Workshop (Civ4)

Back to the Tile improvements in Civ4

Workshop
Introduced in Civilization IV
Requires	Metal Casting
Pillaging value	5
Other effects
–1 , +1 +1 with the State Property civic +1 with the Caste System civic +1 with Guilds +1 with Chemistry Can only be built on flatland

A Workshop is a tile improvement that can be built upon the discovery of Metal Casting. It increases the Production of flat tiles.

Building site restrictions

There are several restrictions which limit where Workshops may be built. To build a Workshop, the tile must:

• be improvable (i.e. not contain an Oasis, mountain Peak, or City)
• be within cultural boundaries
• be Flatland
• have direct access to fresh water if it is Desert, Tundra, or Ice
• have an unimproved tile yield of at least 1 (this requirement typically prevents any Ice Workshops or non-Floodplain Desert Workshops. Technically, though, riverside Ice Workshops and non-Floodplain riverside Desert Workshops are allowed if the tile has 1 from a food resource, such as a Deer . This does not occur in practice, as standard worldbuilding scripts disallow food resources on such tiles)

Strategy

• Building a Workshop can be thought of as a form of terraforming. Building an un-upgraded Workshop on a Grassland tile produces a yield of 1 1 , which is identical in yield to an unimproved Plains Flatland, an unimproved Grassland Hill, or a Forested Tundra Flatland. An un-upgraded Workshop on a Plains tile produces a yield of 0 2 , which is identical to an unimproved Plains Hill. However, it is not advisable to work such low-yielding tiles unless you are truly desperate for Production , and even then, you might be better served by whipping with Slavery.
• Workshops start to become more attractive with the advent of Guilds. If, in addition, Caste System is being run, then a Grassland Workshop is equivalent to a (non-railroaded) Grassland Hill Mine, with 1 3 .
• With the advent of State Property, Workshops become even more attractive because they become food-neutral: a Grassland Workshop will produce the 2 required by each unit of population. Thus, it is possible to swarm your Grasslands with State Property Workshops, to yield as much Production as you want. Areas with Jungle are typically lacking in Production , being mainly Grassland Flatlands, but by clear-cutting such a site and filling it with State Property Workshops, you can create an absolute monster of a Production city.
• It may be advisable to build a Workshop or two for use by a coastal City. These sites are typically lacking in Production but have ample Commerce , so the Workshop can assist the City in producing Commerce multiplying buildings like Libraries, Banks, etc.