Mills are not worth upgrading to windmills?

[David]

So, I often use mills as a buff to certain industry buildings that do not have adjacency bonuses of their own. Workshops, butcher shops, artisan shops, stables, etc, because it gives a bonus 10 crafting speed to buildings in its region and the food bonuses apply city-wide, so you want them in industrial spots.
However, windmills lack this buff, it's just not worth upgrading it, because you flat out lose this component. Sure, it gives more food, so in some cities you may want a windmill somewhere, but not in an industrial spot anymore, more of a no bonuses free spot where you chuck all the stuff that has no adjacency like temples and such.
It just makes their adjacency kinda invalid.

Similarly weavers upgrade into tailors, which is a problem, because weavers are cultural buildings whereas tailors are industrial so the buffs they get are swapped out entirely. Mind you, it's not a huge problem there, because the buildings that benefit from cultural buildings being in their zone come in way late, and since you can only have 3 weavers you are unlikely to place them in a zone with a buffing building, you probably just use whatever 3 slot territory you had to grab at some point during the game as your weaver setup.

[archonsod]

Originally posted by David:

However, windmills lack this buff

Yes.

it's just not worth upgrading it

No.

Mill: +1 food from all farms (city wide), +10 bonus to craft production at each industry building within this region.
1 Specialist slot granting +1 city craft production and +2 city harvest production

Windmill: +1 food from all farms, +3 city craft production
1 Specialist slot granting +1 City Craft production and +4 city harvest production.

So basically, the windmill trades a 10 craft production applied only to it's region (and only to buildings of the industrial type) for a 3 craft production applied city-wide (to all buildings that utilise craft production, irrespective of type).

[David]

Originally posted by archonsod:

Originally posted by David:

However, windmills lack this buff

Yes.

it's just not worth upgrading it

No.

Mill: +1 food from all farms (city wide), +10 bonus to craft production at each industry building within this region.
1 Specialist slot granting +1 city craft production and +2 city harvest production

Windmill: +1 food from all farms, +3 city craft production
1 Specialist slot granting +1 City Craft production and +4 city harvest production.

So basically, the windmill trades a 10 craft production applied only to it's region (and only to buildings of the industrial type) for a 3 craft production applied city-wide (to all buildings that utilise craft production, irrespective of type).

So here's the problem with that.
You want the mill to be in an industrial zone, generally with a building type that you cannot buff in any other way, one without adjacency bonuses.

So you want the 10 IN those specific buildings, it doesn't matter that you get 3 everywhere else too, if that's not where you want them to be. Most crafting buildings buff each other so you don't want a mill there, but there are a few that do not, and they produce key items that you want even a slight bit more, so that's where you put your mills.

Windmills you can place anywhere, which sounds great, except that's also the reason why you do not want to upgrade your mill. Because your mill is in an industrial zone already, so you want to demolish it and build it somewhere else if you want a windmill.

That said the food bonus is completely unnecessary, there's much better ways to obtain food than windmills, and you can get 5 city craft from a lumber mill specialist, that's 2 more than a windmill and you can build a lot of lumber mills if you want a full on industry city where the numbers really would stack up.

Mills are more a focused building, windmills are a wide building. They just don't mesh well.

[archonsod]

Originally posted by David:

You want the mill to be in an industrial zone, generally with a building type that you cannot buff in any other way, one without adjacency bonuses.

Not usually, I tend to utilise the mill alongside workshops, weavers and similar buildings which grant adjacency bonuses. What's important is what it crafts and how much production it takes - I can always use more of base ingredients like fabric or high-demand goods like tools. Piano's not so much.
Also worth noting - most of the buildings which would benefit (industrial) give bonuses to each other. Crafters which don't tend to be the non-industrial such as the artisan workshop which don't benefit from the mill to begin with.

it doesn't matter that you get 3 everywhere else too, if that's not where you want them to be.

It's the only way to boost certain buildings. Generally speaking I can always build another butcher if I need more meat or fish. I can't easily build another town centre to increase my codex production though.

Because your mill is in an industrial zone already, so you want to demolish it and build it somewhere else if you want a windmill.

Why? If like me you're using it with buildings that do grant adjacency bonuses then there would be a benefit to moving the mill, since I can replace it with another copy of whatever building is in the region to benefit from both the windmill and another adjacency bonus. However you already said you're using it to boost buildings which don't grant adjacency bonuses, in which case what difference does moving the windmill make?

That said the food bonus is completely unnecessary, there's much better ways to obtain food than windmills

The only thing which provides a better boost than the windmill is the water well line. Those are one per city and only affect their region. The windmill and mill on the other hand affect *every* farm in the city. That's before you consider the harvest production boost you get from placing a specialist, which not only further boosts your farms but also applies to mines, sawmills, hunting camps etc.

and you can get 5 city craft from a lumber mill specialist, that's 2 more than a windmill and you can build a lot of lumber mills

Yes, though if you've burned all of your specialists and space on lumber mills I'm not sure what you'd actually be producing in the city to begin with. Though that aside the bigger boost is actually the harvest production since it tends to be harder to come by boosts for it, and can make a big difference when it comes to resources being harvested by things like hunting camps.

[David]

Originally posted by archonsod:

I tend to utilise the mill alongside workshops, weavers and similar buildings

Careful, weavers are not industrial, so they don't get a benefit. I made this mistake too, but only the upgrade, the tailor, is industrial, the initial weaver is a culture improvement.

Artisan workshops ARE industrial so they're good to boost via mills, also basic workshops have no adjacency bonuses either, they give bonus to construction speed in the region, but that's kinda irrelevant, it's not crafting speed like the mill.

Regarding the water well line that's flat out wrong. Water wells give just +100% production, you gain a lot more than that just by building another farm. Wells are there to increase rare resource node production not food. Same with granaries, I did the math COMPREHENSIVELY, believe me on that.

Anyways, I like my mills being in a useful spot to boost key structures without adjacency bonuses of their own. If they have an adjacency bonus, just build one more of it, or if you can't, why would you put them in a zone that has an empty slot? You could have used that larger zone for something else and made those improvements in a smaller zone that can't fit all the other stuff.

As for upgrading it and leaving it in place, yeah you can do that, but at that point why not make your coffee shop there? That gives a bunch of happiness from industrial buildings, and you have a bunch of industrial buildings already there, so just move the windmill where it's not blocking something more important.

[The Former]

While I applaud your efforts once more, I find again that this post is like your one on farm math: You're looking for the viable meta, while in reality you're only discovering the path that fits your play style the most. It's a good thing to discover, but unlike many games, Ara doesn't have many places were Path A is simply more viable than Path B.

Whether or not your mills are in an industrial district, +3 craft production to the entire city and +4 harvest production to the entire city is simply a better benefit for some playstyles versus +10 district production and +2 harvest production.

For example, if you have a city with a ton of raw materials in its domain, +2 harvest production for each of them might be worth quite a lot, especially in the mid-game.

[Takfloyd]

Originally posted by archonsod:

Originally posted by David:

You want the mill to be in an industrial zone, generally with a building type that you cannot buff in any other way, one without adjacency bonuses.

Not usually, I tend to utilise the mill alongside workshops, weavers and similar buildings which grant adjacency bonuses. What's important is what it crafts and how much production it takes - I can always use more of base ingredients like fabric or high-demand goods like tools. Piano's not so much.
Also worth noting - most of the buildings which would benefit (industrial) give bonuses to each other. Crafters which don't tend to be the non-industrial such as the artisan workshop which don't benefit from the mill to begin with.

it doesn't matter that you get 3 everywhere else too, if that's not where you want them to be.

It's the only way to boost certain buildings. Generally speaking I can always build another butcher if I need more meat or fish. I can't easily build another town centre to increase my codex production though.

Because your mill is in an industrial zone already, so you want to demolish it and build it somewhere else if you want a windmill.

Why? If like me you're using it with buildings that do grant adjacency bonuses then there would be a benefit to moving the mill, since I can replace it with another copy of whatever building is in the region to benefit from both the windmill and another adjacency bonus. However you already said you're using it to boost buildings which don't grant adjacency bonuses, in which case what difference does moving the windmill make?

That said the food bonus is completely unnecessary, there's much better ways to obtain food than windmills

The only thing which provides a better boost than the windmill is the water well line. Those are one per city and only affect their region. The windmill and mill on the other hand affect *every* farm in the city. That's before you consider the harvest production boost you get from placing a specialist, which not only further boosts your farms but also applies to mines, sawmills, hunting camps etc.

and you can get 5 city craft from a lumber mill specialist, that's 2 more than a windmill and you can build a lot of lumber mills

Yes, though if you've burned all of your specialists and space on lumber mills I'm not sure what you'd actually be producing in the city to begin with. Though that aside the bigger boost is actually the harvest production since it tends to be harder to come by boosts for it, and can make a big difference when it comes to resources being harvested by things like hunting camps.

This whole post is hilariously wrong and shows that you never actually checked what you were getting from your cities. Mills and Windmills are basically irrelevant for food production - they give 1 extra food to farms that are producing dozens or even hundreds of food per turn. The granary and well, by contrast, increase food production by a scaling percentage and so are much stronger (but even then, 4 farms are better than 3 farms and a well/granary). The crafting bonus is also very unimpressive other than for new cities, and the specialist in the mill doesn't work correctly, giving no extra crafting bonus.

[archonsod]

Originally posted by Takfloyd:

Mills and Windmills are basically irrelevant for food production - they give 1 extra food to farms that are producing dozens or even hundreds of food per turn.

Which means if you have a dozen farms, it's a free farm.

The granary and well, by contrast, increase food production by a scaling percentage and so are much stronger

The granary and well only affect their region. Region bonuses are nice, but since all it takes to shut down production in a region is a single scout they come with a fairly big downside.