Help with startup etc

[Nannasin]

I have played civ3 a long time and just started playing c4. I was having trouble with civ4 so decided to find some advice and here I am. After reading up here quite a bit I am doing better but finding myself floundering in some areas.

The first is how to manage workers in the beginning. I generally take the first good spot I see with my first city and figure i will specialize it based on what I get. In last nights game I got a good plains with freshwater spot so figured I would make it a commerce city. What is the priority on what you build to get that city going as far as improvements. I know you generally want cottages and farms. Do they all need roads? Or are roads only important (for this purpose) when the resource is outside the fat x. Or maybe it is for bringing to a city any resoure? When do i need roads is i guess the question. Does a cottage need a road? I get the concept of figuring out how many farms you will need when all is said and done..but how do you judge when to build? What is the indicator. Is it just looking at the bread produced to bread used and if it is one plus do you just build another farm?

Last night my second city was a hills spot. So same questions above apply again to this city which i figured I would make a production city. Mines and farms? My 3rd city was 4 furs and 2 wine on mostly hills spots. I had no idea what to with that. According to the new strategies i have been reading. That really isn't good. Maybe only for trades later? I put a camp and a winery up knowing i could use it for something. What is best way to handle that situation?

Second issue: I have made a spreadsheet of what is good to build in a city for specific purposes. Like don't build temples in production cities etc. If you have nothing else to build..is it okay to go ahead and build temples? I found myself with tons of military because i was trying to follow that spreadsheet to the T and couldn't build anything but military. It kinda worked out okay because I have been picking on my neighbor with them since nothign better to do.

Right now I am missmanaging my cities badly and not sure how to fix it. Experience playing will help a lot but hoping to skip some of the learning process through you all.

[blitzkrieg1980]

I find if I have a nice military and not much more to build in a city (eg theater/temple only choices in a production city) I like to have the city build research (production city = large science output) to either catch up or get a good tech lead. That or build wealth to stock up the coffers for future upgrades and wars. That's been working for me whether its a good strat or not.

[armstrong]

Welcome to CFC, Nannasin!

Originally Posted by Nannasin

The first is how to manage workers in the beginning. I generally take the first good spot I see with my first city and figure i will specialize it based on what I get. In last nights game I got a good plains with freshwater spot so figured I would make it a commerce city. What is the priority on what you build to get that city going as far as improvements. I know you generally want cottages and farms. Do they all need roads? Or are roads only important (for this purpose) when the resource is outside the fat x. Or maybe it is for bringing to a city any resoure? When do i need roads is i guess the question. Does a cottage need a road?

Roads do not improve the production of the land at all... they're only needed for improving unit transportation, or connecting the trade network. So, if I have a gold mine on a (non-river) hill somewhere, I need to build a road connecting it to one of my cities (either through other roads, or rivers, or a coastal path with Sailing, or any water routes with Astronomy) to get the +1 happy from it. But it still gets the exact same tile yield.

Originally Posted by Nannasin

I get the concept of figuring out how many farms you will need when all is said and done..but how do you judge when to build? What is the indicator. Is it just looking at the bread produced to bread used and if it is one plus do you just build another farm?

Just ask yourself, when this city next grows, which tile/improvement would I assign the population to work next? Build that improvement. Personally, for commerce cities I find that +4 food/turn will generally give a good rate of growth.

Originally Posted by Nannasin

Last night my second city was a hills spot. So same questions above apply again to this city which i figured I would make a production city. Mines and farms? My 3rd city was 4 furs and 2 wine on mostly hills spots. I had no idea what to with that. According to the new strategies i have been reading. That really isn't good. Maybe only for trades later? I put a camp and a winery up knowing i could use it for something. What is best way to handle that situation?

The crucial thing about cities is make sure they have enough food to sustain what they need to do. The second city sounds like a production city. The 3rd city sounds like a commerce city - wine & fur both give decent amounts of early game commerce, so specialize it to take into account that strengths.

Originally Posted by Nannasin

Second issue: I have made a spreadsheet of what is good to build in a city for specific purposes. Like don't build temples in production cities etc. If you have nothing else to build..is it okay to go ahead and build temples? I found myself with tons of military because i was trying to follow that spreadsheet to the T and couldn't build anything but military. It kinda worked out okay because I have been picking on my neighbor with them since nothign better to do.

There's no harm (except for opportunity cost) in building a useless building. Build as much military as your civ needs, then if you have excess production you can build a useful building (e.g., a temple, if the city will soon grow unhappy, or is being pressed on culturally) or build Wealth or Research.

Experience playing will help a lot but hoping to skip some of the learning process through you all.

I hope I could help out! One thing that can really assist other in helping to improve your game is to post a save game and some screenshots from, say, 1 AD.

[Nannasin]

Thank you very much. I think another big problem is researching funny. I tend to have short term goals but then go back to whatever is shortest too much because the research item I really want will take in my opinion too long.

[Nannasin]

so if i have a mine in a city fat x I will get the production from it in that city..but any resource there won't benefit that city or any other city until it has a road. Right? Like if it has copper I won't be able to build advanced (units that need copper) units even in that city until there is a road?

just making sure I understand.

[armstrong]

Originally Posted by Nannasin

so if i have a mine in a city fat x I will get the production from it in that city..but any resource there won't benefit that city or any other city until it has a road. Right? Like if it has copper I won't be able to build advanced (units that need copper) units even in that city until there is a road?

just making sure I understand.

Generally, yes, but it's not enough for it to just be in the fat cross for it to give bonuses to production - you also need to have your population working that particular tile.

Have a look at these two screen shots:





In the top one, the gold mine is being worked and providing it's commerce and hammer bonuses. In the bottom screen shot, the city as grown to size 2 and can work an extra tile. In this case, however, it's working the fur camp and the cow pasture instead of the gold mine, so the gold mine provides no bonus to the city.

Also, to answer the question about resources being available, note that in the first screen shot the gold is mined, but does not give a +1 happiness because it's not connected by a road. In the second screen shot, the road connects the gold to the trade network, giving +1 happy. Also, the fur camp (which I added in world builder to demonstrate the point) does not have a road to it, but it's still connected to the trade network and provides +1 happy because it's connected through a river route.

[Nannasin]

Very cool. Thank you very much that helps a ton.