Workshops and Mills

[The LittleOne]

Helloww,

Yet another question, learning much by the answers i got on my othernones . Thanks a lot therefor ! Now here is another thing where I dont see the use from. As the title said : Workshops, watermills and windmills

When i look at my 20th century game, I notice everytime that I havent build a single of those, unless those conquered. All tiles are taken by Mines, cottages and farms.

Where, when and why do you guys build those improvements ?

Greets

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Windmills go on hills in a low food city to help with growth. Generally, mines are better, since they improve more and earlier.

Workshops get added to cities on flat land that need more hammers - I don't see them all that useful early - in caste or after guilds/chemistry they start to get good.

Watermills are weird. The rules for building them are weird, and they don't help a lot until electricity, but in state property, they can be very good (+1 food, +2 hammers +2 commerce)

I generally build very few watermills, though - civ rewards specialization, and watermills seem to be pretty generalized. I'll build them late in cities with rivers (obviously) that need some hammers without costing food - early, I prefer farms, cottages or workshops.

 

[Seraiel]

Hard to explain for me:

Windmills are often better than mines because 1 can be 2 or more when cities are small, therefor, Windmills give more production even with Replaceable Parts not being available.
Later, when Replaceable Parts and Electricity are available, Windmills offer more Commerce so more Gold / Research and Grassland Windmills become very valuable tiles because they're Food-neutral, plains-Windmills make Plains-Hills worth working at all, because they only eat 1 then and due to that actually increase production instead of crippling it.

Regarding Workshops and Watermills: Those become enormously powerful with the State Property Civic. A Watermill with Communism gives as much Food as a Farm without Biology. Communism is cheaper than Biology and State Property is the only real Civic to support extremely large empires that occur in Conquest games., In those games, Biology often isn't even needed because almost any unit can be destroyed by Cavalries and Spies and / or Airships.
Biology however is necessary for Sid's Sushi, one of two Corporations you definately and really want to have in a Space-race-game.

Also, Watermills, Workshops and Windmills give instant benefit while Cottages need a long time to mature, so while a full-grown-Town is something very powerful with Universal Suffrage, Universal Suffrage + Towns come very late and it would probably been possible to conquer most of the map if having gone for Farms + Mines instead.

Then, when it's already later and one has conquered most of the map again, building Cottages makes no sense because they'd need too long to grow and Workshops + the rest give instant benefit + they have become really powerful.

Basically, the earlier you win, the better Hammers are over Commerce, and the more you focus on Food + Hammers, the more Commerce you make via Conquest.

 

[enKage]

Riverside windmills are nice when playing financial civ --> it turns 1F3H1C tile into 2F1H3C tile (grasshill). After electricity and replaceble parts it grow even better. I like to have at least 1 windmiled rivertile hill before repl.parts, and after that I turn all riverside mines into windmills except cities focused only on production / units

 

[Htadus]

In a typical game, building cottages past 500 AD is just not efficient. So farms, mills and workshops are better.

Late game cities need food to grow in time to be an asset. So when you found a new city post 500 AD, you whip a granary in that city and let it grow to its happy and health max while building a forge, CH and other useful buildings (not many). Once it has reach this and still have many workable tiles then you might build some happy and health buildings. But once all the useful tiles are working and you are running specialists you may have extra food in the cities. This is the best time to convert some tiles to these mills and shops. Now you can use the hammers to build unit, wealth or research when you are making more gpt than it cost to maintain your empire.

Food cities are monsters at growth and with the use of the whip can be powerful production cities very rapidly.

 

[sinimusta]

@Htadus: I have to disagree with you in regards of growing midgame cities to happy cap at least in the context of a domination game. Sure whip a granary and maybe forge and barracks but dont wait for the city to reach happy cap. It can be like 13 but a city can be productive at size 6 via whip. The thing is, a city founded this late has little time to contribute, and a whipfarm/unit pump is fast to set up.

 

[vranasm]

some techs/civics make shops and mills really really strong, but too bad they come relatively too late and it's completely possible that you will finish your domination type of game sooner then those techs truly kick in...

If you go space, there is serious consideration between corps and state property (mills+shops spam)

you need tons of workers for this transition, but can be worthwhile in long game (we basically talk about space only...)

I think civ designers missed something important here... they could really make the improvements more interesting.

Biggest problem with them is that they either come too late, or come from bad tech path (AI prioritizes the tech path, so player is unlikely to follow) and improvement techs are deep in tech tree too.

But I always considered the shop+mills spam as fun thing to do in civ... it usually is not very proficient though and thus is rarely done in competitive game.

 

[crazyotto65]

On certain types tiles (tundra comes to mind), sometimes all you can build is a watermill...

 

[Htadus]

@Htadus: I have to disagree with you in regards of growing midgame cities to happy cap at least in the context of a domination game. Sure whip a granary and maybe forge and barracks but dont wait for the city to reach happy cap. It can be like 13 but a city can be productive at size 6 via whip. The thing is, a city founded this late has little time to contribute, and a whipfarm/unit pump is fast to set up.

I won't directly disagree with what you say. But it is dependent on many things. On some maps, it is not the units that can delay domi but tech(astro for one), the economy and production. Whip can help with the units and buildings. But it is the economic support that you need in domi game in the mid game.

A late city that can grow to its happy/health max while building wealth after essential buildings and then convert tiles for more production and in return boost economic support is much better than just whipping units. But if you do not have enough units, by all means whip or draft them from all cities.

 

[Seraiel]

I won't directly disagree with what you say. But it is dependent on many things. On some maps, it is not the units that can delay domi but tech(astro for one), the economy and production. Whip can help with the units and buildings. But it is the economic support that you need in domi game in the mid game.

A late city that can grow to its happy/health max while building wealth after essential buildings and then convert tiles for more production and in return boost economic support is much better than just whipping units. But if you do not have enough units, by all means whip or draft them from all cities.

Cottages + Courthouses in specific locations for Forbidden Palace are usually enough to reach Communism. Don't forget that really a lot of money in Conquest / Domi games comes from city-siege.

 

[Robert FIN]

Nice thread! I've probably never built watermills or adopted StateP before this !! I should focus more on my worker/improvements side of the game. Interesting discussion indeed!