Which city should be my science city?

Last night I started a game on Emperor as Germany.

Berlin was founded on a really good location (next to river, 3 gold, 2 stones, 1 marble and 2 sheep).

I founded my 2nd city on an excellent spot too (two tiles away from Lake Victoria, next to mountain, 1 cooper, 1 gold and 4 sheep).

Both cities are growing fast and Berlin is almost finishing National College.

But I stopped playing and went to bed thinking that National College should not be built in Berlin, but in my 2nd city, because it will also have a big population and I'll be able to build an Observatory there (+50% science).

So, should NC be built in capital or city with mountain? Which of them has more potencial to be a powerful science city?

If you have the option of stacking NC 50% with observatory 50% in a city that will rival your capital in size, you should do so. You don't get the Landed Elite and Monarchy benefits in a non-capital city, but Landed Elite can be more than offset with food caravans and cargo ships and Monarchy with some happiness buildings. That will also make multiple academies in that city more attractive (many only settle one or two academies, other than when playing Babylon or Korea, and save all other GSs for later bulbing), but +100% science should affect that calculation.

It's usually a lot more important to have the NC built fast. The difference in turn times must be small to consider having the NC built later to stack.

As to population, any one of your cities can be the tallest via food routes. (It's easier to do so if the desired city to be tall is coastal though)

If you've gone Tradition, you really want your capital to be the tallest to get the most out of Monarchy's bonuses to the population in the capital. (Landed Elite also gives the capital food bonuses to make it more likely it will be the tallest)

Well it doesnt really matter that much. NC gives 3 base science which is 1.5 more with observatory. It think it's better to have capital with NC's 50% and other city with 50% from observatory. It's easier to grow to tall cities than one supertall city which is not capital. Remeber that 50% +50% is 100% rather than something more.

Edit ofcourse if you are going to plant many scientist it might be better to build NC in other city but Acken questioned use on academies in his recent Deity SV.

Yes, I 'm going through Tradition.

Well, after a domination victory in my last game, I want to play peacefully and fully explore all aspects of the game. That includes micromanaging everything!

I plan to have 3 cities (Berlin and Munich already founded and a 3rd city on the coast just waiting for the NC to be completed) and assign a type of focus to each.

I don't want a super capital, I want a production city (the one with Ironworks), a gold city (the one with East India Company, most likely the coast city) and a science city (the one with NC and Oxford).

Production is usually terrain dependent and both Berlin and Munich could be the production city.

But which one will output more science and deserves to be elected my science city?

Note that I'm not worried about an optimal play style.

Sorry... I started to write before seeing the last two posts.

So there's no big difference at all, right? Berlin will probably be the biggest city and more population means more science.

Ok... I'll keep the NC on Berlin and won't load the last autosave.

Thanks!

Remember. You are Germany. You will want to use trade routes for city states rather than internal food. But here it sounds like both of your cities are quite good. If you can finish your NC fast in your second city then why not. You may want to build your guilds and other wonders in Berlin because it has fresh water so you are gonna need to pull citizen away for specialists there. So NC in your lake Victoria city doesn't sound like a bad idea. The sheeps will allow you to build it relatively fast and you will get a lot of growth from lake Victoria.

With just three cities, I don't think you will be able to have them focused as well as you would like. At the very least, your capital ends up multi-tasking.

Any city on a mountain should get an observatory because that building is so good. But that means you also want every science building you can there.

As you observe, East India needs to be coastal. But then so does the city where you build Heroic Epic (so that HE benefits your ships). But the city that is building your HE units also needs Ironworks (so you can pump out units there). With just one coastal city, your gold city also needs to be a high production city!

People write about trying to have cities focused, that not every city should build every building, but aside from canvasaries, every single building is worth the hammer cost and the gold maintenance. The only real downside to marginal buildings is with low population cities, and then mostly only for the opportunity cost.

I think that the focused cities philosophy refers to the national and world wonders that can only be built in one city. I think that I usually gravitate towards a multitasking capital if I'm not thinking about it (especially if its coastal), but I really like play to my cities strengths if I can withstand the production limitations (because the later cities will lag behind the capital). I try to look for factors that will lend a city to specializing:

Science: Usually whether or not its next to a mountain. Short of that, just a city with a huge population or the capital city.

Military: While the city closest to the outside world (or an aggressive civ) and the easiest to get picked off is my first gut choice, I also try to consider that military also includes navy, and I want my ships to start off with promotions too.

Gold: Usually the city with abundant luxury resources, particularly gold or silver.

Trade: A city on the coast closest to the most amount of port cities. If I'm landlocked, or close to it, I'll pick a land city that's closest to the outside world, or just the capital.

Culture: This is the one that I almost always just use the capital for. As high culture numbers require a lot of wonders, and the capital is great at pumping out wonders. I'll also spread my guilds out at times, so that I don't load too many specialists in one city.

Religion: I go against conventional wisdom and try to pick an alternative city as my holy city rather than just my capital. This way it helps not overload so much into one city. and it helps spray the religious pressure out to the world (because I try to pick a city that's closer to other civs, but there's usually slim pickings because it's so early on).

bettle,

I wasn't considering the military aspect. Thank you! I'll change my strategy to take this into consideration.

And since there will be only 3 original cities (maybe a 4th one outside the continent), I'll build every building, with few exceptions.

Trackmaster,

Based on your post, I think I'll limit my focusing strategy to wonders and specialists, since Berlin's terrain (river, 3 gold, 2 stones, 1 marble, 2 sheep) will inevitably rank it 1st for pretty much everything. Thanks!

Referring to your comment about religion... I didn't know that a non-capital city could be a Holy City. How is this possible?

I think when you play 3-city tradition every city should be your science city. Capital is slightly better simply because of Monarchy, that's all

I've found that the capital is almost always the best National College choice, unless your have another city that will be taller, with an observatory and academies.

Your capital gets bonus base science points, it gains more growth benefits, and observatories give virtually no benefit to the National College (the NC gives 1.5 extra BPT with an observatory). The NC's bonus is 50% of the cities base science, which is based on population and 3 base beakers per turn. It is only that 3 base beakers per turn that gives any bonus at all for having an observatory.

Your capital city gets 6 base beakers per turn when founded and lots of growth benefits. It is almost always the ideal choice for the NC. Your capital would have to suck badly, for it not to be the better choice.

Uzael36 said:

Your capital gets bonus base science points, it gains more growth benefits, and observatories give virtually no benefit to the National College (the NC gives 1.5 extra BPT with an observatory). The NC's bonus is 50% of the cities base science, which is based on population and 3 base beakers per turn. It is only that 3 base beakers per turn that gives any bonus at all for having an observatory.

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That is not how the observatory works (if that were the case, it would be worthless in any city). The observatory stacks with NC, university and research lab bonuses. Take a look at this recently posted save game (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=533314). Leaving aside the problems with that game, focus on what he has in his capital and how the bonuses work. His capital has NC, a university and an observatory -- science bonus in his capital is 133% -- 50% from NC, 50% from observatory and 33 % from university. Having an observatory in your capital is like having a second NC in your capital.

Browd said:

That is not how the observatory works (if that were the case, it would be worthless in any city). The observatory stacks with NC, university and research lab bonuses. Take a look at this recently posted save game (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=533314). Leaving aside the problems with that game, focus on what he has in his capital and how the bonuses work. His capital has NC, a university and an observatory -- science bonus in his capital is 133% -- 50% from NC, 50% from observatory and 33 % from university. Having an observatory in your capital is like having a second NC in your capital.

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I don't think you understand what I said.

The NC gives you 3 base BPT per turn, and adds 50% of the base BPT as well. Because it does not multiple the total BPT, the only advantage to having that NC in the city with an observatory, is the extra 1.5 BPT gained from having that extra 3 base BPT multiplied by 50%.

EDIT: a better way to represent my original post would be like so:
50% = Observatory percentage increase
BaseBPT * (100% + BPTpercentageIncreases) + 3 * (100% + BPT percentageIncreases) + BaseBPT * 50% + 3 * 50% = total BPT

I realize this is not completely simplified, but the point is, the only real advantage of putting the NC in a city with an observatory, is that extra 3 * 50% at the end. On the other hand, that 50% bonus is much bigger on a city with higher base BPT. As long as that city has 3 more base BPT, it benefits more from the NC than another with an observatory.

Uzael36 said:

I don't think you understand what I said.

The NC gives you 3 base BPT per turn, and adds 50% of the base BPT as well. Because it does not multiple the total BPT, the only advantage to having that NC in the city with an observatory, is the extra 1.5 BPT gained from having that extra 3 base BPT multiplied by 50%.

EDIT: a better way to represent my original post would be like so:
50% = Observatory percentage increase
BaseBPT * (100% + BPTpercentageIncreases) + 3 * (100% + BPT percentageIncreases) + BaseBPT * 50% + 3 * 50% = total BPT

I realize this is not completely simplified, but the point is, the only real advantage of putting the NC in a city with an observatory, is that extra 3 * 50% at the end. On the other hand, that 50% bonus is much bigger on a city with higher base BPT. As long as that city has 3 more base BPT, it benefits more from the NC than another with an observatory.

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Building NC at observatory city means you can run food routes to it and both the observatory and NC can benefit from the growth while when you build it in the non observatory capital only the NC will benefit from the growth.

Another reason is when you want to use capital as guild city it would be better to move your science city out, especially as Germany because you will want to use the trade routes on city states.

Uzael36 said:

EDIT: a better way to represent my original post would be like so:
50% = Observatory percentage increase
BaseBPT * (100% + BPTpercentageIncreases) + 3 * (100% + BPT percentageIncreases) + BaseBPT * 50% + 3 * 50% = total BPT

I realize this is not completely simplified, but the point is, the only real advantage of putting the NC in a city with an observatory, is that extra 3 * 50% at the end. On the other hand, that 50% bonus is much bigger on a city with higher base BPT. As long as that city has 3 more base BPT, it benefits more from the NC than another with an observatory.

Click to expand...

If you assume two cities of equal population on every turn, and that you can buy every science building in those two cities on the same turn, and work every specialist slot on the same turn, AND you plant NO academies, then, yes, the only benefit of having NC and an observatory in the same city is the incremental bonus on the base science that is generated by unique science wonders that can't be replicated in the second city (in your example, the NC's base science yield--I would add Oxford's base science yield and, on lower levels, the GL's base science yield).

But those are, of course, artificial assumptions. First, once you have NC and an observatory in a city, you should run every food route possible to that city, to boost its population as quickly as possible -- hopefully well outstripping the other hypothetical city -- so the assumption of equal population cities on every turn falls away. Second, any academy you settle should be settled in that city, and no other city -- getting +100% vs. +50% on academies is a huge difference. Third, it is rare to have the gold to rush-buy science buildings in multiple cities on the same turn -- in a game of limited resources, you would always rush-buy science buildings, and work those specialists, first in the city that has the highest science multiplier.

If you dont build any academies it's better to have NC in capital and not on observatory city. When you send food caravan to both cities they will have higher overall population than sending all trade routes to city with mountain.

BlackWizard said:

If you dont build any academies it's better to have NC in capital and not on observatory city. When you send food caravan to both cities they will have higher overall population than sending all trade routes to city with mountain.

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Then why don't you send half of the trade routes to that one city with NC and Obs and use the rest for gold and production?

Vitruvius said:

Then why don't you send half of the trade routes to that one city with NC and Obs and use the rest for gold and production?

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Forgot it's Germany. Well same principles work especially before banking. After that same principles work 1/4 of trades to capital and 1/4 to observatory city.

Edit: Actually one will get more science by building NC to capital. Because Palace gives science too

Browd said:

If you assume two cities of equal population on every turn, and that you can buy every science building in those two cities on the same turn, and work every specialist slot on the same turn, AND you plant NO academies, then, yes, the only benefit of having NC and an observatory in the same city is the incremental bonus on the base science that is generated by unique science wonders that can't be replicated in the second city (in your example, the NC's base science yield--I would add Oxford's base science yield and, on lower levels, the GL's base science yield).

But those are, of course, artificial assumptions. First, once you have NC and an observatory in a city, you should run every food route possible to that city, to boost its population as quickly as possible -- hopefully well outstripping the other hypothetical city -- so the assumption of equal population cities on every turn falls away. Second, any academy you settle should be settled in that city, and no other city -- getting +100% vs. +50% on academies is a huge difference. Third, it is rare to have the gold to rush-buy science buildings in multiple cities on the same turn -- in a game of limited resources, you would always rush-buy science buildings, and work those specialists, first in the city that has the highest science multiplier.

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I did make that distinction on my first post that you said was wrong. However, you cannot forget that, at least with Tradition, your capital has most the bonuses, gets an inherent science bonus, production bonus, and is the first city founded, so it is unlikely any other city will compare in size. Academies may also not be the best choice of action with GS, but I do recognize that if you plant a few of those, it will be better served with a city with an observatory.

I also disagree with your notion that you rush buy in the city with the highest science multiplier. You want to rush buy in the city with the highest base science or highest population, depending on the science building. If the building gives a percent increase, that goes in the city with the highest base science output (academies count as base science), as the multiplier does not gain anything from another multiplier. If it is a building that gives science based on population, then that goes in the city with the most population, unless it's close, then you may consider the multiplier as well.