Religion/Money City - do I have this right?

[svv]

Ok, after looking at this closer in games, it seems that a lot of my assumptions about a religion/money city were wrong. The following are my current understandings about the benefits of such a city and how it should look. The later ones kind of follow from the earlier ones, so if I have this wrong, please let me know.

1. The multipliers from Wall Street and other buildings (banks, etc.) come AFTER gold for terrain commerce, AND specialists, AND building money (especially world religious shrines) are added in.

2. Therefore, you would really want this city to have at least one world shrine of a major world-wide religion.

3. Therefore, this city should not be the capital, since capitals do not get world religious shrines. This provides further reason why you'd want your capital to be either a major production city or a science city.

4. Further, the gold you get from specialists (especially merchants) and buildings (especially world religious shrines) is not affected by having the slider weighted mostly to science.

5. You'd want this city's fat cross to have as much potential farmland as possible, to support as many specialists as possible.

6. Terrain commerce available in the city's fat cross is not particularly important IF you run a normal/cottage economy, since terrain commerce will be small with your slider weighted toward science, and will therefore be negligible compared to the specialist/building gold. However, if you're running a pure "specialist economy," where you keep your slider weighted to gold and count on specialists for your science, then you'd certainly want a lot of terrain commerce in the city's fat cross.

7. If you've founded more than one religion, you will certainly want to emphasize a religion fonded in a city suitable to be this Religion/Money city.

8. Because you're aiming for so many specialists, you'll also want this city to serve as a great person farm.

9. You obviously want Wall Street in this city. A possibility for the other National Wonder here is National Epic, to multiply great person farming. However, National Epic might also work well in the science city, so perhaps here you could go with Globe Theatre (so you could have a large population without worrying about unhappiness).

10. There are no world wonders which particularly need to be in this city. However, you'd want to make sure that the Three Gorges Dam and (especially) the Statue of Liberty are on the same continent, so you'd get the benefit of those in this city.

11. Although no world wonders are necessary here, you'd want to have wonders that benefit all cities built here, to help with the great person farming.

Again, if I'm screwed up on any of these, please feel free to let me and everybody else know.

[malekithe]

Originally Posted by svv

3. Therefore, this city should not be the capital, since capitals do not get world religious shrines. This provides further reason why you'd want your capital to be either a major production city or a science city.

The capital can house a shrine if you had no other cities when the religion was founded. Alternately, you could move your capital to a city after a religion has been founded there. Some like the idea of their capital being a gold producing giant in a SE. It will have the longest time available to grow its cottages and can also benefit from bureaucracy.

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Originally Posted by svv

1. The multipliers from Wall Street and other buildings (banks, etc.) come AFTER gold for terrain commerce, AND specialists, AND building money (especially world religious shrines) are added in.

2. Therefore, you would really want this city to have at least one world shrine of a major world-wide religion.

Yes to both of these.

Originally Posted by svv

3. Therefore, this city should not be the capital, since capitals do not get world religious shrines. This provides further reason why you'd want your capital to be either a major production city or a science city.

Capitals will land religious shrines ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=133492 ), and when they have multiple shrines they are prime candidates for money cities. But the main points of the capital are Bureaucracy and the Palace, and neither of these fit will with money unless you are running the slider on high gold.

Originally Posted by svv

4. Further, the gold you get from specialists (especially merchants) and buildings (especially world religious shrines) is not affected by having the slider weighted mostly to science.

Right.

Originally Posted by svv

5. You'd want this city's fat cross to have as much potential farmland as possible, to support as many specialists as possible.

Not at all clear. This city will be the best place to run Merchant specialists, but running merchant specialists may not be the best way to use the city.

Originally Posted by svv

6. Terrain commerce available in the city's fat cross is not particularly important IF you run a normal/cottage economy, since terrain commerce will be small with your slider weighted toward science, and will therefore be negligible compared to the specialist/building gold. However, if you're running a pure "specialist economy," where you keep your slider weighted to gold and count on specialists for your science, then you'd certainly want a lot of terrain commerce in the city's fat cross.

Yes.

Originally Posted by svv

7. If you've founded more than one religion, you will certainly want to emphasize a religion fonded in a city suitable to be this Religion/Money city.

Yes

Originally Posted by svv

8. Because you're aiming for so many specialists, you'll also want this city to serve as a great person farm.

Unclear. See point 5, keeping in mind that National Epic should probably go in the location which has the highest potential for specialists.

If the science slider is running high, your main points of income will be the shrine(s) and the attached super specialists. The specialists you might run have a lesser impact. On top of this is the fact that GP generation is a global issue, rather than a local one; generating lots of merchants will be a great thing for this city, but your civ may benefit more from something else.

Originally Posted by svv

9. You obviously want Wall Street in this city. A possibility for the other National Wonder here is National Epic, to multiply great person farming. However, National Epic might also work well in the science city, so perhaps here you could go with Globe Theatre (so you could have a large population without worrying about unhappiness).

Globe Theatre isn't a particularly good fit, in my opinion. The Globe is really best suited to a military city (it is very exploitable if you are running slavery or Nationhood), and failing that a city with large population. Neither of these are an exceptionally good fit with Wall Street.

National Epic is a fine choice if you are on fertile ground. A nice side benefit of shrines is the priest slots, and wallstreet opens up merchant slots. Again, though, this needs to be tailored to your overall strategy.

Ironworks is another tasty choice; each great prophet you attach scores 2 / 5 , and the wallstreet ironworks combo multiplies both of these. In a situation where the gold slider is low, commerce isn't so important here, and you can concentrate on improving tiles for production. Furthermore, if you manage to build the Angkor Wat, your priest specialists give the same production yield as your engineers.

Originally Posted by svv

10. There are no world wonders which particularly need to be in this city. However, you'd want to make sure that the Three Gorges Dam and (especially) the Statue of Liberty are on the same continent, so you'd get the benefit of those in this city.

very minor issues, these.

Originally Posted by svv

11. Although no world wonders are necessary here, you'd want to have wonders that benefit all cities built here, to help with the great person farming.

Also very minor.

If you are trying to go the gold + gp route in this city, then the merchant and priest wonders are a good choice. But none of the wonders have a significant impact on gold in this city (Spiral Minaret is closest).

[cabert]

VoU is right, money not always comes from merchants...
He's right about the rest too.

[UncleJJ]

Originally Posted by VoiceOfUnreason

Ironworks is another tasty choice; each great prophet you attach scores 2 / 5 , and the wallstreet ironworks combo multiplies both of these. In a situation where the gold slider is low, commerce isn't so important here, and you can concentrate on improving tiles for production. Furthermore, if you manage to build the Angkor Wat, your priest specialists give the same production yield as your engineers.

Agreed, this is the combination that works best in your gold generating city. Ironworks and Wall Street are a strong combination in a holy city (preferably an AI capital) and with Angkor Wat the priests (holy shrine allows 3) become very strong. In one of my games I captured Madrid from Izzy along with her Budhist shrine and that become the top gold and production city... running 6 priests and with 3 settled G Prohets and 3 G Merchants. Not only did it finance almost all my deficit but built the Three Gorges Dam as well

[svv]

Really? You'd put Ironworks in a city selected for its open farmland? I like to put Ironworks in a city that's generating a ton of hammers, so I can have two tons of hammers. I like to put Heroic Epic in the same city, so I can really churn out the military units there.

I like to put West Point and Red Cross when I get them (usually much later; I usually don't bother with Military Tradition until I get it from the AI) in another military city.

[cabert]

My usual combo set is HE +WP and IW+RC, this way you can churn out highly promoted units twice as fast
+ IW gives unhelathiness so you really need the hospital

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Originally Posted by svv

Really? You'd put Ironworks in a city selected for its open farmland? I like to put Ironworks in a city that's generating a ton of hammers, so I can have two tons of hammers. I like to put Heroic Epic in the same city, so I can really churn out the military units there.

There was a long discussion a few months back about pairing the production wonders.

Addressing the other question - no, I don't aim to put Ironworks in open farmland. But I will put Ironworks into a city with heavy food. I just won't surround it with farms. Hiring engineers or enhanced priests trades two food for two hammers - so I'll take the extra food, convert it to hammers, and enjoy the 63+ base hammers per turn that the Ironworks starts multiplying.

Given a choice, I'm not going to use farms anywhere unless (a) I'm running a specialist economy, (b) I'm improving the city with the National Epic, or (c) I need the farm to work a gold mine.