Supercity vs Specialized Cities

[Thunderbrd]

I found a comment made earlier this evening in another thread very enlightening and something I really resonated with.

I have given up trying to specialise cities in C2C. There is just no point as far as I can see with the combination of population requirements, cultural buildings available and heroes. This means I build almost every building in almost every city and don't worry about mounted units at all!

What keeps me from really trying to specialize more than one city is the fact that there's so many overlaps between specializations, supreme commerce wonders that add naval experience, espionage power buildings that increase xp for troops... these sorts of things inspire the supercity as opposed to the Specialized cities.

Many of us seem to want to promote specialized cities but we haven't really done a very good job of it with this mod and have done a great job with the current building set, slave mechanisms - how slaves can be poured into one city, and great general system to promote the one supercapital instead.

We then expect players to want to play with unlimited wonders off to FORCE us into splitting up our efforts even though it impacts us negatively to do so (except that we can't stuff that wonder into the one supercity). This is a heck of a subject we should discuss I think.

In what ways can we adjust things, buildings, mechanisms, to get us back towards promoting city specialization and putting the supercity behind us?

[bill2505]

some players want the supercity.for example me i like to have my super capital and care less for the other cities.but i agree with you

[Sleeeper]

Well I usually use 2-3 cities for making armies (along with other tasks) with maximum XP, and other cities just spam buildings/workers/trade caravans.

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Trade Caravans, this one bugs me. I can build Early Merchant in all my cities and I can build Supply Trains in all my cities because I can build the required building in all my cities. However I can't build the required building for Trade Caravans in all my cities and so lack this unit. In some games I can't build them in any city.

[BlueGenie]

Specialised cities... I have one thought that might go a long way towards creating more specialised cities though shouldn't stop the possibility of a Super City for those that like/want that.

Many buildings that give a +% to science, gold, production, food, culture could require a certain amount of base science, gold, production, food, culture in the city to build. Base being unmodified by other %-ages.
A big enough and catered towards that end city could in effect build all the buildings and thus become a super city.
Going for specialised cities with that setup would also be easy. Build enough +#science or gold or production or food or culture buildings in chosen city and reach that base needed for the % buildings. Commerce heavy cities should be able to reach the bases needed for gold and/or science and/or culture if increasing the science/gold/culture sliders.
Use of specialists might or might not help, depends on the coding required I suppose.

If it would be enough to manage to build the buildings or if when base drops below requirement the % buildings go obsolete I don't know. I also have no clue as to what levels base would need to be, might even be several levels to the base needed, each level unlocking a new building or buildings.

Cheers

[Hydromancerx]

Originally Posted by Dancing Hoskuld

Trade Caravans, this one bugs me. I can build Early Merchant in all my cities and I can build Supply Trains in all my cities because I can build the required building in all my cities. However I can't build the required building for Trade Caravans in all my cities and so lack this unit. In some games I can't build them in any city.

We have been over this dude. Build the right buildings and you should be able to build at least one in a city in your empire. Its just like saying "I cannot build an elephant worker or horse worker in every city".

EDIT: I am now pushing an update. The Caravan Post now requires; Camel Trainer OR Deer Trainer OR Buffalo Trainer OR Mule Trainer OR Llama Farm.

This should help since it now not only allowsfor city vicinity buildings but wild animals like Camels, Deer, Caribou, Water Buffalo, and Onager.

[climat]

Deer trainer is a Great Wonder unlike other trainers. I'm not sure requiring it would be better than current one (Reindeer farm).

[Koshling]

Originally Posted by climat

Deer trainer is a Great Wonder unlike other trainers. I'm not sure requiring it would be better than current one (Reindeer farm).

Mule trainer helps I think

[strategyonly]

Originally Posted by Sleeeper

Well I usually use 2-3 cities for making armies (along with other tasks) with maximum XP, and other cities just spam buildings/workers/trade caravans.

That is exactly what i do, i have actually three really good producing army ones and a fourth one but not so much but can if it needs to, and the rest is for all the other essentials i need for production/commerce/ etc

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Originally Posted by climat

Deer trainer is a Great Wonder unlike other trainers. I'm not sure requiring it would be better than current one (Reindeer farm).

It shouldn't be a great wonder. I will fix that.

[little_cyclone]

I usually establish one or two cities empire wide whose sole purpose is producing troops, wonders, et al, via maximizing their production. Those cities concentrate on mines, workshops, lumbermills, and enough farms to support those workers, with no cottages at all.

My capital I usually reserve for producing gold and (to a lesser extent) science, with a few production producing improvements and some cottages, tho I usually concentrate on specialists.

All other cities concentrate on commerce via cottages to push into science (with the occasional specialists), with only one or two production improvements so they can still build the buildings. A few of those cities push for science wonders with one or two extra production producing improvements (for a total of *maybe* four), and the influx of trade caravans.

[Hydromancerx]

If i found a region I usually make that city my religious city, unless its already my military city or my capital.

[JosEPh_II]

ALL my cities "try" to be Super cities. It all depends on what resources the city has when founded or gets with tech development.

I Never have a city or 2 designated as Troop cities, All cities are troop cities and All cities are Research, Production, Culture, whatever else is left Cities. In other words I try to make every city as wide based as possible. Like the original quoted poster complained about that Is my style of play.

So there you go again, I play my cities differently than almost everyone that's posted here.

So I ask the obvious question:Why is Specialized cities better than broad based cities anyway?

If I have a city specialized in research and I lose that city to Invasion I've just hosed my research efforts. Doesn't sound or play that smart or well to me, imho.

JosEPh

[BlueGenie]

I broad base too though some cities become "troop" cities anyway as they have a higher production. Just the way it happens.

[Hydromancerx]

Originally Posted by JosEPh_II

So I ask the obvious question:Why is Specialized cities better than broad based cities anyway?

Clustering wonders of the same type will give you more control on what sort of great people you get. Such as clustering all your science wonders in one city without other type of wonders will more likely give you a great scientist.

Another useful method is having your great generals join your military city so the troops that come out start with a bunch more XP than you can get from buildings.

[Thunderbrd]

I try to capture all the possible free promotions and extra xp possible in one city, pour hundreds of slaves into that one city, build most wonders there, pop out level 10 troops at a rate of 10 per round by midgame. The rest of the cities just become support cities to that one city after all that is said and established.

[Koshling]

Originally Posted by Hydromancerx

Clustering wonders of the same type will give you more control on what sort of great people you get. Such as clustering all your science wonders in one city without other type of wonders will more likely give you a great scientist.

Another useful method is having your great generals join your military city so the troops that come out start with a bunch more XP than you can get from buildings.

I used to do this with most of my GGs but this latest game I have (for the first time) being playing with Great Comamnders turned on, and they totally rock, so several GGs have gone that way.

[gcaliber]

I think supercities tend to happen because resources near a city don't matter that much more than just what land is nearby. As long as there are enough food and hammers for a citiy, its awesome. And coastal cities are so incredibly bad for 75% of the game, I really think there needs to be some buildings that add hammers and food to more water tiles.

[Koshling]

Originally Posted by gcaliber

I think supercities tend to happen because resources near a city don't matter that much more than just what land is nearby. As long as there are enough food and hammers for a citiy, its awesome. And coastal cities are so incredibly bad for 75% of the game, I really think there needs to be some buildings that add hammers and food to more water tiles.

Weird. I hate non-coastal cities because of the extra trade routes and tarde-associated benefits that coastal ones have (as well as the habor line). It's probably a style thing - my gameplay style makes extra trade routes and global trading very central. However, coastal cities with too many of their tiles being water (especially non-coastal water) is certainly a production crimp, but IMO that's balanced by the trade plusses.

[BlueGenie]

I'm with Koshling on this one. The extra Trade (without the cap of 16 Trade Routes) is worth it throughout the entire game.

Cheers