Workshops, Watermills, or Windmills?

[riapopia]

So, I've been playing for a while and can usually win on Monarch now. That said, I play a fairly predictable style - lots of cottage spamming to overwhelm the AI through my economy.

My question is on tile improvements. I typically cottage all grassland or floodplains; mine all hills; and build whatever farm/camp/plantation/pasture improvements are neccasary to extract resources where available. In particular I try to cottage as *early* as possible to get them to Town quickly.

I've obviously seen the Workshop/Watermill/Windmill/Lumber options but they always seemed lame and dependent on future technologies. My question is (finally!)...do people really use these improvements? Do you use them a lot or just in very niche situations? Do you wait until you have the right techs to make them worth it? I just can't see waiting till the end of the game, tearing down a town, just to build a Workshop. But perhaps I'm missing the point of these improvements or just not thinking about it correctly.

Any advice would be appreciated,

 

[futurehermit]

I only use lumbermills on tundra forests.

I use windmills on hills in commerce cities or when the extra food is necessary to get the city to max out in population.

Watermills can be very good in riverside production cities, especially under state property where the extra food can help you work more mines. I don't use them a lot though.

Workshops are very good, especially under state property. I've had some extremely powerful IW cities that were predominantly grassland workshops (like 18ish workshops with 2ish food tiles). At size 20 these kind of cities are production monsters under state property. If you are not running state property workshops are slightly less powerful, but are still a handy addition to production cities, especially if you have one of the food corps offsetting the food loss introduced by workshops.

In general you don't want cottages in your production cities so that is where these other improvements really shine (although windmills are more for commerce cities that have hills and not tons of food).

 

[markiz2001]

i don't use them. you can always transform food into production with slavery.

i only use windmills where there isn't much food and to make the tile self-sufficient or semi self-sufficient. a mine is great but you need lots of food in other tiles to support it, i find that the governor usually picks the windmills to work more and the mines less.

 

[Killroyan]

I use watermills a lot when I am financial. Flood plain with 4 food, 2 hammers and 4 commerce, not much that can beat that.

Windmills I also use a lot in food poor cities. Grassland hills just became grassland elephants with 2f/2h/2c again a good tile.

Workshops I use very little. In BtS they have improved this a lot with state property but in warlords I still think it is meh.

 

[seizer]

I use workshops instead of towns when I can get a better multiplier on hammers than on beakers, or when I'm in an expansion phase in the modern times. Windmills and watermills are generally always useful.

 

[Morgrad]

I use all of them situationally. In very production-poor cities where I don't chop a forest or two to keep the hammers, it will end up with lumbermills. River/grassland production cities are MONSTERS - they make farm/mine production cities look like crap - so for those I obviously use watermills and workshops.

Typically a riverside production city will be one of those all-farm cities you capture from the AI - I certainly don't want to replace mature towns in my core cities, but the AI unfailingly provide you with at least one riverside all-farm city that you can change to suit your needs.

Riverside, 2 bananas, and a ton of watermills and workshops = amazingly good Ironworks city - even better under state property.

 

[xanadux]

It depends what you want from the city. If you need more production, workshops and watermills are great. Lumbermills are nice with railroad when you need the health from forests.

Most of the time, I leave plains forests around for lumbermills unless chopping the forest is vital, or I have enough food for cottaged plains in a commerce city. By the time plains make decent workshops, good lumbermills aren't far away anyway.

Even without SP, workshops are a nice improvement after chemistry. With SP they are IMO one of the very best improvements in the game.

 

[UncleJJ]

It is partly because you are playing with a CE that you find workshops less useful. It is obviously less attractive to replace a town with a workshop than a farm after investing many turns developing it. But if you play a SE most of your grasslands will start out as farms, instead of cottages, and you'll use the whip to speed up production in the early game. Then after researching guilds and chemistry, makes workshops better and / or you adopt the caste system (losing the whip) some of those farms are turned into workshops to increase production. Later any riverside tiles can be turned into watermills instead of workshops or farms.

When playing a SE or Hybrid style of game I often have several workers turning farms to workshops or watermills and occasionally back to farms depending on the use for the city. Mines are also transformed into windmills at this stage too. Golden Ages make watermills and windmills, extra usefull while farms get no benefit during a GA so sometimes I convert a few extra farms and mines before starting one. State property makes workshops and watermills extremely potent for a SE in the late game.

 

[Elrohir]

So, I've been playing for a while and can usually win on Monarch now. That said, I play a fairly predictable style - lots of cottage spamming to overwhelm the AI through my economy.

My question is on tile improvements. I typically cottage all grassland or floodplains; mine all hills; and build whatever farm/camp/plantation/pasture improvements are neccasary to extract resources where available. In particular I try to cottage as *early* as possible to get them to Town quickly.

I've obviously seen the Workshop/Watermill/Windmill/Lumber options but they always seemed lame and dependent on future technologies. My question is (finally!)...do people really use these improvements? Do you use them a lot or just in very niche situations? Do you wait until you have the right techs to make them worth it? I just can't see waiting till the end of the game, tearing down a town, just to build a Workshop. But perhaps I'm missing the point of these improvements or just not thinking about it correctly.

Any advice would be appreciated,

I use workshops and watermills a fair amount, but windmills only rarely.

It really depends on what you want your city to do, though. If it's a commerce city, then it doesn't need much production, and a hill or two is fine. Enough to get a library built early on, and you're good. But you can't build enough units to protect your empire with just cities like that, you need dedicated production cities. Early on this means lots and lots of hills and farms. Workshops, watermills, and yes lumbermills come in late in the game, but they're very powerful.

Workshops and watermills are very powerful with state property, but much less so without it. If you've already got plenty of food and production and you just need more commerce, then forget it, for for free market. But if you need lots of production in the modern age, state property and workshops and watermills are the way to go - use all that extra food to run engineers, and you'll be able to pretty quickly made some production monsters.

To put things simply, if you need more production late in the game than you can get with just mines, workshops and watermills are vital. Sorry, I tend to get a bit verbose....

Lumbermills are good, because they're the same as workshops not under state property, (not quite as good with it) and they provide health, which is necessary when you first get your factories and coal plants online, especially if you're also building an ironworks in your main production city. Generally, though, I cut down most of the trees as I need the tiles for the things that I need - cottages, farms, workshops, whatever. BUT, if you didn't need to chop them for emergency hammers or get rid of them so you could use that tile for something more important, then lumbermills aren't so bad, especially in your ironworks city until you can get some of the later health buildings up and running.

Windmills are only really useful when you need to stabilize food output by adding just one food. Generally I favor mining the hills because I usually have plenty of commerce, and I'm light on production. There are some cases where windmills are a good option, but usually they kind of suck.

(I play on Emperor, by the way. Win some of the time, even. )

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Windmills are OK for filler cities - those that don't have food specials to support working mines or cottages on hills. They are able to cover their costs and contribute to the economy. But they aren't something you build your strategy around. An all windmill city is so-so.

Watermills are great. I try to site my long term production cities on rivers always now. Start with farms and whipping and then shift to watermills late game for extra production once they get two hammers. You can run them with or without State Property. But the main reason for not running State Property is corporations. If you can get Sids Sushi then you can turn all your farms to watermills and still support your mines. If you get mining Inc then you get extra hammers anyway. If you can't get either or you are trying for domination you run State Property and still turn your farms into watermills.

Workshops I will only use under State Property. If I am going to run State Property then they are awesome for production cities. Simply work out how much food you need to work all tiles and convert farms to workshops until all the food is used.

Lumbermills are great - I like to save grassland forests around production cities if I can. Two grassland forests with lumbermills and railroads produce 6 hammers and one health. Thats as good as State Property workshops (without caste system) and you can still run corporations. The health bonus is great as the late game production buildings add a lot of unhealth and the techs that save you often techs you leave until quite late.

 

[riapopia]

I think there are two issues-

1. I do run a CE so cottages tend to be important.
2. I am pretty focused on the early/mid game as I am usually clearly ahead by the end game. So I use mined hills comfortably for production in most situations.

I'm going to try and play out the end game to take advantage of your suggestions. Thanks all for your help!

 

[MyOtherName]

I think there are two issues-

1. I do run a CE so cottages tend to be important.
2. I am pretty focused on the early/mid game as I am usually clearly ahead by the end game. So I use mined hills comfortably for production in most situations.

I'm going to try and play out the end game to take advantage of your suggestions. Thanks all for your help!

When you get replacable parts, things become very interesting. Look at the improvements you have available:

Net +1 improvements:
Farm: +1 food
Workshop: -1 food +2 hammers

Net +2 improvements:
Watermill: +2 hammers
Windmill: +1 food +1 hammer +1 commerce

Suppose you have some farms and mines in your production city. After replacable parts, you have the counterinutitive situation that you should use your hills for food and your flatland for production! Observe

Farm + mine = +1 food +2 hammers
Watermill + Windmill: +1 food +3 hammers +1 commerce

If the farm isn't available for watermilling, you still have:
Workshop + windmill + windmill = +1 food +4 hammers +2 commerce
Farm + mine + mine = +1 food +4 hammers

With electricity, the commerce bonus for switching is even higher. If you use caste system (or after getting chemistry), the hammer bonus for switching improves too! Or, with state property, you even get more food by making this switch.


I think that you have to wait until railroads and biology before things revert more to "normal".

 

[King of Town]

I usually will begin with a SE since my economy is better of that way early with a lower scince slider, then change based on the future of the city as specialists take too long to produce. I'll leave my best specialist city, build some production cities with workshops ( after they have been improved by techs) and watermills, and then cottage the rest. If I want to run state property then I watermill all available river tile, if not then I cottage them. I let my civ evolve and keep my workers busy all game long. Gandhi rules!

 

[Levgre]

some of the main advantages, as I See it.
Lumbermills > Mines, because the forests give you health. 2 forests = 1 extra population, = 3-4 extra BASE production.

Workshops > cottage, when you want/need production and don't have hills or forests.

Quite often a good amount of cities I found later are almost all production
based. Once you reach the industrial era you are going to be very close to a win, before your cottages even have a chance to build up. I find the extra 20-40 production city much more useful, so my commerce monsters I built earlier can do whatever they want and not have to build military. Or you can just convert that production into gold, culture, or research if you want.

Windmills>Mines for commerce.
Windmills >>>> Mines if you haven't reached your health peak yet.
Say you have 14 food and no extra 2 food tiles, with many extra hills.

You have a choice of breaking even and working 2 grass land mines. Or, instead, you can make them windmills. You can then work those 2 windmills and keep growing, then afterwords break even with 2 more grassland mines or 1 plains mine.

4 or 3 tiles > 2 tiles.

3+3 = 6 production.
2+2+3+3 = 10 production, plus 2 bonus commerce, or 4 bonus commerce with electricity.

 

[Levgre]

oops double post

 

[Andvare]

The power of watermills.

Now this is with state property, and without caste system, so far from optimized. However, corps are resource dependant, and with this setup, caste system would only bring about 4 extra base production.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Sometimes, rather than making sure every city is OK, your empire's power may be maximized by placing some very good cities and some marginal ones. This is especially true if you want to maximize the power of national wonders. Windmills are for these marginal cities. They actually aren't too bad.

Watermills or workshops: watermills for sure in BTS, because good use of corporations usually beats the hammer benefits of state property, but in that case, workshops lost the +1 food.

 

[futurehermit]

Can someone break down the #s for me for a riverside watermill vs. a riverside workshop both under state property and assuming maximum upgrades (e.g., electricity for watermill)?

Thanks!

 

[kovacsflo]

I likely to play with fin. leaders if my victory goal is a peaceful one. With fin. leaders a windmill in a hill what is adjacent to a river, it gives you 2f/1p/3g or 1f/2p/3g what is pretty good not mention that you can't build a cottage to a yellow hill what is a problem if your city doesn't have too much food.

I improve several windmills (just to a river tile) immediately after discovering machinery, but not windmill or workshop.

At the late game, windmills and sawmills become much more valuable, and you can't wait any more for growing your cottages.

I almost never build worshops, -1 food is too much price to me.

Flóri

 

[Andvare]

Can someone break down the #s for me for a riverside watermill vs. a riverside workshop both under state property and assuming maximum upgrades (e.g., electricity for watermill)?

Thanks!

Sure.

Riverside watermill, with SP: 1 2 3
+ levee: 1 3 3
With financial: 1 2 4
+ levee: 1 3 4

Riverside workshop, with SP: 3 1
+ levee: 4 1
With caste system: 4 1
+ levee: 5 1


Or more hammers + food with caste system, but less commerce.
Same without, and less commerce.
So it's always better to use watermills if you are not using caste system (and they are maxed, if not, the calculation gets screwy).