How to specialize your cities to grow your civ

I've read in many forums that the best way to grow your civilization is to specialize your cities rather that have them all try to do the same thing. I presume the bottom line is to maximize my military and technology. So my question is, how do I do that? More specifically...

1. What are the different type of things cities should specialize in? i.e Commerce, Tech, Production (for military?), Great Person Farms (to do what?), etc?

2. What type should my capital be?

3. How many of each type should I try to build and in what order?

4. When trying to place my settler what kind of terrain is ideal for each of these types of cities?

5. For each type of city what buildings/wonders should I build?

6. How big is "big enough" before I start going to specialists?

7. For each type of city what should my workers do?

Welcome aboard....

Answers to all N questions:

Look in the War Academy - there's a link at the top of the page, on the Site Navigation/Civilization IV menu. You'll find a bunch of articles there about both city specialization and terrain improvements. Read all of those, then ask new/informed questions.

Perhaps start with the Sisutils Guide for Beginners in there, it covers most of the basics.

My 2 cents:

1) most important: production, science, and 1 great people farm
2) depends or hybrid. Due to bureaucracy the capital can be very strong both in science and in production. if you run specialist economy, cottage your capital to take advantage of bureaucracy. if you need production, your capital can easily become a production monster if you specialize it, but this costs a lot of science/commerce potential
3) I usually build a production city first to crank out defenders so my other cities can focus on building settlers, workers, and useful buildings. Specialization is often only really possible with workshops and civil service (for chain irrigation), so think about it in the beginning but don't worry about it too much
4) see the guide on terrain and specialization in the war academy. General: production: food resource plus hills; commerce: rivier; great people: food resources
5) the obvious ones, ie production builds barracks, forge; science builds library, etc.
6) depends on what you need now and how big you can grow
7) production: get enough food online, then build mines / watermills / workshops / woodmills
commerce: get some food online, then cottage
great people: farms!

HTH

-- Wouter

cpicard said:

I've read in many forums that the best way to grow your civilization is to specialize your cities rather that have them all try to do the same thing. I presume the bottom line is to maximize my military and technology. So my question is, how do I do that? More specifically...

Click to expand...

As VoU said, the War Academy is the best place to start for all things Civ4.

cpicard said:

1. What are the different type of things cities should specialize in? i.e Commerce, Tech, Production (for military?), Great Person Farms (to do what?), etc?

2. What type should my capital be?

4. When trying to place my settler what kind of terrain is ideal for each of these types of cities?

Click to expand...

I've answered all of those questions in my article 'City Specialization: WHERE I do it.'

In the case of #2, it depends on what kind of terrain is surrounding it. You don't want to spin your wheels trying to make a city one thing when it's better suited to becoming another (that only works in the endgame).

cpicard said:

3. How many of each type should I try to build and in what order?

Click to expand...

Those are both subjective and still based on the terrain you're dealing with.

The general rule of thumb (at least the one I adhere to) is to settle and specialize 33% (1 in 3) of your cities as production cities -- with at least one being dedicated to military only.

cpicard said:

5. For each type of city what buildings/wonders should I build?

Click to expand...

Check out the two city specialization links from the top of my article.

cpicard said:

6. How big is "big enough" before I start going to specialists?

Click to expand...

It depends on how badly you need the economic boost. If you're doing well without the or or whatever from the specialist city, then let it grow until you need it. Otherwise, you can bring it online as early as pop 2 without stagnating growth.

cpicard said:

7. For each type of city what should my workers do?

Click to expand...

Again, check out the two links at the top of my article.


-- my 2

OTAKUjbskis article on city placement is brilliant, read it even if you're doing good on Prince, it helps me alot in most of my games, to take a break, look at the landscape and instead of settling and specializing by gut, doing a bit of math and go "Hey, Hastings can yield 12H with only 4 inhabitants if placed there" and soforth.

Thank you all for your tips and thanks for the links to the other resources. This is a big help.

Bear in mind that city specialization is at least as much about what infrastructure you build in your city as it is about how you improve the land around the city.

Don't waste hammers building a barracks in a cottage city, or conversely building a library in your military production city.



-abs