Specialisation-any real benefit?

I mean your first 4 major cities would concentrate one each for science, gold, food, production, then the rest if any would be hybrids. This would mean not being able to build most national wonders except for NC at beginning perhaps. Emperor Level in mind. All my main cities look pretty much the same. If I don't build Uni's
in all my initial cities I don't get Oxford Uni.

Somehow I have never been able to do this. If NC is in your capital logic is science, so you would have to look elsewhere to build a production city. This worked fine in Civ IV but I am not sure it is valid any longer. It would be OK for OCC though.

Well you should prioritize getting your scientist slots filled in all of your cities ASAP. I find that "specializing" cities does really work out too well. I mean, usually I try to make sure my culture city is on a coast (for SOH if need be), but other than that, my capital is pretty much my powerhouse city.

Specializing in food or production doesn't really make sense to me, they are both a means to an end. I you want a science city you would give it a high pop, for example.

goremand said:

Specializing in food or production doesn't really make sense to me, they are both a means to an end. I you want a science city you would give it a high pop, for example.

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High production cities are good for wonder & military production. So generally it is a good idea to have a super production city in your empire.

Tony.Uk said:

I mean your first 4 major cities would concentrate one each for science, gold, food, production, then the rest if any would be hybrids. This would mean not being able to build most national wonders except for NC at beginning perhaps. Emperor Level in mind. All my main cities look pretty much the same. If I don't build Uni's
in all my initial cities I don't get Oxford Uni.

Somehow I have never been able to do this. If NC is in your capital logic is science, so you would have to look elsewhere to build a production city. This worked fine in Civ IV but I am not sure it is valid any longer. It would be OK for OCC though.

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Doesn't tend to work well with Civ V. Your capital is normally the best at everything you just mentioned at the same time. And you need the same buildings in every city to build national wonders, which is the main point of being tall.

The one thing you can specalize is the one thing not mentioned: Military unit production (and the buildings that increase starting XP that go along with it) can be relegated to a single city.

With Liberty, I am not sure Capitol will be the best city. And with Liberty, you can set up a 2nd big city perhaps at a better spot pretty fast. You might even want your NC at that 2nd city if it happens to have good growth, have jungle tiles and next to a mountain. Usually military should be relegated to another city, your capitol will most likely be making wonders most of the time.

Babri said:

High production cities are good for wonder & military production. So generally it is a good idea to have a super production city in your empire.

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Yes, but then what you have is a wonder or military city, production was really just a means to that end. If for example you want to make military units you would also buy XP buildings, not just improve your production.

City specialization is still very useful, but I've found that unlike Civ 4, city specialization doesn't come as straightforward and obvious in Civ 5. I find that most of my cities grow very organic and flexible, which is unlike in Civ 4 that "I'm going to make this a GP farm! I'm going to make that a hammer farm!".

The capital may not necessary be the best city, in my last game as Spain, my second city Barcelona was settled next to Great Barrier Reef and practically in the middle of the world (therefore lots of trade), and became the best culture, best economic and second best production city.

In Civ 5, the revelation of new strategic resources over time can bring massive improvements to city production. In my last game, Warsaw (which I conquered in 2000 BC) became from a puppet goldmine to the best production city due to the appearance of iron/coal/oil/etc. around it over time.

Finally, internal trade routes are EXTREMELY useful and can help cities that have potential to become culture/economy/wonder powerhouse but lack the production (or have fantastic production resources around but are in the middle of a desert or tundra) kickstart very fast and turn into workable state. This also means you're not necessary restricted your wonders building to high production cities, nor are your cities which lack in hammers but have extremely good food production impossible to get culture/tourism/great person wonders. In my last game, capital Madrid, despite being on the seashore with NO water resources, and almost no mines around, was still able to get 1/3 of the world wonders of my empire built there thanks to a cargo ship dedicated to ship productions there. BTW, why not solely focus on Barcelona you ask? That's because world religion's 50% tourism bonus is huge and I didn't want to waste it.

The only one thing that may not require city specialization as much is economy, at least early on. Early on cities are better focused on population growth, and external trade routes provide way much more gold anyway, and all the +% gold buildings/policies don't help them at all. However I think it can be interesting to let one city (preferably already have lots of +gold resources nearby, and lots of jungles around) surrounded by mostly trading posts, supporting its growth and production with only internal trade routes. Of course, whether the opportunity cost of using these caravans/cargo ships to trade for cash instead is worth doing so, is another question (and maybe solved with number crunching).

Vitruvius said:

With Liberty, I am not sure Capitol will be the best city.

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Even with Liberty there's a strong tendency for the capitol to be best at everything. All maritime CS friends/allies give more food to your capitol, so it inherently tends to have more growth. And your palace also gives your capitol some inherent bonuses. (Some research, production, and I don't remember what else.)