Placing mines and farms

tropico-4

In Tropico 4, when I select to construct a mine I get an overlay showing the location and density of ressources.

Do I build the mine right on top of that or rather beneath the ressource field?

I am pretty sure I once built a gold mine directly on top of the ressources and it was unable to mine anything.

Same with farms:
When I want to build a farm, I see which area is best for growth. Do I build the farm into this area, or right beneath it so the field will be there?

Best Answer

According to experiments and documents referred to in this Tropico 3 thread on the official forums:

  • Farms should be placed such that the area surrounding the building has the highest yield potential. Ideally, you place your farm on a spot with horrible yield but that has high yield around it to maximize use of farming land.
  • Mines need to be placed on top of the deposit for peak efficiency.

Since there isn't much about the mechanics of the game that has changed between the Tropico 3 and 4, it's unlikely that Tropico 4 is any different. There are posts about Tropico 4 that say pretty much the same thing about farms, although they are on other non-official sites.

FWIW: My observations through my own playthrough in Tropico 4 supports the above statements. I don't have screenshots of overlays vs. crop placement or mine placement vs extraction rate, but the most productive mines for me have been right on top of the overlay area and the most productive farms were surrounded completely by green overlay areas with the road 3-5 squares away. They will build across the street to get to good land if they have to, but I usually place my road down a stretch of spread out farms for maximum effectiveness.

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