Hello all. I've played Civ4 for about a week now. I'm familiar with Civ's 2 and 3, and am trying to get the hang of 4. So I have some questions as to how to best develop your city tiles. If I can get a good discussion going, maybe I'll write a guide (if there isn't one already that I just overlooked).

So ... It seems to be a general rule that you need to have cities specialized in one of three areas. Usually in groups of six with the ratio of the following:

1 - Great Person Farm (GP Farm). Consisting of mostly farms, and used to generate a heavy population, which can be switched over to specialists.
2 - Economic Cities. Consisting of mostly Cottages. Used mostly to generate money.
3 - Production Cities. Used to create units and wonders if needed.

(Let me know if I have 2 and 3 backwards)

So that leads me to my first question ...

ONE) What is an ideal landscape for each specialized type?
For the GP Farm, I would imagine, it's the city with the most food-type resource squares around it. But what about Grassland/Plains? Or even Hills for that matter? Which tiles are prefered? Should I just use cities with the highest amount of flatland? How many hill squares are needed so that I can produce something in less than 200 turns. :D

For the Economic City, which is better Grassland or Plains? or does it matter? It seems like in a few Cities that i had, I would put farm on a few grassland tiles, and cottages on most the plains squares, and the cottages seemed to grow better on the grass tiles, and farms on the plains gave me the needed hammer output I needed. (More on this later)

For the Production Cities, you would think hills are best. But in some areas, I found myself maxing out in population pretty quickly, and couldn't balance enough food so that I could also utilize the mine tiles. So am I looking for a balance of hills ontop of grassland? So I can farm with the mines? Or is it Hills and Plains because I get the extra production ... although with less food.

Which leads to question two ...

TWO) What's the best way to develop land for each specialized type?
For the GP farm, obviously, it's quite a number of farms. But what about production? We're going to need to develop quite a number of city improvements, so how do we get the needed production without killing farms? So, this sort of goes hand in hand with the first question. Should I be looking for a Grassland with a spattering of hills to mine? Or should I be looking for a plains area to just cover with farms?

For the Economic Cities ... again, it's obviously cottages. But this is the tricky one. There seems to be a fine balance to get the needed food to access the money as well as production to get things built. How many farms do I need to be able to use the cottages? And the important question here is, which do I prefer ... Cottages on the grass and farms on the plains? Or Vice versa? Production is also an interesting question here, and you'll probably use most of your tiles for farms or cottages. Do we build these cities on mostly plains tiles to get that extra hammer? That was the cottage/plains will generate the needed production? Or do cottages develop better on grass? Lots of questions to answer here.

For the Production Cities ... I would have to say that mines mixed with farms is probably the best way to go. I captured the Aztec capitol immediatly in one 18CivEarth gaem, and that city turned out to be a production powerhouse. I had a few farms (with corn) on the plains, and it helped me get a multitude of mines up in the hills. But what might also work for Production cities? Lumbermills? Watermills? Windmills? ... speaking of which ...

THREE) Should I use Windmills over mines?
Since you can get a +1 food, +1 prod, +1 econ ... does that make it better than just a +2 prod mine? Should I take the extra +1 econ that I get with a windmill on a hill if there's not obvious resource to mine out?

FOUR) What would your perfect specialized city look like?
You have 20 tiles of terrain of your choice (plus one to build a city on), and any improvement of your choice to put on it. What does each of your specialized cities look like? So we don't get rediculous, lets say you get a maximum of 4 special resources per city ... so for example:

A decent (not perfect, because I just don't know yet) production city for me would be: City built on a plains tile, 10 tiles of hills, 10 tiles of grassland. Two corn resources on the grassland, and iron and coal resources in the hill tiles.

I don't have time to respond to your entire post, but I think that you have the correct general idea about city specialization.

The only thing I would urge you to do is to build only 1 or at the most 2 GP cities. Anymore than that, and you are wasting GPP. If you really max out a city with awesome food resources, it should provide you with all the GP you need.

Then I would urge your commerce cities to outnumber your production cities by at least a slight margin. Especially during the end game, I've found commerce cities much more powerful than production ones.

It seems to be a general rule that you need to have cities specialized in one of three areas.

Also as a sort of limited subtype, a cash-cow city. You can skip it, especially if you don't have a shrine; but if you do found a religion, make sure to trick out that town with all the gold amplifying buildings, and spread your religion to every city you can get to. After the first Great Priest, join the others to the town to further boost its base gold income.


ONE) What is an ideal landscape for each specialized type?

For all cities: grasslands on all tiles except the center tile, a plains hill. (Plains are inferior to grassland, productionwise, in most game situations outside of contrived ones.) As many rivers as possible (free commerce!), and as many floodplains as you can get, since they're superior to grasslands. Oh, and lots of resource tiles. And forests on any tile that can support them - free resources!

For the GP Farm, you don't really care too much, as long as there's at least enough food production to generate a surplus of at least 8 food. This will run 4 specialists (1 engineer and 3 science for me), which is enough to get a decent supply of GP. Ideally you'd have a higher surplus, and also some hills (always grassland), in order to have some production to make stuff.

For commerce towns, you want mostly grassland and floodplains, and a premium on rivers. It is helpful to have at least one good food-resource tile. Also, a handful -- 2 or 3 -- grassland hills would be ideal. This allows you some flexibility to build a few things.

For production cities, yes, you want a mix of grassland hills with food-generating tiles. Ideally, resource tiles (for the most concentrated food). Note that you can use forest for production, later in the tech tree, so that if you have founded a production city that is somewhat light on hills, you may want to leave around as much forest as you can bear not to chop.

TWO) What's the best way to develop land for each specialized type?

Generally, for all cities you first want a food surplus. Early in the city's life, it will drive pop up fast, and can be used with slavery to get resources (albeit usually a bit less efficiently than from mined hills, but then you don't always have hills). Later in the city's life, the extra food from the early surplus is used to support the plains (if there are any, which there will be outside of ideal-land.), and hills tiles. Or the specialists, for the GP farm.

For the commerce cities, you want to first develop the best tiles. Order is: (most) resource tiles, then floodplains, then grassland/river, then grassland. Cottage all of these. Then continue cottaging, until the food surplus is maybe 4 or so. Use these last to support hammer-production tiles, so as to have enough to build stuff with. Then farm any remaining plains, and use them when not producing actively to slowly build the pop. Farmed plains don't really produce much (profit: $2!) But once you get to biology, the farms will suddenly produce a surplus, which should grow the city to its final size. You should then cottage out enough plains (and even grassland hills), to use up the surplus.

For production cities, no cottages, just farms and mines. Later, add lumbermills if you kept forests, and watermills where applicable.

THREE) Should I use Windmills over mines?

Yes, for commerce towns as soon as they come around, for at least some of the hills. You'll still want a couple, two at least, grassland hills for production. But other hills should get windmills. This makes a grassland hill into a tile similar to a irrigated plains: can pull its weight in food, but not very profitable. Plains hills are weak (generally, don't work them) even with windmills.

No, in general, for production towns, unless you've got so many hills that you've not got enough food (to grow fast, or whatever).

One important point with windmills and mines, is that you can swap them in and out based on the situation. I.e., say you get a new health tech, and suddenly your cities can grow (after you make a grocer, for example). Well, then move in workers and convert some mines to windmills - for a while. Once you've boosted the pop, re-build mines to eliminate the food surplus.


FOUR) What would your perfect specialized city look like?

Production city: plains hill in the center. A river runs through it, with 7 flood plains tiles. Other 13 tiles are grassland hills. 4 resource tiles? Copper, Iron, Coal, Aluminum. Ideally all of the hills are forested initially.

various comments:

-- Quite often, for a commerce city, it's good to cottage a hill (especially a grassland hill). If you get the city late in the game and have the windmill bonuses, sure windmills are better because you don't have time to develop the cottage. Early on, however, consider cottaging. You get 1 hammer from the hill by itself, and you're only losing 2 hammers from not having the mine. This is especially true if you get the Pyramids... you will quickly have towns and can switch to Univ Suffrage, getting a second hammer, and all the gold you're getting can be used to buy buildings.

-- how many farms? As few as you can get away with, in all cases.

-- what order to use the tiles? For commerce cities, I'd say definitely do your cottages before your farms. Almost always, I find myself maxing out on health or happiness quite fast... getting there even faster by working a farm first is not as preferable as working my cottage, getting more money every turn because it's a cottage not a farm, and getting more money overall by having it become a Town faster.

-- generally I would suggest grasslands and flood plains are better for commerce and GP cities. (Back to the as few farms as possible idea.) For production cities, they can go anywhere you have hills or plains. If there's no river the city might be anemic until Civil Service, and you may even want to skip founding the city until you've spread everywhere else. That said, once you DO have irrigation, that spot will be a great production city.

-- windmills over mines? Yes, except for production cities. (Personally I never build a mine in a commerce or GP city... it's either a cottage or a windmill.)

Wodan

Thanks for the various comments Wodan and Wreck. I think we need to start looking at this realistically now too.

In most cases, you're not going to get all grassland/floodplain. I usually get an abundance of plains (some with rivers) with a lot of desert and tundra mixed in. A lot of times, you're forced to take a place like this, just because you need coastal access. So what do we do in these cases?

I'm thinking that the general principle is: take your best plot of greenery and make that your GP Farm. Everything else is a toss up between production or economic. The more mountains, the more you lean towards production.

So I guess the question is, how do we develop those high plains cities into economic powerhouses? Obviously, we cottage as soon as possible ... but where? Do we give the lucrative green spaces to cottages, or save them for farms? Which gets the preference? The farms for more food (and more squares) or the cottages?

Also we have the whole "coastal" city problem too. Usually the water squares don't yeild that much in terms of food or production, unless you have crabs or something. Which kind of city should this become? Or should we just make it a hybrid, and milk what we can get out of it?

I'm thinking that the coastal cities are basically the same as "resource-grab" cities. Basically you are founding them for their location, and not necessarily their specialization value. Do we "hybrid" these cities, and just basically get what econ/food/production we can out of them, and hope our other cities fill the void?

Just some more thoughts to chew on. =D

If your sites best-qualified for commerce cities are plains or whatever, then those are the cards you've been dealt. As I suggested, you build "as few farms as you can get away with". If that turns out to be 50/50 farms, then so be it.

If it's literally ALL plains or whatever, then you don't have sufficient food to support ANY cottages, so seems to me you're stuck with that as a production city.

Now, if there's a river going through it, then you get "free commerce" but nevertheless can't support any cottages (not until Biology, anyway, after which it's pretty much too late to make it worth while). Since it'll be a production powerhouse, it won't be any problem to pop out your markets and banks and get all you can.

Regardless, it's not going to be an "economic powerhouse" no matter what you do. So, I think your stated goal is unattainable.

If most or all of your cities are like this, then you might consider building military and taking some choicer city sites from other civs. :) Definitely it shouldn't be a problem. Most or all production cities in the early game is a warmonger's dream.

Coast cities are good commerce cities, no matter what. You'll have coastal trade routes and harbors, which boost your commerce and aren't tied to the actual terrain, so don't overlook those. If the land itself is all plains or whatever, then as above, make the best of it. Half coast, AND river? That'll be a good commerce city even if it's all plains.

Personally I don't go for non-specialized cities. My cities might end up that way, but not because that was my goal. The goal is to make it produce as much of X as possible for as little resources as possible.

I think all too often people have a city make a building simply because they've made all the buildings they really want or need there... instead, they might be much better served to have that building produce gold or beakers, even if it is midgame. e.g., a city that's an economic powerhouse with no hammers to speak of, why in the world would you have it make a factory?

Wodan

-- how many farms? As few as you can get away with, in all cases.
Care to expand on this in the case of GP farms? Seems like there you really want as many farms as possible, to support maximum specialists for maximum GPP. Maybe I'm not fully understanding what you mean here.

various comments:
-- windmills over mines? Yes, except for production cities. (Personally I never build a mine in a commerce or GP city... it's either a cottage or a windmill.)
Wodan
Well, if it is a grassland hill, I think I agree, however if it is plains, and very well may not be worked anyways(say for the commerce city), a mine may be more profitable in the long run (at least before electricity) for a different reason that is unrelated to the specialization. Namely the fact that mines have small chances of actually generating resources like iron, bronze, gems, gold, silver, and so on.

Now if you use the windmill you will get a piddly 1 commerce from that tile, which I would probably prefer to use a scientist for if everything else was being worked. However, if you get lucky and discover gold, silver, or gems, suddenly that mine has payed off in full. Note that even if you are going to want to put a windmill there eventually, but plan on that tile being used later, it can still be useful to put a mine there to begin with in the hopes that this happens. I know that it doesn't happen often, but it HAS happened often enough for me that it seems to me that it shouldn't be discounted. Now add to the commerce that you get, the happy face if you didn't previously have the gems(or whatever) and I think that a mine can be quite useful. Unfortunately it is a matter of luck, so I can see why a lot of people wouldn't want to do this.

Anyway, just a thought.

Mines can only pop new resources while being worked AFAICT. So that argument doesn't really work well.

Mines can only pop new resources while being worked AFAICT. So that argument doesn't really work well.
Ah, okay, if thats the case then you are right. However, I could swear that at one point a mine that I had built outside of ALL my fat crosses(don't ask me why I did it, I just did :rolleyes: ) generated some iron. But that is only a vague recollection, and might not be right.

Can anybody say for certain one way or another?

Wodan ...

So describe your "realistic" yet ideal GP Farm, Commerce city and Production City.

Maybe we could use the 18CivsEarth map as a reference, since everyone can view that?

I found the Aztec capitol to be a great production builder ... but that may still not be the best. The area around New Orleans (in the real world) turned out to be a great commerce center. I had a city on the coast, with a river, and lots of grassland. The Cottages were huge after a couple of years. For a GP farm, the area around Chicago seems pretty good. Lots of grassland, and a couple of food resources as well.

One more thing ... what gets preference on grassland? Cottages or farms? On a generated map, it's common for me to get a city with maybe 5-6 grassland squares, and the rest plains, desert or mountains. Do I build farms on the grass or cottages? Or 50/50 it? Or should I just skip it and make that a production city? What's the bare minimum number of grass/floodplain squares that I need to make a city commerce? or even a GP farm?

Also, if I'm going to make an all plains city a production city, what improvements am I looking for here? All farm?

Excuse my "newbieness", but what is AFAICT?

Care to expand on this in the case of GP farms? Seems like there you really want as many farms as possible, to support maximum specialists for maximum GPP. Maybe I'm not fully understanding what you mean here.


Yeah, in the case of GP farms you want as many farms as possible. But unless it's a GP farm, you want as many cottages as you can get. I'll build a few farms to jump start population growth if need be, though.

Excuse my "newbieness", but what is AFAICT?

Probably "as far as I can tell."

Ah, okay, if thats the case then you are right. However, I could swear that at one point a mine that I had built outside of ALL my fat crosses(don't ask me why I did it, I just did :rolleyes: ) generated some iron. But that is only a vague recollection, and might not be right.

Can anybody say for certain one way or another?

I had a game last night where both gems and iron popped out of nowhere in the middle of a turn. I didn't even bother to look and see if this was in an area that was already mined, or if it just showed up in an unworked square. I just got a "a new source of gems have been discovered near San Francisco" type message. Since I already had gems, I didn't give it much notice.

Yeah, in the case of GP farms you want as many farms as possible. But unless it's a GP farm, you want as many cottages as you can get. I'll build a few farms to jump start population growth if need be, though.

This goes back to my two big questions ... How many grassland spots are "minimum" if you're going to make a "cottage industry"?

And after that, what gets preference for those grassland squares or even floodplains? Farms or Cottages? Should I be building farms on the plains tiles? or cottages?

This goes back to my two big questions ... How many grassland spots are "minimum" if you're going to make a "cottage industry"?

And after that, what gets preference for those grassland squares or even floodplains? Farms or Cottages? Should I be building farms on the plains tiles? or cottages?

If I have no special food resources, and have only grassland spaces worth 2 food, I'll make one cottage, then one farm to speed up growth, then one cottage, then one farm, then I'll build cottages from there on out whenever my pop is about to grow. That's just my method. I've never systematically studied the optimal method.

Re: how many grassland squares you need, that depends on how many cities you have. If maintenance is really, really high, then you'll need more potential cottages to make the city profitable. If you only have a few cities and your options are limited, then building a city in a place with as few as 3 grassland tiles may still make you money and be a good idea.

Unless it's your GP farm, build cottages on flood plains. (a) they are next to a river, so if you're financial you'll start off with 3 commerce. (b) they already produce 3 food, so you're going to grow pop with or without the farm.

Unless it's your GP farm, build cottages on flood plains. (a) they are next to a river, so if you're financial you'll start off with 3 commerce. (b) they already produce 3 food, so you're going to grow pop with or without the farm.

So I should build my farms on the grassland tiles? And it looks like you're saying only about 2 farms are needed ... maybe 3 tops. So what about the plains tiles? Those are usually what I end up getting the most of. What do I grow there? Farms or cottages? It sounds like Cottages ... although they likely won't grow very much.

I'm mostly asking these questions as if you are in your initial expansion. Where you are mostly just grabbing what you can get, and don't really have many options as to what you're going to get.

So how about some examples ...

First off, picking a location: You have two potential spots for a commerce city. Both are landlocked, and both have a river. One has 3 floodplains, 4 grassland, 3 plains, 3 mountains, and the rest is all tundra or desert. The next location has 2 floodplain, 2 grass, 12 plains, 3 mountains, and the rest tundra or desert. (No forest on either, for simplicity sake) Which would you prefer? And how would you develop both sites?

First off, picking a location: You have two potential spots for a commerce city. Both are landlocked, and both have a river. One has 3 floodplains, 4 grassland, 3 plains, 3 mountains, and the rest is all tundra or desert. The next location has 2 floodplain, 2 grass, 12 plains, 3 mountains, and the rest tundra or desert. (No forest on either, for simplicity sake) Which would you prefer? And how would you develop both sites?

If this was my second city, and had plenty of time to develop it, then I would settle on your second location. It starts off with 22 food pre-worker, and has 16 workable squares. The first location has only 20 food pre-worker, and has only 10 workable squares.

I would build cottages on the 2 floodplains, then I would build two farms on the grass, then I would build 2 cottages on plains, then I would build farm, cottage, farm, cottage, farm, cottage, farm, cottage, cottage, cottage. My population would grow at a steady rate, [except the last two population for the last two cottages would take a while to develop]. In the end, the second location would be a decent (but by no means dominant) commerce city. It would have 10 towns and six farms, producing 4 hammers.

With the first location, which I would settle if it was mid to late in the game, I would build all cottages, starting with floodplains, then grassland, then plains. I would end with 10 towns, no farms, and no hammers.

So in mid to late game just go with first location, you'll have same amount of towns with less time invested. But at start of game, the second location would be marginally better IMO.

So basically you would not develop anything in the town? Maybe chop rush a market, grocer and bank? But then switch it over to wealth, because you will, for the most part, have little to no production?

I'll add something about GP cities: These can go in places with a limited number of useful tiles, as long as the useful tiles you have will produce surplus food. My favorite example of this is a city surrounded by mostly desert, but with 4 or so floodplain squares (and maybe a hill or two to give you production when you need it). The irrigated floodplain will give you enough surplus food to feed 4-5 specialists.

So basically you would not develop anything in the town? Maybe chop rush a market, grocer and bank? But then switch it over to wealth, because you will, for the most part, have little to no production?

Slavery. Universal suffrage. Use them to build library, university, computer lab, etc.

But I wouldn't build anything outside of research or commerce adding buildings.

Neither location is good for a production city. And neither location produces enough food to create a GP farm. So I'd emphasize commerce and rush production. With the flood plains, slavery will get you the library and university, market, and bank no prob.

To the first approximation, the total amount of production (in terms of net value of gold, science, and hammers) you'll get from a site is proportionate to the number of tiles you've got working as anything other than irrigation. You want to optimize this amount. (Irrigation pays for itself via other tiles' actual production.)

Here's my method to approach city siting.

First, count up the excess food you'll get from the site, as follows. Start with the 2 from the city center. (3 if you built on a food resource grassland.) Add the excess you'll get from any resource tiles that will make 3+ food. And add in the 1F excess from each flood plain tile. The total is the amount of excess food you'll get without irrigating anything (except resource tiles which must be irrigated, which is almost always worth doing).

Now count up the food deficit tiles. A tile producing no food (i.e. plains hills), count -2. A tile which makes one food, count -1. If it's a commerce city, you can count on windmills, so count plains/hills just -1F. (For hammer cities, irrigation should be used before windmills.)

Now compare the two numbers. If the excess is greater than the deficit, well, that's fairly rare. Nice site. Go crazy with the cottages or mines. If the deficit is greater, then you'll have to irrigate/windmill some tiles. Basically, for every 1F deficit you have on net, you'll have to irrigate one tile (before biology), or 0.5 tile (after). Or you windmill a tile.

If there is still a deficit after irrigating all flat tiles (production), or windmilling all hills (commerce), then it's not a great city of that type. For a production city, you can add windmills to try to eliminate the remaining deficit. For commerce, you'll have to start irrigating.

So: I'll show as an example the specific cases you selected.


You have two potential spots for a commerce city. Both are landlocked, and both have a river. One has 3 floodplains, 4 grassland, 3 plains, 3 mountains, and the rest is all tundra or desert. The next location has 2 floodplain, 2 grass, 12 plains, 3 mountains, and the rest tundra or desert. (No forest on either, for simplicity sake)

Your specification of the sites is unclear; I assume you meant "hills", not "mountains", since mountains are impassable and useless. And you did not specific the type of hill - grassland or plains. I assume grassland in both cases. Finally, you allow there is tundra there, but tundra can be useful if next to a river. I assume no useful tundra.

So, example 1. It has 13 usable tiles. Food surplus is +5F. Deficit is -6. You'll end up irrigating one tile (if used for production city), or (for commerce) windmilling 2 hills, cottaging the other. Net production for this town: 12/13 tiles. Note, though, that if used for production you're still ending up with lots of cottages for a bunch of flatland tiles that have no other better improvement. It's not really a production city.

Example 2. 19 usable tiles. Food surplus: +4F. Deficit: -15. For production, you'll end up irrigating 11 tiles. This leaves 8 tiles producing, though the 1P you get from irrigated plains does add up.

As in the previous case, this is fairly weak site for production because, lacking hills and forest, it just can't develop enough hammers. There's nothing you can do to flatlands (until watermills, or workshops w/ State Property) to make them produce many hammers.

For commerce, example 2 would windmill the 3 hills, and so need to irrigate 8 tiles. This gives better productivity, 11 tiles worth (plus windmills do generate a bit of commerce).

Which would you prefer? And how would you develop both sites?

I'd prefer spot 2, for a commerce town. It develops a bit a slower, and (pre-Biology) is less productive. However, much of that time the pop limit won't be your food production anyway; it will be happiness/health. After Biology it will turn into a pretty nice town.

Thanks Wreck. That actually made sense to me!

So, it looks like you should basically approach your game like this ...

Look for the best floodplain/grassland/food resource area (with the best initial Food Surplus) and make that your GP farm. Irrigate the heck out of it, and you're done.

The two best "hilly" (sorry, not mountianous) areas (or even forest areas)that don't have a bad "Initial Food Deficit Rating (IFDR)", should become your production centers. Irrigate enough to maximize your squares, and then mine everything else.

Your last three cities should be Economic. You want to pick an area with the best IFDR you can find, in a fairly flat area. Throw cottages on any flood plain resources, and then build enough farms/windmills to max out your city. Put the farms on the grassland tiles, and cottages everywhere else.

Excl, that's not exactly how I approach things. First off, I certainly don't limit myself to 6 cities. I aim to fill my continent. Given endless room, I guess I would seek to find fewer, better spots.

As others have mentioned, the GP farm doesn't really need that much pop to be OK. I mostly want Great Scientists and Great Engineers; you can only run 4 of them in the early game. (One engineer from a forge, two scientists from library, and one more from an observatory.) So, you just need a food excess of 8, which you can get from, i.e., a fish, the center city, and an irrigated grassland or two.

I've seen other folks who like Great Merchants, and I can kind of see that argument. I don't know; I am still thinking about it. I just know I want acadamies and flash-wonders. :) If you do like Great Merchants, then you might well want a more foodish location for the GP Farm, since it's pretty easy to run a lot of merchants.

Anyway, my GP farm is usually seacoast. That's because I usually play continents, and they tend to have a lot of seacoast places for towns that want to be commerce towns, what with all that ocean. And there is usually at least one placement which reaches at least one fish, and maybe a few other nice tiles, but which is otherwise pretty limited, either by desert, tundra, or just being in a corner with nothing but sea around it.

So anyway, I tend to view most town placements on the coast, with an eye towards packing in the most cities I can in my continent, without overlapping fat-crosses on worthwhile tiles more than one or at most two tiles per city. Thus, I end up with lots of commerce towns (mainly coastal), and only a few interior towns. These are usually production towns -- eventually.

If they don't have a lot of hills, then I just don't chop all of the forests. This makes a fairly weak production town until lumbermills, then it is pretty much comparable to hills. If an interior site has neither hills or forest, well, OK then it's got to be commerce.

I generally end up with a lot fewer production towns than commerce towns.

All of this is to say, that I am more adapting my game to the terrain, than I am trying to force the terrain into my style of play. Also I select city sites very carefully to try to maximize their useful tiles and their food surplus, and minimize overlap with other towns and their food deficit (if commerce).

But anyway, the rest of what you're saying is basically how I approach things.

Care to expand on this in the case of GP farms? Seems like there you really want as many farms as possible, to support maximum specialists for maximum GPP. Maybe I'm not fully understanding what you mean here.

Yes, you're absolutely right. GP cities are all farms/windmills. All other city types are as few farms as possible (in my book).

Wodan

Well, if it is a grassland hill, I think I agree, however if it is plains, and very well may not be worked anyways(say for the commerce city), a mine may be more profitable in the long run (at least before electricity) for a different reason that is unrelated to the specialization. Namely the fact that mines have small chances of actually generating resources like iron, bronze, gems, gold, silver, and so on.

Whew, the chance of this is so miniscule, I hardly think it's worth it. 'course, I don't play the lottery either. ;)

Wodan

Wodan ... So describe your "realistic" yet ideal GP Farm, Commerce city and Production City.

Maybe we could use the 18CivsEarth map as a reference, since everyone can view that?

Well I'm not at home at the moment. ;)

Here's my strategy. As always YMMV. This might be a bit long. I tend to ramble.

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GP: all farms and windmills. Hopefully you have a river, otherwise you'll have to wait on Civil Service to spread your farms. Yes, the river will provide some commerce... that's a bonus. I wouldn't go out of your way to build commerce buildings, though. A GP city is always "something else". e.g., say you want your game to produce lots of Great Scientists. You're going for Great Library, etc. As a side effect you're making extra science. So of course you'll want science buildings in preference to commerce buildings. Also, don't let this distract you from building anything that gives extra Scientist GPP. Forests should be cut down to build wonders.

Production: plains and hills, maybe a few grassland. River is a bonus and avoids waiting on civil service to spread farms. If no river, then a couple of grassland mixed in will do. Or, butting up against a lake. Grassland with tons of Forests is ideal, too. Mix&match is ok.

You want enough farms to support a city of size 12 or so before Biology, and size 22 afterwards. (Numbers might fluctuate depending on how many health resources you have.) Plan on +2 food to support the obligatory 1 Engineer you can get without going out of your way. If you get a little extra food early on, that's okay because when you max out your health you can click on the Hammer and Avoid growth buttons.

Even if you have a river, I'm not sure I would bother with commerce buildings. You'll only get a couple extra gold and it's hurting your empire to not be making stuff. Keep in mind: the production city is there to make stuff. Some production cities are further specialized, to pump out ground units, sea units, missionaries, or wonders.

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Commerce: River if at all possible but not critical. Flood plains are awesome because they let you support a few plains or plains hills. If no flood plains, then majority of grassland is mandatory. Cottage early. Avoid farms. Forests should be cut down to buy money buildings (not wonders). If you have to have a farm, build it last... you want to be working cottages first. Commerce cities can be tough to make your buildings. Too much slavery hurts Town growth. Pyramids / Univ Suffrage is ideal. Build money buildings first.

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Science: A lot like a Commerce city except you're building libraries etc instead of money buildings.

One more thing ... what gets preference on grassland? Cottages or farms? On a generated map, it's common for me to get a city with maybe 5-6 grassland squares, and the rest plains, desert or mountains. Do I build farms on the grass or cottages? Or 50/50 it? Or should I just skip it and make that a production city? What's the bare minimum number of grass/floodplain squares that I need to make a city commerce? or even a GP farm?
Well grassland + plains is a LOT different from grassland + unworkable tiles.

The former I'd make into production (workshops + farms) or GP (all farms). Commerce or science I'd avoid because you'll have to add farms to work the plains.

The latter can be either production (workshops + farms), commerce (cottages), or science (cottages). I'd probably not make it my GP city because I want my GP city to be unlimited by unworkable tiles.

an all plains city a production city, what improvements am I looking for here? All farm?

Definitely not all farm. As mentioned above, you want enough farms to support size 12 or so until Biology, and size 20 or so after Biology. What this means for a 100% plains city is 12 farms pre-Biology, and after that just enough farms to hit your max size, filling out with workshops probably.

Anyway, YMMV. I'm far from an expert but this is what I've been able to discover for myself.

Wodan

Whew, the chance of this is so miniscule, I hardly think it's worth it. 'course, I don't play the lottery either. ;)

Wodan
Eh, neither do I, but I am basically suggesting this for that point in the game where you have all those workers and nothing else to do currently. At that point, there is NO real investment and a possibly good payoff, even if it is rare. No real opportunity cost here.:D

If you want to compare it to the lottery where there is a large investment(for those who actually play the lottery a lot, not just once) and a good payoff that is rare. The opportunity cost here in my opinion is unreasonable.:lol:

The lottery is a tax on people who don't understand math. :goodjob:

Eh, neither do I, but I am basically suggesting this for that point in the game where you have all those workers and nothing else to do currently. At that point, there is NO real investment and a possibly good payoff, even if it is rare. No real opportunity cost here.:D

If you want to compare it to the lottery where there is a large investment(for those who actually play the lottery a lot, not just once) and a good payoff that is rare. The opportunity cost here in my opinion is unreasonable.:lol:

The lottery is a tax on people who don't understand math. :goodjob:
Ha. Well, the difference is the comparison in lost goodies. Mine = +2 hammers, right? Windmill = +1 food, +1 hammer, +1 commerce. So, all things being equal, you lose out 1 goodie, all for the chance of getting a bonus resource (what is it, 1/10000 per turn? probably something like that.)

Now, some people will say that 1 hammer is well worth 1 food + 1 commerce... that's entirely situational and depends on the city.

Wodan

Ha. Well, the difference is the comparison in lost goodies. Mine = +2 hammers, right? Windmill = +1 food, +1 hammer, +1 commerce. So, all things being equal, you lose out 1 goodie, all for the chance of getting a bonus resource (what is it, 1/10000 per turn? probably something like that.)

Now, some people will say that 1 hammer is well worth 1 food + 1 commerce... that's entirely situational and depends on the city.

Wodan

Well, in that city(since I was originally talking about a commerce city), I would actually rather run a scientist or merchant specialist instead of working that hill. Essentially, I would only lose one food that the windmill would have given me, and gain either some pure gold, or pure research, since I would only get at most 2 commerce(assuming non-financial civ) or three commerce from a financial civ.

Now, my main caveat here is that if that plains hill is next to a river, and I'm playing a financial civ, the windmill would get me 4 commerce, 3 hammers and a food, which I would prefer to the specialist. Otherwise, I would normally prefer to simply not work the tile.

For any other type of city, my decision here would not be so clear cut.

[edit: miscalculated the hammers from the windmill plus plains hill. Doesn't affect my choice however.]

good points.

nm:

just read the gold vs. commerce thread which changed my understanding - to my benefit I hope :)

Thanks for the points everybody.

I tried out some of these new found principles last night. There's a few issues I seem to run across ...

1) My GP Farm isn't really a GP Farm. My guess is that I'm just doing this wrong. I've farmed a bunch of tiles, but the population gets to around 15, and then everyone is unhappy and sick. So, I'm having trouble getting specialists. Should I be capping the population growth at 8 or something? I also don't have any production, so I can't get any real Wonders to create GP's either. I chop rushed the Great Library and the National Epic to get something in there.

2) It seems like it's easier to find locations suitable for production than it is commerce. Should I just force those "tweener" cities into commerce to get the higher ratio and keep the real good spots for production? Or should I just make a bunch of production spots?

3) Production seems to be a major issue for a few of the econ cities. I can't get any buildings built after the first couple of chop rushed buildings. Where do I get my production from? Should I really be using slavery that much? Which leads to ...

4) Unhappyness. Seems to run fairly rampant in my bigger cities ... especially my GP Farm, but also the commerce sites. Is there any way to solve the "It's too crowded" plea? Or am I just forced to wait for a "happy" building to come along and then take 200 turns to build it?

Well, in that city(since I was originally talking about a commerce city), I would actually rather run a scientist or merchant specialist instead of working that hill. Essentially, I would only lose one food that the windmill would have given me, and gain either some pure gold, or pure research, since I would only get at most 2 commerce(assuming non-financial civ) or three commerce from a financial civ.

Now, my main caveat here is that if that plains hill is next to a river, and I'm playing a financial civ, the windmill would get me 4 commerce, 3 hammers and a food, which I would prefer to the specialist. Otherwise, I would normally prefer to simply not work the tile.

For any other type of city, my decision here would not be so clear cut.

[edit: miscalculated the hammers from the windmill plus plains hill. Doesn't affect my choice however.]
Thought about this some more during lunch... I think your comparison is off. Assuming health etc is not an issue, then food has to drive the comparision. So, to run that specialist as you prefer, you have to pay 2 food, which means you're not working TWO plains windmill hills. So, you have to compare the specialist to losing, let's see... 6 hammers + 4 commerce. Right? That's before any midgame tech bonuses to windmills and without consideration of a river.

Wodan

I have a quick question in regards to this. I have a city that had two full blown towns cranking out nice coin every turn but come to find out they are built right on top of a uranium deposit. I have other sources of it but should I destroy the town and build the mine or just let it sit?

I have other sources of it but should I destroy the town and build the mine or just let it sit?

If you start seeing 3-eyed citizens, it's time to destroy the town :mischief:

If you start seeing 3-eyed citizens, it's time to destroy the town :mischief:


lol point taken... but hey the uranium was always there... I am sure they are genetically messed up already

My GP Farm isn't really a GP Farm. My guess is that I'm just doing this wrong. I've farmed a bunch of tiles, but the population gets to around 15, and then everyone is unhappy and sick. So, I'm having trouble getting specialists. Should I be capping the population growth at 8 or something?


Yes, 8-12. You can have 2 Scientists almost immediately (library), then an Engineer (forge), and later another scientist (observatory). To support them, you'll need 8 excess food. Make sure to have that in reserve; don't let the city go unhealthy/unhappy. The city can be quite small and still produce GP decently.

If you can get the Great Library in it, great. More GPP. (But don't count on that, especially on higher levels of play.) And yes, the National Epic is high priority. With just 4 specialists and the National Epic, you'll generate 24 GPP/turn. This is enough for quite good GP production; it generates a GP after 4 turns, then 8, 12, 16, etc... can do quite a few.

Remember: it's not necessary that this is a great city. In fact it is probably better if it's not. Save a really good site for really good production.


It seems like it's easier to find locations suitable for production than it is commerce. Should I just force those "tweener" cities into commerce to get the higher ratio and keep the real good spots for production? Or should I just make a bunch of production spots?

What kind of maps do you play? In continents, I find myself with lots of commerce cities, and few production. In any case, if a site can do production, it can usually do commerce at least passably. Don't forget that you can cottage grassland hills. (I didn't notice that for a week or two after I got the game.)


Production seems to be a major issue for a few of the econ cities. I can't get any buildings built after the first couple of chop rushed buildings. Where do I get my production from? Should I really be using slavery that much?

Use whatever you must to get production. If there are hills, use them. Forests? Weak, but keep some around for this. If there's lots of food, use that and whipping. Don't fear keeping a city very small and whipping for buildings to develop it. You can get good production this way, that is, P production, sacrificing commerce you'd get otherwise. But in the long run it will be superior to develop the city fast, because you're buying multiplier buildings.

For example, consider a very simpified example. Consider a city with 2 fish tiles, four grasslands, and a bunch of plains. Food surplus is 12, yum! But assume the health/happiness limit is say 12 each. If you let it go, the city will go 14 pop then stop growing. Net commerce production will be great - from 10 cottages and two fish - but net hammer production? Just 6. It will take forever to get much beyond granary/lighthouse/library.

Now take the same city, and start whipping every 10 turns. Try to whip as many pop as you are allowed, each whip. When the city hits size 10, you queue up something costing 150 (do work a turn to get a few hammers), and whip. 5 pop spent, 150 hammers, it's done! Size 5. Then it grows like wildfire until about 10 turns later... size 10.

What do you give up? Well, the city averages maybe size 8, so, you're losing about a third of its commerce. On the plus side, instead of generating just 6P/turn, it generates 2P/turn (average) from plains, plus 150P every ten turns - averaging 15P/turn from whipping! So a net of 17P/turn. This will develop it pretty fast.

High food surplus rocks. Settle for it; create it; use it.


Unhappyness. Seems to run fairly rampant in my bigger cities ... especially my GP Farm, but also the commerce sites. Is there any way to solve the "It's too crowded" plea? Or am I just forced to wait for a "happy" building to come along and then take 200 turns to build it?

No. Don't allow unhappiness, unless you plan to do something (soon!) to make happy, or whip to solve the problem the old fashioned way. I assume you are a soldier about getting to happiness resources and linking them up with your network, but if not, get hardcore about this.

One main way to stop unhappiness is to not grow unhappies in the first place. "Downshift" the city, moving pop from food-production tiles to resource-production tiles. I.e., instead of that rice tile (+4F), put the guy on a mined hill (+1F,+3P). This will slow or stop growth. (It also partly answers your question about how to build things in commerce cities.) You don't want to give up too much food production; I don't know where the tradeoff hits, but beyond a point you're better growing pop and whipping it, than accepting weaker non-food production from other tiles. For example, I'd consider not-using a rice tile (at +4F especially), but never a Cows tile. But as a general rule, if you can move a guy from a non-resource irrigated tile to some other lower-food (but still developed) tile, it's worth doing so.

There are also two more subtle means to buy happiness that you should be using, but may not be.

First, culture spending. Once you get the Drama tech, you can spend on culture. As far as I can tell, each 10% makes one happy in every city in your empire. Think on that a second. Now add the effect of theaters: a city with a theater gets an additional +1 happy for each 10%.

So: theaters should be a priority in all larger cities. Chop or pop-rush them as necessary when the town gets larger. When crowding hits, go to 10% luxuries.

The second very important source of early-mid game happiness: Monarchy and military units. You can build a military unit for 15P. Once in monarchy, that buys +1 happiness in a city. This effect would be nice even if said units could not move, but they can. You can buy happiness in one city and march it to another!! Do it!

There's also a big side benefit from buying lots of military units (even cheap ones): the AIs respect it.

Note that you don't need both the "nice" way (culture) and the "nasty" way (military control). Either can create pretty much all the happiness you'll need on its own. Of the two, I prefer Monarchy, because you can fine-tune the happiness generated by moving units.

1) My GP Farm isn't really a GP Farm. My guess is that I'm just doing this wrong. I've farmed a bunch of tiles, but the population gets to around 15, and then everyone is unhappy and sick. So, I'm having trouble getting specialists. Should I be capping the population growth at 8 or something? I also don't have any production, so I can't get any real Wonders to create GP's either. I chop rushed the Great Library and the National Epic to get something in there.

I could almost start a new topic on this one. The GP Farm is pretty confusing for me. So, where do I get my production from? Should I just be whipping slaves every couple of turns? Won't that hurt happiness?

So right now, I have a city that has 2 squares of freshwater, 1 marble mine in the hills (+4 prod), 1 plains forest (+2 prod, +1 food), 1 plains (+1P, +1F), 2 grassland tiles with corn (+5F), The City tile itself (2F, 1P) and everything else is farmed (or soon to be farmed) grassland. I had no problem getting this city to blow up and become a major metropolis in no time, with those +5 cornfields. The problem is, after about city size 8, I get all kinds of unhappy citizens, and basically become an Unhappy Person Farm. Even with all the low level improvements, I'm maxing out the city size in the mid teens because I'll have 4 unhappy citizens not working (thus losing food surplus), and my production squares being used over my grassland farms because I can't produce anything.

Should I just "take it" and make a beeline for Shakesphere's Theater? Or is there a more sensible approach here?

Sorry, I was writing out my post as you posted yours.

So you're saying I should probably cap the population before it gets unhappy? Is there anyway to forsee this? Are you saying I should just wait until the happy and unhappy faces (and sick and health) numbers are equal to each other, and then just add scientists until growth is stopped? I won't get a random unhappy face down the road that screws up the balance, right? (unless I go to war or something)

What about Shakesphere's theather? Is it worth the 2nd national wonder to build, and have all happy citizens, or is there a better one? I guess I would still have to deal with the sick/healthy threshold in that case as well, so maybe not.

Yes you can foresee happy. Go into the city screen and mouse over the display. It will tell you the limits, and the numbers of people made happy by various things.

I'm not necessarily saying you should cap the pop and stay happy. No, I'm saying you should beeline to monarchy and build lots of warriors to keep the city happy. No cap. Before you get monarchy, if you've got good food generation (4+ spare, to pick a number out of my hat), convert food-->pop-->hammers: whip them. This may have periods of brief unhappiness. If you've not got a lot of spare food production, then cap them via downshifting.

The Globe is nice, but it will only solve one city's worth of problems; and it is expensive by comparison to warriors. It is most appropriate to put it in particular kind of city: a mostly flat city that you intend as a production city based on forest-use, and which has strong food-production. The forests will give you good health, so the happiness is useful; they also give the production to actually build the thing. The food is necessary to actually get you to point of having all that pop. :)