Usefulness of Police Station and Courthouses

For that matter, why rush a courthouse in a designated farm city? Just rush the aqueduct instead.

But, like I said, you save money on rushing the aqueduct because the city is producing more good shields. Both you and creamcheese make this same point. But I already took it into account in my thinking. Yes, you spend money/turns completing/rushing courthouse, but then you save money/turns afterward when building/rushing other things because your shield production is now higher; therefore rushing those other things is cheaper. That's what I was explaining in my 3d paragraph above. Unless if you're talking about rushing something by buying it outright, from the very first turn, when no shields have gone into the improvement yet.

Also, the 1 gpt upkeep cost of a courthouse will be more than made up for in any strongly corrupt city, because you will receive more commerce as well as more shields. That's another thing. Corruption affects your commerce production in addition to shields. In my example, I would gain several more commerce counters that would go towards either gold or science (depending on my slider), and the extra gold per turn I would now generate from that city would be more than the 1gpt that is the upkeep cost of the courthouse.

I didn't even bring up this point earlier about the more commerce that you generate... That's another thing that should be factored in.


But I'll say this. I think we might be talking about kind of different things anyway. I'm not good with this whole concept of farm cities. I have like no experience doing that lol (at least, not in a long time). I just think that in general, it's useful to build courthouses in cities that are not close to the capital and which experience strong corruption.

I've recently come back to playing civ3 after a years long hiatus. Right now my strategy is to just build things and then I can decide later if I want to make some cities into farms after I get them to a large population. I could post a save to show my examples with outer cities and courthouses...
 
I've always looked at courthouses as a way to make a city more productive in regards to sheilds; I haven't considered that as part of commerce.

We may be talking about two different things. Let me post a save game that has a definite science farm area and let you look at it. I keep all the saves for each game in their own folder, so once I get home that shouldn't take too long to find a good one.
 
Here is a good science farm example. This is at the start of 1615 AD turn and two cities are cranky (CB01 Once a Hero and CB05 The Mad Scientists) while some others are just upset that they have become Sumerian. This was played for a Spaceship victory and my city names were from famous sci-fi books. However, I had used up the list I had found so I started using some of my favorite sci-fi books, thus the cities beginning with CB. Cities that start with an 'x' were captured, 'f' flipped to me and 'L' indicate a nearby luxury. The map was huge, land mass pangea and difficulty was Monarch.

Sumeria is light blue and the science farm area is to the SE of the capital, all the way to the coast.

The area you should look at is around 151 The Sparrow. Lots of grassland, all irrigated and railed, producing lots of spare food and able to hire 3 geeks each while at size 6. They are making wealth and the only improvements they have come from wonders.

What makes a good science farm area? Well, lots of grass helps, though plains will do too. These cities are too far away from the capital (over 50 tiles) to be productive; they are just too corrupt and good for nothing else. They net 1 shield per turn, so their build options are wealth, workers or settlers. Making workers or settlers in a science farm can be done, but requires some fiddling with tile allocation when the unit is built. It is easier to set the city to wealth when it reaches the desired size, get the right combination of citizens and specialists and then leave it alone.

If you are interested, this link >>HERE<< is an overview of the game this turn came from.
 

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FWIW, I probably would not consider a town that would reclaim 3 red shields to be a farm city (although I might if it were late in the game). What we don't know in that example is the total number of shields produced. If the city is reclaiming 3 of its 4 total shields, that's a little different than if it's reclaiming 3 of its 10 total shields. Cities that typically become farms are often more like: 10 potential total shields, 1 blue, and then reclaiming 1 with a courthouse.
 
Thanks, CommandoBob, I'll check it out soon.

FWIW, I probably would not consider a town that would reclaim 3 red shields to be a farm city (although I might if it were late in the game). What we don't know in that example is the total number of shields produced. If the city is reclaiming 3 of its 4 total shields, that's a little different than if it's reclaiming 3 of its 10 total shields. Cities that typically become farms are often more like: 10 potential total shields, 1 blue, and then reclaiming 1 with a courthouse.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. In my example, I had like 8 total potential shields (I don't remember it precisely), was having only 1 blue before courthouse, and it jumped to 3 or 4 blue shields after courthouse. I can't verify the numbers exactly anymore because I have a golden age going on now in that same game. Autosave doesn't go back far enough.
 
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