A guide to the internal planning of military cities

General premise:
You should, once you have 3-5 cities, devote at least one of them to producing military units. In general, of every 5-8 cities, one should be devoted to unit production.


Specific premises:


1. The more production improvements – i.e. hammer multipliers (Forge, Factory, Power, Ironworks, Drydock, Heroic Epic, Military Academy) – you have, the less they are worth incrementally. Most of them also add unhealth.
2. Base hammer improvements (Moai, Levee, Industrial Park) – always add value that then gets fed through the multipliers. The more multipliers you have, the more those improvements are worth.
3. Military Cities should spend most of their production on units, not improvements.
4. You should aim for a military city to be able to produce a base unit for your era every 2 turns (or each turn, ideally).

(Base units per era
Axeman – 35 hammers (ancient) – Forges available.
Maceman – 70 hammers (medieval) – Heroic Epic available
Rifleman – 110 hammers (renaissance) – Windmills/Lumbermills available
Infantry – 140 hammers (industrial) – Factories/Ironworks available
Tank – 180 hammers (modern) – Railways available)

5. Military improvements each add value, but some add more value (per hammer expended on building them) than others. An approximate "value List" follows, ordered from highest to lowest:

Military Academy - +50% military unit production
Settled GG - +2 XP
Barracks = +3 XP, ground only
Drydock - +4 XP, +50% production (water units only)
Stable - +2 XP (mounted only), stacks with Barracks
Heroic Epic - +100% military unit production
Forge - + 25% production
Levee – varies, but assume +6-8 base hammers
Moai Statues – varies, but assume +6-8 base hammers
Airport - +3 XP, air only
Ironworks - +100% production
Factory+Power - +75% production
West Point – 4 XP
Industrial Park - +2 base hammers, plus additional specialist slots
Red Cross - +1 promotion (Medic 1)

So, the question is... how do we marrry these premises together?

In the very early game, you have no military cities (hereinafter “MC&#8221. You will have Barracks in perhaps a city or two, and Forges in a city or two. Obviously, the cities with those improvements are better at producing units than your other cities, but Barracks are cheap, and Forges are useful almost anywhere. Other cities can produce military units almost as well.

A city becomes a MC when one of the following happens:

You build any of the following National Wonders (“NW&#8221 in the city: Heroic Epic, Moai Statues, West Point, and possibly Ironworks/Red Cross/Globe Theatre
You settle a Great General (“GG&#8221 or build a Military Academy (“MA&#8221 in the city.

At that point, you’ve ‘dedicated’ the city. If you build Heroic Epic in Dar Es Salaam, you can’t decide later on that you’d rather have it in Nairobi. You’re stuck; the die is cast. Same thing with settling GGs and building MAs – although you can theoretically have unlimited Great Generals, in practice they’re a scarce commodity.

To a lesser extent, a city becomes an MC when you build any of a Drydock, Stable, Levee, Airport, Ironworks, or Red Cross in it. The first 4 improvements aren’t scarce – you can build them almost anywhere – but they are a hammer investment in unit production. There’s no point building a Drydock and then building ships in a non-Drydocked city that doesn’t have other ship-boosting features. Ironworks CAN make a city a MC, but Ironworks may often be required for other things, like building Great Wonders or spaceship parts. Ironworks is great for building units, though, so an Ironworks City can be a MC. Red Cross is a special case. To be frank, I almost never build it. Red Cross requires a significant hammer investment – you may already be planning to build Hospitals for health reasons, but it’s still 600 hammers on top of the Hospital hammer expenditure – and provides relatively little benefit; a free promotion that is generally available at Level 3 anyway. You don’t need a lot of Medic 1 units, anyway.

Heroic Epic and Moai Statues are generally the first two improvements (NW) you can build that forces a city to be a MC, and IMO, they are a relatively good fit to be paired together, for the following reasons:
- they have synergy according to specific premises #1 and #2. Even a Moai that only adds 6 hammers, is actually adding 12 hammers via the +100% from Heroic Epic.
- they’re both cheap. If you accept specific premise #3 above (that MCs should be building units, not improvements), neither one will keep a city away from producing units for too long, especially if you have Stone and/or Marble.
- The opportunity cost of having the Moai City build HE or the HE city build Moai is low. You may not have any GGs yet; you certainly won’t have Drydocks, Factories, or Airports, and you might not even have Stables. It’s relatively easy to divert one (if you have Moai already and are building HE) or two (if you have HE already and are building Moai) other cities to unit production while your MC is building the one of HE or Moai it doesn’t already have, for no net loss in unit output.

Downside? Moai is often a slow build if you pick a city that is VERY watery. That means HE may also be a slow build. If the city happens to have a lot of seafood (which might also make you consider it as a GP farm instead of a MC), you may be able to whip, of course… in fact, whipping overflow may allow you to keep building units as you build HE or Moai. In any event, I would argue that a city with 1-2 seafood, 5-6 other coast or ocean tiles, and 12-14 land tiles would be an excellent choice for a HE/Moai combo… +6 to +8 base hammers from Moai are nothing to sneeze at, especially when doubled.

So let’s assume you have HE and Moai in your MC. What else do you build? Well, at this point, there aren’t many production bonuses available… but what about later, when Factories and Power become available? Let’s look at an example:

You have a size 12 military city. It is working 6 Sea or Coast tiles, producing 6 base hammers from them. It’s working 5 mines – we’ll call that another 23 hammers. And it’s working a food source for 0 hammers. Add it up, plus the city square, and that’s 30 base hammers, or (with Forge) 37.5 for general production and 67.5 for units. Let’s say you want to build a Factory, which costs 250 hammers. That will take 7 turns, and boost production to 45 (general) and 75 for units. To get that 250-hammer investment back will take 33 turns. Adding a Coal Plant (boosting the city’s hammer output to 60 in general, and 90 for units) will add another 3 turns of production time, and the additional hammer cost will be recouped in 10 turns. Combined, Factory+Coal Plant will cost you 400 hammers and boost unit production by 22.5 hammers… meaning the outlay of hammers will be recouped in 18 turns. But that’s not the end of it. Factory+Power usually means a combined +9 unhealth (5 from the Factory, 2 from the Coal Plant, 2 from the Power). Unless your city has positive health of 20+, you’re going to run into unhealth and have to either stop working a Mine, or start building things like Grocers, Supermarkets, Public Transportation Recycling Centres and so on. Remember, your MC won’t automatically have a ton of health improvements. Sure, it’ll have a Granary, maybe a Harbour. But there are only 12 resources out there, so getting to +20 health without additional city improvements may not be possible.

In conclusion – it’s often not worth it to build a Factory in your Heroic Epic MC. If you already have 3 Gorges Dam somewhere, sure, it pays off better – and you will avoid the +2 Coal Plant unhealth. Besides, you’re already getting +2 unhealth from the Power, even if you don’t have a Factory to take advantage of it.

So what DO you build in your Moai/HE city? And how do you get more production?

Well, you automatically build anything with a higher value per hammer than the HE and Moai (see list following premise #5). In other words, you build Barracks, Drydocks, and Stable, in almost all cases, because over the course of the game, you will be building a lot of units there and it's too early to specialize MCs by unit type. You build a Forge (if you don’t already have one), and you might build a Levee, IF the city can work as many tiles with the Levee as it does with Moai. And you settle Generals there. If you feel you *MUST* have more production, you could build a Military Academy there… but not until you’ve built one in any other MCs that don’t have at least +125% production. What you don’t do is build things like Airports, and Industrial Parks… and in a lot of cases, Factories. The incremental value of those things on top of what you already have in the Moai/HE MC isn’t enough to be worth stopping unit builds for.

In large part, more production comes with higher population, instead. In the early game, the limiting factor on city size is usually happiness. Your early goals will be Hereditary Rule (or Pyramids for Representation), getting Calendar resources and metals hooked up, and so forth. By the middle game, when you have access to the global trade network via Astronomy, you can usually trade for all the happiness you need… and the limiting factor on city size becomes health. So, recall our hypothetical size 12 Moai/HE MC. If it was size 18, it could work 6 more tiles… which would lead to 6 more unhealth, but also (at worst, assuming worked water tiles) 7.5 more hammers base production and 13.5 more hammers for units. Better than a factory, in other words. If you can work grass windmills, or some combination of Biology Farms and Mines… you could get a lot more than 7.5/13.5 more hammers from 6 population. Unless you want to sink a lot of hammers into health-boosting infrastructure, you can’t have a high population AND Factories and Power.


OK - so with the first one down, let’s consider your second MC. This one might not have a lot to distinguish it from your other, general production cities, simply because there aren’t a lot of other production or military-specific improvements available until the late renaissance or early industrial period. So, you’ll have a lot of cities with Forges, probably a few with Barracks, and perhaps a handful with Stables. Any GGs you have will probably be settled in your first MC (the one with HE/Moai). In other words… the first big build in your second MC will probably not carry a lot of opportunity cost, because you’ll have several other cities that produce units as well as the nascent second MC does.

And that’s a good thing, because your build will be a big one. This is where Ironworks goes. Ironworks is, with HE, the only single improvement that adds +100% to production, and that makes it ideal for a MC. On top of that, the +100% production applies to *everything*, so you will use this city to build the very hammer-intensive West Point, IF you decide you want West Point. It's probably that no other city will be able to build WP as quickly as the Ironworks city can.

What else do you build in the Ironworks city? Well, everything with a higher value per hammer than Ironworks (again, see chart in premise #5). Levees are great, because their extra hammers get the +100% bonus from IW. Airports are a good option – add in WP and your planes will start with 7 XP. Or with a Drydock and WP, you’re at 8 XP for ships. Stable+Barracks+WP puts mounted units at 9 XP. Anything that boosts XP is a good option, because you’ll have already settled a lot of GG in your first MC, and the marginal return on settled GGs begins to drop after you’ve settled more than a couple.

What don’t you build? Well, like with the HE city, the marginal return on Factories and Power is less in an IW city than in a more generalist city. Yes, they get built about twice as fast, due to the IW… but the actual hammer expenditure is recouped at the same rate as in a HE city. AND there’s the Factory+Power unhealth on top of the Ironworks unhealth, to consider. So they’re still not a great build for a MC… but better in an IW city than the HE city. And if you will be building things other than units in the IW city (e.g. Spaceship parts), a Factory obviously will be more useful.

The Ironworks MC also differs from the HE MC in that it often gets diverted away from unit production. There isn’t necessarily a huge opportunity cost there if you haven’t built WP there too… and by the time you have built WP, there may be relatively few World Wonders left that could tempt you into building them in the IW MC. Spaceship parts are the obvious distraction, but if you’re going for space, you probably can’t expect to keep your MCs building units. Specialization is nice, but it’s trumped by a space race.


So, to summarize:

MC #1: Barracks+Forge+Moai+Heroic Epic+Drydock+Stables. Maybe a Levee, if it produces more than 4 extra base hammers. And settled Generals. If you want more production, a MA is better than a Factory, and grow your city, instead.

MC #2: Barracks+Forge+Stable+Ironworks+West Point+Levee+(Drydock and/or Airport). If you want more production, a MA is better than a Factory, if you’re building mainly units and don’t want to waste time building the improvements to deal with Factory-related unhealth.

If you have a huge empire and need even more MCs, here are some thoughts:

Captured AI cities: There are seldom placed well or planned out well… but there may still be some settled GGs in them that makes them prime candidates to become MCs. To avoid wasted hammers, I’ll often focus captured cities on a particular type of unit – ships, for example. A city with 3 GGs in it will immediately produce level 4 ships with a Drydock added. Don’t even bother with Barracks, Stable, etc – just Forge, Drydock, possibly a Factory if the city has the infrastructure to support the unhealth.

Globe Theatre MC: If you haven’t already used up GT on your Great Person farm, you may want to build it in a city with a lot of food and use that city as a drafting or whipping-based MC. Globe Theatre eliminates the unhappiness caused by mass whipping or drafting, and the city will grow back quickly. Bear in mind that drafted units have ½ the XP that units built normally have… so it’s seldom a good idea to make a Globe Theatre MC out of a city with settled GGs (or a lot of XP-boosting improvements).

Red Cross MC: Don’t do this; you don’t need THAT many healers. Red Cross is an extremely expensive NW (requiring a Hospital that you’ll want to avoid if possible, plus the hammer cost of RC itself). If you do build it, build it in an ancillary city that doesn’t have a lot of military improvements (so you don’t take a city that builds units well offline for a couple dozen turns to build the Hospital and RC). What you build in there afterwards doesn’t matter much.

Other MCs: Specialize! Saves hammers and often saves unhealth, too. By the later game, you’ll have the option to build Barracks, Airports, and Drydocks. Don’t build all 3 in each of 3 cities, obviously.

Reserved...

Not sure why Moai forces a military city. and I do not, at all, think that Levee's force a military city. They are just a great production boost.

Airports, as well - they can show up in commerce cities, too.

AutomatedTeller said:

I do not, at all, think that Levee's force a military city.

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I'm quite sure that I never said that Levees "force" a military city. However... building a Levee can provide a production boost sufficient to make the city ideal for unit building.

Airports, as well - they can show up in commerce cities, too.

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True. Airports do not make a city an MC - they're something you would consider building in an MC, though.

I completely agree about not building a factory in the HE city. It's usually not necessary or cost effective (although it may depend on how long the game is going to be). The last thing you want is to be building hospitals and public transport in your unit pump city.

I'm not so sure about combining Moai and the HE, though. You can definitely get vastly higher base hammers by building the HE entirely inland, and that's without investing any hammers in a wonder. Maybe on a very watery map where you need to have the HE producing naval units, but even then you would work those Moai tiles last when you have no alternative.

What are your thoughts on the Pentagon? It can be rather good in the IW city if you have used Free Religion all game, allowing you to get that all-important second promotion. Of course, usually you will have fought wars before Assembly Line and will have settled GGs, but if you have postponed war until late then it's an option.

NihilZero said:

I completely agree about not building a factory in the HE city. It's usually not necessary or cost effective (although it may depend on how long the game is going to be). The last thing you want is to be building hospitals and public transport in your unit pump city.

I'm not so sure about combining Moai and the HE, though. You can definitely get vastly higher base hammers by building the HE entirely inland, and that's without investing any hammers in a wonder. Maybe on a very watery map where you need to have the HE producing naval units, but even then you would work those Moai tiles last when you have no alternative.

What are your thoughts on the Pentagon? It can be rather good in the IW city if you have used Free Religion all game, allowing you to get that all-important second promotion. Of course, usually you will have fought wars before Assembly Line and will have settled GGs, but if you have postponed war until late then it's an option.

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Good points. Last thing first – I like the Pentagon, if you have more than 2 MCs… but not necessarily in the Ironworks city. If you follow my suggestion for MC#2 and combine IW with WP, you won’t want to take that MC offline for many (probably 2 dozen or so) turns to build the Pentagon. As Pentagon has the same effect regardless of where you build it, I’d build it in a city that I hadn’t already specialized to build units. That said, if you are not the first to Assembly Line and/or don’t have a good production city outside of the IW city… you might have to put it in the IW city if you don’t want an AI to get it first.


Anyway, I didn’t cover Pentagon because it’s not something you need in a MC. But I’d definitely advocate building it IF any of the following apply:

- you have a production city (other than an MC) that can do it – Industrious helps
- you have at least 3 MC, which means the Pentagon provides a total of 6 bonus XP, or the equivalent of 3 settled GGs (odds are that they’ll all be producing units with 3 promos, if you build Pentagon)
- you have 2 MC and are Industrious.

AND

- you aren’t already churning out units with 10+ XP in your MCs (due to some combination of improvements/settled GGs/civics)

****

The Moai-HE combo is more about leveraging Moai than boosting HE. Any improvement that boosts base hammers – i.e. Levees, Moai – is better when you combine it with a hammer multiplier. Moai and HE are, respectively, the only early examples of a base hammer boosting improvement and a significant hammer multiplier. As you say, working water tiles first with Moai is generally not advisable, certainly not in a commerce city (you'd want to work cottages), and you won’t be working 2-food tiles in a GP farm, either. That leaves the military city… and Moai water tiles are effectively 2H tiles with HE, which makes them decent, food-neutral tiles. On top of that, I’ve experienced a lot of situations where my HE could either be on a shoreline, working 1 seafood for every 2 or 3 mines, or inland, working 1 farm for every 1 or 2 mines. Seafood comes in bunches more than land-based food resources do, so I’ve found I can often work more mines at a smaller size with a coastal HE city. Add Moai, and the food tiles will also help with hammer output.

(Naturally, your mileage may vary if you play on Pangaea or other low-water maps. I tend to go with Archipeligo, Fractal, or Continents, so decent coastal sites come along fairly often).

The problem with combining Moai with the HE is that they force opposite management strategies upon your city. Moai encourages you to spend your health and happiness points on 2F1P tiles. This does not gel with the HE, as that wonder encourages you to max out to your health and happy caps ASAP, and then stagnate at this population working your highest-yield tiles. Moai tiles are weak yield tiles, effectively a grassland forest. A good HE city location has decent food specials, hopefully a good hammer special, and a few 4-yield hill mines. Even in the early game, you can get an average of 4-5 yield per citizen in a good hammer city, which is best when amplified by the HE. Working 3-yield moai tiles is a waste of a citizen in a national wonder city

And in the late game, the best tiles to work are 4-yield windmills and 5-6 yield workshops.

Nick Carpathia said:

And in the late game, the best tiles to work are 4-yield windmills and 5-6 yield workshops.

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No love for the mighty watermill? With state property and electricity they have a base yield of 8 (including +1 riverside commerce), which is pretty monstrous.

Regarding the Moai - yes, you get more out of your Moai if you put it with your HE. But I suspect you get less out of your HE that way by working what are always going to be poor tiles - ie water ones. Moai is a very marginal wonder, an afterthought really, whereas the HE is the most vital wonder of all in some games (maybe even the most important piece of infrastructure of all!). I wouldn't compromise my HE just to try to give the Moai some respectability.

Thanks for posting this. I had not thought enough about factories and often just put them in without thinking.

I think that you should reconsider your statues thinking. IF you are building the statues in order to work (mainly) coast, it is not a particularly good investment. 2f1h is the same as an irrigated plain (and we don't care about commerce). So, you might as well do a combined HE and lots of plains cities (and who would recommend that). A farm+grass mine is 3 hammers compared to 2 for two maoi coast. In other words, you invest a lot of hammers to get mediocre tiles.

For me, the question is "how many water tiles will this city work regardless of maoi", in other words: count seafood and lighthouse-lakes. If you have 4 or more of those, build it. Otherwise, don't.

NihilZero said:

No love for the mighty watermill? With state property and electricity they have a base yield of 8 (including +1 riverside commerce), which is pretty monstrous.

Regarding the Moai - yes, you get more out of your Moai if you put it with your HE. But I suspect you get less out of your HE that way by working what are always going to be poor tiles - ie water ones. Moai is a very marginal wonder, an afterthought really, whereas the HE is the most vital wonder of all in some games (maybe even the most important piece of infrastructure of all!). I wouldn't compromise my HE just to try to give the Moai some respectability.

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Whoops, forgot it, sorry. Those things are beastly. However, you have to ignore commerce when evaluating production, I'm defining "yield" as food + hammers.

But I'll tell you where it's worth building the Moai: lighthouse lakes. If you can build a coastal city adjacent to a couple of lake tiles, you'll end up with some fairly respectable 3F1P tiles during the BCs.

And I disagree with you not building factories in HE cities. Sure, it's not as big an increase in net hammers as building in non-HE cities, but as you said yourself, it multiplies base hammers. Considering most people build the HE in the highest base hammer city anyway, that's yet another 30-40 or so hammers to help build expensive tanks. Also, the reason you're running into unhealth in your MS/HE city is because you have too many population points tied up on crappy 3-yield tiles, have a tight population working only your best tiles and it becomes much less of a problem. Besides, who cares if you run into a bit of building-derived unhealth, just replace a couple of mines with windmills or workshops with biofarms. It's fine to eat a bit of inefficiency by working 4-yield tiles if every single tile gets a +75% hammer boost upon it.

Nick Carpathia said:

And I disagree with you not building factories in HE cities. Sure, it's not as big an increase in net hammers as building in non-HE cities, but as you said yourself, it multiplies base hammers. Considering most people build the HE in the highest base hammer city anyway, that's yet another 30-40 or so hammers to help build expensive tanks. Also, the reason you're running into unhealth in your MS/HE city is because you have too many population points tied up on crappy 3-yield tiles, have a tight population working only your best tiles and it becomes much less of a problem. Besides, who cares if you run into a bit of building-derived unhealth, just replace a couple of mines with windmills or workshops with biofarms. It's fine to eat a bit of inefficiency by working 4-yield tiles if every single tile gets a +75% hammer boost upon it.

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I agree on all points (except the bit about working crap tiles in the HE city - choosing a good spot for your HE is about avoiding a site like that ). I guess my attitude to factories in the HE city can be summed up thusly: 1) can I make a unit (infantry, by default) every turn without it? In a lot of cases you should be able to with that HE multiplier. In that case, why would I want a factory? and 2) How soon will the game end? Often it is a lot faster to just keep pumping out units and sending them to the front than it is to have a hiatus in unit production to get a factory and power plant up.

It's true that the final total hammers will invariably be higher even if you end up losing a tile to starvation, so unhealth is perhaps a bit of a red herring. But building stuff other than units is sometimes just a distraction, even if in the long term you'll get more units.

In games that go as far as mech infantry and modern armour you will need factories, though. I haven't had one of those in a while.

NihilZero said:

I agree on all points (except the bit about working crap tiles in the HE city - choosing a good spot for your HE is about avoiding a site like that ). I guess my attitude to factories in the HE city can be summed up thusly: 1) can I make a unit (infantry, by default) every turn without it? In a lot of cases you should be able to with that HE multiplier. In that case, why would I want a factory? and 2) How soon will the game end? Often it is a lot faster to just keep pumping out units and sending them to the front than it is to have a hiatus in unit production to get a factory and power plant up.

It's true that the final total hammers will invariably be higher even if you end up losing a tile to starvation, so unhealth is perhaps a bit of a red herring. But building stuff other than units is sometimes just a distraction, even if in the long term you'll get more units.

In games that go as far as mech infantry and modern armour you will need factories, though. I haven't had one of those in a while.

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A stock standard infantry costs 140 hammers. With a HE and Forge, you're going to need a 62 base hammers to get 1/turn. That's really difficult to do, in the perfect scenario, a city with 15 grassland tiles and running caste/SP, covered in nothing but workshops, will generate 60 base hammers. Considering that most HEs are placed in hilly cities for the early production, you're not going to have that available.

As you said yourself, factory/power is an investment into the future. Factory/Coal Plant costs 400 hammers and give a +75% boost to all base hammers. In that 60 hammer scenario, the extra 45 hammers pay off the investment costs in a mere 9 turns: are you telling me you don't have a window of opportunity, especially after a big conquest rampage, to consolidate your stacks of rifles/cannons/cavalries and push for some much needed infrastructure? There are times to push for short term and times to push for the long term, and this is an excellent time to push for industrialising your empire.

Actually the 60 base hammer scenario is kinda unfair. In the age of the assembly line, my HE city is normally up to 40-50 or so base hammers, meaning the payback time is more like 11-14 turns. Not granary good, but still one of the most solid techs in the game.

I've just been browsing through some saves from my recents games, and it seems to me that 60+ base hammers for the HE city is pretty trivial by the time factories come around, with the likes of state property, railroad, and levees available by then.

Admittedly I'm a SP and Caste junky, but even then I would consider a fully grown city with 70-80 base hammers to be an unusually strong one, with 60ish definitely doable on most maps, I would say. I can dig up some examples from recent forum games for you if you like. Obviously it depends on your city's population more than anything else.

Don't forget that State Property also gives +10%, so with HE and Forge, that means you need 60 base hammers to be able to build one infantry per turn unless my calculations are off (which is very feasible ).

Again, it depends on when the game will end. If I can win with cavalry, or rifleman and cannons, then I don't need factories obviously even though I might use some infantry at the end when they are available. If, on the other hand, I'm not going to war before tanks, then factories are worthwhile.

On another topic entirely, it has just occured to me that sometimes the most important military city of all is not the HE city or the Ironworks, but the Globe city - although there's already a strategy guide about that somewhere.

Nick Carpathia said:

A good HE city location has decent food specials, hopefully a good hammer special, and a few 4-yield hill mines. Even in the early game, you can get an average of 4-5 yield per citizen in a good hammer city, which is best when amplified by the HE. Working 3-yield moai tiles is a waste of a citizen in a national wonder city

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Well, that’s just it. I have found that a city with decent food specials (plural) is a coastal city – I just don’t often find inland cities (outside of my capital) with more than 1 or 2 food specials. And when I do find one, that city usually becomes my NE city/GP farm.

For me, the intent with Moai is to be working 2-4 seafood tiles that yield 6 or 7 (food+hammer)… and to grow onto other coastal tiles when the need is there. In the early game, you won't have railroads, Levees, and Farms with which to maximize the yield of land tiles.

In any event, if you don’t have more than 1 or 2 food specials, you won’t be working more than 2 or 3 of those 4-yield mines. A plains hill needs to be offset by a 4-food tile (Rice or better). A grass hill needs a grass farm. In constructing a MC, my goal is to minimize the amount of 0-hammer tiles. That means lots of food specials. A size 8 city with 3 Clams can work the Clams (15 food, 3 hammers) and the city square (2 food, 1 hammer) and still grow, even if the other 5 tiles it works are plains hill mines (20 hammers). On the other hand, a size 8 city with irrigated Corn only will be able to get 8 food from the Corn (6 food) and the city square (2 food, 1 hammer), and will need another 9 food from the remaining 7 tiles, to keep up with the coastal city. That’s 4 plains hills (16 hammers) and 3 farms (9 food), or 6 grass hills (18 hammers, 6 food). and 1 farm (3 food). Either way, you’re not getting the hammer output you would with the 5 plains hill mines + 3 seafood specials w/ Moai.

I suspect some of the disagreement may stem from the maps we play. If you can find an inland city with 3 good food specials (Corn/Wheat/Pigs, not Rice) then it may well be better to build HE there - especially in the long term. I just never find those sites… but usually end up with at least 2 or 3 coastal cities with multiple seafood.

vanatteveldt said:

For me, the question is "how many water tiles will this city work regardless of maoi", in other words: count seafood and lighthouse-lakes. If you have 4 or more of those, build it. Otherwise, don't.

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Pretty close to my thinking... the Moai/HE city goes where I can work multiple seafood.

Interesting but IMO, while HE for MC is clear, Moai is situational.

It depends on water obviously, and also on other things, like the shape of capital
city (if it is a production city then usually Moai not good for the top military city),
and the "good" sequence of cities' begining.i.e., usually the top MC must be the 2nd or
3rd city.

Concerning its goals, Moai can be very flexible: to make still better an hammer city,
or to give some production for a commerce or Gfarm city.

I generally put my HE, if I can, into a city without rivers, actually, and I often don't build forges. Why? Well, 300 hammers for forge and levee means an equivalent of 600 for units, which is a lot.

I generally try to make it a city with a decent food source, a lake, some hills and some forests, if I can.

fed1943 said:

Interesting but IMO, while HE for MC is clear, Moai is situational.

It depends on water obviously, and also on other things, like the shape of capital
city (if it is a production city then usually Moai not good for the top military city),
and the "good" sequence of cities' begining.i.e., usually the top MC must be the 2nd or
3rd city.

Concerning its goals, Moai can be very flexible: to make still better an hammer city,
or to give some production for a commerce or Gfarm city.

Click to expand...

I'd say Moai is best in a fishing village, a filler city with a couple of hills, a seafood or two. I wouldn't put it in a cottage city, working coast means you're not growing cottages. I definitely wouldn't put it in a coastal GP farm, as you want to spend your food surplus on specialists. After all, are you really going to spend 5-6 health points working coasts when you could be accumulating valuable GS GPPs?