Windmills on Hills

[SmokedSalmon]

When you have hills surrounding your city without resources to mine, do you find yourself mining the hills anyway or having lots of windmills?

 

[PhroX]

Depends.

Do I have the food to run mines?
Do I have the 'mill boosting techs?
What do I want from the city (commerce/food or production)?

 

[Bostock]

Of course. It's a long time from mining to machinery anyway, and another long time after that until replacable parts, where windmills temporarily rival mines for the first time.

Being Fin changes things a bit in favor of windmills, food-poor sites locally change things a lot, and being about to start a Golden Age when you have Replacable Parts means it's time for a windmilling spree... which might be followed by a re-mining spree once I reach Railroad.

 

[nbcman]

Depends on whether I have enough food to support the mines or whether some of them will be windmills. I'll always mine hills that did not have forests at the start of the game in case a 'hidden' resource is there (like coal or aluminum). I usually try to mine the hills because of the chance to get a minable resource to pop in them if the mine is worked. Normally I can get at least a couple of resources a game that way.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

MINES MINES MINES. The only reason I'll ever put a windmill is if I have a crap city that I plopped down for happiness resources or blocking off an enemy and there isn't enough to work tiles.

I specialize my cities way too much to be putting hybrid improvements like windmills on hills. I'll feed a city enough to work it's most beneficial tiles (usually all 20, but sometimes only 15 are really worth it) and then maximize my cities potential. Buncha plains and a few hills? Hills get mines, plains get workshops. Even my commerce cities with hills will get mines so that they at least have some production potential to build multiplier buildings and infrastructure.

I've never really seen a purpose for windmills (again, unless a city was placed for resource grab/land grab and doesn't have decent )

 

[azzaman333]

Windmills go everywhere once I'm in a position to outproduce my opponents anyway, so the higher population will help my final score.

Plus, I just like having big cities.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Nothing like a 3 liner to completely nullify my paragraph LoL

 

[azzaman333]

Nothing like a 3 liner to completely nullify my paragraph LoL

I should note that I don't build Windmills before they get the extra hammer (IIRC at Replaceable Parts) unless I'm Fin and they're riverside hills, or the city needs the food. Or I'm about to win anyway, but in that case it doesn't matter what I'm building

 

[oilnwater]

i hate windmills. the only reason i like replaceable parts is so i can lumbermill all my remaining BFC forests.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

i hate windmills. the only reason i like replaceable parts is so i can lumbermill all my remaining BFC forests.

True...it's not a rifling pre-req or anything .

Windmills come into their own pretty late usually, but that doesn't mean they should NEVER be used...just not as typically as mines.

 

[oilnwater]

^^ yeah lol but it's really the thought i have in my mind for replaceable parts unless getting my but kicked atm in a war.

"man cant wait to lumbermill everything"

maybe it's because my workers will have been sitting around for so long at that time.

 

[Iranon]

In the early-ish game it depends entirely on whether my city has a solid food surplus or not.

From Replacable Parts onwards, I tend to build few mines and windmill over many, because windmills become strong if we rely heavily on civics-boosted improvements.

Environmentalism: obvious.
State Property: Farm -> workshop and windmill -> mine both trade 1 food for 2 hammers. Windmills, however, also give commerce yields.
Universal Suffrage, Free Speech: Giving up a pimped town to feed 1 plains hill mine might or might not be worth it, making it a marginal tile. Giving up a pimped town to feed 2 plains hill windmills is definitely worth it.

However, mines get the nod if I have so much sushi that I'm running headlong into my growth caps.

 

[pfo]

Remember, sometimes, although rarely, mines will randomly turn up a resource, bronze, iron, gold, silver, gems.... The more mines you have, the more likely that some random resource will turn up.

I only build windmills if I have to keep feeding the city, otherwise it's all mines. An exception can be made for FIN w/ replaceable parts, but that's late game anyway.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

^^^Very true, and good for bringing it up. My recent games have seen 2 or 3 random resources pop up and in very nice locations. I had copper pop up in my 2nd best production city (awesome) and silver popped in my capital (too nice!) in my most recent game.

 

[Timoteo]

Remember, sometimes, although rarely, mines will randomly turn up a resource, bronze, iron, gold, silver, gems.... The more mines you have, the more likely that some random resource will turn up.

This random resource thing... is the chance for a new resource checked when the tile is first mined or is it check every turn that a mine exist on that tile?

I don't think it has every happened to me!

 

[UWHabs]

This random resource thing... is the chance for a new resource checked when the tile is first mined or is it check every turn that a mine first exist on that tile?

I don't think it has every happened to me!

I think it's every turn of a worked mine. So, mines in the middle of nowhere that a city isn't working won't pop anything, but anything you are working can pop a resource.

 

[I-imp]

If its a mostly plain city with mostly plains/hills, then id build windmills combined with biology farms. It should be enough to make an unproductive city good. And if surrounded by rivers, then levees are just win. Other than that, mostly just mines.

 

[pfo]

I've had two different games where a city suddenly popped two gems or two gold within 10 turns of each other. In both cases, I was not too pleased with those city's locations, but after that it changed everything.