what is the best layout for foresters?

[Darth Porgus]

What does the efficiency of a forester depend on? How many trees should you have sorounding it?

[chompers]

A fully-staffed forester will replant trees around it, eliminating the need to think about this. Just make sure it is fully staffed with 4 workers in the "Job Priority" panel.

[YetiChow]

I find that giving a forester its "full radius" of trees is a bit redundant -- since the workers will replant as they harvest, whatever area is available they'll replant as soon as possible.

My forestry layout is a large grid of roads 5 or 6 cells apart, with foresters placed on a particular corner (e.g. every north-east corner), a stockpile across the road, and a charcoal maker across the road in the other direction. It's far from "optimal" layout for the foresters but I always end up with huge surpluses of wood and charcoal when using this design; typically I'll only build (large) charcoal mounds in every second cell and I'll still have far more charcoal than I can reliably sell off (I use charcoal as my primary "cash crop" for trading.)

[Red Perep]

as close as you can place them

[Scarlet]

Space them out based on the area it covers. The corners that are left empty are a nice spot to put a stockpile building. Fire the stockpile workers and set all of the other resources to 0 storage.

[Hat8]

Build them near your city and when you want to expand your city just delete the forester and do a clear cut.

[YetiChow]

Originally posted by Hat8:

Build them near your city and when you want to expand your city just delete the forester and do a clear cut.

Yeah, this is a solid strategy -- "walking" the forests outward to keep wood supply close to where you're building. You can build the roads of your planned expansion first, and then add foresters throughout that area; as you remove the foresters and clear the trees your builders will have ready access to wood and roads to speed the whole process along.