Windmills or Mines

[mirthadir]

I can recall only using it when I've been having to defy UN resolution, after UN resolution to keep something more integral to my economy (i.e. Theocracy or having to keep nukes in play) or sucking up to Sitting Bull. Eventually I end having to cave on some vote so I get rid of the unhappiness (at least until those nukes I defied the UN over razed the offending city into the ground).

I have been wondering about financial civs though.

SP mines are 4.4 ; by my earlier numbers this should show that a financial hill is better off as an environmentalist windmill than a SP mine. Food is a bit more dicey. You have the potential for getting "8 " out of environmentalism if you are huge, which should negate most of the waterwheel bonus. Which then makes it a question of how many mines vs WS you plan to have. Without hills and few enough rivers, I'm wondering if environmentalism might actually come out on top ahead of FM and SP.

 

[oyzar]

Windmills are almost strictly better than mines between replacable parts and railroads. In some cities they are certanly better after as well(allowing you to work more workshops instead of farms or just more tiles). Ofc with enviromentalism and electricity very few improvements even comes close to windmills...

 

[mboettcher]

When under enviromentalism windmills are usually better. I don't think its black and white though. It entriely depends on the city. Obviously in your HE or IW city mines are better. BUt hten again what if you want the food to feed Engs and have enough hammers.... ITs all suvjective

@ Mirthadir

Its not really 4.4 this is because 4 are base hammers before bonus' and .4 are after. Now with the arguement of SP vs Env you are equalling to
In production terms this is most definately not true. It takes far fewer hammers than commerce to hurry anything. Plus one needs less health to run a SP because city sizes really only need to be closer to 20. And yes while hills can be more productive under Env, grassland and especially riverside tiles are more "productive" in terms of weapons producing ability than under env. (by this I mean a watermill produces more 'real' hammers towards a tank than a town does because of the extra food and the commerce to hammers conversion.)

 

[Scaramanga]

Windmills are good on hills by rivers for Financial civs - appropriate for the Dutch!

 

[mirthadir]

When under enviromentalism windmills are usually better. I don't think its black and white though. It entriely depends on the city. Obviously in your HE or IW city mines are better. BUt hten again what if you want the food to feed Engs and have enough hammers.... ITs all suvjective

@ Mirthadir

Its not really 4.4 this is because 4 are base hammers before bonus' and .4 are after. Now with the arguement of SP vs Env you are equalling to
In production terms this is most definately not true. It takes far fewer hammers than commerce to hurry anything. Plus one needs less health to run a SP because city sizes really only need to be closer to 20. And yes while hills can be more productive under Env, grassland and especially riverside tiles are more "productive" in terms of weapons producing ability than under env. (by this I mean a watermill produces more 'real' hammers towards a tank than a town does because of the extra food and the commerce to hammers conversion.)

Unless I have game mechanics wrong, the 10% bonus doesn't matter where you apply it. Multiplying it before or after the other multipliers shouldn't matter.

Commerce does compare to production given the mechanics of US. You can directly buy production with rush buy at a rate of 3 to 1 hammer. Given the multipliers for to it works to not being too hideously inefficient. 4 is indeed superior to 1 at making stuff. On a more indirect level, getting more and from mills means that you can devote less flatland to generating those and have those tiles swap to something better for production.

I am well aware that watermills and WS under SP own the flatland in terms of raw production. Thus there should be a function for total production (let's denote that P) that can be expressed as percent of your land area which is hills (call that h). So obvious if h = 0; the P(h) is maximized under SP; if h = 1 then P(h) is maximized under environmentalism. The question is, at what point (denoted h*) does that switch occur?

I don't know. I haven't had any games that really make it seem worthwhile. One or two tectonics maps have looked like that would be optimal for me, but I ended going for the Sids, civ, creative, and alum corps package and that meant running FM.


Things which would lower h* would be:
1. Being financial.
2. Having low health resources.
3. Having few rivers.
4. Having forest preserves.
5. Owning the Kremlin.

Of course the problem becomes, if you are going to windmill, why not just go FM instead? Late game trade routes, even if internal, are nothing at which to sneeeze. The real wild card are corps. I could handily see running cereal mills and civ jewelers as making a hilly environmentalist empire the best. Highly leveraged corps own SP on all counts, but if they use too many resources, then you should again end in FM.

 

[mboettcher]

@ Mirthadir

The 10% bonus from state property is additive I believe. So with Factory/power/forge its +110%. Not (P+100%P)*1.1 or (1.1P)*2

One more thing about commerce hurrying is that it also costs an additional 50% to hurry w/o prebuild. So it takes two turns and 3 gold per remaining hammer.

Well now your introducing corporate economy. Which of course changes everything. Personally its my favorite economy but I usually do it with mining/sushi cause its easier to get up and running is cheaper to spread and provides more pure production but the Civ/Cre/Alum combo does pay for its support costs mostly, garuntees alum, uses alum for production and gives beakers.

Now windmills probably are better on average than mines but all I'm saying is that this could change based on the city and the economic system one is running.

Also FM isn't the only option for CorpE. I personally think that Merc is best because I use corps to vassalize enemies, suck them dry of resources and economically exploit them corps w/o actually having to improve, support and rebuild their annoying cities late game. Instead I get most of the wealth for 10% of the time and work. Plus merc keeps away those annoying foreign corps in both your own and your vassals cities. Plus you still get trade routes with vassals.

Unfortunately the health crisis of large cities at this point the game usually forces me into env anyway where, yes, I usually run Windmills even though I get most of my production from hammers and not hurrying.

 

[Ibian]

Yeah, that makes sense. I don't think I have ever actually used Environmentalism.

Why not?

8, 9, 10... do spaces count as characters?

 

[MyOtherName]

Windmills win if you are in a golden age, otherwise mines.

Except for all those other times when windmills win. For example, when you have replaceable parts and are either running state property or are lacking one of railroads and biology.

Why? Because in that case, watermills are either better than or equal to mines in how well they can improve your production. So you should prefer windmills for your food generation.

Of course, when workshops are involved in the consideration, there are a lot more variables.

 

[EweezE]

You have no chance of popping a resource with a windmill. After electricity I usually windmill over every mine WITHIN REASON for more commerce and to run an extra specialist or two. You only lose 1 hammer but gain extra commerce and food. If you are a Financial leader, windmills can really boost commerce. Forges and Factories will multiply hammers nicely, so you won't miss that 1 extra hammer too much. Work those mines before electricity though for the chance to pop a resource! I popped Gems and Coal last game!

 

[Iranon]

Environmental windmills are one of the best improvements in the game. Even when only using the food to support half an engineer without Representation (horribly inefficient!), they effectively net 24 compared to the mine's 3. One hammer generally isn't worth more than 2 coins.

Unfortunately, Environmentalism is rarely the right civic for me. When using corporations, Free Market is hard to top. Otherwise, my empire is probably large enough that I gain more from State Property.
Since I tend to settle tightly, the caps are rarely enough of an issue to tip the balance in favour of Environmentalism.

 

[mirthadir]

@ Mirthadir

The 10% bonus from state property is additive I believe. So with Factory/power/forge its +110%. Not (P+100%P)*1.1 or (1.1P)*2

One more thing about commerce hurrying is that it also costs an additional 50% to hurry w/o prebuild. So it takes two turns and 3 gold per remaining hammer.

Well now your introducing corporate economy. Which of course changes everything. Personally its my favorite economy but I usually do it with mining/sushi cause its easier to get up and running is cheaper to spread and provides more pure production but the Civ/Cre/Alum combo does pay for its support costs mostly, garuntees alum, uses alum for production and gives beakers.

Now windmills probably are better on average than mines but all I'm saying is that this could change based on the city and the economic system one is running.

Also FM isn't the only option for CorpE. I personally think that Merc is best because I use corps to vassalize enemies, suck them dry of resources and economically exploit them corps w/o actually having to improve, support and rebuild their annoying cities late game. Instead I get most of the wealth for 10% of the time and work. Plus merc keeps away those annoying foreign corps in both your own and your vassals cities. Plus you still get trade routes with vassals.

Unfortunately the health crisis of large cities at this point the game usually forces me into env anyway where, yes, I usually run Windmills even though I get most of my production from hammers and not hurrying.

Actually I'd go the other way around, mines are superior to windmills in most circumstances. Before RP, windmills suck in comparison to mines/farms. After mines without enviro or financial, mines/farms are also better. 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, including those arising from dikes, resources, and towns.

Regarding corps. Mining/Sushi is by far the best combo in most of my games. Cereal is more cost effective, ethanol is only good if you miss both of the food ones or you lack oil. The alum/civ/creative is simply an inferior alternative to Mining. However given the penalty to corps under enviro, I'm thinking that Cereal, Alum, Civ, Creative would make enviro more palatable than mining/sushi.

Regarding merc. Merc is pretty much inferior across the board once you start running corps heavily. You lose a trade route, you pay 25% more in corp upkeep, and the specialist is of declining value later in the game. I often find I can buy enough seafood in gpt I save on corp upkeep to run another specialist or 4. No foreign corp spread is nice, but the cost benefit just isn't there.

 

[Levgre]

Windmills are the only way to get extra food out of hills or otherwise non arable land.

This means, that assuming you aren't beyond your health limit, windmills are almost always superior to mines, because food = more tiles worked = more hammers and commerce.

Then, later on, they are also a very efficient trade-off for commerce versus hammers, even if using them does not end up helping your health limit.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

the prob. with enviro. is that, as usual since this game started, it's a very crappy civic.

25% more on corps. can run you dry fast; and if you have no corps., sp beats enviro. by a... by many miles.

and before you start with the un, un it's in a city, a city can be razed... it's usually rather easy. That provided you fail to get chairman, case in which you just don't propose the resolution and live happily ever after.

 

[mirthadir]

Windmills are the only way to get extra food out of hills or otherwise non arable land.

This means, that assuming you aren't beyond your health limit, windmills are almost always superior to mines, because food = more tiles worked = more hammers and commerce.

Then, later on, they are also a very efficient trade-off for commerce versus hammers, even if using them does not end up helping your health limit.

A pre RP windmill is +1 , congrats you've just converted your hill into a brown farm. Rather than growing if that is my best tile to work, I will almost invariably work a specialist. This means I get a better -> conversion from whipping. Early in the game I try not to settle in locations where I can't have substantial for surpluses (those can be backfilled later). Even worse, if I'm at the healthy/happy cap I actually get less from more food; the value of GPP has not dropped down yet.

Late game I'd normally rather run fewer windmills and more watermills/biology farms for production (windmilling over the mines in commerce cities only after I have all my desired infrastructure, unless I decide I need lots of crappy military production).

SN:
That depends. If the guy who built the UN is your friendly buddy who doesn't have WFYABTA can you afford to raze his cap just to off the UN? Likewise if you have key co-religionist holding a long border so you buy nukes and them steam roll the other direction, is it really worth pissing them off for all time and having to fight the one AI civ with SDI?

While I don't use enviro much, I do think it works reasonably well for pop whoring and as noted enough hills make it better than SP, eventually.

 

[Levgre]

A pre RP windmill is +1 , congrats you've just converted your hill into a brown farm. Rather than growing if that is my best tile to work, I will almost invariably work a specialist. This means I get a better -> conversion from whipping. Early in the game I try not to settle in locations where I can't have substantial for surpluses (those can be backfilled later). Even worse, if I'm at the healthy/happy cap I actually get less from more food; the value of GPP has not dropped down yet.

Several points:

GPP are useless in cities that will never pop a great person. Less than half of my cities usually pop a GP because some go at such a fast rate. So you are then running a specialist for the flat bonuses it gets. +2 hammers from an engineer, assuming you don't have representation.

You run your engineer in your smaller cities, I'll run my plains hill windmill (1 F, 3 H, 1 C, even pre replaceable parts, 1 F 2 H 1 C is better in some cities instead of 0 F 4 H) along with half of another tile provided for, which you can add to the effective output of the windmill.
I think people underestimate the effect of one commerce. It is small, but it adds up. You can't ignore it when determining the value of windmills.

And at a certain point you will most likely leave slavery. This increases the value of having many tiles worked.

Late game I'd normally rather run fewer windmills and more watermills/biology farms for production (windmilling over the mines in commerce cities only after I have all my desired infrastructure, unless I decide I need lots of crappy military production).

Farms are inefficient when it comes to maximizing a cities raw output, meaning base commerce + hammers. This is because with more farms you reach the health limit quicker, at which point the only output you get from working each 4 food farm is one food (2 food to sustain the farm, 1 food for sickness, equals 1 extra).

The only cases where I would usually spam farms like that is when I am trying to build more specialists(either in representation, or GP farm), or if I am focusing on production(through hills or increased slavery rate)... or increasing votes.

Also, consider the case when you don't have access to fresh water or rivers, and don't want to chain-irrigate over pre-existing improvements. In that case you can't utilize your farm/watermill strategy. Regardless, it is a somewhat manufactured conflict, as watermills and farms don't utilize the same tiles. They can't be built on hills.

You may think any city that can't build farms/watermills is useless, but a size 10 city with lots of hills, sustaining steady growth through windmills, is a useful addition to an empire imo. The windmills can be used in a coastal city with little production or surplus food... even a 2 F 1 H 1 C tile (pre Replaceable parts grassland windmill) is a useful addition to an otherwise coastal/barren city.



Windmills are the absolute only source of extra food for hills. I think the value of them can largely be summed up with that fact.

 

[Levgre]

Here are some screenshots of various cities you could choose to have, all are cities pre-replaceable parts.

All coastal worked... this comes out to 27 commerce, 4 production.

Hills maximized, comes out to 19 commerce, 10 production.

Here is a city that maxes windmills, so that means it uses 2 plains ones.

It comes out to 18 commerce, 11 production. 1 more production than the hills city(pre replaceable parts! After replaceable parts it would be +6 hammers)

Here is a city that maximizes population and windmills, only using the grassland hills. 24 commerce, 7 production. 3 less production than the hills city, but 5 more commerce. 5 more commerce, and equal production after RP.

Add hammers from replaceable parts, commerce from electricity, and hammers from railroads, and you'll see that the grassland windmills come out on top, and the plains windmills come out top over plains mines throughout arguably, since the plains hill is so much less efficient (one plains hill, or 2 grassland hills, or 2 plainshills windmills? Easy choice imo).

Also note that the cities went over the health cap in these cases, due to all the available food from the sea. This means that the last 2 tiles with the windmills were -1 food efficient. If the health cap was not reached and the windmills gave otherwise unavailable food, they'd have had even more of an edge over the hills.

 

[DaveMcW]

Why are you working sea tiles in an unhealthy city?

Put the citizens to work on the hills and let the fishers starve to death.

 

[Levgre]

Well, I guess you would if you wanted to put emphasis on commerce, getting 9 more than the hill cities.

Of course, with only 4 production (which is crippling) that is not a good idea. But if it had a higher hammer count the commerce could be arguably worthwhile.

Mostly I just made it for comparison. I would do the hills or windmills in my cities (hills/slaving earlier on for quick production of some buildings, then windmills to maximize population and production when getting to replaceable parts and/or non-slavery). I would probably only bother with pre-RP windmills if there was no other source of food, just as much to increase the future potential once RP was reached, as to increase the output before RP.

 

[Levgre]

Now, here is the case where the windmill truly shines... when they are being built in a city that is not hampered by unhealthiness, and a city that has plentiful hills and not a ton of grassland to farm.

Here is the city which built mines and farms.

It has 26 hammers and 10 commerce.



Here is the city built with farms and windmills, pre replaceable parts.

It has 24 hammers and 23 commerce. 2 less hammers and 13 more commerce. Post replaceable parts, it will have 37 hammers and 23 commerce! 11 more than the hills city.



Once biology came, you would have 6 additional food, so you could easily change 6 of the windmills back to mines, and keep the extra tiles still being given by the windmills.

 

[Ibian]

Nobody has mentioned factories yet.

The way i see it, there is a choice between using factories+enviro, or not using them and not using enviro. The question then becomes, do the extra hammers make up for the loss of a traderoute and the higher corp cost?

Im too lazy to run the numbers, just throwing it out there.