Windmills or Mines

[Ibian]

Hill cottages vs windmills:

It takes 1 biology farm to support 2 hill cottages. Assuming US/FS and towns, that gives us 4h/14c over 3 tiles.

With 2 windmills (fully upgraded under enviro) and a cottage we get 5h/15c over those same 3 tiles. And we only need to wait for half as many cottages to grow.

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Production with gold rushing, 100% gold and 25% hammer multiplier, no kremlin:

A farm and 2 towns is a total of 14.3 hammers. A town and 2 windmills is 16.25 hammers.

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In conclusion, windmills are pretty awesome IF you are running enviro. Meaning if you are healthy enjoy your cottages and your extra traderoute. If you have health issues then enviro and windmills is your answer.

 

[Gwynnja]

Food neutrality is a red herring.

When you make a statement like this, you might want to add an explanation. A red herring is generally a plot device used to fool the audience. What that has to do with windmills on grassland hills to keep the town growing (food neutrality) I have no idea.

 

[popejubal]

In conclusion, windmills are pretty awesome IF you are running enviro. Meaning if you are healthy enjoy your cottages and your extra traderoute. If you have health issues then enviro and windmills is your answer.

Windmills are pretty awesome OUTSIDE of production cities, but that has nothing to do with Environmentalism. Environmentalism is a pig of a civic and should never be chosen. It provides 2 extra citizens AT MOST (6 health translates to 2x 3 food and each citizen consumes 3 food when you are past your health cap) and it provides nothing at all for a majority of your cities most of the time.

 

[Ibian]

And we have still not looked at factories. You are obviously thinking in terms of specialists, so lets look at that.

Say we have 16 US towns and a forge in a grassland city. Factory+power is 12 extra hammers. Now lets say the pollution from those extra buildings brings us to 6 unhealth. Are 12 hammers worth the 6 beakers you lose from the specialists?

Or we could have another city with 12 towns and 4 windmills. 15 extra hammers. The more hilly your commerce towns are the more it becomes worth it.

Lets further say that every city has 6 unhealth. Is the extra health worth losing a traderoute? If the extra health allows us to run something more useful than specialists then it certainly is. Is it worth losing a traderoute for 6 more specialist beakers? Probably not.

The key here being health, which changes from game to game. In extreme cases enviro could allow us to work an additional 6 cottages, in which case it obviously is worth it. In production cities we would be able to convert 2 farms to workshops, which is an extra 12-16 hammers (they have factories regardless of any of the above).

 

[mirthadir]

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.

It is exceedingly hard to get equal production out of mills pre RP. First if you have the food surplus (say a two food city or some FP) to grow to happy/health cap (say you have only 8 health/happy resources you can manage with an early 8 city empire) the extra food is worthless; it is a non-issue farm everything and mine everything possible. Second in order to push up your health/happy cap you need to invest in buildings/garrison troops first which delays the ability to utilize the true strength of production specialization - creating units and timely wonders. 40 hammers you have dump into a garrison troop, is going to delay the break even point for total output post RP that much more. Likewise, the upkeep costs on garrison troops eat into your commerce advantage.

The beauty of mines/farms is that it is that your go to building troops sooner. Markets, grocers, etc. can to some degree be skipped which nets you the for several more timely knights. Investing current production (mines) for future production (windmills + more pop) requires a discount function. My estimate of that for most games makes it pretty steep. The potential for losing out on GL, MoM, or the AP makes for a steep discount function; on the unit side the difference between even just two more knights NOW when the AI lacks castles/pikes and later (when the AI gets them before I can sack his cap) is again a very steep discount.

You don't make to build a better city; you make to build a better empire. Every you have to put into basic city improvement is a net drag on a production city's true purpose - leveraging hammers so your other cities can make more or specialists.

Ibian: As I noted earlier that depends on your empire as a whole. You get more production/food (and save more cash) in many situations under SP. If you are running corps (particularly Sushi/Mining) forget enviro it sucks the life out of your economy. SP is just so bloody good for empires without corps and FM is just so superior if you running corps heavily that while I think there may be times where the tradeoff says go enviro (lots and lots of hills as financial, or pop whoring); most often it is inferior to and from SP or inferior for corps cost under FM.

 

[CivCorpse]

Windmills are pretty awesome OUTSIDE of production cities, but that has nothing to do with Environmentalism. Environmentalism is a pig of a civic and should never be chosen. It provides 2 extra citizens AT MOST (6 health translates to 2x 3 food and each citizen consumes 3 food when you are past your health cap) and it provides nothing at all for a majority of your cities most of the time.

I have never used enviormentalism and will defy any UN resolution asking me to switch. The added commerce from windmills is nothing compared to the increased cost for my corporations. Sids/MiningInc blow away windmills in terms of added production and food.

 

[MyOtherName]

When you make a statement like this, you might want to add an explanation. A red herring is generally a plot device used to fool the audience. What that has to do with windmills on grassland hills to keep the town growing (food neutrality) I have no idea.

Given the amount of analysis already present in this thread (and in many previous threads), I think it's fair to make this statement without a detailed explanation

But if you really need that explanation, the short answer is that whether or not some tiles are food-neutral doesn't (causally) tell you anything about how productive your city is, or how effectively you've improved your land. The topic is irrelevant to the question at hand -- in other words, a red herring.

 

[Gwynnja]

Given the amount of analysis already present in this thread (and in many previous threads), I think it's fair to make this statement without a detailed explanation

But if you really need that explanation, the short answer is that whether or not some tiles are food-neutral doesn't (causally) tell you anything about how productive your city is, or how effectively you've improved your land. The topic is irrelevant to the question at hand -- in other words, a red herring.

You're incorrectly using your metaphors. That's why your statement made no sense.

 

[Sero Sed Serio]

You're incorrectly using your metaphors. That's why your statement made no sense.

Incorrectly using metaphors!? OFF WITH HIS HEAD!

I'm a language nazi, and he used the metaphor wrong, but it was clear to me what he meant: prioritizing food neutrality over sustainable production and commerce will leave you hammer and wealth poor, albiet food neutral.

 

[Sero Sed Serio]

Given the amount of analysis already present in this thread (and in many previous threads), I think it's fair to make this statement without a detailed explanation

But if you really need that explanation, the short answer is that whether or not some tiles are food-neutral doesn't (causally) tell you anything about how productive your city is, or how effectively you've improved your land. The topic is irrelevant to the question at hand -- in other words, a red herring.

While I see where you're coming from, the term "red herring" actually suggests intent to deceive. I knew what you meant though.

This thread has been L-L-LANGUAGE JACKED.