Learning Specialist Economy

A couple more things - dunno why I couldn't move on from here...

First, post the 4000BC save so people can play the first specific amount of turns (50?) and repost and show you what their ideas are all about. They can try to remember to stick in some signs showing locations for future cities, or super-short notes about where they're headed or who they want to attack or whatever.

Second, PLEASE turn on resource indicators! It makes it impossible to see where the resources are in screenshots. I can't tell why you founded your fourth city. If it's just for the hills, you should've skipped it, as it will take forever to be productive. Early cities - indeed, pretty much ALL cities - need to grab 2+ resources AND be able to work them. Some people may advocate city overlap, but you can do that when you know better what you're doing.

Third, if you're getting unhappy citizens, STOP growing population! These guys perform no work, yet they cost you additional city maintenance, so don't exceed your Happiness cap until you know what you're doing. Try not to exceed the health cap, either, but it's okay if you can still feed them. Once you get to your Happy cap, cease growth, and look for a reason to whip, or to build a Worker/Settler.

Fourth, when trying to run out the whip unhappiness, build Settlers or Workers to arrest growth, or shift citizens from Farms to Mines. This was the point of my massive-Farming-and-some-Mining suggestion; rapid regrowth, and when whipping isn't practical, rapid construction. Obviously, fishing removes the need to do so much Farming.

Fifthly, in the early game like this, I build Cottages only when there's nothing else of value to build. If you can't Farm it or Mine it, and a Workshop would be a waste, and you don't have a road that needs to be built somewhere else, THEN Cottage it.

And lastly, if you can find a good production location (plenty of food and hills, preferably some metal and/or rock), use that as your Wonder capital. It's okay to chop out a few Wonders, or at least cheapen them with 1 or 2 chops if you have several Wonders to build. However, don't fixate on early Wonders. I haven't built 'Henge or 'Mids or Oracle in I don't know how long. I get to Great Library and Mausoleum and stuff like that. GL is great for a research AND GP boost. Only go for those early Wonders if you can build/chop them in like 3-4 turns so it doesn't impact your expansion AND if it's important to your early strategy (like Stonehenge is highly useful to Egypt, NatAm, and Ethiopia). Get Stone asap to speed you up further.

I hope this clarifies what I was saying, without putting you to sleep.

Begone Dave and your cottage spamming blasphemy!

"WTF does that nonsense come from?"

You hear that? We don't want your kind here! Save us your "objective" calculations and reasoning! Your economic reasoning is merely a theory. We know you'd cottage unirrigated rice if you had the chance.

Let's hear that again:
"WTF does that nonsense come from?"

He's just saying you can get more output from less pop with cottages. That's true in general, SE cities tend to be bigger.

Since FP cities usually wind up with extra food you're very likely to be better off w/ cottages.

WTF does that nonsense come from?

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I don't know. I've been trying to figure out what cottages even are!

From the sound of things, it seems like it MUST be something good, like boost both the Food and/or Hammers produced by a tile. I mean, that's the only thing that could cause what the hoopla is about. Please, don't tell me that it's something really weak, like something that takes an incredibly long time of effort just to get it finally going in a later stage, and all it does is increase commerce or something. Furthermore, don't tell me it is something directly tied into the culture slider, which means it's nerfed the second you are in a war or have to defy a resolution. That would be pretty sick.

P.S. I hope those things are not related to those little town icons on that map, that seem to give me tones of gold for hitting the pillage button every time even though I didn't really do anything. Don't tell me someone would spend a lot of painstaking effort just to feed the armies of its competitors. No.... can't be, that would be just too sick.

I just might have photographic evidence of you making a few of those things. I wonder what might keep such evidence unseen........

They're good, brainless improvements to plop down in anything denoted "commerce city", although there are clearly other, more micro-intensive approaches that have been proven effective.

I hate the pillaging argument though. As Dave put it:

"If you're getting meaningful amounts of improvements pillaged, what makes you think you'll survive to rebuild them?"

Or, to put it another way, show me a player who sits in his non-border cities and plays defense while being attacked, and I'll show you someone who's losing the game.

It's hard for me to remember the last time the AI pillaged anything meaningful other than a mined hill. Its SoD doesn't even like hanging out on flatlands, and for good reason, too! I would LOVE if they try to pillage a town. That would mean the AI's SoD is bending over and saying "insert siege here, liberally".

Humans are slightly better at it, but hey, how often are there going to be strong cottages on immediate borders? I'd be afraid to even put workers there sometimes.

TheMeInTeam said:

Or, to put it another way, show me a player who sits in his non-border cities and plays defense while being attacked, and I'll show you someone who's losing the game.

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But..but, how else would I leverage the protective trait?

Gliese 581 said:

But..but, how else would I leverage the protective trait?

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Gold overflow abuse and renaissance and later drafting, of course . Maybe some full-blown espionage with CASTLES too since they're only good for the trade route and EP . Actually I take that back they're GREAT at annoying the human player too.

Or play on noble, bulb machinery, whip xbows out, and laugh at the stupidly defenseless AIs getting trampled. Take your pick really.

Maybe your best bet is to cower and hope for "the best defense" quest, assuming you don't turn off garbage randomness events like me.

We can talk about how protective sucks elsewhere, though...it's not particularly useful to SE at all. Actually, it just isn't particularly useful.

Tibur, ah. I never thought about that, seems like a good idea. Engineers -> Wonders in any case except if no Wonders are planned soon? I'll remember that.

Krick, I'm not sure what happened there, hehe. I am in 235 BC and I have 5 cities, I think I meant.

Gumbolt, I really tried spamming out Settlers, but they are not my only priority. I need some workers too, I need some defense also. And maybe I need Granary or Library, or should I sacrifice these to get Settlers out faster?
Also I need defense and I just lost a Monarch game to my 2nd city being taken by barbarians, as I had no defenders due to trying to expand fast. It's a hard balance!

1) I build a barracks in my capital, as I had nothing else to build for a period of time. I whipped it, I think. I shouldn't have done this, I'm pretty sure. That is a mistake I am aware of.

2) How am I supposed to find a proper balance between expanding, getting enough workers and still having defense? This is me focusing on expanding 100% and just getting a minimum of defenders. And still I expand too slow.

3) Too few workers? I had too many earlier, so tried not to go overboard and tried to build as I see fit I could use one or two more now, but that's only because I just built two cities more. I'll try to focus a little more on more workers, though.

4) Forests running low. I cannot whip anymore than I already have, I have no forests inside my culture zone at the cities. I could have waiting for Stones being hooked up, but I placed my 2nd city next to stone and had to research Masonry to build the "mine" there, so I could have prioritized Masonry a little more, though I still feel I did it very fast. Compared to normally, even placed that 2nd city solely to have the stone within reach

5) I was so afraid of losing Pyramids (for that happiness and more research) or Stonehenge (to expand borders faster to reach ressources) to fast AI, therefore I made them both do the wonders.
So the problem is not that I had two cities doing the wonders, but that I should have had 4-5 cities up and running at the time so I still had 2-3 cities working on expanding empire?

6) What would you make my capital city? Pump out Settlers / Workers and prioritize food? Cottages and make it a gold farm? Or making it a Great People farm and then how early would you start picking the Scientists Specialists? I will make me pump out Settlers slower if I do it as soon as Library is done, but is it still better in the long run?

TheDS, so I'm getting mixed input here. My slider is stille not at 30%, so I have money to spare. Therefore cottages at my capital isn't needed, since the farms will make it easier to assing scientists and/or pump out settlers / workers, whipped or not. Is this true? Or is it because I'm gonna need the developed cottages later on, when I get 8-10 cities?

And how do you mean I should stop growth? Litteraly going into town management and pick it, so it doesn't allow growth? Or just stop focusing on food for it, so it eventually will stop growing?

About fishing... Do you mean when I have a coastal city with a fist ressource, or simply working water tiles? I haven't researched Fishing, though I have a few coastal cities, since I don't see how working the water when there are no fish ressources is better than working the land. Might be dumb, I know... Sorry, just trying to recall what I thought when I chose my actions, it's okay with me if I thought wrong I'm here to learn.

And to all of you posting well into 2nd page, are you mocking that he said cottages should not have priority, or are you agreeing with him and fooling around?
When I went from Prince to Noble (4th to 5th, think that is the names) I was told to cottage a lot, when I had enough food etc. Has this rule of thumb changed?

And another question! Should I skip roads until later (unless it is connection ressources to my city network) as the build time is better spent on improving the first 2-4 tiles in a city, or should I build the roads as it saves me time later on when moving around?

EDIT:
I attached my newest savegame and a screenshot with ressources of my civilization.
I've spent quite a few turns doing Civil Service to get Irrigation Spread, so my south western town can get farms and become another GP farm. Is that stupid to have two? I know I kind of locked myself into a bad position, by choosing my capital for that. It both produces wonders, is the specialist town and it pumped out Settlers / Workers in the beginning.

It feels a little akward, this game. While I can see I'm ahead of the other civilizations, where I normally fall behind, and I have enough defenders to deal with the barbarians and I am up to 7 cities (is that very bad in this year 410 AD?), I still feel somewhat limited in tech speed... I feel I skipped quite a few things, to get to where I'm at. Mainly due to the Civil Service, I guess.

Also I didn't get the Mathematics, which would have given me 50% more on chopping, but I thought Civil Service was more important to get a proper food farm for GP.
I did though get my Academy in my capital, and I got an engineer which finished the Partheon wonder, so it isn't all bad, I guess?

Is there too much room between my cities? Should I just be happy with 6-8 tiles to work on, and not make sure the whole BFC is available?
Should I never place a city where there are no ressources, and if so, then how should I be getting to 10-12 cities? As there is not that much room.

EDIT 2:
Played on a little more, gotten a few more cities. I think I messed up... I think of Great People cities and Specialist Cities as the same. Is that wrong or right?
Problem is that Wonders gives more GP points, true? But I can't build wonders in a city that focuses on food, to both be able to remove citizens from work and making a specialist out of them, while still having enough food to go around.

And I'm a little confused as to what my own point of each city is. Some of them get both mines, and then farms for specialising. Others get 100% production. Others 100% money. Others 50% money, 50% production etc.
I need to take a break, I think I'm doing more harm than good...

Here is the Initial Save, no room in my post above

In truth, your start position on this map does not lend itself to a specialist economy (3 Pig, 2 unirrigated corn, no seafood with your city placement). There are not enough food resources. Specialist Economy is really most viable when you can have 2-3 tiles support 4-5 specialists. You might restart until you get a more food-plentiful map. But in this case, you are getting frustrated because you are ignoring the #1 basic rule of Civ4: Take what the map/leader will give you.

rddc05 said:

In truth, your start position on this map does not lend itself to a specialist economy (3 Pig, 2 unirrigated corn, no seafood with your city placement). There are not enough food resources. Specialist Economy is really most viable when you can have 2-3 tiles support 4-5 specialists. You might restart until you get a more food-plentiful map. But in this case, you are getting frustrated because you are ignoring the #1 basic rule of Civ4: Take what the map/leader will give you.

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Then I might not have completely understood the Specialized Economy thing. I thought it was viable in every situation, as long as there was grasland, hills, some ressources etc.

What alternatives are there to specialized economy?
And if it isn't, can I still do the "simple" Production, Money, Food and maybe Great People farm? Without the specialist focus?

Here we go, here is my take on this map. Hope it helps, although i'm not an expert, i'm sure others will chip in with some useful comments.



Looking at this start, it's good to settle in place. Hill Pigs, river tiles, 2 plains hills, a bonus of 2 easy huts. One the scout has taken, the other will pop when the city is settled. Scout is tasked to make a circle around the city to ID another city site.

First build is a worker, A Hus is the first research, so the worker can pasturize the pigs, BW will be next to spot some copper and enable chopping, to speed along further builds.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=187607&stc=1&d=1220445969

Here you can see the best next city will be Pigs / stone - plenty of floods. close to the capital and good production / food / commerce. Hybrid IMO.

Huts have given 2 golds, Archery, Map and (gold, gold).



Before settling city2 i had researched BW, if this was a higher level then i;d be tempted to settle the Bronze / Pigs / Corn, however there were few Barbs and stone is better than shiny stuff!

Research order > AH>BW>Myst>TWh>Mas>Ag

Capital build order Worker>Arch>Warrior>Settler>Worker(part chop)>settler(+overflowchop)Arch>Settler



City2 was placed to take pigs and stone in the inner circle, i plan to build S/H from the off. 2 Workers will connect and quarry the stone, then the pigs. Usually i'd pasture the pigs first, but time is short and i don;t want to miss S/H. This strategy was re-enforced due to unrestricted leaders? Seems we have oberlisks rather than Labs. Besides a free monument is always useful, gives more options when placing cities. Stonehenge was completed by 2 chops, with stone this gives 60 hammers on epic. I did chop a 3rd forest, not that it was really needed, just outside the inner circle, overflow went to a archer.



Notice the happy cap is reached, no need to improve more tiles than you can use early on. Improve what you can then move to the next city.

research order Ag>Pot>Wr>IW>Math>Currency

Build order - Arc>Settler>Arch>Settler



3rd city is settled, Bronze and Corn. Not keen on those peaks, but i'll put a 4th city as a filler city to take pigs and spice, with the 2 plains hills this will make a suitable 2nd production city, perhaps maoris later on, easy build with the stone! G prophet settled in Stone city, keeping the capital non polluted to pop a G Eng, (GPP from 'Mids.)



Here we are at 550BC, 'Mids are one turn off, SH is built. A 5th settler ready to head NW to claim the spices NW of cap. Bronze city will pump axes or swords, Pig & Spice will complete a libary, this will enable 2 scientists. Stone city is running 2 scientists and will pump workers to chop the jungle. Couple more cities are needed to block Towgu, these will be in the next wave, need to run Rep in a few turns, this will increase happy cap and give extra beakers for the SE. Micromanagement is required to grow the cities and support the expansion northwards.



550BC onwards.

Switch to Rep.
Settle 2 or 3 blocking cities in the North
Kill Ghandi the Tundra Dweller
Maybe a GP farm in the eastern desert (2 fish and corn)
Cut Toku down to size, vassal him as a lapdog
Tech to space victory



View attachment GAMING BC-0520.Civ4SavedGame

you made some strange choises about city placements.here is a save

KingMorgan, thanks for taking the time to give me your view on the same map Hope others will comment if they have anything to add to your take on it. I'll read it before replying further...

Gumbolt, you are driving me crazy. I tried starting another map, just to get out of the known element and with my new experiences from slavery and the efficiency I've learned from all of yours' comments here and in my other topic.
But the year is 2770 BC and next turn my Settler will be out. Wiped, like the worker before him. I have two total workers now, my first tech was BW.

You said:

Your second city could be built by 3000bc.

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I hope you meant "roughly", since with my starting position, I couldn't do this any faster. There were 3-4 forests inside BFC and those I chopped with only one turn, to move to the next, in between.
Having four cities before 2000 BC seems crazy! I like your challenge, as it surely lights my fire and makes me try to optimize everything... But is it really possible with a normal start?

I'm a little against restarting the map 20 times for the best possible beginning. But I don't mind restarting once, if it is a very poor start.
Can you clarify when I should have my 2nd time more precisely? And also my 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th, if you could. Or just an estimate of about how much I should have around whatever year.
Thanks

macedon said:

you made some strange choises about city placements.here is a save

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Wouw, I don't know what to say. I can see you came a lot longer than I, in the same year. You used Military, but still... Could you have come the same way without waging war? Maybe even better, with more time focusing on infrastructure.

I don't understand how you can build in the Tundra, or was that just because you took the Indians city? Do you think it is a bad place? It limits the BFC potential, I should think... Maybe it isn't such a problem?

Regarding floodplains:

I have a city in my current game that has 3 floodplains, 1 wheat resource, and 3 grassland tiles on a river (along with 3 grassland hills). Also, 1 plains tile with iron. There are 2 plains hills and the rest are just plains with nothing on them. I farm the floodplains, farm the grassland tiles, and of course farm the wheat. That gives me (pre-biology) 36 food that can support 18 population. This city is ideal for a hybrid production/Specialist city.

You can work 5 tiles to gain 30 food and 5 hammers (plains iron mine). So working 5 tiles allows you to have 10 specialists... OR, work 7 workshops (4 hammers each) and have an engineer and 2 priest specialists to give a total of 28 + 4 + 5 (iron mine) = 37 + 25% (forge) = 46 hammers per turn. Use the production cycles to build wonders and then go to using 10 specialists for gold or research or both!

Similar strategy is usually used for coastal cities with 3+ food resource and lots of hills.

blitzkrieg1980 said:

Regarding floodplains:

I have a city in my current game that has 3 floodplains, 1 wheat resource, and 3 grassland tiles on a river (along with 3 grassland hills). Also, 1 plains tile with iron. There are 2 plains hills and the rest are just plains with nothing on them. I farm the floodplains, farm the grassland tiles, and of course farm the wheat. That gives me (pre-biology) 36 food that can support 18 population. This city is ideal for a hybrid production/Specialist city.

You can work 5 tiles to gain 30 food and 5 hammers (plains iron mine). So working 5 tiles allows you to have 10 specialists... OR, work 7 workshops (4 hammers each) and have an engineer and 2 priest specialists to give a total of 28 + 4 + 5 (iron mine) = 37 + 25% (forge) = 46 hammers per turn. Use the production cycles to build wonders and then go to using 10 specialists for gold or research or both!

Click to expand...

Floodplains are 3 food, 1 gold, true? With farm it is 4 food. So 5 tiles is 20 food, plus the two of your city. 22. How do you get 30? Ah, the wheat. That is 5, isn't it? Then you are up to 27. Where do the last 2 come in?
Great city, foodwise

By Hybrid, do you mean money and production hybrid? And if so, then it doesnt have that much production, except if you cound when cottages turn to towns. The few hills isn't enough, is it? Or what would you improve it with?
And would it first be in mid or late game that it is a hybrid, when you can get more production improvements?

eXeel said:

Floodplains are 3 food, 1 gold, true? With farm it is 4 food. So 5 tiles is 20 food, plus the two of your city. 22. How do you get 30? Ah, the wheat. That is 5, isn't it? Then you are up to 27. Where do the last 2 come in?
Great city, foodwise

By Hybrid, do you mean money and production hybrid? And if so, then it doesnt have that much production, except if you cound when cottages turn to towns. The few hills isn't enough, is it? Or what would you improve it with?
And would it first be in mid or late game that it is a hybrid, when you can get more production improvements?

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My bad, yeah, lose 3 of those food. This is pre-biology, mind you. So once biology hits, it's much better. Also, state property gets rid of the food penalty from workshops, so you can work all of them and the hills as well.

Workshops give 5 hammers on a plains tile (when maxed out) (x7)
RRed Plains hills give 5 hammers each (x3)
Grassland Hills with RR give 4 hammers each (x2)
and the 1 plains iron mine with RR gives 6 hammers

That's 64 hammers BASE.
And then add in 25% for forge = 80 hammers before factories/power and not including the Ironworks you can build there.

At the end of the city's development I'll have

64 hammers + 25% forge + 75% factory with power + 100% Ironworks with coal/iron = 64 + 128 = 194 hammers per turn. Plop a military academy here and you have 226 hammers per turn for military unit.

I love these production/specialist hybrids. I don't mean production/gold because I can choose to run scientist specialists if I want to boost research in the earlier stages of the city's maturity.

Ah, I see What is RRed and RR? Railroad?
I understand now, the production/specialist hybrid.

How do I know, where to place my next town? When to place it at mines, at grassland, at floodplains or whatever?

Shall I just pick after what ressources and land I have, or shall I try to make a certain ratio of Production vs Specialist (for science and GP, I suppose? Is that always what Specialists is about?) vs Money vs ???
What other kinds of cities should I have, besides Specialist and Production?

Specialist cities are usually specialized to be merchant or scientists (artists if you're going for a cultural win). The city I mentioned was a good either way city because I already had a major science city (putting out 400+ beakers/turn in early Renaissance era) and a couple not-so-major gold cities (using merchant specialists to add beakers with representation).

If you want a good SE make sure you have:

2 good science cities (IE running scientists only and as many monastaries as possible) or 1 HUGE science city (running 7+ scientists and settling GS after putting the academy in) build library/academy/university/observatory/oxford

1 dedicated gold city (if you founded a religion and were able to get the shrine, that's a good city for this. If no shrine, then make another heavy food city the gold city and utilize all merchants). First builds should be market/grocer/bank/wallstreet

expand to 2 dedicated gold cities later on in the game

1 dedicated production city (has enough food to continue growing/feeding your non-food tiles, has a good amount of plains hills and a few grassland. OR a LOT of food (2 resources/some grassland tiles) and plains tiles for workshops/plains hills mines) forge/factory/dike. Rivers are always desirable for your production city to take advantage of the dike)

Get a 2nd dedicated production city later on so that you can pump out units quickly if needs be

and then a few mixed economy/production cities that can build their buildings (grocer/market/library/observatory is my usual combo) and push out units in hard times.

When it comes to settling cities and their location, check out the articles in the War Academy. There's an article that focuses entirely on tiles/bonuses/improvements and the numbers behind all of them. That's a good start on learning where the best cities are.

In general. The best city location will (after all improvements are built) feed 20+ citizens (requires 40+ food) to work all the tiles, and have the tiles improved to the city's specialization (IE workshops/mines for production city and farms for specialist cities)