I have just played one game of SE and have a few questions.

How exactly do your generate all the gold in your capital? Only merchants? I undertand Beaur....

Kalyse,

Specialists can generate gold, too. Merchants produce 3 gold 3 science. Priest Specialists generate 1 gold, too. While it's not a whole lot, it adds up when you end up running 20+ Priest Specialists throughout your empire.

Also, settle your great persons in a Specialist Economy. Great Merchants, Artists, and Prophets also generate gold. Settling them will yield gold.

Also, you can get gold from a Religious Shrine or Religious Buildings if you build the Spiral Minaret.

Why would you want to generate "all the gold" in your capital?

My capital is usually either a production or research powerhouse, but I guess gold is good as well.

In my SEs (usual in Noble games) I have cities that are ultra-specialized. Science cities get all science buildings and have only farms and hammer improvements in their fat cross (I like to have enough food to keep at least 6 specialists fed while still growing the city). Gold cities get all gold buildings and have only farms and hammer improvements in their fat cross (with enough food for 6 merchant specialists at the least while still growing the city). Finally, my production cities are the ones that have enough food to feed 20 citizens (up to 24 to utilize engineers) that will work all workshop/mined tiles all the time and pump out units. In times of science leaps, I can stop working the non-food production tiles and assign scientists or merchants (for a gold leap), then go back to working the non-food production tiles.

I guess I went a little OT with the other specialists, but my purpose is to show you that the gold will come from cities that have a lot of food in their fat cross and you work a ton of merchant specialists in those cities. Since the cities also have production improvements on the non-food tiles, you can switch your specialists to those tiles when new buildings become available (gold city: market/grocer/bank, science city: library/university/observatory/monasteries).

In your gold cities later in the game when workshops are worth 5 or 6 hammers (depending on if they are on a river with a dyke), you can switch off of Merchant specialists and work the hammer tiles and switch your production to gold only. Merchants give 3 gold whereas the 6 hammer tiles will give 6 gold which is multiplied by your buildings. This isn't so for your science cities (since scientists in representation give 6 science each and produce GPP). However, if you're forced to switch to Emancipation (due to lack of happy resources) then science cities without Oxford U (therefore only allow 4 scientists) you should work the hammer tiles (5/6) and switch production to research.

Again, that's how I do it, but you may not like the idea of using those cities to "build" research and gold. Like I said... I super specialize ;)

Thanks for the detailed post Blitz.

What should I build in my Capitale?

Im not sure whats best.

Oxford University is naturally a MUST!

But I have been edging on Globe Theatre and National Epic... I think ultimately, the capitle works best with HE and Oxford. Globe Theatre maybe for another city...

When I hit Nationalism for Taj Mahal, I am able to generate two GP which I lightbulb If I am Peter for instance.
Philopsophical + Pacifism + National Epic + Parthenon = +350%, when you hit a golden ages that adds on another 50% or 100%? I think.

Where as - Globr Theatre is kind of pointless. Yes - I can drop my culture slider down to 0% and maybe get one extra city or two extra cities out quicker, but keeping it at 20% and having that extra 100% definately works.

So:
My analysis:

Capital ---
Oxford University.
National Epic

Cottage Farm City:
Wall Street



All the other wonders are pretty pointless.
Mount Rushmore.. (If I'm Peter I generally go for Space race...)
National Park (I chop everything in site. Why keep trees? Who ever uses this)
Hermitage??? (Pointless unless you need to envelop - But unlikely since your border towns won't have any high culture buildings).

Hammar Production City:
Unsure....

Second Production City / if coastal town:
Heroic Epic
Ironworks / Miao Statue

To your original question: cottage spam your capital and run Bureaucracy with a high gold slider. Alternatively, you could cottage spam a different city and move your capital - often your starting capital will be a high food city that is better suited for specialists.

Hammar Production City:
Unsure....


You didn't mention West Point

Well, you can decide whether or not you want Westpoint in the main hammer city, or in your main military city. My military city may not have as many hammers as my main hammer city (since I usually lay down the Heroic Epic pretty early and there are more cities to mature after that point). My main hammer city will usually get Ironworks and the Hospital epic (forget what it's called). That city usually spits out later Wonders like crazy. If I choose to go to heavy unit building, they all come out with inherent Medic I (I like that ;))

If you founded a religion, Wall Street should go into that founding city.

I don't believe always... requires balancing...

I don't believe always... requires balancing...

Cottages would never be better than a religion for WS. Cottages can be pillaged, require large city size, and are subject to the ever-changing tax-rate.

The only conceivable reason a religion would not work well is if every other civ in the world has closed their borders to you so that you cannot spread the religion. If that's the case, than you've really screwed up.

Cottages would never be better than a religion for WS. Cottages can be pillaged, require large city size, and are subject to the ever-changing tax-rate.

The only conceivable reason a religion would not work well is if every other civ in the world has closed their borders to you so that you cannot spread the religion. If that's the case, than you've really screwed up.

A mix of useful advice and some mistakes.

1. Whether or not a random religion is effective with WS is dependent on whether first you can get a prophet and second if you can generate missionaries instead of other things (aka you have hammers to spare and aren't going with war).

2. Stop using the "cottages can be pillaged" argument, it HAS NO MERIT. This may come as a surprise to players, but any improvement can be pillaged. On top of that, if your improvements are being pillaged, especially in a wall street city, what does it matter whether they're replaced cheaply? You're pretty well screwed. However, the AI rarely goes out of its way to pillage, and will pretty much just use mounted units as part of a stack to pillage tiles on its (predictable) way to the city it attacks. If you're in MP, you WANT them to idiotically sit their stack on flatlands instead of pillaging something critical like an iron mine or staying on defensive terrain. Such stacks don't tend to last long, and again, if they do, what makes you think you'll be coming back?

3. Although shrine cities can be small, logically cottage cities are smaller than specialist cities.

Now, onto the good points:

1. If you DO get a shrine and have the hammers to spare for missionaries to make it worthwhile, you definitely want wall street there. As mentioned, cottages are affected by the slider. Having wall street in a gold city will let you run it much higher and that's a big plus.

2. Probably the BEST city for wall street is a combination of a shrine and a corporate headquarters. Such a city has the potential to produce hundreds of gold by itself.

Now, as to what would stop you from using both cottages and the above in such a city is beyond me, but I advocate running merchants in that city - you're going to use the gold multipliers to the max, and if you're running the slider high gold multipliers do very little with cottages, but still affect merchants.

So, to answer the OP question: as much as you can of merchants/holy city shrines/corporations. The sole exception is if you're running such a dedicated "SE" that you have the slider very low, where cottages are more efficient than merchants and the commerce will go through the gold multipliers.

Religion and corp HQs are independent of whether cottages or merchants would be better in a "gold" city though. YOU WANT THEM, ALWAYS, and should get them if you can for your wall street city.

National Park (I chop everything in site. Why keep trees? Who ever uses this)

Hermitage??? (Pointless unless you need to envelop - But unlikely since your border towns won't have any high culture buildings).


National Park + Iron Works = super production city, good for late wonders, and great for projects that can't be rushed i.e. space ship parts & internet. I make this city every time I play and it always helps me out big time.

Hermitage is huge for cultual victories - put in the culturally weakest of the 3. It's generally pretty easy to know which one that will be fairly early on.

national park plus ironworks? Did you notice you lose 50% bonus to production ?

Yeah, national park mixed with ironworks is a waste, you blow half of ironworks' power.

National park and heroic national epic on the other hand can be an extremely powerful combo, but requires some planning ahead and a pretty specific situation, obviously it can't always work. But once I had a super food city (pigs, irrigated wheat, clams, 2 fish) with a bunch of forest scattered (it was an enemy capital city, and they got a forested start). Mixed with Sid's Sushi that sucker was amazing, it ended up running around two dozen specialists... filled up almost every specialist slot possible from every regular building (wasn't in caste system).

Yeah, national park mixed with ironworks is a waste, you blow half of ironworks' power.

National park and heroic epic on the other hand can be an extremely powerful combo, but requires some planning ahead and a pretty specific situation, obviously it can't always work. But once I had a super food city (pigs, irrigated wheat, clams, 2 fish) with a bunch of forest scattered (it was an enemy capital city, and they got a forested start). Mixed with Sid's Sushi that sucker was amazing, it ended up running around two dozen specialists... filled up almost every specialist slot possible from every regular building (wasn't in caste system).

Makes more sense in a GP farm city if you save forests there. You want hammers in the HE city also, and this means that you're going to use the forest for lumbermills, or you're going to be working hammer tiles or have long since chopped forests.

NP/NE means specialists, and multiplied effects on them.

I seldom use NP though...it's late in the game. I'm trying a few games where I save forests to see how it benefits me...but when I do that I usually wind up wanting lumbermills since they're = mines and even get the same bonus from railroads as mines :p.

Great Person Priests are actually very useful if settled in your gold city.

Ah, went to take a picture of it. Here you go, a National Epic/Nation Park combo, churning out tons of great people even in the modern age.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y172/Joshua368/GreatGPFarm.jpg

Running 24 specialists, not that bad. :p There's still room for three more artists, three more priests, and two more spies if I built that spy building. Also massive cities make for some awesome trade routes. The cities still growing because a few turns previous I had supercharged my Sid's Sushi by trading for every available bit of seafood on the planet, but this is as far as it got before my spaceship reached centurai.

Doing some quick math and I calculate that on its own merits (if it didn't have Sid's Sushi), it has 22 food surplus (if not working the three 1-food squares) for 11 specialists, plus 8 forest preserves. So normally the city could have 19 specialists by itself.

I usually end up putting the NP in a tundra forest city. The extra specialists don't require feeding and those cities rarely have enough food to run many lumbermills. I think the most free specialists I've got is about a dozen which is more than I'd get from any of my long-established cities in better terrain.

Ah, went to take a picture of it. Here you go, a National Epic/Nation Park combo, churning out tons of great people even in the modern age.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y172/Joshua368/GreatGPFarm.jpg

Running 24 specialists, not that bad. :p There's still room for three more artists, three more priests, and two more spies if I built that spy building. Also massive cities make for some awesome trade routes. The cities still growing because a few turns previous I had supercharged my Sid's Sushi by trading for every available bit of seafood on the planet, but this is as far as it got before my spaceship reached centurai.

Doing some quick math and I calculate that on its own merits (if it didn't have Sid's Sushi), it has 22 food surplus (if not working the three 1-food squares) for 11 specialists, plus 8 forest preserves. So normally the city could have 19 specialists by itself.

So you meant NE and not Heroic Epic after all :lol:. KK

Gaahhh typos strike again!

national park plus ironworks? Did you notice you lose 50% bonus to production ?

I did not put 1 and 2 together about National Park removing access to coal.

Luckily, however, I often get hoover dam, so at least all these times I've been screwing myself it wasn't for the rest of the game.

Unluckily, apparently I've been bulding coal plants in my NP / IW for no reason at all. But smokestacks with nothing come out of them are kind of pretty at least.

Thanks for the tip.

I did not put 1 and 2 together about National Park removing access to coal.

Luckily, however, I often get hoover dam, so at least all these times I've been screwing myself it wasn't for the rest of the game.

Nah, you're still screwing yourself out of a extra 50% production for the rest of the game. :p Just so you feel better.

Oh snap. Thanks.