I tend to play epic games and am currently playing at Prince difficulties. i hear many many people talk of specialized cities. Production, science, great people, etc. I tend to end up with many cities that are all pretty good but nothing ever "stands out" as an ideal city for anything. I also tend to have most all of the buildings built in the well built "core" cities.
Am I not sure why this occurs when there is so much talk of specialzation in city plan. I tend to make improvments based on what the tile is. Grassland and fresh water is going to be a farm, hills get a mine, plains get a cottage, forests get saved and then lumbermilled. I like to max out a city and work every single tile if it is at all possible. As a result most of my cities seem to be very low on specialists.
Are there certain tiles that are never worth it to work and that a specialist will be better long term?
Does not having more then a specialist or 2 in a city really hurt me that much?

I am trying to figure out why on Prince difficulty I often am first or second in "score" but the AI seem to really pull very much ahead in tech. I hear people talk of trades to even it out but this seems to help the AI just as much or more then it helps me.

Another line of questioning I have is conquest. At a certain point my Empire gets just too large but I have to kill more and more to keep the AI's down. I find I can always out fight the AI in combat and war and take cities left and right but I always hit an unmanagable point. If I burn cities and try to only occupy a few rather then them all the culture bubles of OTHER AI fill the gaps and they put in cities to fill the gaps before my new cities can pump out a decent culture radius. I end up making one civ weak just to allow 1 or 2 other AI to become very strong and take the lead. I try to use a forbidden palace to cut the difficulty of the vast distances but in order for it to be of use I have to try to get it in a new border city that is weak and undeveloped and it builds so slowly. To add to that, by the time I have it up I have been forced to expand again well past it or in another direction.

Well for one thing, if you are only building cottages on plains then you are probably not getting enough commerce to keep up with the AI tech pace. The benefit of specialized cities is that you don't have to build every city improvement in a city that is specialized. If a city is only producing a few commerce and many hammers, you are much better off just building forges and factories in the city and neglecting the banks, libraries, etc using the saved hammers to build units to destroy your enemies instead. Also, expansion is expensive so if you are hurting make sure to keep taking cities for income, build courthouses in all the distant cities, and possibly move to state property and less expensive civics.

Well for one thing, if you are only building cottages on plains then you are probably not getting enough commerce to keep up with the AI tech pace. The benefit of specialized cities is that you don't have to build every city improvement in a city that is specialized. If a city is only producing a few commerce and many hammers, you are much better off just building forges and factories in the city and neglecting the banks, libraries, etc using the saved hammers to build units to destroy your enemies instead. Also, expansion is expensive so if you are hurting make sure to keep taking cities for income, build courthouses in all the distant cities, and possibly move to state property and less expensive civics.

My jury's still out on this.

For one thing, say you have a production city and switch it to produce Gold. Does it get Bank benefits? If so, then it might well be worthwhile to have built that Bank.

Edit: Seriously, I'm asking. I'm not sure whether the Bank affects it or not. Same for Library and producing Research.

Wodan

Specializing cities is the way to go. I determine how to settle cities based on the roles they will take later in the game. You have to learn to let your cities rely on each other. The production cities will have very little commerce, but they will build the troops that protect your science and wealth cities.

My jury's still out on this.

For one thing, say you have a production city and switch it to produce Gold. Does it get Bank benefits? If so, then it might well be worthwhile to have built that Bank.

Edit: Seriously, I'm asking. I'm not sure whether the Bank affects it or not. Same for Library and producing Research.

Wodan

Since it's called "Wealth", not commerce, I don't think buildings do not apply. But I could be wrong. Anyway, there is little reason to set your production city to wealth anyway. It should be making units almost non-stop, even if you're in a peaceful game.

I think that if you have to go to war to knock the AI down, that is a lose/lose situation. The few times I have won on the Prince lvl I have done it by out producing the AI. War can definately give you great overall benefits but it can also be a major drain on your economy. To declare war on a higher score nation just to knock down his score always seems to 'open the door' for another nation to take the lead in score.

It seems nice to have every building in every city, but that really means you aren't researching fast enough to unlock better buildings!

After you get enough cottages to research at a decent rate, you will realize there isn't enough production to build everything. So you are forced to specialize.

The concept of 'production' cities always producing units and never anything else has got me in trouble before. Maybe I have too many production cities but they are really easy for me to make. Switching them to producing wealth is easier than switching them to a different kind of specialty. Is this just wrong?

Overall, what is your breakdown for specialty cities? How many Production vs Commerce.

Some of the buildings do apply. You can see this as it's happening by holding the mouse pointer over the gold in the city screen. The same is true with libraries and the other buildings that affect specific output. So a high production city can potentially make more money than a high commerce city if it is building wealth.

For example, if you have a city that produce 100 hammers it will produce 50 gold (or beakers), this is added in at the same time the gold (or beaker) is converted from commerce. So you will see something like +10 (25% of 20 commerce) and +50 (50% of 100 from production) and then all of the +xx% from buildings. One or two high production cities can fund an entire empire running at 100% science, or they can run your entire research program running at 0% science. To be most effective you'll want to add in the super-specialists that add similar effects, so if you want to produce wealth add all of your extra great prophets and merchants here.

Try it sometime, you can make cities that will make the cottage spammers drool with envy. Imagine a good base production of 30 hammers, +5 from super-priest specialists (5 of them, +1 each) +25% from a forge and +50% from a factory giving you 52 hammers. Turn that into 26 gold, add a bank, market and groccer and you're back to 52 gold regardless of where you set your slider. It gets even better with science output and the representation civic or a few well-placed national wonders like Iron Works and Wall Street which would give this example 104 hammers turned into 52 gold with a final output of 156 gold. And this is all from a city with a base production of 30 wich really isn't that unreasonable for a high production city that works half of its tiles with an average of 3 hammers per tile.

Edit: You may want to check it in the game, I keep forgetting which modifier does what in the XML files :)

i hear many many people talk of specialized cities. Production, science, great people, etc. I tend to end up with many cities that are all pretty good but nothing ever "stands out" as an ideal city for anything. I also tend to have most all of the buildings built in the well built "core" cities.
Am I not sure why this occurs when there is so much talk of specialzation in city plan. I tend to make improvments based on what the tile is.

I am opening myself up to lots of criticism (as are you), but I'll try my best to help you here. Having your core well established with the various buildings is not incorrect at all - provided you build priority buildings first - Ex: Aqueduct when you need health and not in a struggling Size 3 city due to unhappiness where a Temple would serve you better.

The concept of specialized cities is recognizing the long-term potential of the city. A quick example is a so-called 'Science city': A city surrounded by nothing but water has little option except to be this. Would you put West Point here (+4 XP to Units created)? Probably not. You could, but a better use may be in a higher production city where you can manufacture more troops with this benefit faster - add something like Heroic Epic and you have a specialized Unit Production City.

Short of a different city surrounded by rivers, grassland & cottages (which has bigger commerce potential long-term) - the aforementioned city would be a great spot for Oxford University - making it your Science Specialization city because it has the highest potential commerce/research capabilities.

Grassland and fresh water is going to be a farm, hills get a mine, plains get a cottage, forests get saved and then lumbermilled. I like to max out a city and work every single tile if it is at all possible. As a result most of my cities seem to be very low on specialists.

Plains with a cottage is a :nono: in my book. I try and have each tile at a minimum to support itself (2 food per tile to be self-sufficient) so I am more apt to Farm these tiles (barring a heavy overload of food from a different source). If you have a number of tiles that will be turned to Mines, then farming your Grassland is a good idea to offset the lack of food produced by the mines.

SAVE THE TREES!!! :eek: Just kidding... most people will suggest 'chop-rushing' (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=153451)to gain the hammers into your poduction as quickly as possible and get ahead that much quicker. Studies ;) have been performed and theorized that the early benefit is much more advantageous then the long-term thinking of lumbermills.

Are there certain tiles that are never worth it to work and that a specialist will be better long term? b Does not having more then a specialist or 2 in a city really hurt me that much?

This falls into another Specialization City. There are numerous threads on Great Person Specialization and I'll save my fingers by linking one of them here. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=152145)

I am trying to figure out why on Prince difficulty I often am first or second in "score" but the AI seem to really pull very much ahead in tech. I hear people talk of trades to even it out but this seems to help the AI just as much or more then it helps me.

I agree with Suspendinglight, if this is the case. You need more commerce being generated to keep pace with the AI at later stages of the game.

Some of the buildings do apply. You can see this as it's happening by holding the mouse pointer over the gold in the city screen. The same is true with libraries and the other buildings that affect specific output. So a high production city can potentially make more money than a high commerce city if it is building wealth.

For example, if you have a city that produce 100 hammers it will produce 50 gold (or beakers), this is added in at the same time the gold (or beaker) is converted from commerce. So you will see something like +10 (25% of 20 commerce) and +50 (50% of 100 from production) and then all of the +xx% from buildings. One or two high production cities can fund an entire empire running at 100% science, or they can run your entire research program running at 0% science. To be most effective you'll want to add in the super-specialists that add similar effects, so if you want to produce wealth add all of your extra great prophets and merchants here.

Try it sometime, you can make cities that will make the cottage spammers drool with envy. Imagine a good base production of 30 hammers, +5 from super-priest specialists (5 of them, +1 each) +25% from a forge and +50% from a factory giving you 52 hammers. Turn that into 26 gold, add a bank, market and groccer and you're back to 52 gold regardless of where you set your slider. It gets even better with science output and the representation civic or a few well-placed national wonders like Iron Works and Wall Street which would give this example 104 hammers turned into 52 gold with a final output of 156 gold. And this is all from a city with a base production of 30 wich really isn't that unreasonable for a high production city that works half of its tiles with an average of 3 hammers per tile.

Edit: You may want to check it in the game, I keep forgetting which modifier does what in the XML files :)

Tag and bump for a great post :goodjob:

I tend to play epic games and am currently playing at Prince difficulties. i hear many many people talk of specialized cities. Production, science, great people, etc. I tend to end up with many cities that are all pretty good but nothing ever "stands out" as an ideal city for anything. I also tend to have most all of the buildings built in the well built "core" cities.
Am I not sure why this occurs when there is so much talk of specialzation in city plan. I tend to make improvments based on what the tile is. Grassland and fresh water is going to be a farm, hills get a mine, plains get a cottage, forests get saved and then lumbermilled. I like to max out a city and work every single tile if it is at all possible. As a result most of my cities seem to be very low on specialists.
Are there certain tiles that are never worth it to work and that a specialist will be better long term?
Does not having more then a specialist or 2 in a city really hurt me that much?
I'll start from the back and work my way to the front :D

As to specialists, it depends on what they produce and how much you value Great People Points. If you want Great People, you're best off losing a couple Hammers or Commerce to get those GPPs. If you don't want to bother with Great People in that city, go with whatever gets you the most Food/Hammers/Commerce/whatever.

Most workable tiles have at least some value. About the only ones I can think of that would never be worth it to work are unforested, resource-less flatland Tundra (until you get Biology, at which point a Farm on one actually gives you a profit) and Coast/Ocean tiles when the city cannot make a Lighthouse. Icebound cities probably won't get big enough for the decision to come up :lol:


As to city specialization, let me give you a simplified example to illustrate:

Say you want to distribute 6 Cottages and 6 Mines between two cities. They'll add the same amount of resources to your empire regardless of where they are, and changing where they're put doesn't change how many Worker-turns it'll take to build them.

If you put 3 of each in the two cities, then a Forge, a Market, and a Library in each, you get +25% to the Hammers, Science, and Gold produced by those 12 improvements. However, if you put all 6 Mines in City A and all 6 Cottages at City B, you then can simply build a Forge at City A and the Market and Library at City B. You're getting the exact same amount of Hammers, Science, and Gold as if you spread them around, but you only have to build one of each building.

So by generalizing both cities, you are spending 720 Hammers on 2 Libraries, 2 Markets, and 2 Forges. By specializing the two cities, you can get the same end effect for just 360 Hammers. Those extra 360 Hammers that you never have to spend in the first place can then be put to other uses, such as building a Barracks and combat units in the production city or building a Bank in the Commerce city.

Then, when you factor National Wonders into the equation, specialization becomes that much more useful.


...hope that helped :D

My jury's still out on this.

For one thing, say you have a production city and switch it to produce Gold. Does it get Bank benefits? If so, then it might well be worthwhile to have built that Bank.

Edit: Seriously, I'm asking. I'm not sure whether the Bank affects it or not. Same for Library and producing Research.

Wodan

It does affect it. Often my "production" cities are the first to get Banks and Universities, not because I want to produce "Research" or "Wealth" but so that I can build Oxford and Wall Street quickly.

I do specialize my Commerce cities, and they usually take a while to build a new structure, if I can't buy it or whip it with slavery.

Also, since markets double as a happiness building, production cities wind up with those as well. At the end of the game, they also wind up with the first laboratories.

Since it's called "Wealth", not commerce, I don't think buildings do not apply. But I could be wrong. Anyway, there is little reason to set your production city to wealth anyway. It should be making units almost non-stop, even if you're in a peaceful game.

That assumes that I have just one production city. ;)

Depending on map, I rearely have just one, and frequently I have 4-5.

Though, usually I have plenty of money. It's Research I change them to produce, not Wealth.

Wodan

It's not much different than adjusting the slider really. When you decrease science you increase gold when you build wealth or research you decrease production. If I'm in a long war I typically begin "converting" my production cities from producing units to producing wealth once I have enough units that the upkeep is having a significant impact. As I lose units and the upkeep drops back down I switch those cities back to producing units. The same can happen when I chose to conquer cities rather than raze them. In the meantime I can be in a huge war with more than one opponent and not be forced to drop my research below 70-80%.

I can't honestly say that I don't build commerce cities because I will if they're appropriate for the terrain. But I can say that if given the choice I would prefer to build a high production city over a high commerce city. I think the power of production is underated by most players because they focus so intently on research and gold. The AI does the same thing when given the opportunity. So if I'm in a position where all I can do is keep up with the technology race I'd much rather have production than commerce. That way I can beat them into submission and take their technology from them, I like to think of it as Universal Suffering :)

I think the power of production is underated by most players

I doubt it's underated, it just needs to be paid for. ;)

Believe me, I'd love to have an empire of production cities, if it were feasible.

I have some generalities, and some technical comments!

First, the generalities:

If you cannot maintain your civ without having your production cities make wealth or research, then I suggest that you aren't making enough commerce cities -- you should have built cottages and windmills around some of those production cities, to make them into commerce cities! (Or at least balanced cities)

If you don't have anything useful for additional units to do (e.g. bolster your defenses, or conquer an enemy), I posit that you should have either made some more commerce cities instead of production cities... or that you don't go to war often enough.


Now, the technical remarks:

Economic specialization generally comes with an inherent loss. This is most often analyzed in terms of specialists (e.g. maybe I have to sacrifice 8 commerce from tiles in order to get my two scientists), but applies here too.

For example, suppose to make your production city, you spent two of your citizens on a farmed grassland and a mined grassland hill, for a net +3 hammers.

However, if you instead placed a cottage and a windmill, estimating 2.5 commerce from the cottage, you've netted +1 hammers and +3.5 commerce. (Without any of the relevant techs and civics)

So, by suggesting that having your production city running wealth is good for your economy, what you are saying is "I would rather have +3 hammers be converted directly into +1.5 raw gold, rather than having +1 hammers for any purpose, and +3.5 commerce to be allocated according to the sliders"

First off, this particular tradeoff can never be beneficial if your tax rate is at 50% or above.


The conditions that make this sort of specialization useful are, in order of importance:
(1) Your production city is lopsided towards gold boosting, as compared to the rest of your civ.
(2) Your tax rate is low.


So, this could be useful if your production city has banks, markets, and grocers, while every commerce city in your civ does not.

However, this begs the question: "Why didn't you build banks, markets, and grocers in any of your commerce cities?"


And, of course, there are other ways to achieve specialization. Instead of working that plains hill, getting +4 hammers, and producing wealth for +2 raw gold, why not make a merchant specialist instead? You get +3 raw gold and great people points. (As well as +3 research, if you're running representation!)

Which goes right back to the question: "Why didn't you build banks, markets, and grocers in any of your commerce cities?" That way, they could be running the merchants instead!



All of the above applies equally well to producing research instead. (Change "tax rate" to "science rate", "merchant" to "scientist", etc) Except that I think the case against research is slightly stronger, numerically.


If you use one production city for wealth and another for research, you are almost certainly doing worse than if you just turned them both into commerce cities.


There are probably cases where doing this is worth it -- but I'm having difficulty swallowing that it's a good general purpose strategy.

Good analysis, MyOtherName.

Personally, I don't force a bad fit. I make cities what the terrain suits them for. I'd MUCH rather have a specialized city than a "well-rounded" city.

Now, it's true that sometimes, perhaps even "often", the terrain will permit a choice of any of several different specializations. In these cases, I tend to go for a commerce city. Not so much from the numbers, as from a desire to have the better Tech. I've had less Tech than the AIs, pretty much as some point every single game, and it sucks. :) It's a situation that I rectify as soon as I can.

Anyway, back to your excellent analysis. The one difference is this: you can't turn a Commerce city into any other type of city. You can, however, turn a Production City into a Wealth or Research city (yeah, at 50%, but that's still pretty good). And, a GP City can be "tuned" at the click of a button, so it's probably the best of all.

So, flexibility is something to be considered.

Wodan

I think this sort of shifting is what a balanced city is good for. Enough production to get infrastructure buildings and maybe a few military units now and then, but enough commerce to contribute to your economy. They can often be partially specialized simply by shifting your citizens around -- when you need money, you simply take people off of the mines and over to the cottages. When you need units, you can stop working the cottages and put people back on the mines!

Sometimes, such cities change their definition over the course of a game. They'll be working several cottages when small, and then when they get bigger I'll farm over a few cottages, and now I can work more of the hills, turning more into a production city. Then later when the population gets bigger (or the circumstance changes), I can go back to working the cottages.

Or the opposite happens -- when it's small, it works all the available hills and is one of my better production cities. But as I gain civ-wide happiness, the city runs out of hills and starts working the grassland cottages instead, and eventually becomes a decent commerce city! (But one which is still capable of actually making stuff, like missionaries, or to help with the war effort in a pinch or with nothing left to build)

Anyway, back to your excellent analysis. The one difference is this: you can't turn a Commerce city into any other type of city. You can, however, turn a Production City into a Wealth or Research city (yeah, at 50%, but that's still pretty good). And, a GP City can be "tuned" at the click of a button, so it's probably the best of all.


However, if you find yourself producing Wealth or Research often in a production city, you'd be far better off converting to cottages.

I rarely use the option. Usually it's when I'm just a turn or two from a tech that gives me a new structure or military unit I'm waiting on. I don't want to start production on a Maceman when I'm 2 turns from Grenadiers.

Hi guys,

One thing I've always wondered about "production cities", is where's the food coming from? Unless I'm going mad, you need an average of 2 food per tile in order to sustain your population, but every time you place a mine, or a workshop you're losing food. Is a "production city" only viable if youve got a food bonus, or do you have to build one farm per mine/workshop? I've never managed to produce anything that seems to be a specialist production city... granted I've had high-output cities but only from what I would call a well rounded city with the right buildings and some licky resources.

How do you do it?:confused:

:)

Hi guys,

One thing I've always wondered about "production cities", is where's the food coming from? Unless I'm going mad, you need an average of 2 food per tile in order to sustain your population, but every time you place a mine, or a workshop you're losing food. Is a "production city" only viable if youve got a food bonus, or do you have to build one farm per mine/workshop? I've never managed to produce anything that seems to be a specialist production city... granted I've had high-output cities but only from what I would call a well rounded city with the right buildings and some licky resources.

How do you do it?:confused:

:)

A production city is one tuned to work all the high production tiles it can, with enough farms to support the food demands of its population (2F per pop). You don't build cottages or windmills in a production city.
So its _is_ a balance between food and hammers, but it is _not_ a "balanced city", as every tile will either be a mine, a workshop or a farm (or a resource) - so the commerce of the city will be quite low - thus libraries and banks don't make much sense in such a city.

A commerce city spams as many coattages a possible, works coast, resources and a very few number of famrs if required to feed cottage+plains tiles. Windmills on the hills if you're stuck with hills. Many grassland is good for this type of city.

A GP factory city makes farms + Winmills to make huge excess population and run specialists to make Great People. The more grassland and floddplains the better.

City location is very important for Production Cities. They must have a lots of hills, and some grassland, food resources or floodplains. Plains are not so good - as they require 1 extra food (same as a grassland hill) or you farm them and get only 1 hammer from them. The best tiles to see are : heavy hammer resources, floodplains, grassland, food resources and mines. Coast is not too useful - make it a commerce city instead.

If a production city has spare food, use engineer specialist to make Great Engineers - then if you don't have a wonder you really need ready to build then make a Super engineer - (3 hammers + 3 beakers) in the city.

Buildings - build a forge, and enough health + happiness boosting buildings to keep growing. Build a barracks - this city will make many units in the game. Build a factory and a power plant. if you need the culture to spread the city boundaries build an obelisk - or later use a Theatre - library is too expensive to justify just for the culture. Build a drydock if you have sea access and want a lot of elite ships.

Small wonders - Heroic Epic + West Point is traditional for large numbers of elite units. Herioc Epic + Ironworks for just huge amounts of units. Iron works + forbidden palace if you need the palace in that area of your empire.

Wonders - if your plan indicates a particular wonder then you'll stand a better chance of winning the race.

Spaceship victory - you can loose this race by not getting the right tech's soon enough or not building the part soon enough - so your empire will need a balance of production and commerce city to win.

GP factories are optional, but I think evey empire needs some production cities and some commerce cities in its core.

Well, "Production cities" aren't all Mines :lol:

A "Production city" will be overwhelmingly Mines/Watermills/etc., but will have enough Farms to feed the people working the Mines. Likewise, a "Commerce city" will be overwhelmingly Cottages, but will still have enough Farms to feed the people working the Cottages and enough Mines/Watermills/Lumbermills to actually get the Libraries and stuff built.


Edit: dang, robinm beat me to it ;)

Nice. So many really helpful replies and so much good advice given makes me think I asked a "good" question. :) Much to digest.

One thing to consider about production cities is that with the right tech and state property the following two rules apply:

1) you shouldn't build farms if you can avoid it
2) a city without hills can have equal production to a city with hills

With all the appropriate tech and state property the different improvements give you the following:

Farm: 2F
Mine: 3P
Workshop: 3P
Watermill: 1F 2P 2C
Windmill: 1F 1P 2C

Mine + farm = 2F 3P
Workshop + farm = 2F 3P
Watermill + windmill = 2F 3P 4C (with a financial civ it's 6C)

Obviously if you have farms on some tiles and other tiles where you potentially could have a watermill you should replace a farm/mine or farm/workshop combo for a watermill/windmill combo. It won't give you any more production, but the extra commerce is handy.

From a strictly mathematical point of view the important thing is not how much production you get form a tile, but the total of production and food. The only thing special with hills is that they give you the production early, while flatlands will be equal first about halfway through the tech tree (state property amongst others).

With state property you have the following values for various terrain (railroad where needed, commerce not included):

Plains-hills + mine = 5P
Plains-hill + windmill = 1F 3P
Grassland-hills + mine = 1F 4P
Grassland-hills + windmill = 2F 2P
Grassland + workshop = 2F 3P
Grassland + watermill = 3F 2P
Grassland + farm = 4F

So all of the above combos give a total of 5, excet those with windmill and farm. To maximize production you want to avoid having any farms or windmills (windmills are still better than farms, since they give commerce as well).

In other words you can get a kick-ass production city with only flatlands, provided you are running state property. Some resources give you more than 5 total prod and food, such as copper and iron. Also having 1 or 2 good food resources will improve a bit on the total production, but not more than 10% extra.

Excellent Responses - thanks guys!! :D

So is it worth while to change improvements as the game progresses? Changing things like farms and mines over to windmills and watermills as y6ou get the techs? If so at what tech levels is this appropriate?

So is it worth while to change improvements as the game progresses? Changing things like farms and mines over to windmills and watermills as y6ou get the techs? If so at what tech levels is this appropriate?

I do this quite often. For example, workshops IMO aren't worth it unless I have a city of all grasslands, literally, until you get the stuff that makes them better. But, when you do, just sit and honestly look at your city.

The one thing I'm not wild about doing is building cottages after the early or mid game (basically by the time I'm done founding cities). When I found the city, I sit and decide what it's going to specialize in. After that, I don't like changing city specializations. I may tweak cities, but my tweaks don't consist of adding cottages. (Rarely, I may change a Town to something else, such as when a new resource pops in.)

Wodan

What about overspecialization, unless the term exists only in my little brain?

I do specialize my cities, but for some reason I can't bring myself to make a city that can only do one thing. No matter what role my city is playing, it will always have at least one production tile, one cottage, and 2 food(3+) tiles.

I guess my cities are specialized with the corners rounded off. I basically build a city and improve the tiles so that each tile will give me the most "things." Then, I use the governor to sort of aim the city to do what I need.

When it comes to national wonders, I go by the domestic advisor and not by a plan that I've had for a long time. My highest prod city gets HE and west point, highest gp gets NE and whatever else makes the most sense, highest commerce gets wallstreet and oxford, etc. But this is something that I do reactively, not proactively.

I guess I do specialize as the game progresses but early game my cities are multifunctional.

I play small/pangea so I usually have no more than 4 cities before I go a'conquering. Am I being silly/lazy/ineffecient or does my style make sense for the type of map that I play?

Advice is welcome.

What about overspecialization, unless the term exists only in my little brain?

I do specialize my cities, but for some reason I can't bring myself to make a city that can only do one thing. No matter what role my city is playing, it will always have at least one production tile, one cottage, and 2 food(3+) tiles.

I guess my cities are specialized with the corners rounded off. I basically build a city and improve the tiles so that each tile will give me the most "things." Then, I use the governor to sort of aim the city to do what I need.

When it comes to national wonders, I go by the domestic advisor and not by a plan that I've had for a long time. My highest prod city gets HE and west point, highest gp gets NE and whatever else makes the most sense, highest commerce gets wallstreet and oxford, etc. But this is something that I do reactively, not proactively.

I guess I do specialize as the game progresses but early game my cities are multifunctional.

I play small/pangea so I usually have no more than 4 cities before I go a'conquering. Am I being silly/lazy/ineffecient or does my style make sense for the type of map that I play?

Advice is welcome.
Overspecialization only happens when you go so far that you totally cripple a city, preventing it from doing what you want it to do. For example, a Commerce city that only brings in 1 Hammer per turn isn't going to be able to build the Libraries and/or Banks it needs to actually get the most out of all its Commerce. Likewise, a Production city with nothing but Mines and Workshops will be much weaker than one with enough Farms to make full use of its surrounding terrain.

One thing to note, though: in a purebred "Hammer city", more Commerce is useless. Instead of a Cottage, you can directly boost the city's Hammer output with something like a Workshop or Watermill, or you can indirectly boost the city's Hammer output by putting down a Farm that will help feed the citizen working one of your Mines ;)




As to National Wonders, I also go by the Domestic Advisor when it comes time to choose where to put them. However, when I do so, I usually have a pretty good idea of where they'll go before I even open it, and the Domestic Advisor simply lets me pick which of the dedicated appropriately-specialized cities to actually place them in.

How do I know? Because I don't place my cities just anywhere and wait to see what pops up...I go looking for good nearby sites for a Commerce city and a Production city while I'm still exploring the terrain :scan:.

For instance, in my current game, I went looking for somewhere to put a Commerce city, and found where my explorers had uncovered a nearby location with two hills (one of which had Gems) and literally every other tile flat Grassland that included a Bananas, a Dyes, and a river. Two Mines, a Watermill or two, and a Banana Plantation would provide all the Food and Hammers such a city would need, and some quick arithmetic told me that that left about fifteen self-feeding Cottages. It was a Commerce monster waiting to happen.

Now, this city, as you observed tended to happen, is still somewhat generalized as it focuses on getting its infrastructure in place by working the Mines and a Watermill. The bigger it gets though, the more and more cash it's going to rake in while its production remains about the same...and in the end, I know for certain that it'll be one of the top contenders for Oxford or Wall Street, even if it doesn't end up getting them.




...I hope all this rambling on actually managed to help :crazyeye:

Overspecialization only happens when you go so far that you totally cripple a city, preventing it from doing what you want it to do. For example, a Commerce city that only brings in 1 Hammer per turn isn't going to be able to build the Libraries and/or Banks it needs to actually get the most out of all its Commerce.
...unless your plan all along is to use Slavery/Univ Suffrage to buy the buildings you need.

Likewise, a Production city with nothing but Mines and Workshops will be much weaker than one with enough Farms to make full use of its surrounding terrain.
Agreed...before all else, you have to have enough food to feed the entire city. :)

...I hope all this rambling on actually managed to help :crazyeye:
Excellent tips.

Wodan

When improving your production system - look at all the tiles that produce less than 2f. Count up how much surplus food you will need to support those tiles, and make sure you have just enough farms to produce that surplus. Eg: Say you have a city with 3 plains hills, 2 grassland hills and a fish. Each plains hill needs 2 food to support it, each grasslands hill needs 1. That means you need a total of 8 surplus food to support those 5 tiles. The fish will provide 4 surplus food, so you need another 4. Irrigate four tiles and there you go.

When improving your production system - look at all the tiles that produce less than 2f. Count up how much surplus food you will need to support those tiles, and make sure you have just enough farms to produce that surplus. Eg: Say you have a city with 3 plains hills, 2 grassland hills and a fish. Each plains hill needs 2 food to support it, each grasslands hill needs 1. That means you need a total of 8 surplus food to support those 5 tiles. The fish will provide 4 surplus food, so you need another 4. Irrigate four tiles and there you go.
That's exactly what I do :D.

Don't forget though that the city tile itself gives 2 food as well, so your example would only need 2 Farms ;)

Plains with a cottage is a :nono: in my book. I try and have each tile at a minimum to support itself (2 food per tile to be self-sufficient) so I am more apt to Farm these tiles (barring a heavy overload of food from a different source).

Just making sure that I understadn what you are saying: So you are more likely to put the cottages on grassland then on plains? Because grasland provides 2F without a farm?

Thanks,

Timo

In all honesty, Timo, it really doesn't matter. Especially for cities close to your borders, you're better served to put your cottages/towns on the interior side, regardless of whether they're plains or grasslands. Fill in the exterior side of the city with whatever Farms are needed to get your food base.

Wodan

Edit: it matters slightly in regard to when the city is growing. It's probably easier to grow a city when your food is a constant +2. On the other hand, if you have flood plains, that heals all ills. :)

Just making sure that I understand what you are saying: So you are more likely to put the cottages on grassland then on plains? Because grasland provides 2F without a farm.

Exactly what I am saying. :goodjob: Population = Power. If you were to put Cottages on the Plains, it would 'rob' from your bonus food resource or floodplain, limiting your potential for a high population.

Trying to balance each tile to get your city capable of supporting a 16+ Pop town (minimum) in the long run is quite achievable in most cases and will lend more total Commerce/Production/Specialists to your empire.

This is a general rule that will serve you well in 90% of your cities, IMO.

Add: Wodan makes a case to the contrary, but he offers the 'other 10%'. If you are balancing an abundance of 'Food rich' resources/tiles. This was covered in my original post to a minor degree.

(barring a heavy overload of food from a different source.)

:p

Actually it doesn't matter one bit. Farm a plain & Cottage a grassland or Farm a grassland & Cottage a plain, it comes out exactly the same. Yes, you want enough food to support working all the tiles, BUT where you place your farms and cottages has no impact on that at all.

IOW, putting a cottage on a grassland "robs from your bonus food resource or floodplain" just as much as putting it on a plain.

Without getting into 'over-arching strategies' I'll simply say: I agree with you. You can balance it out. At some point along the lines your growth rate wll be less then optimum, but if this isn't a major concern, then build it according to a more protect my assets approach like Wodan suggested.

Next game when you have 1 Bonus Food source and plains surrounding your city, try buliding Cottages in all and see the result. In most case you'll only grow to about a 5-7 in size before you're stuck. With Farms on each, you will not have much commerce (except the 1 per tile from the river), but you will have an attractive production city that is limited only by your health/happiness requirements.

It was a general rule of thumb that will NOT fail for a player who is learning the basics. The benefits I see are:


faster/consistent growth rate
improved flexibility of tile use
greater potential population - translating to higher commerce, specialists &/or potential production
higher score - if you care. Score is the lowest consideration for my game enjoyment


While these will not impact the End Game tremendously, it is still far from 'having no impact on that at all'. ;)

It's a very bad rule of thumb for anyone to always put the same improvement on a particular terrain. "Put down as many farms as you need, then cottages everywhere else" is simpler and FAR more effective.

I'll also note the following about your so-called 'benefits':
- Faster growth rate: false. You get a faster growth rate by farming the grasslands and working them first - don't start getting the commerce as fast, though. THAT is the high-level tradeoff to consider in what you put where (growth curve vs. early production) that isn't necessary to worry about if you're still learning.
- Improved flexibility of tile use: false. You get greater flexibility by concentrating your production (in this case by farming grasslands) since you can adjust the relative weight you give to growth vs. production.
- Greater potential population: false. You get exactly the same potential population.
- Higher score: false. Again, you get the same score.

I guess that is where our approach differs slightly:

After I improve the bonus resources, I tend to Cottage Grasslands everywhere first. Since they take the longest to develop, every extra turn that they are down they become more beneficial and the city can continue to grow.

This, in most cases, leaves me with farming plains to keep growth going - for my Science/Commerce Specialization Cities. If it is somewhere necessary to offset working the mines in a Production/Troop City, I'll choose farms for grassland to balance it out, leading me in most cases to farm my Plains as well to preserve that surplus & accomodate the mines.

Unless in the presence of an overabundance of food, in which case: Cottage/Mine away!

I agree with you: It is flawed to place the identical improvement on the same terrain every time and in some/lot of the cases can easily be balanced using a combination of Cottages, Farms & Windmills. It probably is easier to say 'Farm to your needs and then develop the remaining to your cities needs'; not necessarily Cottages, either.

My games just tend to involve a heavy majority of the encountered plains to be farmed - no doubt leading to my lazy 'Rule of Thumb' explanation. Thankfully, we have a pool of sharp minds to help flesh out the inconsistencies & vagaries that may develop.

As to city specialization, let me give you a simplified example to illustrate:

Say you want to distribute 6 Cottages and 6 Mines between two cities. They'll add the same amount of resources to your empire regardless of where they are, and changing where they're put doesn't change how many Worker-turns it'll take to build them.

If you put 3 of each in the two cities, then a Forge, a Market, and a Library in each, you get +25% to the Hammers, Science, and Gold produced by those 12 improvements. However, if you put all 6 Mines in City A and all 6 Cottages at City B, you then can simply build a Forge at City A and the Market and Library at City B. You're getting the exact same amount of Hammers, Science, and Gold as if you spread them around, but you only have to build one of each building.

So by generalizing both cities, you are spending 720 Hammers on 2 Libraries, 2 Markets, and 2 Forges. By specializing the two cities, you can get the same end effect for just 360 Hammers. Those extra 360 Hammers that you never have to spend in the first place can then be put to other uses, such as building a Barracks and combat units in the production city or building a Bank in the Commerce city.

Then, when you factor National Wonders into the equation, specialization becomes that much more useful.


...hope that helped :D

I can't agree with this. You are ignoring what happens with all the other tiles... and with the tiles where you are building the mines/cottages. The markets and the libraries still will add a bonus to the production city commerce (if it gets any commerce from its tiles), and the same for the Forge on the commerce city (of course, if it gets any hammer). Your example is right for cities on extreme places (almost no hammers, or almost no commerce), but it is not for "real" cities, that (usually) mix both kind of tiles...

I usually play with an approach quite similar to the first post, although i try to make some kind of (minor) specialization: I build first what brings more profit, and always try to max each tile and each city.

(First post on the forum, hi to all :))

True, LaDeSiDia; however, to a great extent you can pick what your tiles produce. You can make your tiles produce commerce by building cottages and windmills. You can make them produce hammers by building workshops and mines.

Personally I make most of my cities into commerce cities. I will produce little to no hammer stuff. I'll use Slavery or Univ Suffrage to build my infrastructure. I won't even bother with Forge.

A couple of cities will be production cities. I build all mines and workshops, farms as needed. These cities don't bother with market etc. Actually, they usually don't have a SINGLE commerce coming in.

Wodan

I have some generalities, and some technical comments!

First, the generalities:

If you cannot maintain your civ without having your production cities make wealth or research, then I suggest that you aren't making enough commerce cities -- you should have built cottages and windmills around some of those production cities, to make them into commerce cities! (Or at least balanced cities)

Actually, I would disagree. The production city is a =lot= more versatile. It can build new infrastructure faster, it can build military units, workers/settlers, or missionaries and it can still be used for Research or Wealth in a pinch. The commerce city can only be used for =one= thing: commerce.

I like commerce cities. I love building on the coast (research one tech and your whole civilization is connected without long, pillageable roads that require protected workers. That means I end up with lots of commerce cities. But "core" cities almost =need= to be production cities. Which would you rather have: a production city that builds a market, a grocer, and a bank in a few turns and steadily produces a little bit of commerce (and more when you do Research/Wealth)? or a commerce city that struggles to build the infrastructure it needs?

If you don't have anything useful for additional units to do (e.g. bolster your defenses, or conquer an enemy), I posit that you should have either made some more commerce cities instead of production cities... or that you don't go to war often enough.

Agreed. But I can =always= find something else for a unit to do. In most games my unit costs are far, far lower than my city upkeep or civics. And there's always one more hill that could use a lookout or one more key resource that could use a spearman/pikeman to protect against pillaging. And yes, a corn that you're trading to another civ in return for a luxury can be pretty "key" ;^)

Now, the technical remarks:

Economic specialization generally comes with an inherent loss. This is most often analyzed in terms of specialists (e.g. maybe I have to sacrifice 8 commerce from tiles in order to get my two scientists), but applies here too.

For example, suppose to make your production city, you spent two of your citizens on a farmed grassland and a mined grassland hill, for a net +3 hammers.

However, if you instead placed a cottage and a windmill, estimating 2.5 commerce from the cottage, you've netted +1 hammers and +3.5 commerce. (Without any of the relevant techs and civics)

So, by suggesting that having your production city running wealth is good for your economy, what you are saying is "I would rather have +3 hammers be converted directly into +1.5 raw gold, rather than having +1 hammers for any purpose, and +3.5 commerce to be allocated according to the sliders"

First off, this particular tradeoff can never be beneficial if your tax rate is at 50% or above.


The conditions that make this sort of specialization useful are, in order of importance:
(1) Your production city is lopsided towards gold boosting, as compared to the rest of your civ.
(2) Your tax rate is low.


So, this could be useful if your production city has banks, markets, and grocers, while every commerce city in your civ does not.

However, this begs the question: "Why didn't you build banks, markets, and grocers in any of your commerce cities?"

As stated above, production cities have the least difficulty cranking out all these infrastructure improvements. And you generally need the improvements in them anyway, if you want to build the related national wonders (Theatres for Globe Theatre, Banks for Wall Street, Universities for Oxford University, etc.).

A properly-upgraded commerce city will outperform production cities. But the amount of effort required may, or may not, be worthwhile. And the production cities can do other things while the commerce cities generally can't.

And, of course, there are other ways to achieve specialization. Instead of working that plains hill, getting +4 hammers, and producing wealth for +2 raw gold, why not make a merchant specialist instead? You get +3 raw gold and great people points. (As well as +3 research, if you're running representation!)

Which goes right back to the question: "Why didn't you build banks, markets, and grocers in any of your commerce cities?" That way, they could be running the merchants instead!

All of the above applies equally well to producing research instead. (Change "tax rate" to "science rate", "merchant" to "scientist", etc) Except that I think the case against research is slightly stronger, numerically.

If you use one production city for wealth and another for research, you are almost certainly doing worse than if you just turned them both into commerce cities.

There are probably cases where doing this is worth it -- but I'm having difficulty swallowing that it's a good general purpose strategy.

Frankly, in my empires, =every= city gets markets, grocers, banks, libraries, observatories, and laboratories. This is because every city produces at least 1 commerce, so those buildings (which add up to +100%) will definitely produce a profit. And if the majority of those cities are production cities, the opportunity cost is not really all that high: each city spends a few turns building all the improvements. And if it has to stop momentarily and crank out a few units, no big loss.

Commerce cities are great. But they require a big commitment, which production cities do not. One major commerce city (from the beginning) is more than sufficient, IMO. Later on you can add more fishing villages and cottage centers and such. But they take so long to develop (due to lack of production) that they generally only act to accelerate a victory earned by the core (primarily production) cities.

Food > Production > Commerce

There's a very good thread on this in the articles forum. But, essentially, Food is more versatile than Production (it can be turned into GPP, PP, or CP, as needed). Production is more versatile than Commerce (it can be turned into units, buildings, or CP as needed). And Commerce brings up the rear (since it can only be turned into gold and research).

Of course, if you don't have enough Commerce, you fall behind in the tech race. So the key is leveraging your Food and Production into Commerce in the most efficient way. But that does not necessarily imply a straight Food for Commerce tradeoff. Sometimes the best method is to produce units to go conquer someone else's Commerce ;^)

True, LaDeSiDia; however, to a great extent you can pick what your tiles produce. You can make your tiles produce commerce by building cottages and windmills. You can make them produce hammers by building workshops and mines.

Personally I make most of my cities into commerce cities. I will produce little to no hammer stuff. I'll use Slavery or Univ Suffrage to build my infrastructure. I won't even bother with Forge.

A couple of cities will be production cities. I build all mines and workshops, farms as needed. These cities don't bother with market etc. Actually, they usually don't have a SINGLE commerce coming in.

Wodan

I'm guessing that you only grow them to the point where all the mines/workshops are running and that's all?

If not, how do you deal with the health issues without Markets, Grocers, and Harbors?

I can't agree with this. You are ignoring what happens with all the other tiles... and with the tiles where you are building the mines/cottages. The markets and the libraries still will add a bonus to the production city commerce (if it gets any commerce from its tiles), and the same for the Forge on the commerce city (of course, if it gets any hammer). Your example is right for cities on extreme places (almost no hammers, or almost no commerce), but it is not for "real" cities, that (usually) mix both kind of tiles...

I usually play with an approach quite similar to the first post, although i try to make some kind of (minor) specialization: I build first what brings more profit, and always try to max each tile and each city.

(First post on the forum, hi to all :))
You're correct in that it isn't nearly as simple as the illustration I gave, and also correct that most cities end up generalized whether we like it or not...especially capitals (I swear, somehow my capital always ends up almost perfectly balanced no matter how hard I try to specialize it :crazyeye:). It was mostly just to show the basic reasoning behind specializing cities ;) .

You're correct in that it isn't nearly as simple as the illustration I gave, and also correct that most cities end up generalized whether we like it or not...especially capitals (I swear, somehow my capital always ends up almost perfectly balanced no matter how hard I try to specialize it ). It was mostly just to show the basic reasoning behind specializing cities .

You also explain a nice foundation for developing an empire in a better sequence. For example, if a war is ongoing, but you are facing money trouble, you could stop military production in 6 rounded cities to set up their banks and offset the slow bleed or have your 1 or 2 cities that are handling the lion's share of your finances develop while keeping the war machine going elsewhere.

IMO, improve only when/where it's needed or about to be, not just for the sake of it, unless all other options are exhausted.

As to city specialization, let me give you a simplified example to illustrate:

Say you want to distribute 6 Cottages and 6 Mines between two cities. They'll add the same amount of resources to your empire regardless of where they are, and changing where they're put doesn't change how many Worker-turns it'll take to build them.

If you put 3 of each in the two cities, then a Forge, a Market, and a Library in each, you get +25% to the Hammers, Science, and Gold produced by those 12 improvements. However, if you put all 6 Mines in City A and all 6 Cottages at City B, you then can simply build a Forge at City A and the Market and Library at City B. You're getting the exact same amount of Hammers, Science, and Gold as if you spread them around, but you only have to build one of each building.

Excellent example showing why specialization is the way to go most of the time.

And Wodan made a great point about production problems in 'commerce cities:' you can just use slavery or universal suffrage to whip or buy libraries, markets, etc...

I generally try to have only one production city for every 2-3 commerce cities. But I like slavery and universal suffrage as civics, and if I used others more than I guess production would be more important to me.

(but towards the end of the game, when using universal suffrage with towns, my 'commerce cities' can also produce a lot.)

Actually, I would disagree. The production city is a =lot= more versatile.
I think what you call "production", I would call "balanced". A commerce city that never builds a building could easily outproduce what I would call a "production" city. I've had times where I considered building a library in a production city, but realized that I wouldn't even get a single extra beaker!


Judging from your post, you are able to build all the buildings you could ever want in your cities, and still have a large and timely enough army to satisfy your need. So, you don't really need a production city at all!

I, on the other hand, feel that my army is underpowered most of the time. (And I'm usually not a warmonger!) By not building all the buildings, I boost the size of my army! (yay!) And since my production cities are so focused on hammer production (i.e. no cottages! unless I want to turn it into a balanced city), I'm "squandering" very little commerce.

I agree, MyOtherName. What Vatec is calling a "production city" is what I would call a "balanced city".

In my current game, I have 2 production cities. Both are making something like 85 hammers and 2 beakers. They don't have any money or science buildings, period. If I make anything, it might be a market, and purely for the happiness benefit; I'll balance the cost vs Colosseum and others to see which is better.

To compare, I have about 6-7 commerce cities. They very in hammer production from 1 to 10. Beakers are between 50 and 125. I've been using Slavery to buy the needed Libraries etc. Just got University. Considering whether I should beeline for Universal Suffrage, which would be nice. That reminds me, I should go see who has the dang Pyramids and see if it would be easier to take that sucker.

(I also have a few "startup cities" which are either new conquests or late builds, and are on their way to becoming one of the two types.)

Wodan

I agree, MyOtherName. What Vatec is calling a "production city" is what I would call a "balanced city".

In my current game, I have 2 production cities. Both are making something like 85 hammers and 2 beakers. They don't have any money or science buildings, period. If I make anything, it might be a market, and purely for the happiness benefit; I'll balance the cost vs Colosseum and others to see which is better.

To compare, I have about 6-7 commerce cities. They very in hammer production from 1 to 10. Beakers are between 50 and 125. I've been using Slavery to buy the needed Libraries etc. Just got University. Considering whether I should beeline for Universal Suffrage, which would be nice. That reminds me, I should go see who has the dang Pyramids and see if it would be easier to take that sucker.

(I also have a few "startup cities" which are either new conquests or late builds, and are on their way to becoming one of the two types.)

Wodan

It's possible that we're just having an issue with semantics. So I'll try to be a little more clear. What you call "balanced" cities are, for me, very much slanted toward production: no cottages, just farms/food resources and mines. I rarely bother to settle any site that doesn't have significant food resources (I'd rather let the AIs waste their time doing that) unless it has a strategic resource. In my experience, because I mostly stick to food-rich sites, they usually end up also being commerce-rich sites (rivers and/or coast). So, in the end, my "production" cities still end up with a decent amount of commerce. And if they have a decent amount of commerce, and the ability to crank out commerce infrastructure rapidly, then I see no reason not to eke every last coin and beaker out of them.

Now, I will point out that I mostly play on Noble and Prince, which might lead to a different perception of scarcity. And I always play Huge Marathons, which means I almost always have plenty of time to explore, move troops, etc. So I don't necessarily feel that I always have "enough" troops, but I only rarely have "too few," if that distinction makes any sense.... I usually have two units in every city, more in border cities or cities that need the Monarchy happiness bonus, and a small mobile army for emergencies. The rest of my effort goes into infrastructure.

FWIW, when I have tried what it sounds like you folks are calling "production" cities, they took far too long to grow. "Balanced" cities with a better food supply generally outperformed them because they were able to work more tiles sooner. Off the top of my head, I would say that, pre-factory, my "balanced" cities produce about 20-30 hammers (4-5 mines plus forge, priest specialists, engineer). And the best of those generally gets the Ironworks while the second-best gets West Point and Heroic Epic. Or vice versa, depending on mood. Needless to say, those two cities tend to produce far more hammers afterwards ;^)

Summary: I pick food-rich areas and turn them into "commerce," "production," or "great person" cities based on the number of hills/cows/ivory/iron/copper/gems. I grow them to happiness limit as quickly as possible, then switch them to working every cottage/coast, mine, or specialist possible. And if there's still excess population, every city gets an engineer and as many priests as it can handle.

Is it the most efficient approach? Probably not. Does it work for me? Pretty much. Leader traits mold the mix of cities (more coastal cities with Financial trait, for example), but the underlying concept stays the same.

PS: I tend to stay in Slavery for almost the entire game, so it's always an option. I prefer not to use it unless a city is experiencing unhappiness, though, because it defeats the purpose of maximizing population (and hence number of worked tiles/specialist slots) as quickly as possible.

In any case, as long as everyone is having fun, it doesn't really matter exactly how they play ;^)

Another consideration is the cottage/town improvement vs all the other improvments.

A mine or a farm etc can be changed over to another improvemnt type with just a few turns of no production as the worker changes things.

On that same note it would be a rare thing to change other improvements over to a town or cottage as it would be many turns before any significant return was given.

The biggest thing would be that a Town is, for most intents and purposes, unchangeable. It simply is too big an investment in time to switch away.

Another consideration is the cottage/town improvement vs all the other improvments.

A mine or a farm etc can be changed over to another improvemnt type with just a few turns of no production as the worker changes things.

On that same note it would be a rare thing to change other improvements over to a town or cottage as it would be many turns before any significant return was given.

The biggest thing would be that a Town is, for most intents and purposes, unchangeable. It simply is too big an investment in time to switch away.

That's why my "commerce" cities are usually coastal cities ;^)

Cottages/Towns can be very powerful, but they are a long-term investment. They need to be started early, they need to be protected vigorously, and, in general, can be a huge headache.

You want to know how I get cottage-based "commerce" cities? I take them from computer opponents who had insufficient production to counter my invading armies. I could, of course, raze the cottages for an immediate payoff, but I like being efficient. And humane. Really. The 2-3 citizens who are whipped to death pop-rushing the theatre would have starved to death anyway. And they died in a good cause ;^)

It's possible that we're just having an issue with semantics.
Possibly. :)

In my experience, because I mostly stick to food-rich sites, they usually end up also being commerce-rich sites (rivers and/or coast).
You call coast food rich? It's break even, even with a Lighthouse. Like a farmed plains except you get commerce instead of a hammer.

River I buy... makes sense. To me, if there's a river, that right there is a primo commerce city waiting to happen. :cool:

So, in the end, my "production" cities still end up with a decent amount of commerce. And if they have a decent amount of commerce, and the ability to crank out commerce infrastructure rapidly, then I see no reason not to eke every last coin and beaker out of them.
To contrast, when I make a production city, there is no river, little grassland if any, hopefully access to water, and either hills or forests.

FWIW, when I have tried what it sounds like you folks are calling "production" cities, they took far too long to grow.
You need access to water to farm of course, or alternately if you have forested grasslands that works too. (on the other hand if you have a lot of forested grasslands, that would be perfect to chop rush a wonder and then plant cottages.)

Some excellent production cities are all plains and hills. You can't do much with them until you get Civil Service, so you can spread farms to them. After that, they're fine.

There's literally no alternative in such a case. It's not like you could make it into a "balanced" city. There's no food source, so it's going to be minimal population until Civil Service, no way around it.

"Balanced" cities with a better food supply generally outperformed them because they were able to work more tiles sooner.
Define "outperform". :)

I'm not sure what you are saying here. It's like you're saying "if there's a river through a city, it outperforms other cities". Well, yeah. That's a given.

The question is, take the same terrain, and build either (1) farms / mines OR (2) cottages / windmills, and compare.

It sounds like the difference between us is that you will take a nice river spot and do either (1) or (2) above, which will determine whether you have a "production" city (though I would call it "balanced") or a "commerce" city. Me, if I have a nice river spot, I pretty much do (2) and call it Good.

Of course, these are generalizations and any given game calls for adjustments and decisions on the fly. If it didn't, the game sure would be boring. :)

Is it the most efficient approach? Probably not. Does it work for me? Pretty much.
I don't think anybody here would get up in someone else's face and say "You're playing the game wrong!" The whole point is to have fun and explore your own strategies, to me, anyway. I enjoy sharing thoughts on here, but I certainly don't feel that any strategies I use are somehow superior by their very nature. It makes my day when someone points out to me something I haven't tried before and they say works for them.

In any case, as long as everyone is having fun, it doesn't really matter exactly how they play ;^)

Exactly!

Wodan

Possibly. :)


You call coast food rich? It's break even, even with a Lighthouse. Like a farmed plains except you get commerce instead of a hammer.

River I buy... makes sense. To me, if there's a river, that right there is a primo commerce city waiting to happen. :cool:

Might be a settings thing, but I almost never have difficulty finding coastal spots with 2+ resources. It may be that the script for the Huge Terra map I usually use spaces them almost exactly 8-10 spaces apart. So I usually end up with a "great" coastal city, a breakeven fishing village (which basically does nothing except support itself and generate commerce) and another "great" coastal city. And nothing beats a coastal city with 4-5 resources for insane growth coupled with insane commerce. In my best start ever, I had the Incas on a peninsula with 4 forested tundra, two hills (one of which popped gems around 2000BC), 3 coastal clams, 1 ocean fish, and 1 ocean whale. Needless to say, I had the tech lead somewhere around 1950BC and never looked back ;^)

To contrast, when I make a production city, there is no river, little grassland if any, hopefully access to water, and either hills or forests.

You need access to water to farm of course, or alternately if you have forested grasslands that works too. (on the other hand if you have a lot of forested grasslands, that would be perfect to chop rush a wonder and then plant cottages.)

Some excellent production cities are all plains and hills. You can't do much with them until you get Civil Service, so you can spread farms to them. After that, they're fine.

I think I see where our strategies differ. By the time I get Civil Service, the game is usually already won and I don't =need= specialized production cities. The only way I would bother settling a site like that is if I had to in order to grab a strategic resource or if I was backfilling after establishing a border (or a long coastal strip of cities). Remember, I usually play Noble or Prince. I suspect that these specialized production cities become both more likely and more useful as you go higher in difficulty level.

There's literally no alternative in such a case. It's not like you could make it into a "balanced" city. There's no food source, so it's going to be minimal population until Civil Service, no way around it.

Define "outperform". :)

I'm not sure what you are saying here. It's like you're saying "if there's a river through a city, it outperforms other cities". Well, yeah. That's a given.

And that's generally the only kind of site I'll bother to settle unless I need a strategic resource. A coastal civ with "balanced" cities can generate so much commerce, so it can afford to be larger, which gives it more production. That means that, properly executed, it can crush a civ with specialized "production" cities before it gets off the ground. Again, difficulty level probably makes a =huge= difference here.

The question is, take the same terrain, and build either (1) farms / mines OR (2) cottages / windmills, and compare.

It sounds like the difference between us is that you will take a nice river spot and do either (1) or (2) above, which will determine whether you have a "production" city (though I would call it "balanced") or a "commerce" city. Me, if I have a nice river spot, I pretty much do (2) and call it Good.

Of course, these are generalizations and any given game calls for adjustments and decisions on the fly. If it didn't, the game sure would be boring. :)

Agreed.

I don't think anybody here would get up in someone else's face and say "You're playing the game wrong!" The whole point is to have fun and explore your own strategies, to me, anyway. I enjoy sharing thoughts on here, but I certainly don't feel that any strategies I use are somehow superior by their very nature. It makes my day when someone points out to me something I haven't tried before and they say works for them.

I have a very strong ego and tend to present my arguments as if they were the only "right" ones. So I usually find it useful to state upfront that just because I will argue a position as if it were "correct," what I really mean is "it works for me." It helps avoid misunderstandings down the road. That being said, I like to challenge other people's assertions in order to get to the logic behind them. That way I'm more likely to learn something.

In any case, I've found that this thread has made me look much closer at my assumptions and approach. And I hope it's been helpful to others as well ;^)

Thanks!

Might be a settings thing, but I almost never have difficulty finding coastal spots with 2+ resources. It may be that the script for the Huge Terra map I usually use spaces them almost exactly 8-10 spaces apart.
Hmm. I've never played Terra, to be honest. Maybe I should. Not because of this, but just to play around with it.

In my games usually coastal cities will have no water resources. Probably about 50/50 whether it'll have one or not. Often, the resource will be out of reach, i.e., 3 spots away. You can sometimes get to it if you put two cities 2 spots away from each other, but that's no good. I usually play Pangaea or Continents, Monarch, Standard size.

Playing on Huge I think gives you more "choice" in city sites. Also, I think each person has a skill level where they can barely win. Playing on a level less than that, for that person, will allow you to spread out and have less cities, and still be competitive. I guess it would be like dropping down a level in order to allow yourself the luxury to spread out. Not that that's bad! It's just different than I usually do. Might be interesting to try, though.

I think I see where our strategies differ. By the time I get Civil Service, the game is usually already won and I don't =need= specialized production cities.
That's actually one of the problems I have with playing on higher levels than Monarch. It requires me to Rush. If I Rush on Monarch, I find myself so far ahead by midgame that the game is effectively over. If I don't, the game is competitive and enjoyable through the middle ages or modern era. If I plan to Rush, I'll usually pop the game up a level.

The only way I would bother settling a site like that is if I had to in order to grab a strategic resource or if I was backfilling after establishing a border (or a long coastal strip of cities). Remember, I usually play Noble or Prince. I suspect that these specialized production cities become both more likely and more useful as you go higher in difficulty level.
I would agree with that, based on my experience. I started on the lowest levels, and slowly built up as I beat each level a couple of times. One of the things I learned helped my game was specializing the cities. There may be other ways to do well at the same level I am now (Monarch), but that's one of the reasons I participate in the threads here. Pretty much every game I play, I'm trying something new. Either with something like city specialization, or unit mixes or tactics.

And that's generally the only kind of site I'll bother to settle unless I need a strategic resource. A coastal civ with "balanced" cities can generate so much commerce, so it can afford to be larger, which gives it more production. That means that, properly executed, it can crush a civ with specialized "production" cities before it gets off the ground. Again, difficulty level probably makes a =huge= difference here.

Don't you find the AI settles those sites you don't settle?

I have a very strong ego and tend to present my arguments as if they were the only "right" ones. So I usually find it useful to state upfront that just because I will argue a position as if it were "correct," what I really mean is "it works for me." It helps avoid misunderstandings down the road. That being said, I like to challenge other people's assertions in order to get to the logic behind them. That way I'm more likely to learn something.

In any case, I've found that this thread has made me look much closer at my assumptions and approach. And I hope it's been helpful to others as well ;^)

Thanks!

My pleasure. I feel the same. It's been enjoyable, honestly.

Wodan

People have said here, that specialized cities allow to save hammers, as fewer buildings have to be built.

I get that for production cities, they can avoid building science/money boosters or if they have a little commerce(e.g. 10), then they just build the cheap ones.

But in commerce cities it's not evident to me that avioding to build forges is a good choice. It cost 790 hammers to build grocer, market, library, university, bank and 120 more if a courthouse is desired. AFAIK production bonuses affects also hammers from hurrying(with slave i know, that +100% from leader trait is in effect), so by building the forge prior to the other stuff one would save up to (1-1/1.25)*790=158 hammer, so effectively 38 hammers at best(rounding can reduce this effect). The situation gets better for forge if you add 1 or 2 monastries.
And as one always wants to add in long term observatories and labarotories to commerce cities, it seems to be that a forge is worth the cost long term, though short term, as library, grocer and market is built later, it is a loss.

So for a non-industrious civ it can be worthy to add a forge, for industrious forge is going to be produced everywhere.

Or do you know some additional trick?

Carn

People have said here, that specialized cities allow to save hammers, as fewer buildings have to be built.

I get that for production cities, they can avoid building science/money boosters or if they have a little commerce(e.g. 10), then they just build the cheap ones.

But in commerce cities it's not evident to me that avioding to build forges is a good choice.

I think this is true, though I have not done a test to make sure.

Still, that's just one building. The big savings is on production cities, where you avoid a bunch of them: library, market, bank, university, etc.

Wodan

What about units? Is it better to get units that are specialized to attack one particular group of people like melee or archer units. Or is it better to make units that are well rounded for attacking any type of unit.

Or maybe not specialized in attacking certain units, but specialized in attacking cities, bombarding, healing your units. Or is it better to have them well rounded?

What about units? Is it better to get units that are specialized to attack one particular group of people like melee or archer units. Or is it better to make units that are well rounded for attacking any type of unit.

Or maybe not specialized in attacking certain units, but specialized in attacking cities, bombarding, healing your units. Or is it better to have them well rounded?

You may want to make another thread for this topic. I like well balanced armies unless I am so far ahead tech-wise that I can overwhelm the enemy with a single type.

If you're defending or pillaging, you want well-rounded.

If you're attacking, give all your units city raider or barrage. And cover them with a few well-rounded defense units.

What about units? Is it better to get units that are specialized to attack one particular group of people like melee or archer units. Or is it better to make units that are well rounded for attacking any type of unit.

Or maybe not specialized in attacking certain units, but specialized in attacking cities, bombarding, healing your units. Or is it better to have them well rounded?

Especially early in the game, I will frequently leave units unpromoted until either A. they reach the enemy they are going to attack or B. an enemy approaches the city they are defending.

At that point I promote them to whatever will improve their odds of winning while still preserving overall strategy (ie, I don't make too many shock units, because melee units cease being effective defenders quite early; I won't make too many units with cover once gunpowder is flowing freely; etc.).

Hmm. I've never played Terra, to be honest. Maybe I should. Not because of this, but just to play around with it.

It's my favorite map because, if you get a tech lead, you can have the New World all to yourself. Land two galleons of grenadiers and the barbarian cities fall almost a quickly as you can march to them. My idea of fun ;^)

In my games usually coastal cities will have no water resources. Probably about 50/50 whether it'll have one or not. Often, the resource will be out of reach, i.e., 3 spots away. You can sometimes get to it if you put two cities 2 spots away from each other, but that's no good. I usually play Pangaea or Continents, Monarch, Standard size.

Playing on Huge I think gives you more "choice" in city sites. Also, I think each person has a skill level where they can barely win. Playing on a level less than that, for that person, will allow you to spread out and have less cities, and still be competitive. I guess it would be like dropping down a level in order to allow yourself the luxury to spread out. Not that that's bad! It's just different than I usually do. Might be interesting to try, though.

Might be one of the other settings, like water level or climate. Not sure. I vary those from time to time.

What I have noticed is that there are some superb water-based cities. In my latest game I just rushed Madrid. It has something like 3 fish and 2 crabs. Who cares if all the land is forested tundra? Just poprush whatever you want from this monster.

That's actually one of the problems I have with playing on higher levels than Monarch. It requires me to Rush. If I Rush on Monarch, I find myself so far ahead by midgame that the game is effectively over. If I don't, the game is competitive and enjoyable through the middle ages or modern era. If I plan to Rush, I'll usually pop the game up a level.

I do not normally rush. I like building (another reason why I frequently have lots of well-rounded cities), but lately I've been playing a lot of Inca and Roman games, just to get a feel for what it takes to execute a successful rush.

I would agree with that, based on my experience. I started on the lowest levels, and slowly built up as I beat each level a couple of times. One of the things I learned helped my game was specializing the cities. There may be other ways to do well at the same level I am now (Monarch), but that's one of the reasons I participate in the threads here. Pretty much every game I play, I'm trying something new. Either with something like city specialization, or unit mixes or tactics.

The great thing about Civ4 is that there are generally several viable strategies. Not necessarily optimal (there is almost always an optimal strategy for any particular situation, though you may not necessarily have sufficient info before having to choose), but viable.

Don't you find the AI settles those sites you don't settle?

Sure, but since I consider them suboptimal sites, I have no problem with the AI putting in the effort to develop them. At some point they'll be mine, either through culture or conquest. A human player can often pull off planting a city in the middle of an AI civ and having it survive, but I don't think I've yet seen an AI that does what's need to succeed (rush cultural buildings, import enough defenders, etc.

In fact, I have often toyed with the idea of developing a purely coastal civilization, letting AIs settle the interior, and then crushing them. But I've never quite developed the strategy to such a pure level, mostly because you can't always count on finding Copper, Iron, and/or Horses near the water. And you need at least one of those to make it out of the Ancient Era in one piece. And you =must= have Iron to make it much further than that. So I =will= settle the closest Iron I find, no matter how badly the site sucks ;^)

My pleasure. I feel the same. It's been enjoyable, honestly.

Wodan

Likewise.

What I have noticed is that there are some superb water-based cities. In my latest game I just rushed Madrid. It has something like 3 fish and 2 crabs. Who cares if all the land is forested tundra? Just poprush whatever you want from this monster.

Capitols don't count... player starting spots ALWAYS have good resources, because the map generation algorithm specifically seeds them there.

Wodan

Just a (little) thought...

Buildings don't have an upkeep now, you pay for number of cities and distance from (nearest) capital... One of the main points of spezializing cities with Civ3 was to avoid paying the high building upkeep costs. That upkeep doesn't exist in CIV. Yes, i know i could spend my hammers with units or research (or culture/money) but i can't understand why... i would like to have a forge on my commerce city in order to get the university or the observatory built sooner when the tech arrives. I would like to spend a few turns at my prod city to get the marketplace or the university to get extra beakers from the commerce that city gets... I just lose the hammers to build it, but it will bring much more profit on long term...
So, my question is Why to specialize cities? I'm not paying upkeep for buildings... My own concept about specialization is related to the order i get the buildings and the kind of terrain improvements i build rather than avoiding to build some of them...

A production city will have little to no commerce generation. Thus, building a Bank there is useless and a waste of hammers/time that could be spent, if nothing else, making military units.

Wodan

A production city will have little to no commerce generation. Thus, building a Bank there is useless and a waste of hammers/time that could be spent, if nothing else, making military units.

Wodan

I usually play on small to standard maps, rarely on bigger ones, but i can't see how a city can get none or so few trade to make the bank unuseful. ¿No rivers near? ¿no sea? Ok, if that's the situation i probably wouldn't build a bank, sure. But i would build the market anyway for the health bonus...

Anyway, my intention on last post was to point that the specialization was almost a main on Civ3, but the main cause for that, IMHO, was the building upkeep, that has disappeared with Civ4... I think that a so small saving of hammers is not enough reason to force specialization. On the other side, the skill to switch strategies when the need comes is enough for me to play balanced cities (unless the terrain is really umbalanced, then i specialize...).

But i haven't played enough yet to come to true conclussions, all this are simply some reasonings... :)

i can't see how a city can get none or so few trade to make the bank unuseful. ¿No rivers near? ¿no sea?
Right. No river, no ocean, no cottages = 0 trade. Thus, you can save Hammers by not building a Bank etc.

Ok, if that's the situation i probably wouldn't build a bank, sure. But i would build the market anyway for the health bonus...
You mean a Grocer. Market provides Happiness bonuses.

Both of these depend on what Resources you have available, as they only provide Health or Happiness for certain Resources.

Also, they depend on how many health or happiness you have otherwise. Could be you have tons of fish or whatever, and thus you don't need the health, etc.

Anyway, even if you had a few commerce, the Bank will only provide minimal benefit. Say you have a river through 3 tiles. You're only getting 3 commerce. A Bank is going to raise that to 4.5... big deal. ;)

Anyway, my intention on last post was to point that the specialization was almost a main on Civ3, but the main cause for that, IMHO, was the building upkeep, that has disappeared with Civ4...
And a good point that is.

Keep in mind, though, that with Civ4 it is much more the case that your cities can't build everything, and of the things they can build, it can have a HUGE effect as to what order you build them in.

e.g., If you build a Market before a Forge. If this city is making 50 hammers and 5 commerce, compared to a city making 5 hammers and 50 commerce.

Wodan

So, my question is Why to specialize cities? I'm not paying upkeep for buildings... My own concept about specialization is related to the order i get the buildings and the kind of terrain improvements i build rather than avoiding to build some of them...

My thoughts on this are that you stand to gain more through specialization. If you are researching at a good clip, presumably you have enough improvements to keep your Science/Commerce cities busy with Libraries, Markets, and the like.

In theory, they are too busy with this task to develop a meaningful contribution to national security. This is where the trade-off is within your Production/Troop cities. In general, they have less relevant buildings to establish which permits them to heavily focus on Wonders & defending/attacking.

That is not to say you should never build anything but related buildings. One of my favourite changes to the game is the ability to switch between projects. Slowly develop that forge or whatever until a technology arrives that will allow the creation of a more suitable building for that city... and then back to the original project. Eventually you may have all the improvements available built in most of your cities. The real question is: Did you build them when they were needed most? Were they the best choice and provide the most benefit for your Civ at that time?

My thoughts on this are that you stand to gain more through specialization. If you are researching at a good clip, presumably you have enough improvements to keep your Science/Commerce cities busy with Libraries, Markets, and the like.

In theory, they are too busy with this task to develop a meaningful contribution to national security. This is where the trade-off is within your Production/Troop cities. In general, they have less relevant buildings to establish which permits them to heavily focus on Wonders & defending/attacking.

That is not to say you should never build anything but related buildings. One of my favourite changes to the game is the ability to switch between projects. Slowly develop that forge or whatever until a technology arrives that will allow the creation of a more suitable building for that city... and then back to the original project. Eventually you may have all the improvements available built in most of your cities. The real question is: Did you build them when they were needed most? Were they the best choice and provide the most benefit for your Civ at that time?


Take care, hammers on forge are probably gone, by the time you build a library.

Carn

Take care, hammers on forge are probably gone, by the time you build a library.

Carn

:thumbsup: That is true & sound advice. I've lost some production in stand-by projects when switching between two, but have yet to lose all of it unless consciously deciding to because of some newer priority.

It definitely isn't perfect unless you have trees, extra population or gold to hurry your necessary buildings so you can quickly switch back to the less-essential, but it is a suggestion to diversify your cities while preserving the specialized approach to developing them.

This is presuming that the forge (or whatever improvement) is not really necessary to begin with but is more of a nice-to-have.

This is a VERY helpful thread. A lot of questions I have after winning my first noble victory (won overwhelmingly, but just by points...Got rated as Warren G. Harding :( ;) ;)) are being addressed here.

I do have a couple of lingering questions (may yet be answered in here, but I'm too impatient to read through ;)).

For GP farms, would your focus be specifically on population growth so you can maximize how many specialisits you have, and then you create wonders that boost specialist allowance and GPP/turn?

Second: Is a science production city just a specialized Commerce city where you build wonders that will boost Science output?

Or would your GP city and you Science city be the same city?

And one other question:

Do you have workers build improvements only as they can be worked, or do you just build improvments in advance of city growth?

And one other question:

Do you have workers build improvements only as they can be worked, or do you just build improvments in advance of city growth?
Initially, when I have relatively few workers and a lot of unimproved terrain, I'll try to keep just barely ahead of the growth curve. Later on when most of my cities' terrain is well-developed and I have an army of Workers, though, I'll sometimes just go ahead and build everything that a city's going to use in advance just so I don't have to worry about it anymore.

This is a VERY helpful thread. A lot of questions I have after winning my first noble victory (won overwhelmingly, but just by points...Got rated as Warren G. Harding :( ;) ;)) are being addressed here.

I do have a couple of lingering questions (may yet be answered in here, but I'm too impatient to read through ;)).

For GP farms, would your focus be specifically on population growth so you can maximize how many specialisits you have, and then you create wonders that boost specialist allowance and GPP/turn?

This will greatly depend on what resources are available. Wonders are nice to get in GPP cities, but some of the best GPP cities have production that is too low to really crank out the wonders, and frankly, a single specialist generates more GPP than a wonder anyway. The only wonder that is really a must for a good GPP farm is the National Epic.


Second: Is a science production city just a specialized Commerce city where you build wonders that will boost Science output?
Yes.



Or would your GP city and you Science city be the same city?
It's not possible to do both optimally.

I'll give a concrete example. Say you're looking at two cities, both capable of high food output but little production. One of them has 3 food resources and is inland, with no river. The other has a preponderance of flood plains, and one food resource. Say for the purpose of our example that the total amount of food that can be worked by either city at max population is equal if everything is built with farms. Which one should be a commerce/science city and which one should be your GP farm?

Because those food resource produce no commerce, the first city will never be as good at producing commerce and Science as the second, and the second city will never be as good at supporting great people, because the flood plains square produces less food. If you try to do both, you won't be making optimal use of the city.

Comparing the numbers (I won't include leader traits or later techs, to keep the comparison simple)

One food resource produces 5 food and no commerce, which is enough to support the populace working it and one-and-a-half specialists (Or it can be used to subsidize a high production square, but we're talking only commerce vs. GPP cities and leaving production cities out).

One flood plain can be either 4 food and one commerce with a farm, enough to support the populace working it and one specialist,
or it can be 3 food and 6 commerce with a cottage, which is enough to support the popluace working it and half a specialist.

Grow both cities to size 4, and here is what things look like:

City 1: 20 food, 1 commerce, 4 specialists, 4 surplus food for growth.

City 2: either: 18 food, 5 commerce, 3 specialists, 4 surplus food for growth with farms, or:
14 food, 25 commerce, 1 specialist, 4 surplus food for growth with cottages.

See why the first city is better as a GPP and the second one is so much better as a commerce city? It's not even so much that the first city produces a superior number of GPP; it's that the second city's potential is so wasted by trying to use it as a GP farm.

That makes perfect sense, Yzen, thanks!

Artanis, that's kind of what ends up happening for me...but I need to remember to pull (a) worker(s) from one city to develop the next when the first has been developed to the population's potential (or just beyond) and the other one has few or no improved squares.

That makes perfect sense, Yzen, thanks!

Artanis, that's kind of what ends up happening for me...but I need to remember to pull (a) worker(s) from one city to develop the next when the first has been developed to the population's potential (or just beyond) and the other one has few or no improved squares.

I have a simple method that works for me: I usually build two workers right at the beginning. When I send out my first settler, I usually send the two workers (and their military escort) with them (usually building a road to the new city as they go). Then I build a new worker at the capital (if any plots remain to be improved). The two-worker team generally keeps moving on to the next newest city and the older cities build replacement workers behind them.

That way I rarely have a city with no worker and the newest cities that need the most improvement get it quickly.

I have followed most of this thread but seen little comment on map size and type so:

Is size of map, type of map, significant?

I normally play small size and seem to win higher levels on island type maps. Placing a City so that specialisation can be chosen doesn't seem to be high on the list of things to consider in these games, if you can get a city to 'specialise' it seems to be more of a bonus than a design goal.

Is my failure to win higher levels on larger more land based maps related to not specialising citys? Quite probably. However my experience seems to be that there are always 'other' reasons why a city gets placed in a sub-optimal position, like the AI spamming citys like shelling peas, and to keep up my economy just visited the toilet. :confused:


Aviator

As an experienced Civ player I always used to play with generalised cities and wondered why I rarely won. This time, my fourth 'Marathon' game of Civ4 I decided to try city specialisation, as Catherine (Russia). I have to say specialisation is definitely the way to go. In this game I am at the top of the league table, and have been throughout the game. I am now at least 400 points clear of my nearest rival and increasing (in about 1700AD). I believe this change in fortunes is entirely down to city specialisation. I believe its advantages lie in a number of factors:

1. Reduced city maintenance due to less buildings being built
2. Layered "enablers" focusing on the city's inherent strengths, e.g. located near gold, specialise with market, grocer, bank, Wall Street etc. etc.
3. A strong military to defend your civilisation because of cities specialising in production. These allow you to pump out military units without retarding economic growth, as the city is "specialised"
4. I have tasked my capital, Maximopolis, to specialise in Wonders. It has been busy almost all throughout the game and has generated fully 50%+ of the Wonders in the world, again acting as a major "enabler" for my civilisation and my game

In a sense this reflects the "real world" anyway. New York, London, and Tokyo: financial centres. Paris, Milan: culture. Detroit, Sheffield: manufacturing (production). Boston, Cambridge, and Oxford: Education (science). Rome, Mecca: Religion. You can argue with my selections, and of course there are many cities in between, but specialisation in Civ4 is something I will be "specialising" in!

I have a great deal of dificulty deciding what 'specialised' actually means.

For instance:

A city which produces no hammers cannot build anything so it'll never get the rewards from library/university/etc or market/bank/grocer
If a city is producing enough hammers to produce those buildings then it needs farms to make up for the mines leaving few tiles to cottages.
A city which is all cottages can produce so few hammers it cannot build anything nor can it grow quickly.

I see a lot about specialised citys but rarely if ever see the oportunity to allow a city to specialise. :(

Aviator

Specialization is about emphasis on the accumlation of one thing over another (hammers, commerce, or food), not on exclusive accumulation of one resource to the exclusion of the other two. Obviously you need some hammers and food in a commerce city, and you will need some hammers in a food city (AKA GP farm). In your production city, however, you can pretty much ignore commerce, near as I can tell, and only create farms to the extent necessary to work your production tiles.

Also, specialization will guide what buildings you build first in what city.

I'll give a concrete example. Say you're looking at two cities, both capable of high food output but little production. One of them has 3 food resources and is inland, with no river. The other has a preponderance of flood plains, and one food resource. Say for the purpose of our example that the total amount of food that can be worked by either city at max population is equal if everything is built with farms. Which one should be a commerce/science city and which one should be your GP farm?

Because those food resource produce no commerce, the first city will never be as good at producing commerce and Science as the second, and the second city will never be as good at supporting great people, because the flood plains square produces less food. If you try to do both, you won't be making optimal use of the city.

Comparing the numbers (I won't include leader traits or later techs, to keep the comparison simple)

One food resource produces 5 food and no commerce, which is enough to support the populace working it and one-and-a-half specialists (Or it can be used to subsidize a high production square, but we're talking only commerce vs. GPP cities and leaving production cities out).

One flood plain can be either 4 food and one commerce with a farm, enough to support the populace working it and one specialist,
or it can be 3 food and 6 commerce with a cottage, which is enough to support the popluace working it and half a specialist.

Grow both cities to size 4, and here is what things look like:

City 1: 20 food, 1 commerce, 4 specialists, 4 surplus food for growth.

City 2: either: 18 food, 5 commerce, 3 specialists, 4 surplus food for growth with farms, or:
14 food, 25 commerce, 1 specialist, 4 surplus food for growth with cottages.
---------------

Hello All,

could you please clarify as to how you come up with these numbers? i feel like i failed math class :)

i am just confused as to how with a pop of 4 you get that total.

thanks for the help.

.

One flood plain can be either 4 food and one commerce with a farm, enough to support the populace working it and one specialist,
or it can be 3 food and 6 commerce with a cottage, which is enough to support the popluace working it and half a specialist.

Grow both cities to size 4, and here is what things look like:

City 1: 20 food, 1 commerce, 4 specialists, 4 surplus food for growth.

City 2: either: 18 food, 5 commerce, 3 specialists, 4 surplus food for growth with farms, or:
14 food, 25 commerce, 1 specialist, 4 surplus food for growth with cottages.



Cottage ??? You mean TOWN surely....
How long does it take to get a cottage to become a TOWN ????
(Size 4 pop and I cannot believe its become a town that quickly)
And if some AI or barb come wandering along pillaging your TOWN back to the stone age how long does it take to recover a TOWN.....:cry:

Aviator

A city which produces no hammers cannot build anything...
I stopped reading right there. :)

Slavery? Univ Suffrage (Pyramids)?

Wodan

A cottage would take 40 turns to develop into a town if it is being worked the whole time.

Sure slavery works.
But why take a pop 6 city working 3 loaves and 3 towns kill 3 pop to build something and stop working the towns to build the pop back up?
Still don't see the advantage.
Pyramids: Rarely manage to get that wonder except by conquering. Amazingly it seems to work just fine for the conqueror (Bug?) but at that stage of the game there isn't the cash to build unless you want to kill science for a decade or two, so it just gets used for representation, can't see I could ever make use of it for UnivSuf...

Read on my friend and tell me more.....

Aviator

A cottage would take 40 turns to develop into a town if it is being worked the whole time.

Try marathon.

Aviator

Isn't it based on turns, not years? 10 turns is still 10 turns in marathon, no?

Suely isn't.

Aviator.

I'm confused...how long does it take a cottage to upgrade on marathon?

Something well over 100++ turns to get to a Town. It must be based on years not turns, in Marathon the years go by much slower but it does seem more real to me.

But it still only takes one turn for a barb knock it down a level, 4 turns later and you are back in the stone age. Never mind those resources, park a maceman on ever town if you value it at all.

Aviator

Wow...that's crazy. I do plan on playing games on the slower speeds at some point...good to know this sort of thing.

A cottage would take 40 turns to develop into a town if it is being worked the whole time.
70, actually. (10 + 20 + 40) (on Normal speed)

Something well over 100++ turns to get to a Town

More like 210ish turns on marathon...