly about workshops.

Watermills, however, are fantastic. If you have state property (a very popular civic) and railroad, a grassland watermill gives you 3 2 3 , and a plains watermill gives you 2 3 3 .

 

[kossin]

Watermills start to shine after RP (+), SP (+) and Electricity (+). For a production city, watermill riversides are a good choice.

Workshops require Guilds (+), Chemistry (+), SP (+) and you can also boost them with Caste System (+). Basically Workshop every non riverside grasslands in your production cities food:), and plains if you can manage the food.
River sides that couldn't get a watermill should go either workshop or farm if food is needed.

Basically, it depends on the path you choose for each city. Of course a commerce city won't need watermills/workshops and is best suited with Cottages/Windmills (or mines before Electricity/RP).

 

[macmert]

I use windmills on grassland hills in order to get more food for my cities...

I use watermills on rivertiles except floodplains in order to get more hammer, since with some techs (sorry cant remember what) give bonus to hammers...

I use workshops along with caste system to get the +1 hammer bonus but I only build them on plains, with enough food on the cities they become better than mines on plains/hills... Also Workshops on GP farms are good too since some wonders or buildings need to be built...

 

[JammerUno]

They're good replacements for improvements you've put down earlier: Maybe that city doesn't need that much food post-Bio, and you can put down some workshops/watermills instead. Perhaps that commerce city doesn't need that many hammers post-US, and there's some room for windmills.

Cottages work on any level, and replacing towns with something else usually doesn't make much sense.

 

[Killroyan]

With the addition of the levee watermills have lost a lot of their power if you ask me. Even with state property and all extra technologies and a levee a watermill will net in 4F/3H/3C. A fully grown cottage with universal suffrage will net you in 3F/2H/8C. So an exchange of 1F and 1H for 5C is not bad. Plus you can run free market more easily then since cooperations are also darn powerfull in BtS.

The number of watermills I have build in BtS is like only 10% of what I did back in vanilla/warlords. Windmills I still use a lot. Either in low food cities or in my GP farm and still be able to grow to full size.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Mines, cottages and farms seem to do the trick on my emperor level, but it feels like I'm missing something.

Maybe some of what you are missing.

 

[Ultimocrat]

With the addition of the levee watermills have lost a lot of their power if you ask me. Even with state property and all extra technologies and a levee a watermill will net in 4F/3H/3C. A fully grown cottage with universal suffrage will net you in 3F/2H/8C. So an exchange of 1F and 1H for 5C is not bad.

This doesn't make any sense -- the levee gives +1H regardless of the improvement you put there. The tradeoff in vanilla was also +1F, +1H for -5C.

Plus you can run free market more easily then since cooperations are also darn powerfull in BtS.

This is the actual argument.

 

[Laurwin]

uh, what would lead to better production overall, with all of the relevant improvement techs known.
lets say we have a size 20 city with only workshops around it (like in the production evaluation article)

A free market city with sid's sushi + mining inc, versus a state property city

the key point probably is if you can get enough resources to overpower the smallish 10% hammer bonus from state property, I also have a hunch that sid's sushi will also be better and allow more engineer specialists than food bonus for workshops.

But how is the 10% bonus from state property applied? is it like on top of the final hammer count after all the jazz: factory+ plant+ forge +engineers +military academy (+ either HE or Ironworks)?

Because if so, then it might be better than Mining Inc. especially if you're short on the necessary resources. Which btw are what exactly, Iron is naturally is one of them?

 

[petey]

I generally can't be bothered with them. I do build windmills in low food cities to get them a couple extra population points and if there are some forests I haven't cut down, I'll put some lumbermills on them, but I could probably count on my hands the number of times I've actually bothered to build watermills and workshops.

By the time you get to the point in the game where you get a few additional bonuses for the tiles, you're already pretty much in a position where you're going to win or lose the game based on the empire as a whole and the slight increase you gain for these few types of tiles is marginal. It's just too much trouble to go and build over whatever you've got there for such a small result. It does give excess workers something to do instead of just fortifying them, but I've never found it worth it to micromanage things to that level and just move on with what I've got.

 

[JammerUno]

I generally can't be bothered with them. I do build windmills in low food cities to get them a couple extra population points and if there are some forests I haven't cut down, I'll put some lumbermills on them, but I could probably count on my hands the number of times I've actually bothered to build watermills and workshops.

By the time you get to the point in the game where you get a few additional bonuses for the tiles, you're already pretty much in a position where you're going to win or lose the game based on the empire as a whole and the slight increase you gain for these few types of tiles is marginal. It's just too much trouble to go and build over whatever you've got there for such a small result. It does give excess workers something to do instead of just fortifying them, but I've never found it worth it to micromanage things to that level and just move on with what I've got.

Restyling some cities to get the spaceship done 4-5 turns earlier has won some games for me. I've grabbed the I-Net in a similar way (workshops+bureau+SP). The only really useless improvement I see is forest preserves. Besides the NP, they don't do anything for me.

 

[futurehermit]

I'm kind of 'meh' on watermills, though I will build them. Windmills are obviously great if you need the food.

Workshops I love though, especially if I can get away with running caste/SP.

I always build lumbermills on non-riverside tundra forests. Lumberills are also handy in production cities for handling the health hit. If you can manage the health though, I prefer workshops.

 

[petey]

Restyling some cities to get the spaceship done 4-5 turns earlier has won some games for me. I've grabbed the I-Net in a similar way (workshops+bureau+SP). The only really useless improvement I see is forest preserves. Besides the NP, they don't do anything for me.

Ya, you go through all that trouble and get a 4-5 turn improvement on things. From time to time that makes a difference, but not really often enough to make it worth all the extra trouble of redoing the tiles, IMO.

 

[sakhmet]

I think I a bit like Petey does. I don't keep on changing improvements as the game progresses. But as JammerUno states, why shouldn't you? After all one of the best things in this game is the beginning where you settle and improve the map. With proper adjustments I might get more out of the late game, which I don't normally enjoy as much as the beginning.
Micromanagement is fun afterall.
I dont think I'm ever gonna love that lumbermill, because I usually RAPE my forests (pardon my bad language), but I might grow into loving the watermill.

 

[Killroyan]

@ultimocrat: In the older version watermills where the ways to get production going. Watermills used to have 2 hammers on floodplains and cottages only 1 when running universal suffrage. That is a 100% difference. Now with the levee a cottage can always produce 1 hammer and 2 with universal suffrage. A watermill will have 3 hammers but that is only a 50% increase then. That is why the watermills have degrated in my book. And it gets worse when you put watermills on plain tiles since then you will only have a 33% increase of hammers.

 

[Laurwin]

I think I a bit like Petey does. I don't keep on changing improvements as the game progresses. But as JammerUno states, why shouldn't you? After all one of the best things in this game is the beginning where you settle and improve the map. With proper adjustments I might get more out of the late game, which I don't normally enjoy as much as the beginning.
Micromanagement is fun afterall.
I dont think I'm ever gonna love that lumbermill, because I usually RAPE my forests (pardon my bad language), but I might grow into loving the watermill.

I think you should be able to re-plant forests just like in civ3, I mean its done in real life as well, in countries that export paper and those kind of products.

 

[wioneo]

Wouldn't a combination of Sushi and Mining Inc be better production wise than state property? I've still not gotten an engineer that late to try it, but I don't think those 2 conflict with each other. It doesn't matter how many hammer bonuses your workshops get if you can't work them.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

Food corps can feed workshops as well as SP.

 

[mirthadir]

My ideal late game economy has the following improvements for cities (excluding resource tiles); note this requires corps to provide non-maizmized inputs:

Commerce cities:
Towns on all flat land that can support them and all green hills
Windmills on all other hills

This assumes a US/FS/FM economy; most likely OR or FR as well.

Production cities:
Mines on all hills.
WSs on all flat land (particularly if I can swing caste) sans trees
Lumbermills on any terrain that still has trees
Farms as needed to optimize output

WS city:
Mass farms/windmills if I'm in caste until I hit the wall with health/happy. After that I go with watermills and then towns.
Forests get preserves if I'm banging against the happy cap, if not I tend to make the lumbermills to keep the health bonus.

GP farm (non-NP version):
Mass farms, particularly if I can go caste or stuff the globe in there.
Forest tiles that remain go to either preserves or lumbermills, again for the health benefits.


Now for much of the game this isn't the case; dropping in watermills to get a good mix of and in late acquired cities is often a good investment. Likewise I'm assuming my only concern is terminal economic performance, virtually always diplo is a bigger issue and the quicker payout for SP makes FM and the like less appealing.

 

[The Rook]

I'm kind of 'meh' on watermills, though I will build them. .

Watermills are just like farms on steroids if you are running SP and don't have Biology.

Workshops I love though, especially if I can get away with running caste/SP.

The great thing about workshop spam is it largely negates the value of US, freeing Hereditary Rule or Rep to counter Emancipation unhappiness. The only time I would contemplate running Emancipation in a workshop heavy empire is when forced to by the UN, even then I might consider the idea of defying.