I've read the city specialization guides and I don't understand one thing. Why would you have a commerce city? I usually keep my resource allocation slider to around 90% research. Now from what I understand, this takes 90% of the commerce points and turns them to beakers. So... why would I build a commerce city (banks, markets, etc...) if that benefit only applies to the 10% that is being converted to gold?

For lots of beakers, in your case. Commerce = what gets converted into Gold/Culture/Science/Espionage with the sliders....

If you built a pure gold city with shrine/merchants/wallstreet, you could bump your slider up to 100% and have increased science everywhere else.

P.S. :commerce:Commerce is different from :gold:Gold and :science:Science

If you built a pure gold city with shrine/merchants/wallstreet, you could bump your slider up to 100% and have increased science everywhere else.

Even better, if you build your pure gold city and then put banks/markets/grocers in that city, it all gets multiplied. In this way, the lion's share of your generated gold is coming from one city, so you only need one lot of market/grocer/bank to get the maximum gold out of it.

If you expand at a proper rate you'll need to pay for your expenses somehow(with slider at 50% or lower) and at that point markets / banks etc get quite ok...

If you expand at a proper rate you'll need to pay for your expenses somehow(with slider at 20% or lower) and at that point markets / banks etc get quite ok...

oyzar,

FTFY. ;)

If you built a pure gold city with shrine/merchants/wallstreet, you could bump your slider up to 100% and have increased science everywhere else.

P.S. :commerce:Commerce is different from :gold:Gold and :science:Science

So your saying I would bump up my slider to 100% gold? How does that then convert into research?

100% research

P.S. :commerce:Commerce is different from :gold:Gold and :science:Science

Dudical, start here.

100% research

I don't think I understand HOW commerce is converted.

1 commerce = 1 science, culture, gold, etc....

Commerce is a constant and is recieved through resources/specialist, etc...

science, culture, gold, etc... are variables in that they receive bonuses from buildings and such.

If 100% of my commerce is converted to science, then none is converted into gold? correct? If that's the case, why even build banks, grocers, markets, etc..?

If 100% of my commerce is converted to science, then none is converted into gold? correct? If that's the case, why even build banks, grocers, markets, etc..?

dudical123,

Gold can come from places other than commerce. See the picture below:

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/moneycity.jpg

Note that my science is at 100%, and my gold is at 0%. Yet that city is producing over 700 gold per turn. This is because I'm getting gold from things other than my commerce.

I don't think I understand HOW commerce is converted.

1 commerce = 1 science, culture, gold, etc....
Depends on the slider.

Commerce is a constant and is recieved through resources/specialist, etc...
No, it's the coins on the map + trade routes + palace.

science, culture, gold, etc... are variables in that they receive bonuses from buildings and such.
Depends on the slider + specialists.

If 100% of my commerce is converted to science, then none is converted into gold? correct? If that's the case, why even build banks, grocers, markets, etc..?
Because there are other ways to get gold which can be multiplied, shrine + specialists + corporations + events.

I don't think I understand HOW commerce is converted.

1 commerce = 1 science, culture, gold, etc....

Commerce is a constant and is recieved through resources/specialist, etc...

science, culture, gold, etc... are variables in that they receive bonuses from buildings and such.

If 100% of my commerce is converted to science, then none is converted into gold? correct? If that's the case, why even build banks, grocers, markets, etc..?

Commerce is converted into beakers or gold based on the slider (or culture/espionage for that matter). Any buildings that multiply gold or beakers are then applied on a per city basis.

There are non-slider sources of beakers and gold - buildings/wonders/specialists. These get multiplied too. A "wealth" city will make lots of gold despite the fact that you aren't allocating any commerce to gold. This allows you to be much more efficient - putting science multipliers in other cities while putting gold multipliers in cities that make you gold without the slider. Doing this will allow a much higher output.

Commerce is a constant and is recieved through resources/specialist, etc...


Commerce is not received through specialists. It is received from tiles and trade routes primarily. Commerce is converted into beakers and gold, then added to the beakers and gold received from the other places Kesshi is talking about, namely specialists, shrines, etc. Those totals are then multiplied by things like libraries (in the case of beakers) and banks (in the case of gold).

dudical123,

Gold can come from places other than commerce. See the picture below:

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/moneycity.jpg

Note that my science is at 100%, and my gold is at 0%. Yet that city is producing over 700 gold per turn. This is because I'm getting gold from things other than my commerce.

OK, thanks, I just got the game and I wasn't thinking about the other sources of gold.

Thanks for the responses.

dudical123,

Gold can come from places other than commerce. See the picture below:

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/moneycity.jpg

Note that my science is at 100%, and my gold is at 0%. Yet that city is producing over 700 gold per turn. This is because I'm getting gold from things other than my commerce.

Would you end that game already :p?

I know I know...going for max score or maybe a science record :lol:. I don't even have the patience to finish domination sometimes - I'll just build the UN while taking vassals if it's around modern warfare times.

Would you end that game already :p?

I know I know...going for max score or maybe a science record :lol:. I don't even have the patience to finish domination sometimes - I'll just build the UN while taking vassals if it's around modern warfare times.

TheMeInTeam,

That's not my Prince Praetorian rush game. That's my old old old Asoka Noble Earth 8(?) civs game (note my civ's colour in the partial opaque map in the lower right.) This one is from well before I ever beat anything higher than Monarch. If I went into Future Tech without winning in my Praetorian Rush games, it would probably be in the 1300s. I could probably launch a space ship in the 1100-1200s if I changed my goal and focused on that.

And I'll finish my Prince Praetorian Rush game eventually. But I'm just too hooked on TF2. I checked my Steam Account, I played TF2 for over 70 hours the last two weeks. :eek: Between work, a social life, and TF2, I have little time left for CivIV. :lol:

Edit:

Also, the UN is bad bad bad. The UN obsoletes my precious AP. I almost never try to learn Mass Media. When I have 60 cities with at least 2 religious buildings each, that's a loss of 240 hammers per turn before modifiers. I don't want to lose that!

Also, the UN is bad bad bad. The UN obsoletes my precious AP. I almost never try to learn Mass Media. When I have 60 cities with at least 2 religious buildings each, that's a loss of 240 hammers per turn before modifiers. I don't want to lose that!
Dont you lose the 2 hammers from Monasteries once you tech Sci Method? I also tend to delay the UN if I have been pounding out AP hammer buildings, especially when I go a conquering, and all those AI cities start without any temples or monasteries.

Dont you lose the 2 hammers from Monasteries once you tech Sci Method? I also tend to delay the UN if I have been pounding out AP hammer buildings, especially when I go a conquering, and all those AI cities start without any temples or monasteries.

Bleys,

I'm not sure. I always thought I kept them in cities that already had them, but the 10% science is lost, so perhaps the 2 hammers is also lost. Good point.

When monasteries are obsoleted you also lose the 2 hammers they give from AP, aswell as losing the beakers from UoS and the gold from the Spiral

My commerce cities usually end up having gold enhancement buildings and science enhancement buildings. When Universal Suffrage and Levees come around and my towns are producing hammers I put production enhancing buildings in them too.

sometimes you don't but most of the time if 100% of commerce is going to beakers you will need some markets to assign merchants to pull in some gold to pay for expenses and on the oppsite end if alot of commerce is going to gold you will likely need some libraries to build scientists to have some research. Then of course theryr's the fact that markets and grociers give dditional happy/health bonuses for rescources which libraaries don't. Banks are also very efficient giving a whopping 50% gold incrase which can be huge even if alot of your slider is going towards beakers. Then of course you can bypass all this crap by going into caste system and assiging specialists to your needs and not build any buildings that don't correlate to your slider. Your quistion is a good one and mastering the slider and learning how to use commerce buildings is usually whats needed to move up to the higher difficulties.

dudical123,

Gold can come from places other than commerce. See the picture below:

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc199/kesshisan/CivIV/moneycity.jpg

Note that my science is at 100%, and my gold is at 0%. Yet that city is producing over 700 gold per turn. This is because I'm getting gold from things other than my commerce.

How the hell did you get Future Tech at 1590AD???
I don't get near future tech until around the mid-late 21st centaury.
You HAD to have been cheating.

He is just playing on noble on a way too overcrowded map with a broken UU... Not really cheating per see...

He is just playing on noble on a way too overcrowded map with a broken UU... Not really cheating per see...

oyzar,

Actually, that's an old old game where I played as India. Fast Workers are hardly broken. :P Also, the Americas were empty, meaning I played with only 8 other civs. In my Rome 34 civs, I probably could have landed Future Tech around the 1200s or 1300s if I continued to play after I won via Domination.

It is still noble...

If you expand at a proper rate you'll need to pay for your expenses somehow(with slider at 50% or lower) and at that point markets / banks etc get quite ok...

Dudical, Oyzar's point is very valid. If your slider is at 90% around the Grocer / Bank era, you're probably in trouble for land and/or units. I get twitchy if my slider goes above 60% mid-game.