2 commerce for 1 hammer is generally a good conversion, yes. That aside, the happiness is by far the most important factor and we haven't seen other fur anywhere.
I tend to prioritize food and hammers early on, neglecting commerce other than for specific races (wonder/religion) or key techs that accelerate growth (worker techs, Monarchy, Writing, Currency) or are critical to establishing defenses (getting copper hooked early is usually enough to achieve sufficient defensive strength together with Hunting). I like to see it as food and hammers being reinvestment of your assets and commerce as spending your assets, usually for other purposes.
If you compare with a game like Master of Orion I, research does far more to improve your economic growth than in Civ4.
(November 20th, 2012, 04:20)Catwalk Wrote: 2 commerce for 1 hammer is generally a good conversion, yes. That aside, the happiness is by far the most important factor and we haven't seen other fur anywhere.
I tend to prioritize food and hammers early on, neglecting commerce other than for specific races (wonder/religion) or key techs that accelerate growth (worker techs, Monarchy, Writing, Currency) or are critical to establishing defenses (getting copper hooked early is usually enough to achieve sufficient defensive strength together with Hunting). I like to see it as food and hammers being reinvestment of your assets and commerce as spending your assets, usually for other purposes.
If you compare with a game like Master of Orion I, research does far more to improve your economic growth than in Civ4.
Well, yes, but just look at how early Gem/Gold/Silver resources can help early on in other games. The Fur is essentially a Silver tile. While it's not the most important tile, making use of it gets you tech faster, which lets you do more faster. Maybe you get Pottery two turns earlier and so build a cottage two turns early, so you work it earlier and so on and so forth. Snowball and so on. Stuff like that you can work to get it faster or work while waiting for a 2-pop whip for a turn and so on makes a difference. Plus, hammers can be made with the whip: Commerce is not so easily made. Food is king in all aspects, though.
I'm not a big fan of early gems/gold/silver, part of the reason being that they're usually on weak tiles. Factors that hamper expansion (difficulty, map size, world wrap) make early commerce a better option as continued expansion doesn't pay off as well. Unless those hampering factors are big, I think that food and hammers let you snowball more effectively. More food gives you more hammers and more hammers gives you workers and settlers faster.
That's not to say that an early grassland hill gems tile is not good early on, but I would much rather be working a high food or high hammer resource. High hammers loses value when expansion starts becoming prohibitively expensive, and high food loses value when expansion is expensive and you keep bumping into the happy cap. How early would you typically work high commerce/low food (0 or 1) tiles?
(November 20th, 2012, 04:20)Catwalk Wrote: 2 commerce for 1 hammer is generally a good conversion, yes. That aside, the happiness is by far the most important factor and we haven't seen other fur anywhere.
I tend to prioritize food and hammers early on, neglecting commerce other than for specific races (wonder/religion) or key techs that accelerate growth (worker techs, Monarchy, Writing, Currency) or are critical to establishing defenses (getting copper hooked early is usually enough to achieve sufficient defensive strength together with Hunting). I like to see it as food and hammers being reinvestment of your assets and commerce as spending your assets, usually for other purposes.
Well, it's not 2 commerce for 1 hammer, it's 2 commerce for 2 hammers. I'd say that until I hit the happiness crunch, I'd rather have it 1/3/3 mined than 1/1/5 worked. 1/1/5 is just a growth killer, even if it is a nice research boost.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
(November 20th, 2012, 07:07)Catwalk Wrote: I'm not a big fan of early gems/gold/silver .... How early would you typically work high commerce/low food (0 or 1) tiles?
Really? I think you're the first person I've ever seen say that (and you call me out for weird playstyle - just teasing!). I typically work said tiles as soon as all food resources are being worked, so as soon as humanly possible without crippling the city's growth. I also often force the city to work those tiles in lieu of better production tiles (like plains hill Gold mine over plains hill mine, even though the latter gets you I think twice as many hammers).
Just as a note, if I recall correctly the UI indicated the Furs would actually produce six commerce, not five, when camped (we were probably leaving out the one for being on a river).
That probably came off a bit too strongly, I meant that they're some of my least favourite early resources. I would rather work a food tile or a copper tile, or even a grassland with horse or forest ivory (2/3/1), unless I have little use for extra food and hammers. That's generally only the case on maps with sharply rising upkeep, although on those you will typically need more military due to the proximity of your enemies. But resource tiles are usually better to work than non-resource tiles, of course. So if the choice is between a gold/gems/silver tile and a grass river cottage, I'd usually prefer the metals. Grass hills much preferred over plains hills. If that fur tile was a grass forest (no hill), it'd be a great early tile to work.
(November 20th, 2012, 07:07)Catwalk Wrote: I'm not a big fan of early gems/gold/silver, part of the reason being that they're usually on weak tiles. Factors that hamper expansion (difficulty, map size, world wrap) make early commerce a better option as continued expansion doesn't pay off as well. Unless those hampering factors are big, I think that food and hammers let you snowball more effectively. More food gives you more hammers and more hammers gives you workers and settlers faster.
That's not to say that an early grassland hill gems tile is not good early on, but I would much rather be working a high food or high hammer resource. High hammers loses value when expansion starts becoming prohibitively expensive, and high food loses value when expansion is expensive and you keep bumping into the happy cap. How early would you typically work high commerce/low food (0 or 1) tiles?
Depends on the city. If I'm whipping a lot, I would try to time it so that I could work the high commerce/low food tile while still growing to the last whipping pop in one turn, then whip, allowing me to get a lot more commerce that turn. If a city doesn't have a lot of food resources, I might not whip it as much and so would probably run the commerce tile as I got closer to the happiness cap. If I'm waiting for a tech to come in or in a race, I might switch to it to research faster. Depending on the situation and other factors, I might have it work it as soon as it runs out of food tiles like Corn/Wheat/etc to run and leave it as an early commerce city to fuel expansion/teching.
Think of it this way: It should probably be run after all your high food tiles, but before your production tiles, because you can turn food into production directly via the whip. If a Silver gets your tech 3T faster, which early on it can, then it's worth losing 1T of growth due to losing 1 food compared to a Grassland, but not worth losing 3T of growth due to not working, say, rice. Early production should come from either whipping, forest chops or specific production cities, such as a city with many hills. Otherwise, high production tiles aren't that useful early on except for wonders and Workers IMO.
EDIT: Another way to look at it: It takes 18 food to get to Size 3, with Size 2 being Wheat + Sheep obviously. Wheat, on grassland as it is, will give a +3 food surplus. Sheep will also give a +3 food surplus. After that, everything either pays only for it's citizen(unless you farm a Grassland) or forms a deficiet. You will get to Size 3 in 3 turns or so(6 + 6 + 6 = 18!), whereupon you work the Fur and to get a size more, need 20 food. Now, the food surplus is still 6 if you work a food neutral Grassland, so you grow in 4 turns doing that(6 + 6 + 6 + 6 = 24). If you work the Fur...you still grow in 4T(5 + 5 + 5 + 5 = 20!), so you are basically not slowing down your growth, unless you are growing to Size 5(Why haven't you whipped a 2-pop Settler yet?), while getting 5 direct commerce per turn. A high production tile will do nothing because aside from maybe a Warrior, what can be built faster than you can get to Size 4(7T from Size 2, less if you have a Granary) and whip it? If you really want, put a mine on the riverside grassland hill early and run 1/3/1 when you really need that production, much more efficient.
You're right Kuro, it's 1/1/6 (I never bothered to question the 1/1/5 math): 1 for the fur, 1 for being on the river, 1 for the financial bonus, and 3 for the camp. Definitely makes it at least as good as a grassland riverside cottage, probably better. Also, this makes the 1/3/3 mined tile look a tad worse, but I would still have to sim before I chose to tech hunting just for that-It doesn't seem worthwhile, even with the 20% bonus into AH. Now, if I started with hunting, then I'd probably camp it, but I am not sure.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
(November 21st, 2012, 00:32)Merovech Wrote: You're right Kuro, it's 1/1/6 (I never bothered to question the 1/1/5 math): 1 for the fur, 1 for being on the river, 1 for the financial bonus, and 3 for the camp. Definitely makes it at least as good as a grassland riverside cottage, probably better. Also, this makes the 1/3/3 mined tile look a tad worse, but I would still have to sim before I chose to tech hunting just for that-It doesn't seem worthwhile, even with the 20% bonus into AH. Now, if I started with hunting, then I'd probably camp it, but I am not sure.
![[Image: Screen%20shot%202012-11-20%20at%209.05.26%20PM.png]](https://dl.dropbox.com/s/ooapl9j5mgv43g9/Screen%20shot%202012-11-20%20at%209.05.26%20PM.png)