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Regarding worker improvements

Now that I'm participating in epics, (I'll be posting Monday for epic 7 smile I'm curious about how to decide what to improve in a tile with my workers. I read a lot on this site about cities being specialized, but my cities haven't become so powerful by the end of my games as the other superstars' here. How do you decide what to build on each square? When are watermills/windmills/lumberyards good? Where should I put cottages? Farms? I have seen that apparently flood plains are the best for cottages? Why is that? How do I decide whether to put a windmill or a mine? Etc. etc....

Also, along the same lines, how does an automated worker decide what to build? If I tell a city to focus on something (i.e. production/commerce/growth) does that affect what the automated worker will build?
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You'll get plenty of different opinions here, but here's one batch...

mbuna120 Wrote:I read a lot on this site about cities being specialized, but my cities haven't become so powerful by the end of my games as the other superstars' here.

City specialization does gets a bit overblown in the various Civ 4 forums. Roles are rarely as extreme as the strategy and hint articles seem to indicate. For a so-called "cottage spam" city, you might expect 20 cottages, but really 8 or so is more typical. What's on the rest of the tiles? Resource-specific terrain improvements, mines or windmills on plains-hills (can't be cottaged) or on grassland hills if the city needs food, or maybe you just have some sea tiles.


Quote:How do you decide what to build on each square? When are watermills/windmills/lumberyards good? Where should I put cottages? Farms?

Priority One is food, and this is the human's prime advantage over the AI in city development. Every city should strive for about +5 food surplus (a general guideline, not a strict rule as in Civ 3), so it can grow quickly and consistently -- and when you approach the happiness and health caps, that provides plenty of fuel for whipping. Some cities will make that with just their natural food resources; others will need to farm three or four grassland tiles.

Then the priority is to keep a supply of two-food tiles available so the city can continue to grow while maintaining that +5 food surplus. The answer to "where should I put cottages" is on grassland tiles, so that as the city grows, each new laborer supports his own food while also making commerce. If a city doesn't have a good supply of grassland tiles, you're often better off farming plains and making it a hammer-oriented city instead.

I don't build windmills often; usually only in coastal or tundra cities that can't reach that +5 food surplus any other way. Watermills are only good for a hammer-oriented city; a commerce-oriented city would rather just have a cottage. Lumbermills should always be built in every still-existing forest once enabled at Replaceable Parts.

Quote:I have seen that apparently flood plains are the best for cottages? Why is that?

Because 3 food + 5-8 commerce is a HUGE output for a single tile. It's like having a grassland with BOTH a farm and a cottage. Flood plains tiles simultaneously support cottage commerce AND extra food towards that +5 food surplus. Also, consider the other options for the tile. A workshop turns a powerful food tile into the equivalent of a very pedestrian farmed plains; a farm just creates more surplus food than you even need; and a watermill is OK but comes fairly late and 1-2 shields is generally inferior to 5-8 commerce.


Quote:Also, along the same lines, how does an automated worker decide what to build? If I tell a city to focus on something (i.e. production/commerce/growth) does that affect what the automated worker will build?

I don't think so, but then I never use automated workers...
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Well, workers improvements, this is one of the most important, but least glamours aspects of cIV. T-Hawk is right food, food, food. Find high food spots, if they are near hills you got production, if they are not then you got commerce or GP farm. However I want to add a few things to T-Hawk's analyisis

-The whole question is map dependent. T-Hawk has the right of it for maps with lots of land, Continents, Pangea etc. But for Archepeliago maps a different strategy is needed. On archi maps there is tons of commerce, on pangea tons of production, so you have to adjust your tile improvements. On pangea cottage spam is widely used and effective b/c there just is not that much natural commerce and you will find production everywhere without having to look for it. But on Archi maps the inverse is true, there is plenty of commerce and most tiles are at least 2 food so no problems there, but production is rare, for example you want to hunt out hills on an archi map and almost never want to chop forests. Pangea, continents forests, well to my mind this is pretty easy, if you are 1-2 pop points from the health limit, but have plenty of happy limit room, then save those forests, a 2/1/0 or 1/2/0 tile is not ideal, but work the other tiles first and when you have enough pop. that you have to start working tiles like that it is time to consider the whip, or let it grow, it is one more shield. Any way you see what I mean.

-For Pangea, continents etc. try and find commerce, and like T-Hawk I rarely use watermills, windmills etc. exept when I need the food to work more tiles. Generally I try to improve my tiles so that I can work the most # of tiles and still grow (a la what T-Hawk said). Count your food. BUT, there is nothing quite like beelining to Tanks, going into State Property and Police state, putting workshops on all your grassland tiles, watermills and windmills where appropriate and just taking the hammer to the other civs smile . You will also want to do this as you near the end of your research when building the Spaceship.

-never automate workers (unless you are: playing some whacky variant, want you cities to be AI cities smoke , or you want to increase the difficulty level)
On League of Legends I am "BertrandDeHorn"
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Atlas Wrote:-never automate workers (unless you are: playing some whacky variant, want you cities to be AI cities smoke , or you want to increase the difficulty level)
or you think that the AI is better at assigning worker tasks that you are or you get bored of all these pesky workers asking for instructions.
I have finally decided to put down some cash and register a website. It is www.ruffhi.com. Now I remain free to move the hosting options without having to change the name of the site.

(October 22nd, 2014, 10:52)Caledorn Wrote: And ruff is officially banned from playing in my games as a reward for ruining my big surprise by posting silly and correct theories in the PB18 tech thread.
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Ugh, so much to consider tongue I was prompted to ask this because I have noticed that I will make certain worker improvements, but the game still circles a tile, indicating that it thinks I have a better option.

Quote:If a city doesn't have a good supply of grassland tiles, you're often better off farming plains and making it a hammer-oriented city instead.


Aren't grassland/plains tiles the same? I don't have the game running right now, but it seems that they are... or maybe there's grassland, plains, and grassland/plains tiles? If that's the case, how do you decide what to put on them huh I mean, that question sounds dumb, but hmm... Okay, maybe this way, so I should be reaching ALL of my cities to +5 food before improving any other tiles, generally speaking? I don't think I EVER do that. Sometimes I get to that surplus first just because of the available food resources, but I haven't been focusing on it. I find that I'm ALWAYS at my happiness cap when my cities grow that fast. Does this mean I should be adopting slavery in every single game, so that the food isn't going to waste? I use the whip a lot, but not all the time in SP games.

There was also something Atlas said I think, but I can't remember, about a new citizen supporting himself with the tile. Could you elaborate a little more on that? I'm not sure I'm following.

As always, thank you guys for your quick replies. As soon as I see the answer to this one again, I'll start another game today to try this stuff out thumbsup
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Grassland tiles are 2 food.

Plains tiles are 1 food, 1 hammer.

You don't need to wait for a city to reach +5 food to improve tiles. Plan ahead and improve tiles accordingly. If you made a mistake somewhere, you can always go back and change an improvement. If you wait for a city to reach +5 food, then your workers will be doing a lot of smoke
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mbuna120 Wrote:There was also something Atlas said I think, but I can't remember, about a new citizen supporting himself with the tile. Could you elaborate a little more on that? I'm not sure I'm following.
Well basically, it's this;

Each population point consumes 2food, therefore if you put a new citizen on a 2food tile he's supporting himself and the surplus will continue to accumulate at the same rate. If you put him on a 3+food tile, the surplus rises - as does growth - and conversely for a 1/0food tile or a specialist.

The baseline to this is that you start with the 2f surplus from the City tile itself, so you only need +3f to get to T-Hawk's suggested +5. That usually equates to a farmed resource(Corn, Wheat, Irrigated Rice), or Sheep/Pigs (Cows are half-n-half Food/Prod).

The caveat, of course is that each subsequent population point requires a larger surplus; thus if the surplus remains the same as the city gets larger, the later population points take longer to add. This is one of the reasons why heavy whipping at a small city is more efficient; the population regenerates faster than whipping a large city.
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So much of this depends on the area, and the city. It also depends one the empires needs. After all, you won't get any troops built with 20 commerce cities.

I do specialize cities when possible. For example: I put heroic epic in a city that has almost NO commerce. Why no commerce - because I don't want that city to have to waste time for markets and libraries. I love a high-shield city for it, and have even farmed flood plains to get another hill.

A city with several plantation resources such as dyes, sugar, or silk that already produce income will become a city for mainly commerce. River based cities are also great for commerce sites.

A city with little shields and a ton of food can make a great place for Globe Theater for whipping and draft abuse. Not to mention a GP farm.

A lot of cities will be generic, but I always have a few specialized cities. If I found a religion in a city that in at the debate between production and commerce, then it becomes commerce. Since I already want to multiple the shrine money, I may as well create more money to multiply.

This is one of the ways that Civ4 is way more complex the Civ3. Each city needs to be evaluated based on terrain, and overall empire strength.

I think the key to what to do with the workers is what is the city doing. Besides improving high food tiles first as already mentioned, they is no autopilot answer. Civ4 is a lot more work in figuring out a cities purpose vs. Civ3. The removal of the road trade bonus really changed the games complexion.
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Ok, off to put some of these lessons to good use!
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