I would definitely fit into the Builder category of player - I like big maps, big cities and lots of space ("But Arturo, what about the corruption....blah, blah")

I also usually end up building every improvement in almost every city and if I'm at war, or there are no more improvements, I build military units.

Now I have read quite a bit about people developing specialist cities, and also of not building some improvements in certain cities because it is not cost-effective and not building military in order to save money.
So what I want to know is, if you're not building any and all available improvements or beefing up the military, what are you building?
Do many people choose to "build" wealth, even when they aren't desperatley strapped for cash and there are available improvements?

I think these players are moving on to play another game of Civ3 and not continuing to muddle about with the current game that is game over.

If you can already achieve the 4 turns per tech pace and have lots of cash to spare and all your enemies are dead or hogtied it's game over Irene.

Building too many improvements and units of the wrong kinds will actuall slow down your game and just make it drag on forever.

The key point is to focus on how you want to win the game and get there in the way you want to win. If you want to have climactic tank battles then you need to focus on how to get there with lots of tanks for you and lots of tanks for the victim. Lots of the wrong kinds of buildings will actually interfere with this objective.

When you see people specialize cities into settler or worker factories they do not build barracks or other omprovements there beyond perhaps a granary because all that city does is spew out workers and/or settlers.

Coastal point cities that can support all their population in water can be economic and or scientific power houses with just focusing on marketplace+library+univ and they may only build an occassional artillery or cruisemissile.

Inside a radius of 4 to 6 tiles from the palace or FP, courthouses and policestations will rarely yield a positve result. The bascially cost you more per turn in maintenance than they earn in improved yield.

Thanks Cracker,

Re: Coastal point cities that ....they may only build an occassional artillery or cruisemissile.
So they only have those 3 improvements? What do they build for the rest of the time?

I have read posts of people who say (even during middle stages of the game, and with a fair bit to go) that (for example) they captured or settled some new city that had certain conditions, that they "made sure to build a temple and a library in it", or "build a few defensive units" ...whatever...
My examples are not very clear, but it was plain from their posts (I've seen more than 1) that they don't build certain improvements in certain cities (this is besides your point about the C/House and P/Station), either because they are not culture power-house cities and thus they couldn't care whether it has a temple or not, or they don't want to pay maintenance, etc.
Also they seem to imply that these cities are not necessarilly cranking out military all the time...so what ARE they building??

I build workers .. as food storage

If those are distant captured cities, after building a culture building - to expand the radius - which might be rushed - they might be only putting 1spt towards an improvement. If the city is wildly corrupt there's not much point rushing anything else, so you might just leave it slowly accumulating 1spt towards something big (like artillery, perhaps).

Thanks all. It must have been something like the above - either too much corruption/resistance to warrant developing a captured city, or so close the the Palace or FP that some improvements are a waste.
I was sure when I read it that they simply didn't build everything in all their cities as a matter of personal policy....oh well.

Walls aren't worth it, usually.
Coastal fortresses are useless.
If a city is in the middle of a massive mountain range, or in desert, where it will be limited to size 2, then they won't get many improvements at all, because they won't get big enough to make those improvements cost-effective.
Marketplaces, libraries, etc. are a much higher priority in the coastal/river cities, and not so in the low pop-low commerce cities, so those cities may just build military for most of the game.

Simple trick: If there's no improvement you want to build in a city don't switch to wealth. Instead build units, move them to a far away corruption riddled city building something you want and disband them there. This is more effective per shield than building wealth and goldrushing.

If I need to, military units. When at peace, wealth.

If you don't know what to build in your cities, since they seem to have everything, it's about time to start playing DyP. Looks like that will be the perfect Mod for you - you will specialize cities here, and when you have 3 or 4 cities with everything you want at a certain time, you'll be lucky.
(Of course, DyP isn't the best Mod for straightforward gamers.)

If I haver build every useful building I usually "build" wealth...To earn money and to develop technologies more quickly, and only if I'm planning a war I build a big military.

I play only Dyp for quite a while- and I don't build gorrizon at all, as well as radio the printing press buildings police and other useless building...

I don't build the police and district courthouse couse a place the palaces very smartly, so I don't have problems with corruption usually...

By the way!
I noticed that that in DYp the Comp alaways ready to sell the musik techology for 5 or 6 gold!

This is soemthing I encouter quite often (whilst waiting for a tech to arrive so I can build the next items).


I agree with Pembroke - building some units and shipping them off to corrupt cities can speed up production there quite a lot (although I will sometimes use wealth to build up a bit of gold as well). Building ships is a great way to 'move' shield production to island cities which otherwise would take forever to build harbours.

If i have really corrupt small distant towns, then usually ill build workers.

To calculate cost-effectiveness, you need to put the production of a city against the maintenance of the improvement.
For example, I believe a marketplace costs 1 per turn in maintenance and a bank 2. A city with 2 uncorrupted commerce per turn would have 3 with a marketplace. Then the marketplace pays for itself but is not contributing much yet. A bank would take it to 4 but cost one more than it generates.

Once everything is railroaded, I put these cities on some project that will take forever to complete so I don't have to look at them again.
If these corrupt cities have lots of food though, you can still get them to produce a few gpt by growing them to size 12 and then hire as many tax collectors as the available food will allow (income from tax collectors isn't affected by corruption). E.g. if you have a city with 6 irrigated, railroaded grassland, you have enough food for 6 tax collectors, i.e. 6 gpt.

I usually build military. But if my military is big enough already, and I have all the cultural buildings in that city, I build wealth. (Yes wealth!)