Workers and Water Mills

[InFlux5]

There are two early builds that I'm never quite sure about: Workers and Water Mills.

First of all, the Water Mill. It seems like the sooner I make the investment the more it will pay off, but building these as soon as they're available feels like it slows down my game quite a bit. What are your feelings on when to build Water Mills?

The more difficult question is if and when to build an early Worker. Obviously there's the possibility of stealing a Worker, but in my experience relying on a Worker steal will slow down my first Worker by quite a few turns. Putting one early in my build order allows me to get my land going faster. It seems like a lot of people don't build one at all though, relying completely on Worker steal. How about you? (This is at Emperor level, in my case.)

 

[Olodune]

I only rely on worker steal for my first worker on Deity and even then I usually build about half of them. On Immortal- I'll build one early (in the first 3-4 builds; the others being scouts and a monument).

Watermills are fine but not as good as scouts/workers/granaries/monuments/caravans/cargos/settlers/libraries/archers/lighthouses and so get delayed or put into gaps in the early build queue.

 

[Bimblecrumbs]

When time allows, always in the capital. I treat it like the windmill, which only gets built when I've built other more important buildings. I only build water mills in non-capital cities in tradition games to maximise growth, or otherwise in cities with such low food that they'll struggle past pop 10. It's probably only worth it early on, e.g. just after libraries, because 2 food and 1 hammer gives comparatively less to a city the more it grows. Does anyone build them in Medieval or later, for example?

For liberty, honour and piety openers I consider the maintenance cost and build cost too high; 120 (?) hammers and 2gpt for what is the equivalent of a non-river plains farm tile being worked.

As for the choice between a worker and a water mill, I'd always choose a worker first. Only once a city has a worker do I consider a water mill. I'd say the only building that's worse at that point in the game is the caravanasary because it's so situational.

 

[consentient]

Water Mills provide such a negligible boost compared with improved tiles that you should only really build them when there is nothing else pressing, in my view. Plus you won't always have a river.

 

[beetle]

I am fan of the Watermill and I will build it before the granary if the city does not have bonus tiles for granary (Wheat, deer, etc.), soon after granary otherwise. Sometimes it gets delays until Medieval era when it only takes a couple turns. Like other early buildings, the watermill has relatively good payoff for the hammer cost. For me, granary and watermills are a high priority for the expos, but in the cap, they are often after settlers. When building settlers, hammers are more important than apples, (but the later help).

I usually build a worker right before starting to build my first settler.

 

[Chicoutimi]

i used to build my first worker very early but lately ive found the 2 scouts oppening to be more efficient
they're not really scouts, they're worker stealer you need 2 of them and you should be more concerned about finding a target to steal workers from than finding ruins

 

[beetle]

Yes, two scouts first is very strong play. But its strong play even without the worker stealing. Worker stealing is kind of a crutch. It is very popular play.

 

[stormtrooper412]

Worker stealing saves you at best around 15 turns I'd say. Which is crucial 15 early game turns, that's an extra settler, or possibly an earlier library

 

[joncnunn]

A Water Mill provides just as much food as a Granary (if there's bonus resources near it), in addition to a hammer, which makes it a priority after I have the tech (which is after Philosophy and so my capital will have built a Worker, Monument, Granary, Library, Settler, and Shrine first)

 

[Chunkook]

Worker > Watermill all day, every day.
Reason: Improved tiles are the best resource boost you can be getting early-on, since tiles don't cost gold maintenance and are equivalent or better than granaries/watermills/markets.

Example: I started a Standard; Standard; Pangaea game with Gajah. At pop 4 with no worker and no improved tiles I'm working the best food tiles:
Fish - 2f
Flood Plains - 2f
Cotton on a FP - 2f2g
Wheat on Plains - 2f1p

Jakarta is on a flatland, FP, river, coast tile.
My output: 2 food and 5 production
Worker costs 70p, will take 14 turns.
Watermill costs 75p, will take 15 turns.

My BO: scout - scout - monument - archer
My TO: Straight to The Wheel
Ruins: 1 culture (Opened Trad cause who cares); 1 pop; 1 tech (Mining)

Now the turn is 30 and I will save here and do 1 time worker first and after that Watermill first for about 40-50 turns to see how it goes.

So, I didn't play 2 times x 40-50 turns each, cause I felt lazy, but 30 turns each save was enough:
So without going too much into detail, going watermill first, meant that I would still need to build a worker afterwards anyways, since with no workers I couldn't improve my luxes which in turn delayed my expos drastically.
The food is unnecessary, since I didn't need it during settler building, which is a good 30 turns to get a few expos out.

With a worker first, I could go straight into Settlers afterwards, which weren't delayed and had the needed happiness from the luxes to grow. I didn't build the Watermill until much later, since I needed a library too, another worker after it, and basically the WM is luxury building, which should be gotten when you don't have anything necessary to get. It did more damage than good early game.

 

[Smirk]

Don't overlook that its just a raw add to the city that does not require a worker to produce. Same with the granary these will let you work a higher production space and maintain the same growth, or just more pure growth which is so important for science games (which is mostly all of them except Domination).
Also you don't have to guard it, or have the potential to get razed by barbarians. Problem with an early worker is you have to guard it to keep it effective. I rarely ever build, and often steal 2 or more (1 from a CS, one from nearby Civ), but if barbs end up snagging some workers or settlers I try to get it from them instead.
Also, you can just buy a worker exactly when you require one.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Improved tiles are definitely better, but you should be coming up with those one way or another. I also like granary (internal routes) and library (national college) as higher priorities. I have no pause in stealing workers but sometimes you can't get enough of them that way and building them is useful.

Watermill isn't a bad structure once you have the early game priority structures and enough units. Sometimes it's hard to fit in early game though.

 

[nmp0098]

I would just add that I've seen 2 food make a difference in turns to grow, even at 30+ growth. I would recommend building a watermill as soon as possible, but I agree with others that workers are a higher priority.

 

[CraigMak]

Workers are a top priority however can be snagged for free quite easily. You should open up by going scout scout and find 1 or 2 workers that you can snatch up from CS or AI.

Watermills are usually a priority for me. Not only does it provide 2 more free food without working a tile but it also gives you another hammer. If you want more production the watermill allows you to work an extra hill without starving plus the extra hammer it gives.

Watermills are important. I make them in my cap not long after I have the tech. I make them in other cities after granaries, libraries and shrines which makes it the 4th building built in each city that has a river.

 

[Acken]

The decision is rarely between Worker and Watermill... you just reach your ideal worker number first. Watermill is more in competition with granaries if you get wheel while expanding or buildings like markets temple etc if you do it after libraries.

+1 hammer for 15H premium over a granary (if no granary ressources). That's good. 2 maintenance though.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The decision is rarely between Worker and Watermill... you just reach your ideal worker number first. Watermill is more in competition with granaries if you get wheel while expanding or buildings like markets temple etc if you do it after libraries.

+1 hammer for 15H premium over a granary (if no granary ressources). That's good. 2 maintenance though.

Does it beat out the potential faster internal trade route + building it later? I feel like granary is typically better if you want to use that. I have a hard time fitting in anything that isn't libraries pre-NC though, usually wind up just sneaking in those + granaries + units.

 

[Acken]

Well no you need the granary for the routes but say you make many cities quick they don't all need a granary and in that scenario I'd build a watermill over a granary for cities that won't send internal routes. For a 3 city NC tradition sure just make granaries first since you usually will use these cities to feed the capital. 4th city can go with watermill first though (if no granary ressources).
Now if you play Liberty with a quick 6cities expansion you should make a watermill in some cities.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Well no you need the granary for the routes but say you make many cities quick they don't all need a granary and in that scenario I'd build a watermill over a granary for cities that won't send internal routes. For a 3 city NC tradition sure just make granaries first since you usually will use these cities to feed the capital. 4th city can go with watermill first though (if no granary ressources).
Now if you play Liberty with a quick 6cities expansion you should make a watermill in some cities.

True, I can see this working better for liberty, if you can come up with the money to fund 2 gold/turn structures + units early on.

 

[Acken]

Well money will always remain a problem for liberty No garrison no monarchy no free monument/aqueducts.

 

[Solutionfinder]

Water mill - well it really is worth building where I plan to set up a guild. That`s 1 free specialist. In Captiol I build it like in medieval era. So much more important things going on in there before that. It`s simply not a priority but is always useful, especially after you get university done for the same reason as guilds

Worker - super important steal from CS, another good way is getting pyramids done for 2 additional workes and reduced speed improvement but that means you need liberty opener...The pyramids though can usually be done if you beeline masonary and have either couple of forest tiles or marble nearby. scout-> scout -> monument/shirne -> granary -> pyramids usually works with the above help from marble or chopping forests.