Windmills or Mines

[MyOtherName]

After mines without enviro or financial, mines/farms are also better.

After... mines? I suppose you meant to say after researching both biology and railroads. However...

Unless you nab 3 out of the mill, its total production is going to be less than a mine/farm combo. Even going to enviro for the bonus cash is dicey as you forego 10% bonus on all hammers,

if you run state property, as it sounds like you're doing, windmills again become equivalent to mines in terms of production (and the commerce boost breaks the tie) as long as you aren't stuck with a food glut. Things work out this way because of the boost watermills get from state property. (And to workshops, assuming you can also run caste system)

 

[Virtual Alex]

I don't get the last example with boston with mines, and boston with windmills. In the windmill example, not only is boston size 19, but all the plains have become plains-hills. While in the mine example the city is only 13?

 

[AngryGorilla]

I don't get the last example with boston with mines, and boston with windmills. In the windmill example, not only is boston size 19, but all the plains have become plains-hills. While in the mine example the city is only 13?

Its the exact same tiles except for the improvements.

Mines mean less food and thus stagnant growth at a lower population (13 in this example). Changing all the mines into mills grants more food so it ends up at 19 population instead.

 

[JujuLautre]

I can't load the first image, so I cant' verify if indeed the tiles are the same. But I'm quite sure I saw flat plains in the first, and plains hills in the second.

That said, if the tiles of the first are the same as those of the second you're not fair. You're taking a city with very low food and claim that improvements adding food are better than those not adding food. Quite natural, is it not?
At least give some flatland so that the first is allowed to farm to get more population. Also consider biology.

edit - finally loaded it. Indeed, there is flatland in the first, and hills in the second, hard to base a comparison on that. Also, why didn't you add farms on the flat plains in the first? It's worth 4 hammers.

 

[MyOtherName]

Its the exact same tiles except for the improvements.

Nope -- they're (unirrigated) flatland plains in the first screenshot.

And, by the way, the maximal productivity from that city site uses windmills on the plains hills -- not mines. Both are equivalent in terms of hammers produced, but the windmills give extra commerce.

Why are they equivalent? The general method is to first (mentally) configure the city for maximum food production, and then trade food for hammers in the most efficient way. Maximum food = windmills on the grassland hills, nobody working the plains hills.

Adding a citizen working a plains hill windmill = -1 +2 +1 . Replacing that windmill with a mine = -1 +2 -1 . So barring other concerns, the best plan regarding the plains hills is to work windmills.

Of course, you messed things up by growing past your healthiness cap -- adding the 19th citizen meant -2 +2 +1 , which is not as efficient as replacing one of your windmills with a mine. Starve yourself down to 18 and fix that problem, and you'll find you get the same either way.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

that fact he didn't paint flatland hills and let them flatland plains is irrelevant as he doesn't work those tiles.

that being said, boston size 13 which is supposedly sub par, would reach it's size 13 in a reasonable time, while boston size 19 will reach size 19 in a bit over an eternity... Which means overall in the turns you get the to play(game has finite # of turns) boston size 13 probably would get higher production; also size 13 city is easier to manage in war then size 19 city(unless for some odd reason you'd have your globe in a 1 food source city ). Also, there's a thing called specialization: I don't want my prod. city to make 10 more commerce, I want it to put out max. hammers with min. pop.(so it can still produce same rythm at 1k war weariness without having to build in it market and such which just increase happiness without doing anything else - gold modifier in prod. city won't ever justify it's hammers.)

Post replaceable parts, it will have 37 hammers and 23 commerce! 11 more than the hills city.

and post railroad you'll only have 4 more hammers...

 

[mirthadir]

The examples shown are highly unrepresentative. Most cities have far superior food surpluses through more food resources and floodplains. Further it appears that this is noble or some such difficulty; Boston has *1* at size *19*. Prior to getting your hands on medicine, ecology, and genetics, especially given that in the shot, he has no healthy resources. Unless I had some truly contrived scenario, I'm not going to have a healthy cap of 18 pre-biology.

If you can have some massive unhealthy cap, then pre-RP mills are worth making to just get more outputs; however if assuming you are going to hit the unhealthy/unhappy caps BEFORE you work every tile, pre-RP mills are garbage. Running a rep specialist handily beats working just one more food neutral and . Given the high value of GPP at that era, running a normal spec is also superior, IMO. If you have the food to quickly grow up that large anyways - whip, whip, whip; you get a far better return than pushing the unhealthy cap.

 

[JujuLautre]

The examples shown are highly unrepresentative. Most cities have far superior food surpluses through more food resources and floodplains. Further it appears that this is noble or some such difficulty; Boston has *1* at size *19*. Prior to getting your hands on medicine, ecology, and genetics, especially given that in the shot, he has no healthy resources. Unless I had some truly contrived scenario, I'm not going to have a healthy cap of 18 pre-biology

take a look at the buildings

 

[mirthadir]

Thanks, I thought this was a remotely relevant example, not some one cheating with buildings. That is a wickedly high unhealthy cap and you have the globe.

Low food city with the globe, impossibly high health? Sorry, that's BS.

 

[Levgre]

that being said, boston size 13 which is supposedly sub par, would reach it's size 13 in a reasonable time, while boston size 19 will reach size 19 in a bit over an eternity... Which means overall in the turns you get the to play(game has finite # of turns) boston size 13 probably would get higher production; also size 13 city is easier to manage in war then size 19 city(unless for some odd reason you'd have your globe in a 1 food source city )

It took 28 (normal) turns for the hills city to reach size 12, then 39 to reach size 13.

The windmill city reached size 13 at turn 25. At turn 38 it was size 16.
44 - 17 size
53 - 18
68 - 19


As you see, as long as the surplus food stays high, the city will increase quite fast. It only took 6 turns for the windmill city to go from size 16 to 17. At that point it took a bit longer(9 turns to 18, 15 turns to 19), so you could then decide to use the extra food for specialists, or slow grow to the higher population. So it is false that using windmills means the city won't grow fast enough to even use it, assuming you have the health.

The greatest strength of windmills is helping reach the population that takes advantage of all that health, and more tiles.



18 health cap, and having enough happiness for a city that large is quite feasible (hereditary rule, anyone?). I used unrealistic buildings, for sake of quickness, but as you see there were no resources... so the happiness and healthiness caps were not unreasonable.


However, I also believe it is not uncommon for a cities food surplus to only come from 6 possible grassland farms and a corn. It was not a low food city, even if it was not incredibly high. It was able to sustain 7 hills, which is quite a lot.

But what city would you want to see? What is a "normal" city, and unhealthiness cap?

 

[SnowlyWhite]

fully agree about the buildings; didn't see why you'd put globe there, then when the next comment came, I saw you also put some health buildings for the sake of the example which is perfectly fine since it's obviously a wb city with no resources connected.

however, I still disagree about focusing, even a notch, on commerce in production cities. To me, that city, with 4 farms pre cs, one of which being a 6 corn, is an ideal city for he(since it'll be able to spit troops even pre cs at a decent rate - classical age units cost that much hammer wise). And the last thing I'd care about is commerce produced by a he city; it doesn't have to be positive(one of the few cities) simply because of the role. However, I'd care about having it at size 13(which is probably sustenable during a war with 3-4 units as garnisson given what happiness I might have around in rene) instead of having it size 19 which probably means a war in rene would require at least 9-10 police units and even then it'd be shaky. And obviously, what I'd like from such a city is crank troops even with high ww(especially since high ww means that I probably quite need them) not to net 13 more commerce which probably won't even pass through a library(those 13 commerce would barely bypass a village in capitol under bureau with academy/lib/univ.).

Warring alot, I've learnt that high pop. cities are those which start yelling after I capture 2 new cities... If it's some commerce city, I'm quite fine with it as I don't expect to have a splendid econ./research during war time... but if it's a production city, I don't find it worth the bargain. Even with sushi and such, I'm really trying to keep the prod. cities at a minimal size(as minimal as it can be with sushi) to avoid ww problems and later pollution problems(add health/happy buildings - sure, but those eat from the time the city would produce troops; you add them eventually, but the later the better - when you've already basically won the game, you can add them, take 5 and relax).

If I have a nut nearby with whom diplo. doesn't exactly work, 1 more troop now might just put me over the treshhold(or more realistically, might reach the front in time to renforce for the next declaration); 10 turns later after I built that market might be just a thad too late(and behind the front line city you ain't exactly swarming in troops )

 

[popejubal]

Mines are far better... at least until Windmills are.

Windmills make Grassland hills food neutral until you hit the health cap. If you have the happiness and health to support it and you are close to the number of citizens that your food can support, then a Windmill will probably get you more benefit most of the time in the late game.

If you still have a decent food surplus, though, then you'll need to decide what you want the city to do. If it's just a raw production city geared to pumping out as many military units or wonders as possible, then you'll probably want a mine. If you want to generate science or money with the city (or both), then a Windmill will still get you a bit of production to go with the commerce. I'm assuming you have Replaceable Parts since Windmills are fairly sucky before that.

 

[Levgre]

I'm assuming you have Replaceable Parts since Windmills are fairly sucky before that.

I think in analyzing them I've found the few niche uses for windmills before replaceable parts:

1. A little bit of production in very low food cities, by virtue of simply working hills... it is better to work a 2 F 1 H 1 C tile than a coast tile for 2 F 2 C usually, but working a grassland or plains hill would stagnate growth. The 2:1 food hammer ratio is superior to the 1:3 ratio for grassland hills, and the 0:4 ratio for plains hills.

2. Exchanging commerce for hammers in a hill heavy city which does have food. Situations where you'd want to do this are pretty rare, but they do exist. I believe I've done it in my capital before. You have more population, slightly less production, and a good amount extra commerce, so the trade off is pretty efficient. Like White said, sometimes population is a hassle, so in that case the mines would be quite preferable since you couldn't make use of that extra food anyways.

3. Building up in preparation for replaceable parts, similar to how you work cottages to build towns, you work/build windmills in anticipation of the +1 H windmills.

2 F 2 H 1 C, for grassland hills, and
1 F 3 H 1 C, for plainhills

are quite good tiles. You'll notice the first is equal to a grassland/lumbermill with +1 commerce, and the second turns a plainshill into a grassland hill mine with 1 extra commerce.

 

[CivCorpse]

Thanks, I thought this was a remotely relevant example, not some one cheating with buildings. That is a wickedly high unhealthy cap and you have the globe.

Low food city with the globe, impossibly high health? Sorry, that's BS.

I think he used the multiple UB's to simulate multiple health resources. By the time windmills reach their peak a healthy cap of 18 is not all that difficult to attain. 3 grains with a granary is 6. Aquaduct is 2. Just 2 of the calender resources with a grocer is 4. The 3 out of the 4 livestock is 3 even before a supermarket. And the 3 seafood is 3 more (not 6 since this city has no coastal access for a harbor. And 2 more for freshwater access. That is +20 health. Throw in a few more for difficulty level and 18 is not that difficult. The Globe is simply there to combat happiness issues. If your happy cap is below 20 when electricity is discovered then you have bigger concerns than windmills vs mines.

 

[CivCorpse]

fully agree about the buildings; didn't see why you'd put globe there, then when the next comment came, I saw you also put some health buildings for the sake of the example which is perfectly fine since it's obviously a wb city with no resources connected.

however, I still disagree about focusing, even a notch, on commerce in production cities. To me, that city, with 4 farms pre cs, one of which being a 6 corn, is an ideal city for he(since it'll be able to spit troops even pre cs at a decent rate - classical age units cost that much hammer wise). And the last thing I'd care about is commerce produced by a he city; it doesn't have to be positive(one of the few cities) simply because of the role. However, I'd care about having it at size 13(which is probably sustenable during a war with 3-4 units as garnisson given what happiness I might have around in rene) instead of having it size 19 which probably means a war in rene would require at least 9-10 police units and even then it'd be shaky. And obviously, what I'd like from such a city is crank troops even with high ww(especially since high ww means that I probably quite need them) not to net 13 more commerce which probably won't even pass through a library(those 13 commerce would barely bypass a village in capitol under bureau with academy/lib/univ.).

Warring alot, I've learnt that high pop. cities are those which start yelling after I capture 2 new cities... If it's some commerce city, I'm quite fine with it as I don't expect to have a splendid econ./research during war time... but if it's a production city, I don't find it worth the bargain. Even with sushi and such, I'm really trying to keep the prod. cities at a minimal size(as minimal as it can be with sushi) to avoid ww problems and later pollution problems(add health/happy buildings - sure, but those eat from the time the city would produce troops; you add them eventually, but the later the better - when you've already basically won the game, you can add them, take 5 and relax).

If I have a nut nearby with whom diplo. doesn't exactly work, 1 more troop now might just put me over the treshhold(or more realistically, might reach the front in time to renforce for the next declaration); 10 turns later after I built that market might be just a thad too late(and behind the front line city you ain't exactly swarming in troops )

All valid points except you are comparing apples and oranges. Windmills are most useful with Replacable Parts and Electricity. These are not Renn techs.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

rep. parts is as rene as it can get... and rep. parts is what gives the biggest boost to windmills

 

[Virtual Alex]

Windmills are more fun to look at than mines.

 

[mirthadir]

It took 28 (normal) turns for the hills city to reach size 12, then 39 to reach size 13.

The windmill city reached size 13 at turn 25. At turn 38 it was size 16.
44 - 17 size
53 - 18
68 - 19


As you see, as long as the surplus food stays high, the city will increase quite fast. It only took 6 turns for the windmill city to go from size 16 to 17. At that point it took a bit longer(9 turns to 18, 15 turns to 19), so you could then decide to use the extra food for specialists, or slow grow to the higher population. So it is false that using windmills means the city won't grow fast enough to even use it, assuming you have the health.

The greatest strength of windmills is helping reach the population that takes advantage of all that health, and more tiles.



18 health cap, and having enough happiness for a city that large is quite feasible (hereditary rule, anyone?). I used unrealistic buildings, for sake of quickness, but as you see there were no resources... so the happiness and healthiness caps were not unreasonable.


However, I also believe it is not uncommon for a cities food surplus to only come from 6 possible grassland farms and a corn. It was not a low food city, even if it was not incredibly high. It was able to sustain 7 hills, which is quite a lot.

But what city would you want to see? What is a "normal" city, and unhealthiness cap?

I may be biased towards deity/immortal/emp difficulties, but a "normal" production city should be one such that by the time you get to RP, you can maintain it during war with relative ease. At current count you require in the neighborhood of 10 different healthy resources to keep health under control. Doable, perhaps, but that makes it awfully easy for you to fall victim of a population death spiral due to war (and not just your own, if the AI's boats get burnt, you lose fish). I also would look for a city whose happiness garrison under HR doesn't cost enough hammers/turns to seriously crimp my ability to churn out offensive units. Even if you game the system to use chariots as your garrison, exaclty how many are you going to burn on garrison troops? Exactly how many will have to be dedicated to units? More importantly, how given the hard cap of having at most one unit produced per turn, how many units will you forgo prio to RP that could be used offensively or in garrisoning other cities? Yes you can in theory inflate the happy cap to whatever you want, but when you do so, the come from somewhere and I'll take mines paying out more now than windmills with higher garrison cost.

Normal production cities to me are ones where I have sufficient food to work all the mines/hills out to the happy (particularly if I'm running rep or PS)/health caps. This is normally a 6-10 city empire (some of last normally being marginal) and most often directly on a river.

Regarding your points:
1. Is true IFF you have have the health/happy caps to work all the tiles, the ability to generate a food suplus sufficient to grow in a reasonable timeframe, and you can get the infrastructure (grocers, markets, garrison troops, etc.) cheaper (including a time a discount) than you could by stagnating early.
2. If you want to make commerce and have the food, cottage the hill. There are cases where you have the required food surplus, but can't cottage the hill, but this is more rare.
3. Is utter garbage. Cottages suck of their own right. The only reason to work them instead of a farm is that if they are worked they will grow. Windmills do not have this restraint. Waiting to RP to windmill over mines and then to mine over windmills at RR and biology is a far superior strat in most cases.

 

[Levgre]

3. Is utter garbage. Cottages suck of their own right. The only reason to work them instead of a farm is that if they are worked they will grow. Windmills do not have this restraint. Waiting to RP to windmill over mines and then to mine over windmills at RR and biology is a far superior strat in most cases.

If you work windmills your city will grow, hence by working windmills you will be able to work more windmills, instead of starting to grow when Replaceable parts comes around. So in that way it is sort of like a cottage. You use the windmill for it's future use (more tiles from growth later) as much as it's present use.

If you actually wanted to go the windmill route, you could wait quite a long time before switching mines to windmills, although this can be limited by available workers.

But pre-RP if windmills end up giving you extra population without health issues, they can give near equal production to less hill cities with less population. So in that case you are only making a very small sacrifice in production while you wait for the +1 hammers to come about, and you are compensated for that small hammer loss by more commerce.


The issue with cottages is they only give more commerce. Windmills give more food(most important) along with their added production + commerce. So it is a matter of what you want. It's not one or the other.

One of the definite advantages of the hill city is you get to a higher hammer count quicker. If you need the city for present military production they are most definitely preferable pre-RP.

 

[MyOtherName]

Mines are far better... at least until Windmills are.

Windmills make Grassland hills food neutral until you hit the health cap.

Food neutrality is a red herring.