Workshops

[soibean]

I for one have never used a workshop in my life and was wondering how many of you use it/don't and for what reasons?
I dont know how to make a poll and Im sorry if you guys consider this spamming your forum but I do offer a suggestion for a little bonus for civs.

I was thinking that dwarven civs should receive an extra hammer per level of workshop (technology wise). This way instead of starting at 1 hammer it gets two, and if the tech tree allows a workshop upgrade to 2 hammers, it goes to 4 for dwarven since they are master industrialists. Just a thought.

 

[khanjackal]

if a city has plenty of food, they're worth it, imagine a city with no hills, a bunch of flood plains, and like 6 grasslands... not many hammers, right?

they have their use, but right now, if you can find some hills, they're not too useful

maybe if they gave some gold, not trade, but gold value, like 2 gold or something, i dunno if you can even work a tile for straight gold

 

[Chalid]

Ive been thinking about workshops as well. i could imagine the following things:

- Workshops are required do work flatland metals/gems.
- Workshops get one more hammer by an additional tech or by one of the labour civics.

 

[woodelf]

I've never built one, ever. So any changes that make them more useful would be a good idea. I've never made a Watermill or Windmill or whatever either.

 

[kevjm]

Watermills and windmills are better than workshops I think. I build windmills occasionally, especially when a city needs just one more bit of food. Or there is very little food around that city and there are hills. I never build workshops though.

 

[Chalid]

The question is what would make an workshop worth building.
1 Production for 1 food surely not.
2 Production for 1 food makes one consider them, but usually one does not built them anyway.
2 Production and 1 commerce for 1 food would make them intersting as long as cottages give only 4 commerce. But cottages wit 4 commerce + 1 production are clearly better than 2production+1commerce-1food.

So i think workshop should start with 2 production -1 food and gain during the game +1 production with some civic (maybe and +1 commerce with some tech. Maybe even additional +1 commerce with a road.
Ok how about:
Workshop Proposal
2 production -1 food
+1 Production with Serfdom
+1 Commerce with Guilds (one of the two civics possible at a time)
+1 Commerce with Roads
+1 Production with Metal Casting (rather late in the tree/comparable to arcan lore)
So you can get +4 Production +1 commerce -1 food or +3 Production +2 Commerce -1 food.

Usually you will end up with +3 Production +1 Commerce -1 food which is (due to the negative food), as it should be still weaker than +1 production +4 commerce (cottage)
If we want to have it still weaker (as its cheaper to build) we could excange the basic production to 1 production +1 commerce -1food.

Windmills are ok as they come handy in foodless regions - at least they are good if there is a bonus to them somewhere in the tree - which i think is in +1 production - so they end up with something like +1 food +2 commerce +1 production).
Maybe we should give them an civicbonus with serfdom, too? +1 commerce?

Watermills i do not know excatly what they yield, but i think it has to be improved as i never even considered building them excerp in rivers on ice...

 

[Jono]

Watermills and windmills are better than workshops I think. I build windmills occasionally, especially when a city needs just one more bit of food. Or there is very little food around that city and there are hills. I never build workshops though.

I usually use my Great Merchents as a food source ^^

 

[Maniac]

Windmills are ok as they come handy in foodless regions - at least they are good if there is a bonus to them somewhere in the tree - which i think is in +1 production - so they end up with something like +1 food +2 commerce +1 production).
Maybe we should give them an civicbonus with serfdom, too? +1 commerce?

Whoa I would suggest the opposite. Remove the +1 commerce bonus that windmills get from some tech (Craftsmanship?)! Even for the Dwarves, windmills with their +1 food, +1 hammer, +2 commerce are most of the time better than a mine's mere two hammers and a commerce. This counts even more for financial Dwarven civs or any non-Dwarven civs. So I would suggest to either remove the +1 commerce windmills get from tech, or let mine give +1 mineral with mithril working, so they're just as strong as in standard Civ4 in the end.

 

[Chalid]

You might be right. Ill have to make some kind of exel sheet to check how we can make all the improvement we have for each kind of terrain similar in "worth" so that all of them are valid choices and that your tech level and need in the city decides which ones you built.

 

[Xuenay]

Remember that in general, one point of food is more valuable than a point of commerce or production. That's what makes windmills so good - you get extra production from the hill AND you make the tile self-supporting. If you built a mine, you'd usually need to sacrifice another tile for food production to support your mining.

(Not to mention that if you're running slavery, food = hammers.)

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I think in FfH, workshops are even more useless, since you can bloom forests. You can make them better, but I don't know if they are even needed, as resource improvements. It'd be neat for them to do something more interesting, like have a small chance to discover mana or something.

 

[ChaoticWanderer]

i built alot of workshops *well thre is alot for me* recently on a almsot all jungle island i chopped the jungles and had alot of green valley so needed some hammers fast

 

[Nimbus]

I am not sure that the workshop needs to be tweaked all that much. Maybe just moving it up sooner would do the trick for me as waiting for it to come in seems to be my biggest hindrance to using it more. For me any hex with 3 food is a 50/50 chance of getting one depending on whether I think I need money or production for that city and any hex with 4+ food is getting a forge whether it wants one or not. The improvement I use the least always seems to be the watermills

 

[Hian the Frog]

I've never built one, ever. So any changes that make them more useful would be a good idea. I've never made a Watermill or Windmill or whatever either.

Hi everybody,

Read Woodelf quote, it's a good sum up of what i think.
The problem of these improvements are:
- they come too late in the game. I think that must be change. Every where men heavily use crops as main food ressources, mills are built. So, we should build them earlier in the game. They would began with a low bonus and civics and techs had to improve it .
- they don't really improve titles. Not enough bonuses, even with FFH2 specifics civics and techs.

So any good changes would be a good idea.

The Frog

 

[Zuul]

Maybe do workshops like I suggested in another mod, give it an +5% hammer bonus for the 1st one, and +3% for the 2nd and +1% for the 3rd.

 

[Maian]

I think in FfH, workshops are even more useless, since you can bloom forests. You can make them better, but I don't know if they are even needed, as resource improvements. It'd be neat for them to do something more interesting, like have a small chance to discover mana or something.

I was about to mention the bloom thing but you beat me to it. Bloom + lumbermills really makes workshops useless. It may take longer to set up, but it's still worth it. Even if I need quick hammers, I rather not build workshops, since I know I'll just forget to replace them later on.

 

[TheJopa]

You mean, worked workshops give industry bonus to city?
I agree that they are weak, Woodelf put a perfect analise of them, and I like that bonus in 2 different civics in same cathegory. It would also boost guilds which suck anyway. Watermills are utterly useless as I never built one even in vanilla civ (In vanilla they become something after electricity but it is so late that every terrain already has improvement. And compared to farms, mines, workshpos, towns and lumbermills, watermill improvement doesn't have any basis in reality, at least not where I live)