Workshops, Windmills & Watermills

[Hodory]

Gone are the days when you only needed to worry about farms, roads, and mines only like it was in Civ 1. Now we have many more choices with our improvements.

I am still a bit puzzled with workshops, windmills, and watermills though.

Consider a coastal city with no rivers nearby, a few hills on grassland and plains, and flat tile plains and grasslands. Without rivers, I build mines on hills unless the city is starving desperately for more food, in which case a windmill might go up. On flat plains tiles without rivers, it is almost always workshops. On flat grassland tiles, either farm or cottages.

Late-game conquest where you happened to conquer a large chunk of developed land from the AI might have some tile improvements that I normally wouldn't consider though: like workshops on non riverside flat grassland tiles, cottages on top of hills riverside or non riverside, etc.

Also, riverside flat plains tiles throw me off a bit too. Post Electricity, I would strongly consider watermills on these tiles. I am not a huge fan of cottages on flat plains tiles though putting a workshop in these tiles seem like a waste of opportunity on losing out the extra .

Riverside grassland hills is my favorite candidate for windmills.

And back to watermills... does anyone build these? Or do you prefer either workshops or cottages?

 

[vranasm]

depends on tech phase and civics.

with SP watermills are in food the same as farm but provide hammers and commerce too. They are actually pretty strong and I really try to build a lot of them if the land is there.

workshops with SP and caste are very strong on grassland 2f4h etc etc

I like hammer economies

 

[Hodory]

Vranasm,

First off, off topic, but I liked your videos.

Back on topic, now what about if you choose NOT to run State Property? or does that not apply to you because you always run it?

I usually almost always run State Property unless I have an absolutely amazing trade route profits or I am planning to run corporations.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Watermills and workshops are some of the best improvements in the game post SP. I often workshop over cottages late in the game just for the massive production boost, I don't need the science when I'm just concurring the world!

Unlike vranasm I don't just simply like hammer economies, I love them! They are extremely flexible, allowing for any VC you like; well all but culture which you need to really tunnel vision focus on to get a good time for.

You may not be the greatest with it at first, but keep using it and you'll eventually figure out what cities sites are better for it than others, not as strait forward as it appears some times. But be warned it can be by far the most micro intensive.

 

[vranasm]

Vranasm,

First off, off topic, but I liked your videos.

Back on topic, now what about if you choose NOT to run State Property? or does that not apply to you because you always run it?

I usually almost always run State Property unless I have an absolutely amazing trade route profits or I am planning to run corporations.

probably it's bound to gamestyle. Since i almost always try for domination, I tend to have big empires (like really big) and SP is very good there for obvious reasons especially if you do some overseas invasion.

So all in all it just everything binds to self extremely well.

I even try to avoid Emancipation and stay in caste even if I have to use the culture slider up...

 

[z0wb13]

it does depend a lot on game phase, like vranasm points out. a common tactic is to beeline chemistry and take steel off liberalism. one of the best ways to propel yourself through paper/philosophy/education is to bulb them with help from caste. at at this point, workshops will outperform mines, and they aren't tied to hill tiles.

in fact, i would say this is the best improvement for the rest of the game if you can stay in caste system. state property seals the deal. but you have to look at the reasons for using state property. it is very efficient , especially with large empires, but i think that on most maps you can squeeze out a few more with mining inc and free market, even if it does end up costing a little more .

windmills start to look good at replaceable parts. they might be useful earlier on a tectonics map or something like that, but on most maps there are enough tiles that you can pay for the mines. and also, there are cap considerations that are going to limit useful growth anyway. windmills are excellent improvements with electricity and environmentalism, but the latter isn't always the best civic choice. it works best for small empires (few cities) with large populations.

watermills are not that useful in my experience. it's not the improvements themselves, it's their limited availability. for instance, they can't be built across from one another, and they can't be built along bends. in a vacuum, they have pretty good returns under state property, but this is going to be limited to just a handful of cities. of course, this is all you really need for a space race victory, so play the map;p

to make things easy for myself, i usually just cottage spam. they don't take that many worker terms, at least. if i realize later that another improvement would be better, i don't hesitate to bulldoze towns. but i like to have at least 3 production tiles per city, maybe a few more, so if i don't have the hills for it i definitely put down a couple of workshops.

another improvement you didn't mention was the lumbermill. this one kind of sucks, it gives you a health bonus though, if you keep two of them around. if there is a situation where two cities are sharing a forest tile, i might try to keep it around for the health bonus, but it's usually not worth the trouble. the same can be said for the forest preserve, unless you have built the national park in that city (in which case it's arguably the best improvement).

 

[plasmacannon]

Remember that city you built up in the arctic to get that Crab, whale, and silver?
The one with Snow all over the ground, you just couldn't pass up the resourses?
Well, that snow tile next to the river, can be watermilled, and railroaded for 3 production each.
Post electricity, it will gain 2 gold per turn too.

It might even pay for its maintenaince cost, now.

That's the best useful upgrade for a lame city that I use them for.

 

[huerfanista]

Well, that snow tile next to the river, can be watermilled, and railroaded for 3 production each.
Post electricity, it will gain 2 gold per turn too.

RRs don't give a on watermills, IIRC - only mines and quarries [EDIT: and lumbermills].

 

[dragomaster]

Lumber mills are one of my favorit improvments, just becous of the health bonus and espeshally in an production city. I realy hate state property in betwen cous i love corperations.

If the forests realy are neded to be chooped 4 an early advantage then i say go 4 it but if not I always save them.

I use the windills, watermills, worksops later in the game to reglate the food out put i have from Sids Sushi Or Creal Mils corp.
If no corp, I reglate the 1 od food out put cities can turn out to have.

 

[Hodory]

it does depend a lot on game phase, like vranasm points out. a common tactic is to beeline chemistry and take steel off liberalism. one of the best ways to propel yourself through paper/philosophy/education is to bulb them with help from caste. at at this point, workshops will outperform mines, and they aren't tied to hill tiles.

in fact, i would say this is the best improvement for the rest of the game if you can stay in caste system. state property seals the deal. but you have to look at the reasons for using state property. it is very efficient , especially with large empires, but i think that on most maps you can squeeze out a few more with mining inc and free market, even if it does end up costing a little more .

windmills start to look good at replaceable parts. they might be useful earlier on a tectonics map or something like that, but on most maps there are enough tiles that you can pay for the mines. and also, there are cap considerations that are going to limit useful growth anyway. windmills are excellent improvements with electricity and environmentalism, but the latter isn't always the best civic choice. it works best for small empires (few cities) with large populations.

watermills are not that useful in my experience. it's not the improvements themselves, it's their limited availability. for instance, they can't be built across from one another, and they can't be built along bends. in a vacuum, they have pretty good returns under state property, but this is going to be limited to just a handful of cities. of course, this is all you really need for a space race victory, so play the map;p

to make things easy for myself, i usually just cottage spam. they don't take that many worker terms, at least. if i realize later that another improvement would be better, i don't hesitate to bulldoze towns. but i like to have at least 3 production tiles per city, maybe a few more, so if i don't have the hills for it i definitely put down a couple of workshops.

another improvement you didn't mention was the lumbermill. this one kind of sucks, it gives you a health bonus though, if you keep two of them around. if there is a situation where two cities are sharing a forest tile, i might try to keep it around for the health bonus, but it's usually not worth the trouble. the same can be said for the forest preserve, unless you have built the national park in that city (in which case it's arguably the best improvement).

The more I play, the more I am liking Caste System. Before Guilds and Chemistry, workshops only net out +2 and -1 but they still seem pretty useful. I know that most players probably don't go after Guilds --> Banking that leads to Replaceable Parts before Liberalism, and even after that, most seem to prefer to wait for the AIs to research them and then trade for them.

There is a point in time right after you get Education that you want to get your 6 universities up ASAP. I've read some articles from players who seem to suggest that it is better in the long run to whip the universities, even if it is a 4 or 5 pop whip. But it seems a bit pointless to switch out of Caste System if you are running it, just for the purpose of whipping universities.

At least on Emperor, I normally don't bother bulbing through Philosophy, Paper --> Education route. I usually manage quite well to win the Liberalism race without bulbing. Question is, do you still bulb when you know all too well that you will win the Liberalism race comfortably without bulbing?

For watermills, I usually don't bother with them until Electricity. But by the time you get that tech, your riverside flat tiles are probably working developed cottages or workshops. Seems kinda silly to tear them down to put watermills over them.

And I don't have the guts to tear down towns. I almost always leave them be. I think I read somewhere that if you want to tear down towns, you should just pillage them with your units.

I used to be a big fan of lumbermills, but now I think I chop so regularly that I usually run out of forests. That is unless the forests were on tundra, in which case, I will never chop them.

 

[pi-r8]

Windmills have the advantage that they can grow your cities to the cap faster. That's really good, especially for food-poor cities. And they don't need any civics or technologies for that.

Workshops depend heavily on what techs and civics you have. Obviously they're awesome with caste system, SP, and all the techs. But when you first get them they suck, and actually make the tile worse than unimproved usually. You'll need at least +3 from them to be equal to a mine, and mine's aren't really that good during that part of the game.

Watermills also suck when you first get them. With only +1 , you'd be better off building a farm and working another mine. They become a lot better with replaceable parts, especially when combined with windmills. (take a food neutral production city with farms and mines, turn the farms into watermills and the mines into windmills, and gain a lot of hammers). Even better with State Property and Electricity of course. But you probably won't be building too many, because like zowb13 said there's just not many available spaces for them. And a lot of the good riverside tiles will be in cities where you'd rather put a cottage, instead.

 

[vranasm]

@hodory

it actually is better to whip those unis asap. I wouldn't tell you the number of the turnset of my Willem let's play where I do it, but I whip there even OU for something like 5 or 6 pop in capital and get that way 100 beakers next turn. I think I even comment on it.

I used in the willem game caste less then I would have liked though, but the slavery was there soo strong with the needs of empire I didn't get to the point where switching would be better even if I talked about it almost regularly :-D.

And I windmilled there my 2 commerce cities. with financial trait those windmills around cap were 2f2h3c just after rep parts (7 yield tile yay!) and I needed the food in cap anyway.

What I do lately on emperor if the AI's are too slow to guilds is that I selftech guilds. Since I am fan of going Lib->MT I am to chemistry pretty late usually.

 

[Hodory]

@hodory

it actually is better to whip those unis asap. I wouldn't tell you the number of the turnset of my Willem let's play where I do it, but I whip there even OU for something like 5 or 6 pop in capital and get that way 100 beakers next turn. I think I even comment on it.

I used in the willem game caste less then I would have liked though, but the slavery was there soo strong with the needs of empire I didn't get to the point where switching would be better even if I talked about it almost regularly :-D.

And I windmilled there my 2 commerce cities. with financial trait those windmills around cap were 2f2h3c just after rep parts (7 yield tile yay!) and I needed the food in cap anyway.

What I do lately on emperor if the AI's are too slow to guilds is that I selftech guilds. Since I am fan of going Lib->MT I am to chemistry pretty late usually.

You know what? I caught that in your video as I watched it last night actually. I would probably watch your videos again from the beginning though because there were some things that you did that caught my eyes. I don't want to delve into them right now, but you certainly did make your point!

I guess that's good of a time as any to, perhaps burn a golden age while you temporarily switch to Slavery to whip universities?

Still, 5 or 6 pop whip... that's scary for me, especially on cities working on cottages. Sometimes some of my best science cities are just set up with cottages with no real strong food tiles, so growing them back would take time.

I actually love windmills especially on grassland hills by a river. I almost always put up windmills there. Watermills though... they are always puzzling to me.

Keep up with your videos. I'd actually want to see you make one using a philosophical leader next time. That would be fun.

 

[vranasm]

well next LP I want to make on Immortal (and get screwed! ).
Actually I started to record a game yesterday with Gilgamesh and I will probably scrap it, will not even upload it to youtube.

I choosed fractal and got land I never saw...

I think I will LP next Hatty on Immortal.

 

[Alisdair]

depends on tech phase and civics.

with SP watermills are in food the same as farm but provide hammers and commerce too. They are actually pretty strong and I really try to build a lot of them if the land is there.

workshops with SP and caste are very strong on grassland 2f4h etc etc

I like hammer economies

I agree, I'm playing a game now where I have a good amount of land but no hammers, and no hills with mines is really hard. I'd only consider windmills if I really needed them, otherwise hills. I'd rather use sea for food and lots of mines than having windmills around.

 

[CivMonger]

Ive got a MP game with a friend that is the weirdest land I've ever seem. Pretty much solid grassland, bunch of rivers. Pretty sure the only forest and hills are around the capitals. Its a balance between irrigated farmland, workshops, and cottages. I just got the tech for watermills, and I'm building some of those along the rivers. Normally I don't build much for watermills or workshops, but at times they are VERY useful.

 

[JammerUno]

Wind and watermills post electricity and RP are great. With SP, and even when bio and RR are teched, replacing a farm and a mine with a watermill and a windmill will get you the same amount of food and hammers but an additional 4 commerce. So you can just pair up every farmed riverside with a hill and increase your cpt free of charge.

 

[shyuhe]

Wind and watermills post electricity and RP are great. With SP, and even when bio and RR are teched, replacing a farm and a mine with a watermill and a windmill will get you the same amount of food and hammers but an additional 4 commerce. So you can just pair up every farmed riverside with a hill and increase your cpt free of charge.

However once railroads become available, the math becomes a bit fuzzier because of the extra hammer from the railroaded hill mine.

If you're lazy with micro, you can't really go wrong with playing watermills and windmills everywhere post RP. It may not always be optimal but it's good enough in most situations.

 

[JammerUno]

^ a RR mine gives +3h, a windmill and a watermill together give +3h after RP.

 

[shyuhe]

Ah you're right. I can't do math