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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:22
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quote:
Originally posted by Jaguar
I always feel that a square producing no sheilds is kind of wasteful. The value of a wheat square with four food instead of three (in despotism) is that it can contribute to feed another worker who will gain shields. However, each added laborer adds one unhappy ciitzen. |
The key in the early game is to balance three things: food, shields, and the luxury slider setting. As long as a city has enough shields, the extra food from irrigating instead of mining can go into building workers and settlers more quickly: with sufficient production, a city with four food surplus and a granary can produce about 4/3 the settlers or workers that one with three food surplus and a granary can. (Without a granary, the ratio is 7/5 because of rounding issues.) But if a city can't get enough shields to take advantage of its food surplus, sacrificing shields for food is counterproductive. Where the luxury slider comes into play is that it can help cities get bigger so they can sacrifice shields for food and still get enough shields to be suitable at least as worker pumps.
Thus, in the early game, irrigating is generally the right move in core cities, but mining is often the right move in outlying areas where corruption reduces the benefit from the luxury slider and makes shields harder to come by. Another issue that might come into play is if the only high-food city around is not the capital and has no river or other significant commerce bonuses, in which case targeting food and boosting the luxury slider enough to take advantage of the food may be prohibitively expensive under some circumstances. The exact balance of when to do what isn't something I can provide a formula for. But if you pay attention and watch for situations where you mine but have enough shields that you could have irigated or where you irrigate only to find that you're not getting enough shields to take advantage of the irrigation, that can help you get better at choosing which to do.
Also note that with a granary, bringing a city up above five surplus food is pointless until the city grows past size 7. So if a city has access to two wheat tiles or a wheat and a cow, the only reason why it might make sense to irrigate both is if a player is willing to micromanage enough to have another city use one of the tiles half the time on an alternating basis. (The situation is a little different for Agricultural cities built next to fresh water, since they get a food bonus from the city tile in addition to other food bonuses.) There is no point giving up shields for extra food if the extra food won't do any good. (Note that without a granary, seven food does have an advantage over five. But in that case, what's really needed is a second city to take over some of the extra food.)
Once a city reaches size 12 (or some smaller "permanent" size if crowding requires that it stay smaller), it generally makes sense to shift the city's operations to focus exclusively on production assuming the workers can be spared to change tile improvements. If hills, mountains, or such can absorb the extra food, leaving food bonus tiles irrigated can make good sense. But if not, shifting irrigation to mining once there is no longer a use for extra food can be a good way to get a few extra shields.
Last edited by nbarclay on 27-10-2004 at 12:15
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The pirate
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for my own clarification, is Nathan refering to Wheat squares or general squares?
ie irrigating Wheat in the core is good, 'cause you can make the most of extra food, but mining is more useful at the edges, due to corruption / waste.
Or is it a more sweeping statement?
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:22
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I'm referring most directly to grassland wheat tiles, but the same basic issues are also involved with cattle and wines on grassland. For grassland tiles without food bonuses, irrigating under Despotism is useless, so mining is always the right choice under Despotism. (And by the time Despotism is over, the REXing phase is also usually pretty much over, so about the only time I irrigate grasslands that don't have food bonuses is when I need to do so in order to work more hills or mountains.)
Keep in mind that the issue is complicated enough that any rule of thumb is by nature limited. For example, the more grasslands with shield or equivalent tiles a city has, the easier a time it has getting the production to take good advantage of irrigation. Similarly, the more rivers or other commerce bonuses a city has, the easier a time the city will have using the luxury slider to grow bigger in order to get extra production to take advantage of extra food. So my rule of thumb is better used as a starting point than as a hard-and-fast rule.
I might also mention that if a city uses irrigation instead of mining and then ends up using specialists due to inadequate production, that indicates some kind of problem. The problem might be that irrigating instead of mining was a bad choice, or that the city is lagging behind in mining other grasslands it's working, or that the city is trying to build other things when it ought to be focusing more (or even exclusively) on settlers and workers, or that the luxury slider needs to be set higher. But one way or another, something isn't going the way it ought to be.
I'll admit that as Theseus said, what I'm writing here is a bit on the advanced side. The problem is that the issue is complex enough that it is impossble to come up with an answer that is both simple and complete. Given that reality, I prefer to provide an answer that is as complete as I can reasonably make it and let players decide how much of the answer they're willing to take the time to use.
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Barinthus
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A Magical Moment...
Jan 2004
time: 21:22
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quote:
Originally posted by Theseus
Fair enough.
I think it would be useful to less experienced players to elucidate the various instances where irrigating instead of mining (and, I guess, the exceptions to the exceptions  ), would be useful... situations to watch for, as it were. Thus, we could develop sort of a two-level 'despotic rule of thumb', e.g.:
Level One:
* Mine grassland
* Irrigate plains
* Only road floodplains, unless there is a food bonus resource, then irrigate
Level Two:
* Irrigate all food bonus resources, unless:
- Shield production is problematic
- Despotic GA is imminent
- ??
etc. |
This would be a truly terrific resource for newbies just like me 
And forgive my ignorance, what is PIA?
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Arrian
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Kneel before Grog!
Jul 2001
time: 00:22
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I hate floodplains/desert starts like that. It takes a while to get any decent shield production and there is always the risk of disease.
[story for no reason] I had the weirdest games last night. The first one was going really well until my capital was toasted by a volcano. I didn't notice it when I built on the start spot! Doh.
The second one was just strange. I was playing as Rome (Monarch/standard/8civs/continents as per the normal), and my start spot had a river, several bonus grassland, and some floodplains. Instead of researching pottery, building a granary and going for a settler pump, I chose to pump out several warriors, a couple of archers, and then a settler to settle a more food-rich site to the SE (that also had ivory). I ended up starting two wars at the same time early in the ancient age - against Scandanavia and the Byzantines. I ended up capturing Trondheim and generating a MGL in the process (not to mention nailing a couple of settler teams). Even better, they repopped and I got 100g + worker + 2 techs out of them for peace. I ended up getting one tech out of the Byzantines for peace with them. The MGL became my Forbidden (in Trond) as soon as it became available. I built Zeus, which largely cancelled out my lack of iron, and the Hanging Gardens. So I've got Ultimate Power locked up, right?
Wrong. Several other civs got really tasty starting spots and the tech pace moved faster than normal (which I believe is the Byzantine's fault - basically the whole world knew each other early on and I, OTOH, knew only Scandy, Byz, and Persia, due to my stupid failure to build a curragh). This resulted in the AI snatching Sun Tzu (in Constantinople, so I was able to capture it) and the Sistine from me (an overseas civ, damnit). The Sistine!! Losing that in a UP game!? You shoulda seen the look on my face. Additionally, the Persians (who were on the other side of the Byzantines from me) actually gained a branch tech lead on me for a short time in the mid-middle ages (gunpowder). And when they attacked me (while I was fighting the Byzantines again) it was all I could do to hold my position despite 2 AC armies (I now have 3 ). Immortals with Pikemen for cover 
Where it not for two SGLs (used on Bach & Smith), I may have lost more wonders to the AI.
In a game that has provided me with 4 MGLs, one of them ultra-early. In a game where I hamstrung one of my neighbors right off the bat, and hampered another early as well. In a game where I had ivory (Zeus), horses, and was able to grab 4 luxuries in my REX phase!
How/why did this happen, I asked myself. My conclusion: it's not all about having settler/worker pumps. Population is huge, but so is terrain. Specifically, shield-rich terrain. Sure, the oddly fast tech pace resulted in an big cascade effect, and it was silly of me to not find the time to build a curragh (my first ship ended up being a caravel) but I would have overcome that if I'd been able to scrounge up the shields. I beat the AI to Theology and Invention... I just couldn't build the darned wonders before they got there. I didn't have any decent wonder cities. IIRC, my best production city was my FP site, at ~15 shields/turn. Rome produces 10spt. I had almost no hills in the empire.
I've decided (not just because of this game) that hills are just incredibly powerful tiles. See! See! I sorta kinda got back to the topic.  Hills + Grassland is where it's at. If I go back to the game I was playing prior to last night, I had several core cities at or over 20spt (my cap, Seoul was a 25spt city).[/story]
-Arrian
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26-10-2004 10:42
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