Writing, Art & Music Guild, 3 different cities or all in one city?

I'm assuming here that the speed of creating these is based on the total output of culture in a single city. So all three in one city is preferred.

Thanks!

As for every great person, culture output is indiffirent - great person specific points amassing is what counts.

No, the speed of generating cultural great people is dependant on:
- Guilds themselves that generate GPP points.
- 1 or 2 slots filled for extra GPP points.
- Modifiers (Garden, Nat. College, resolutions etc.)

For maximum speed of generating all three types of great people I guess putting all 3 guilds into the same city is the best.

The benefit of spreading them out into various cities (that have access to gardens) is that you can generating them without seriously hampering your growth and production. If you put all three guilds into your capital that is also the largest city and your science city, you'll need to have enough food to support 8 specialist (and grow, preferably).

I usually have two cities for guilds, always aiming for high food ones with less workable tiles.

Technically...it doesn't matter, you can do it however you want. Just don't place specialists in them, but in terms of optimization:

-If your Netherlands or Aztecs, you can definitely pull it off as they have great food with Polders and Floating Gardens.

-Mayas, Ethiopia, and Celts can probably pull it off well, but you'll have to choose religious beliefs that favor food (like Fertility Rites, Feed the World, and Swords to Plowshare).

-Sweden probably works well too if you get Hanging Gardens/Gardens, National Epic, and Leaning Tower of Pisa along with all your different friendships. You'll get some really nice GP generation even off one specialist, might need a trade route for a lil bit. Also, any GP you get, you can always gift to a Maritime civ for more Food.

-Greece, Polynesia, and Siam probably through their advantages to meeting Maritime civs and getting benefits out of them.

-Everyone else, you'll have to redirect trade routes to produce food. Otherwise, it's probably easier having separate cities for your guilds.

If you're solely after the culture, then yes, you can probably afford to spread the guilds around through various cities.
However, if you're focusing on GWAM generation, then you should try to put all three guilds plus your National Epic (and ideally a Garden) in a single city. As for feeding the Specialists, you can place the city in a high-food location, route food trade routes to the city, or, if it's your capital, pledge to protect every Maritime City-State you meet and adopt the Consulates social policy in the Patronage tree.

I try to put them all in my National Epic city. If I'm playing wide, I may not bother(they cost maintenance), or put them in separate cities so that I can still run the specialists.

As others have said, if at all possible you should put them in your National Epic city to get as many GP as possible. If you can't though, Great Writers are probably the least important of the three, with Artists being used for lots of wonders (and Golden Ages if you're Brazil) and Musicians for some of the later wonders and musician bombs. Writers are definitely the least important IMO, so if any of the three can't be in your National Epic city then it should be the Writer's Guilds IMO. However, again, you really should have them all in the same city if you can, with as many multipliers as possible. You can make up for the lost food with trade routes, especially if your specialist city is also a coastal one.

mrwho said:

Writers are definitely the least important IMO...

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Except that you have many more slots for great works from writers, earlier in the game and in total number available. So you should start churning out writers earlier and keep it going all game. In that sense, writers are the most important, not the least.

Frankly, I don't know that I've ever maxed out my writer works.

Generally I like to put the 3 in one city, build garden, NE, and pump it with food for the GWAM generation

Like others, I tend to put all my guilds in the same city with a Garden and National Epic. More often than not I'll end up rush buying the garden and/or a Workshop in that city to help get everything going faster, as the type of city that looks good for guilds tends to not to have great production. Also, I will almost always devote an internal trade route delivering food to the guild city once it gets going.

Wodan said:

Except that you have many more slots for great works from writers, earlier in the game and in total number available. So you should start churning out writers earlier and keep it going all game. In that sense, writers are the most important, not the least.

Frankly, I don't know that I've ever maxed out my writer works.

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Not to mention that if you aren't going for a CV, Writers are both the easiest way to get a little bit of tourism (to get Exotic influence with other civs to resist ideological pressure) and extremely useful for culture bulbing social policies. Plus, everybody gets Oxford sooner or later, and you can swap a couple of great works to get the themeing bonus out of that.

It does matter. The National epic can only be in one city.

Personally, I'm split over this question. Putting them all in one city pretty much guarantees that you're going to have to permanently assign a food trade route to that city. But it allows all of them to get the national epic bonus, makes for a better hermitage, and will grow that cities border ridiculously fast.

On the other hand, spreading them out means two will not get the national epic bonus, but food should not be an issue and you get three cities with decent culture growth instead of one with mega culture growth.

I was hoping by typing that out, it'd make the decision easier ... it did not. Actually, I'm thinking I'm favoring putting them all in one city. National epic bonus is too good to pass up and I usually run a couple of food trade routes permanently anyways.

Wodan said:

Except that you have many more slots for great works from writers, earlier in the game and in total number available. So you should start churning out writers earlier and keep it going all game. In that sense, writers are the most important, not the least.

Frankly, I don't know that I've ever maxed out my writer works.

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Early-game tourism doesn't matter that much and late-game you certainly don't have more writer slots than Artists. You get a slot per ampitheatre, but the same is true for museums (assuming one art per artifact) and opera house so that's not that relevant. You also get a maximum of 5 extra slots that you'd need to focus on GWs to get, one from Globe Theatre (which is out of the way of the arguably better Acoustics-Architecture line for a cultural victory), two from The Great Library (although this is extremely difficult and in many games impossible to get in higher difficulties) and two from Oxford. Compare that to Art slots, to get the theming bonuses that's two for Sistine Chapel, two for Ufuzzi, two for the Louvre, and three from Hermitage. This is an extra 4 slots at least and probably far more because you're unlikely to be able to get the GL and it's also usually a better idea to prioritise Acoustics and Architecture, meaning you're also unlikely to get the Globe Theater on higher difficulties. And not only are there more GA slots, they give better theming bonuses. So sorry, but unless I'm missing something major your claim that you get more writer slots simply doesn't add up, unless you pretty much completely ignore culture and stop at amphitheaters. As a niche case as well, Great Arists are utterly brilliant for Brazil. Then you've got Musicians, which have four extra slots from Broadway and Sydney Opera House. Although that's one fewer extra slot than for the Writers you're far more likely to get them as they're later in the game and at good points in the tech tree. Whatsmore, Great Musicians are extremely important if you've got high culture civs left in the late game so you can bomb them. So no, I stand by what I say that Writers are the least important. Ideally you'd have as many as you can, but if you're looking for a guild to invest less time into (assuming you're going for a culture victory), I'd go for writers.

Kaigen said:

Not to mention that if you aren't going for a CV, Writers are both the easiest way to get a little bit of tourism (to get Exotic influence with other civs to resist ideological pressure) and extremely useful for culture bulbing social policies. Plus, everybody gets Oxford sooner or later, and you can swap a couple of great works to get the themeing bonus out of that.

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This is true, but I'm talking about Culture Victories mainly, a point I definitely should have originally made clearer.

If you're Venice, you don't have much choice. Seeing as they are forced to play tall, it's an advantage if they can spare 6 citizens and get all the mad GP wonders.

because of the national epic, it is ideal to get them in one city for max multipliers.

However that requires a ton of food, which is not always an option.

Spreading them out isn't the end of the world.

Can I get a clarification on whether the three artistic GPs share the same pool or not?

nope, they have 3 separate pools/counters.

Well, to officially break it down, there's only 2 GENERAL strategies:

1) All in 1 city (usually capital) and devote a trade route or 2 for food.
Pros: Best GP production.
Con: Economically and growth-wise weaker.
Overall: Hurts in the early, but strongest late game.

2) Split between 3 cities.
Pros: Average GP production, better growth and economy than above.
Con: Average, slower GWAM delays CV.

But, depending on your civ, things change up. So it really really depends.

I'd argue that while GW may not benefit as much as GA towards the CV, they're still super important. Using your GW political treatise to fill out Rationalism, Aesthetics, Patronage, or Ideology is extremely important and vital. Early game, they're your first source of tourism, late game they help you stay ahead in policies that can outweigh your weaker military (unless you are...wait for it, the runaway). Artists are more valuable for their great work due to museums, but archaeologist really help use your artists for golden ages to keep ahead in production and economy to get those wonders.

TLDR: Flip a coin. Heads, all-in-one. Tails, divide-and-conquer.

I most of time place all 3 in one city, since i prefer tall, and have few options to choose. It is not always like every city have fresh water. Also other cities are often strong in hammers so i would rather use them for unit production if needed.

And i think it pays off enought. Epic synergy is nice, and there is always some benefit from this extra GA. Artists helps with filling museas if you are not lucky with artifacts. And artist late game are great to fill missing policies.

If it is reasonable, all in capital is better. Hermitage and nation epic.

Although I don't think it is significant enough where it must be done. Sometimes I have cities that have too much food (wider play, want to keep certain cities pop. down) so then the choice becomes either work weak tiles or purposely unemploy your citizens, or build a guild in the city and soak up two citizen spots while getting culture and GWAM. It is not a total loss, since the capital then can focus on more production.