I tend to build forges as one of my first items in a new city. If the city has enough resources to be good before expanding it's borders i'll put the forge first, if not i'll do monument first then forge.

I could see why you might want granary first, but I always found cities build so fast early on it's pretty big before you may even get the granary built. But maybe i'm wrong and i'm not optimizing my early cities?

At any rate, once I get to banking etc any new cities I build I should have enough money to rush build the forge with cash if I got the pyramids.

I'm just wondering if this is standard practice.

Another thing is, do people tend to chop down every forest? I used to, then I realised the health benefits of the forests, and the later game benefit with lumbermills. As a general rule I tend to chop down forests on hills, so I can put up mines. Ill try to keep as many as I can so long as the city has other plots to use ideally.

I know people are all about specialist cities or economy cities.... I'm still not to great at that... all my cities seem pretty similar. I would use them when I didn't want my city to grow anymore, but using a charismatic leader I find that with some cities being +21 happiness in my current mid game that every city still needs to grow so i'm not using specialists which obviously don't produce food.... I know i'm probably doing it wrong, i'm probably not using enough farms in some cities to make them grow super fast and using the specialists.... but let's say I do it that way, what buildings am I still building in a specialist city? Am I still gonna have grocers and money producers since there'd still be some plots that would have to be cottages? Do you still want production for buildings so make the it pretty much all farms and mines? I Just hate having production so stagnant. I would find if every plot was food for the specialists it'd be hard to build. Especially if you had windmills on the hills? Is that what you do in specialist cities?

My one size city fits all isn't too bad I know, i win over 90% of the time on noble now, but I can see how specialist cities and economy cities would be beneficial, just not positive on the execution yet. Btw I do avoid putting walls/barracks/stables in every city, I tend to put walls in only vulernable cities, and barracks/stables I'll usually limit to two cities with barracks, and one with stables.

Forges are probably 4th or 5th in my list. The later in the game it is the more likely I'll have a reasonably high happy cap that I want my new city to grow into which makes the granary very important. Culture/Courthouses are often next. I tend to avoid using rush-buy on items like the forge, especially in non-core cities, unless they are going to become a core city in the near future.

I try to chop forest only as needed, and generally only grassland forests and those on hills. It really is quite situational.

Specializing cities does not require you to run specialists, only that your tile improvements and building priorities are focused on a particular output. Also, as you empire grows larger you will probably have numerous hybrid cities that perform adequately for both production/military and commerce. These cities perform whichever role is needed at the time. The truly specialized cities are the ones with the National Wonders or those that you decide will only build those items related to their role regardless of war/peace.

Most of these "hybrid" cities I speak of will have barracks. They are fairly inexpensive and during war these cities will be producing units. Also, with nationhood they get +2 happy and a free-whip (if you don't grow into the nationhood happy). With theocracy they build level 3 units and draft at level 2.

Walls are a pre-req for castles so depending on stone and tech path having walls in your specialist commerce cities makes sense as well, even if they are not at risk of sneak attack.

Library, courthouse. are my numbers 2 and 1

Forges make sense if it's going to be a production city. If it's a commerce city, depending on the terrain, a forge may be a poor investment of hammers.

I wouldn't put a library in every city either. It's probably a waste in a pure production city, for example.

I wouldn't put a library in every city either. It's probably a waste in a pure production city, for example.

I've heard this said before, and while it may strictly speaking be correct, I find the "waste" is pretty negligable, considering that you probably won't have to pay more than 2 turns for a library and that (at least in many production cities) there is always some commerce from mines or even windmills. I don't know, I often turn these out in my production cities -- once I have a forge -- since production cities *can* produce things besides units. But I'm only on Emperor.

Build Granary.
Build Farms or harvest seafood.
Build Forge.
Tell the City Governor to emphasize production.
Put a citizen to work as an Engineer Specialist.
Build Library.
Put two citizens to work as an Scientist Specialists.

Most (almost all) cities eventually get granaries and courthouses. Forges are common too.

Military cities only need the above and barracks (and later hammer multipliers).

Commerce cities usually go for science multipliers under CE with a wealth city of some kind somewhere. Under SE you build the multipliers for what you're specializing in.

If you are running slavery never skip the granary (as a rule of thumb starting out). If it's a city after the very early game where you have any :) cap at all make a granary - the faster cities grow the faster they contribute more to you. Granary = #1 economic building in the game.

Forges are very low on my priority list because it's a lot of hammers for +25% production, but for most cities, it will only be a couple more hammers per turn anyway. We could talk about what to build first, but the point is that forges are really only for dedicated production cities. I'm not sure if it's worth it to whip if you're industrous though, as I rarely play with industrous leaders anyway.

I usually whip forges not long after granaries The forge is helping me with the remaining infrastructure whether I build it or whip it.

The overwhelming majority of my cities have either high food (whip infrastructure) or high production (more build than whip), in either case the forge helps and the sooner I get it, the more it helps. I would think most cities would benefit from an early forge

If you build a forge, it will speed up all other buildings in that city by 25%. That's quite a large boost, so I always build a forge as one of the first buildings. Depending on the city I build granaries and lighthouses before them though.

Another thing is, do people tend to chop down every forest? I used to, then I realised the health benefits of the forests, and the later game benefit with lumbermills. As a general rule I tend to chop down forests on hills, so I can put up mines. Ill try to keep as many as I can so long as the city has other plots to use ideally.


I tend to leave forests in place that fall on Plain tiles (only +1 food). Hills and grassland are much more useful in the early game for either production (hills) or cottages/farms (grassland), so I'll chop them. I will then either build lumber mills or preserves in the remaining forests once available.

I know that others have made more detailed analyses of this, but depending on where you are in the game, forges do not make sense in every single city. Anyway, around the time when MC comes around, I am building a granary first in my new cities (or fishing boat if I can't have another city build it), or a courthouse in a newly captured city with a reasonable population.

NB: If you are playing an Industrious leader, then yeah, build forges almost everywhere, except for that tundra city you built just to snag silver and crabs.

A lot of specialist cities (Great Person farms) are coastal cities with lots of seafood. The latest ALC game http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=281026 shows an example in this post http://tinyurl.com/6bnkrr - first screenshot. You pretty much only need one city like this, though you might run a scientist or two in other cities (esp. w/ the Pyramids).