How to specialize this city?

I was recently playing a single player game (noble difficulty- only my second game ever!) and was hoping I could get some thoughts on what other people would do with this city:



As of now, my plan is to try to build it into my main production center, assuming I can keepy it healthy. I would probably start out by just cottaging all the flood plains and using those to support the mined hills. Later on, once state property comes around I would probabaly just tear down the cottages to throw up some workshops, turning it into a real contruction powerhouse (assuming I have enough other good commercial cities).

6 watermill-able floodplains (all except the single river corner). I would probably make this the oxford/science city running 7 scientists late game plus the commerce and production of wind and water mills. I would cottage the 2 grassland tiles and the corner floorplain AND the floodplain immediately south of the city. This will give you 6 surplus food when working the cow. Cottage the two plains tiles and mine the plains hills to eat the surplus for when you need to halt growth. Windmill the grassland hills and desert hills then workshop the last remaining plain (SSE corner). Put farms down on floorplains if necessary to support additional population, otherwise watermill them. Once in state property windmill all the hills and start running specialists. Build the levee, but probably no factory/airport/power depending on health) and let the city contribute with whatever you still need or just bulk up on infrastructure.

I'm ignoring the plains for now. You need at least 3 farms to work all the hills. My advice? if you're going for a production city forget about the cottages and go all farms. That lets you work all the hills at a lower population. As you get better workshop technologies and biology you can adjust as needed.

Go all production. Production is good for everything and this city is primed. Don't waste time on the cottages just farm/mine then add workshops latter.

That city can do pretty much anything you want it to, although if you want to make it production-oriented, I'd think twice about cottaging the flood plains. If it's going to be your dedicated production city, forget about cottages entirely.

Depends on your situation. If you have a production site, or two, mix in some cottage cheese and garnish it with windmills (it's food neutral with 3 windmills). If you need a production site, this could easily be one.

Hmm, New York, so this is your first produced city?

Great site! Production city would work well.

The other option of course is to just make it a big commerce centre, you can cottage every flat tile (except the cows) and you'll still have enough excess food to run the mined hills when you need to build things. Later in the game swap the mines for windmills.

You'll be rolling in it!

DaveMcW's rule of thumb is that if a city can work 10 cottages before biology and still grow it should be a commerce city. That applies to this city. I also think that the floodplains will add to the production city's ability to stay healthy. Therefore, I would make this a commerce city and windmill the hills later on.

I guess ill pitch in with "GP farm". Too many floodplains to waste it on production, and it also means you can leave the forests for the health.

I would scout the surrounding lands before making a definite decision about this city. It can become a great commerce city, a great production city and a fairly decent great person farm. It just depends on the surrounding land which of these types of city locations you will need in the future. If the surrounding lands hold very few good production sites (hills + food resources), then this could best become a production city and the same argument holds for commerce cities and food cities.

Note that many city sites can become good commerce cities and there might be better food areas around.

At the start of the game, you need to expand your civilisation and maybe get a world wonder that you like. So at least for starters I would develop it into a production city which means farm the flood plains and mine the hills. The extra food output can be used to grow quickly, use the whip and produce workers and settlers.

This is your capital and if you don't plan to move the palace to another city, then the capital can best become a production city or a commerce city because of the synergy with one of the better civics of the game: bureaucracy.

Good luck with your game.

edit: By the way, I wouldn't be surprised if a strategic resource would show up within the BFC of your capital. At the moment, the capital only has one resource which is a fairly low number of resources. A strategic resource would further enhance the production capabilities of this city.

Excellent site. It could for both cottage, specialists and production, so that depends on the situation of the rest of your empire. I would probably make it production though, being able to work cows and two plains hill mines for 11H @POP3, or a FP watermill and the grasshill too, for 15H @POP 5. IDK, just thinking out loud. If your capital is a production center, I would cottage this, starting with floodplains, and then grass and plains, having cows and hills for production when needed (courthouses etc)

@ Khelek:

Welcome to the forums!

Andvare said:

Depends on your situation.

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How to specialize a city is more than just looking at the land underneath it. You have to look at the rest of your land to see what else is available as well as take into consideration your and caps, which ultimately determine the size of your city and which tiles you actually can work.

Being able to work 20 tiles in 1872 AD doesn't do you whole lot of good in 2750 BC.

Consider what the city can do for you now as well as what it will be able to do later. (Which I think supports your idea to Cottage it now and convert it to Workshops and Watermills later.)

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This site has a food deficit of -4 @ population 20, so in the long term, you're going to have to come up with that food somehow (4 pre Biology Farms, 4 SP Watermills, 4 Windmills, etc.).

That being said, I prefer (when plausible) for my production cities to have no food deficit or even a food surplus. The Production City's going to have immense down the road (especially so if it gets IW), so starting with -4 food to make up (which you can effectively look at as +4 ) isn't the best place to start.

Couple that with the fact the Floodplains are contributing +2 all on their own doesn't help, either.

Sure, you have 2 Forests to help soften the blow, but one of them is on one of the hills you want to work, so you're either going to deal with lower production until Replaceable Parts or just deal with it and chop the Forest now.


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Okay, so back on track with production.

At population 6, you can work city center (+2F 1P) 2 grassland hill mines (-2F 6P), 2 plains hill mines (-4F 8P), 1 grassland cow (+2F 2P) and 1 Floodplains Farm (+2F) for stagnant production of 17P.

Not at all bad, but I bet a better spot [with Strategic Resources] is out there somewhere.

After that, you're limited on what you can do. Your best bet is to Workshop the remaining floodplains and run Caste System and/or have Guilds, which means each new population point offers at least +2P per tile worked.

Those desert hills are pretty much dead until Biology and/or Railroad, because until then, working a floodplains farm + desert hill mine is only 3P -- or 1.5P per tile.

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All that just to say why I don't like it as a production city. However, if there really is no better production site around you, then production wins, because they're usually the most difficult to find.

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So what do I see it as? Commerce City.

Why? Because you're Financial (at least, that's what everything in the screenie leads me to believe)!

Cottage all the Floodplains and mine the bare hills. Save the Forests for Lumbermills.

This city won't make a great Oxford city since it maxes out at only 13 Towns, but it will certainly be part of your empire's backbone.

And, if during the Industrial Era you want to convert everything to Watermills and Workshops (especially under State Property), this site will certainly take to it well as long as you have the resources and buildings to manage the .


-- a lot of my 2

It has a lot of potential options, so my recommendation is using it in a way you can't use other cities - be that commerce, production, or GP farm. Really though, I'd advise against GP farm as usually I prefer 2-seafood sites or other sites that have food but no hammers in them.

I often find I'm shorter on production cities than commerce, but not always. In most games then, this would wind up being a production city for me. You can also potentially use overlap to take advantage of some of the unused tiles-this is an exceptional city IMO.

Let me start by echoing the "it depends on the rest of your empire". Also, congrats on getting the concept of city specialization as early as your second game! I'm still resisting my generalist tendencies, which are keeping me from improving past Monarch I think.

If you are looking to make an aggressive military early in the game, I'd be tempted to go with farms, mines, and workshops. The farmed floodplains would also let you run specialists during peacetime assuming the right buildings/civics.

Assuming I have other decent production cities in the mid-game, I'd probably cottage/windmill everything over later, especially once the town-boosting techs start to come in.

It's a good commerce city, with the floodplains supporting 5 plains (and grass hill) cottages.

It's also a great Iron Works city. If there is no other city with comparable production, I'd make it my #1 production center.

OTAKUjbski:

Wow, thanks for that analysis. Very interesting!

You say that 17P at 6 pop is "not bad," but not optimal. When you consider specialization, say, production, what do you see as good at that pop level? When I'm sussing out the landscape and trying to make a decision like this, what production number should I be shooting for?

You then go on to note that it won't make a great Oxford city (too few towns, although 13 sounds like a lot to me). How many towns do I need for a good Oxford city?

^^ The sheer number of towns is not the only thing - you want lots of them to be worked and grow, because oxford comes along mid-game and you want matured villages and towns by then if you can. No point having 20 cottages if you can only work 4 of them. 13 with big food bonuses seems pretty good to me.

gp farm all the way

Khelek said:

I was recently playing a single player game (noble difficulty- only my second game ever!) and was hoping I could get some thoughts on what other people would do with this city:

Spoiler :

As of now, my plan is to try to build it into my main production center, assuming I can keepy it healthy. I would probably start out by just cottaging all the flood plains and using those to support the mined hills. Later on, once state property comes around I would probabaly just tear down the cottages to throw up some workshops, turning it into a real contruction powerhouse (assuming I have enough other good commercial cities).

Click to expand...

Depends. What's the rest of your land look like? I'd turn it into a production city, unless you have 3 or more good or great production cities already.

If you're going the production route, build farms on the floodplains first, for rapid growth while mining the hills. When you start to get near the happy cap, you can adjust to cottages as needed, to keep from going over.

The "it depends" answer is certainly the correct one. My first reaction would be to make is a cottaged commerce city. But depending on what else is available, it could be a solid production center.

Also, although a wider view might certainly change my mind, I would probably have build it 1N of its current location.