ok um,
i have a bad habit of building (almost)every improvement building in my cities. (i think maybe thats why my military lacks at times) is this a bad practice?

I usually strive for like Granary, Courthouse and library (even barracks) minimum for each one (in general).
Then i fins myself building later on like a grocer that isn't really connected to any of the tiles its supposed to enhance.

Someone set me straight..

Yes, it's a bad habit. You don't need a library in a production city.

Courthouses are good if you have alot of cities though (espionage is good as well).

Granaries are normally vital for most cities.

Grocers are OK for health purposes (if you have the resources), but aqueducts are cheaper.

thanks i think after grainery i will go for more military units. i think this is why at times the AI gets the jump on me in early.

Well, build a barracks if you are going for military builds ;)

There are a few buildings that every city can benefit from. Granary, Forge, Theater, Courthouse, at least.

Otherwise, I try to work on WHEN I build stuff, rather than getting too caught up in what "not" to build. If I have a commerce city, then I push the commerce buildings, as well as science buildings (especially if I am running a CE).

Heavy production cities are where I tend to overbuild, personally. I cant resist the Library and Market in those cities, but I try to get the important production buildings up first, like Forge, Barracks, Stables, etc.

A granary and a source of culture (unless you have Stonehenge or are Creative, a library is decent) are fine; next I usually try to maximise production (AP religious buildings, forge, levee) if there are no immediate needs.

Often, it helps to build up your cities on prime real estate and use the lesser ones to crank out units including setters, missionaries and workers.

There's a few exceptions. Sometimes you'll need Markets/Grocers in production cities mid-game (around the time factories/coal plants appear) to keep them productive, in my games that's usually where the happiness/health starts lacking the most.

I'm pretty sure you need an observatory to build a laboratory(?), +50% spaceship production in cities is worth it for 2 buildings IMO, even if the production cities generate no commerce.

Otherwise, as it's been said, granary + lighthouse (if coastal) + source of culture + courthouse + forge are mandatory in every city. From then on it's just specialization.

Often, it helps to build up your cities on prime real estate and use the lesser ones to crank out units including setters, missionaries and workers.


I don't understand. Do you mean later in the game? Because I thought you would need to use your best cities to crank out settlers and workers early on.

I don't understand. Do you mean later in the game? Because I thought you would need to use your best cities to crank out settlers and workers early on.

Often the capital has to crank out units early on but your 2nd or 3rd city (basically as early as you can manage) should be a dedicated production city.
Your best cities should be concentrating on whatever they are best at, be it commerce or production but not both.

Early on I often use a high food city to crank out workers and settlers while a high production city focuses on military units and maybe the capital builds a wonder.

Every city should have something to make its borders pop (monument/running an artist/building culture), a granary, a court, a theatre, and most (all except the very hammer poor) should have a barracks. The rest is specialisation.

A groce shouldn't be in a city that can't produce it in 2 turns except in high commerce/shrine/HQ cities.

You essentially have 2 types of cities:

The first can grow adequately and become very very good at something (science, gold, spamming highly-promoted units from settled GGs, collecting wonders, farming Great People).

They benefit a lot from infrastructure given that they'll grow to a reasonable size, and not getting that up asap means you don't make efficient use of them. If you run a cottage-heavy economy, your commerce cities will be rather hammer-poor; if you want to spam wonders in one city to make better use of the National Epic every hammer counts. Therefore, you will want to outsource non-specific production to somewhere else.



This is where the second type of cities comes into play: The dumps every sane person wants to leave, settled in locations that won't allow them to ever shine. They typically have decent production but limited growth potential and nothing more is expected from them than providing you with a steady stream of units (including workers, settlers, missionaries etc... especially those since a dedicated military city can build better units in the long run).
If your empire is particularly production poor, you can use the whip continuousy in cities with a litte surplus food but little long-germ growth potential in the same way... say a couple of flood plains in the middle of a desert.

Overbuilding is bad but I think libraries are a good idea in most cities. Not necessarily first, but soon. They are fairly quick to build, they give a bit of culture, they ensure you can assign a few useful specialists if you want to slow growth - and nearly every city produces SOME commerce, so might as well get a multiplier on that.

That said, a few cities can do without them - and the key is stopping after the library, stay away from the market-grocer-theatre-colloseum in th production city unless your city is suffering from those specific problems and you can't fix it any other way.

and nearly every city produces SOME commerce, so might as well get a multiplier on that.
A monument gives enough culture for most of your cites, and for low, low price of 30 hammers. Is it really worth spending a 60 more of your valuable early-game hammers to get +25% :science: multiplier in a city that could be producing as little as 2 :commerce:?

(Numbers are for normal speed, non-creative)

assign a few useful specialists if you want to slow growth
Many of your cities already have a way to slow growth: work mines or plains forests.

Many of your cities already have a way to slow growth: work mines or plains forests.
The best way to slow growth is Teh Whip.

A monument gives enough culture for most of your cites, and for low, low price of 30 hammers. Is it really worth spending a 60 more of your valuable early-game hammers to get +25% :science: multiplier in a city that could be producing as little as 2 :commerce:?

(Numbers are for normal speed, non-creative)


Many of your cities already have a way to slow growth: work mines or plains forests.

Running library specialists doesn't exactly hurt. IMO it STILL isn't something you'd want to put in EVERY city.

The only things I can think of that should go in virtually every city would be courthouses and granaries. After that, it's just what you need (obviously forge barracks etc in production, and multipliers for commerce), although once again as cities grow every big city will need happiness/health buildings.

This is all semantics though. In practice, a player has only to evaluate what the best possible thing a city can build is. In other words, what building option provides the highest return to the player's strategy given its cost? Even for peacemongers, this is often a military unit rather than a bank in a city with like 3 commerce. Things that emphasize the city's specialization or its ability to hold more pop are no brainers...after that it's up to the strategy of the player.

what about when you are playing epic speed, and you finish fighting a war? I mean, all my buildings finish in a good amount of time, i'm in the lead by over a thousand points ( its on chieftan, i dunno, think its time i move up?), I have a big standing army, no one is a threat. Do I just keep spamming out units, or do I build buidlings in my city? I am sure I can get them all in every city. Also, we are in the 1500s AD.

what about when you are playing epic speed, and you finish fighting a war? I mean, all my buildings finish in a good amount of time, i'm in the lead by over a thousand points ( its on chieftan, i dunno, think its time i move up?), I have a big standing army, no one is a threat. Do I just keep spamming out units, or do I build buidlings in my city? I am sure I can get them all in every city. Also, we are in the 1500s AD.

At lower difficulties you can build every building and still win. As the AI gets to build units and buildings quicker than you at higher difficulty levels you have to make better choices than it about what to build.

I too am a wonder-addict/over builder. I like building "stuff". It gives me the warm fuzzies inside. On the higher difficulties that isa huge problem. My solution is to play Monarch level. If you're a builder it is challenging enough but still lets you have really nice cities with oodles of buildings. It all depends on what you expect from the game. I do not play to impress anyone but myself and maybe the AI in my games. The AI usually finds cannons very impressive. The big boom is quite impressive. I very much prefer being the big boomer rather than the boomee.

I'd rather have a theatre than a library in a production city. You might need extra happiness during war.

I tend to default to the following building rota unless I consider something else to be urgent, or else city is not useful for one of these categories for some reason:

Non military unit (worker/settler/spy) if required
Military unit
Missionary if required (I'm big on religion!)
Building

<repeats>

Experience seems to show that this produces a good ratio

You do not need every building right away, but by the end (assuming you play to the modern era) you'll likely have them all. But what you need to do is city specialization!! Here are some ideas/comments

1) Capital is the most important city and you generally have alot of food. So plan on a library there to run a few scientists. It also should be the worker/settler pump until you max out your turf. If time allows (and it frequestly does) I'll also build a barracks and granery. Also understand the leaders traits, so Agressive AIs always get an early barracks, expansive get the early Granery etc...

2) City 2 or 3 is a production city with enough food but heavy on production. This gets a culture building (unless you get a religion or are creative), a baracks, then produce military. Give it a forge and that's it ideally, although to be honest I'll pop other buildings in there.

3) The next few cities produce either excess food or cottages for economy. Food if your going SE and cottages for CE, so you need libraries and graneries.

Sometimes the early game is difficult to make these decisions. Alot of hammers means it's easy to build libraries and Markets but lack of immediate commerce makes them less efficient.

And also remember if you have a close AI, you want military as much as you can! So barracks everything.

I must admit that late in the game building airports is a weakness of mine. I like airlifting my troops to the front line of battle which comes in real handy when they have to go overseas. I like the extra trade route an airport brings in too. Another time I fall into a building spiral is when I build a factory and the -5 :yuck: causes my city to start starving, then I need an aqueduct, and a grocer, then you think, well a coal plant and :yuck: comes back and this time its public transportation you build, and by now you've spent 20 turns getting the city ready for something.

I must admit that late in the game building airports is a weakness of mine. I like airlifting my troops to the front line of battle which comes in real handy when they have to go overseas. I like the extra trade route an airport brings in too. Another time I fall into a building spiral is when I build a factory and the -5 :yuck: causes my city to start starving, then I need an aqueduct, and a grocer, then you think, well a coal plant and :yuck: comes back and this time its public transportation you build, and by now you've spent 20 turns getting the city ready for something.

I always used to rush-buy factories in every city in Civ II and when I started playing Civ IV I did it too. Now I think I'd rather just rush-buy banks/universities in my commerce cities and maybe rush-buy factories in my production cities. Thats assuming I'm in US of course.

Another time I fall into a building spiral is when I build a factory and the -5 :yuck: causes my city to start starving, then I need an aqueduct, and a grocer, then you think, well a coal plant and :yuck: comes back and this time its public transportation you build, and by now you've spent 20 turns getting the city ready for something.

Lawlz. That's so me.

Sometimes, I even forget what I'm doing and build a Factory in my GP Farm ... yeesh. :blush: