National Wonders and City Specialization

[Silence101]

How are you using national wonders to specialize your cities? For me, this is probably one of the most important questions of the game because it really governs my early game expansion... what cities I build where and what I look for in city placement. I'm interested in hearing how other people use national wonders to compliment their city specialization... and if there's any prevailing strategies that people use. I realize that some of this may change due to the circumstances of the game. I'm a bit of a warmonger, and I usually run a CE complimented with a specialist city, so I look for the following types of cities when determining city placement:

Production City #1 (Heroic Epic / West Point)
- This is my primary military production city.
- Highest base production
- Probably non-coastal
- No commerce or research related buildings

Production City #2 (Moai Statues / Ironworks)
- This city backs-up the above city and is my primary naval producer
- Highest base production among coastal cities
- I may not include Moai Statues here if there arn't enough ocean tiles
- No commerce or research related buildings

GP Farm (National Epic / Globe Theatre)
- This city has extremely high food production
- I usually try for Great Scientists, so the buildings will be more research focused
- I try to build the Great Library here as well
- No cottages here, but lots of farms
- I may swap the Globe Theatre for National Park if there's a lot of flood plains... (I rarely do this and I'm not sure that it's that good of a strategy generally.)

Commerce City #1 (Oxford University / Wall Street)
- I typically like this city to be coastal if possible
- Cottaged to death! This city should be my number one research producer from commerce.
- I may split up Wall Street if I've captured a holy city that is otherwise not a great commerce city but has a lot of religious spread.
- Probably no barracks... maybe some production buildings, but this city doesn't build military unless there's an emergency.

Other National Wonders:
Forbidden Palace = I usually play New World maps, and I try to put this overseas.
Scotland Yard = Always in the capital (though some games I'm not able to build it)
Hermitage = I don't usually go for cultural victories, so I try to place this on a boarder city with someone that I don't plan to go to war with.
Red Cross = Production City #3... often in the capital.
Mount Rushmore = Anywhere... (I was thinking about modding this into a world wonder.)

 

[huh?]

I follow mostly your same route except for Production #1 and Production #2.

Since #1 is a great production location already, I don't necessarily waste it's potential on units. I will put the Ironworks and Red Cross here. It helps with space parts and/or late game wonders. The Red Cross lets me crank out garrison units that are medics also. Nothing like building a medic, conquer a city, air lift a medic there, move the wounded attackers into the city while it is in revolt.

#2 gets the Heroic Epic and West Point. My specialized attackers come from here whereas the fodder comes from #1.

 

[Sisiutil]

I have some differences of opinion with Silence101.

• I don't like combining the Heroic Epic and West Point in the same city. Building West Point takes too long at a time in the game when I'm usually at war or about to be and need to produce units. I prefer to put WP in a different production city so the HE city can keep pumping out units. I'll usually settle 1 or 2 Great Generals as military instructors in the HE city to give it the XP-granting equivalent of WP. I will sometimes combine either the HE or WP with the Red Cross--if I bother researching Medicine and need that many hospitals.
• I never, ever make the Ironworks city coastal if I can avoid it, and I'll avoid lakes if at all possible in its fat cross too. Even if you build the Moai Statues there, water tiles suck for production. Contrast them with tiles hosting mines, or watermills, or workshops. No comparison. Ideally, for me, the Ironworks gets built in a land-locked city with lots of river tiles for watermills.
• I used to like combining the MS with one of the military wonders (HE or WP), but I no longer do this. I still usually make the HE and WP cities coastal so they benefit ship-building, but I've noticed that working so many water tiles means the MS city produces a lot of commerce and research, and I'd rather not waste hammers in my military cities building the commerce and research multipliers.
• Combining the National Epic with the Globe also seems counter-productive to me. Most players leverage the Globe's no-unhappiness power through either drafting or whipping or both. But it makes no sense to draft or whip away specialists in your GP farm, especially as the game progresses and you need more GPP to produce the next great person.
• Oxford and Wall Street would make sense... if the timing is right. I usually prefer to build Wall Street in a holy city to maximize shrine income. I rarely found religions, and in some games I have yet to conquer a decent holy city by the time I'm able to build Oxford. And if I can build Oxford, I get on with it.

 

[§L¥ Gµ¥]

military production #1
Heroic Epic.

Military production #2 / Wonder City
Ironworks, potentially Red Cross

That one Coastal City I have jammed up in heavy overlap simply because the seafood/one set of pigs was too good to turn down:
Moai Statues

Super Science City
Oxford and National Epic

Super Commerce City [the best cottaged city I've got]
Wall St.

Drafting City [2nd most food surplus after the super science city]
globe theater.

Keep in mind, I'll aim for an SE before anything else, so the placement changes dramatically if I don't score or capture the 'myds early.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

How are you using national wonders to specialize your cities? For me, this is probably one of the most important questions of the game because it really governs my early game expansion... what cities I build where and what I look for in city placement. I'm interested in hearing how other people use national wonders to compliment their city specialization... and if there's any prevailing strategies that people use. I realize that some of this may change due to the circumstances of the game. I'm a bit of a warmonger, and I usually run a CE complimented with a specialist city, so I look for the following types of cities when determining city placement:

Production City #1 (Heroic Epic / West Point)
- This is my primary military production city.
- Highest base production
- Probably non-coastal
- No commerce or research related buildings

Production City #2 (Moai Statues / Ironworks)
- This city backs-up the above city and is my primary naval producer
- Highest base production among coastal cities
- I may not include Moai Statues here if there arn't enough ocean tiles
- No commerce or research related buildings

GP Farm (National Epic / Globe Theatre)
- This city has extremely high food production
- I usually try for Great Scientists, so the buildings will be more research focused
- I try to build the Great Library here as well
- No cottages here, but lots of farms
- I may swap the Globe Theatre for National Park if there's a lot of flood plains... (I rarely do this and I'm not sure that it's that good of a strategy generally.)

Commerce City #1 (Oxford University / Wall Street)
- I typically like this city to be coastal if possible
- Cottaged to death! This city should be my number one research producer from commerce.
- I may split up Wall Street if I've captured a holy city that is otherwise not a great commerce city but has a lot of religious spread.
- Probably no barracks... maybe some production buildings, but this city doesn't build military unless there's an emergency.

Other National Wonders:
Forbidden Palace = I usually play New World maps, and I try to put this overseas.
Scotland Yard = Always in the capital (though some games I'm not able to build it)
Hermitage = I don't usually go for cultural victories, so I try to place this on a boarder city with someone that I don't plan to go to war with.
Red Cross = Production City #3... often in the capital.
Mount Rushmore = Anywhere... (I was thinking about modding this into a world wonder.)

Previously, on NYPD Civ
March 2009
January 2009
Late December 2008
Early December 2008
August 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
July 2006
June 2006
Early June 2006
May 2006
March 2006

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Production City #1 (Heroic Epic / West Point)

How many troops do you have to build after constructing West Point to compensate for the more troops you would have had sooner?

 

[Beamup]

I don't like combining the Heroic Epic and West Point in the same city. Building West Point takes too long at a time in the game when I'm usually at war or about to be and need to produce units. I prefer to put WP in a different production city so the HE city can keep pumping out units. I'll usually settle 1 or 2 Great Generals as military instructors in the HE city to give it the XP-granting equivalent of WP. I will sometimes combine either the HE or WP with the Red Cross--if I bother researching Medicine and need that many hospitals.

Ah, but if there's a GE handy at the right moment, or it happens to be a peaceful time, it's quite wonderful to put them together. Then adding a couple instructors on top of that has level 4 units out the gate, with level 5 in reach (easy reach for Charismatic).

Worth aspiring to IMO, but needs to be considered carefully.

 

[UncleJJ]

I seldom match HE and West Point together although it did happen in my latest game. Usually my HE city will have several settled GGs due to early wars and can produce the early and mid game units efficiently. I especially value siege units built with more than 5 exp, as CR2 and CR3 units have a high survival rate.

Then in the war with cannons I'll capture an enemy capital or strong production city and West Point is an ideal build to increase military output. To boost its production I often add a MA. Keeping HE (with settled GGs) and West Point (with a MA) separate means 2 cities can produce quality military units and also the HE city did not waste turns building infrastructure.

My recent game was an exception where I was experimenting with the WE/ SEE style of game and consequently settled early GGs in the capital and Oxford for the Rep bonus . That meant the HE city didn't have any exp bonus so West Point went there. But in that case I had 2 military cities anyway and the capital produced a lot of good quality troops in the late game.

In a few games where I have built Iron Works and need more troops I'll put West Point in that city. Combining high production with good exp is always a good move. Late game wars need more than one good military city building units, sometimes you capture good production cities and settled GGs, but if you don't you will need to build them yourself.

 

[Grey Fox]

I often end up building National Epic with Oxford. And put Wall Street in any city with nice gold output like with a shrine and/or settled priests/merchants. Then later of course, found corporations here. National Epic + Oxford is especially good if you get the Great Library here.

How many troops do you have to build after constructing West Point to compensate for the more troops you would have had sooner?

That is a tricky question, but usually it pays itself of. Generally the West Point city will continue to make troops for a long time. And it's seriously good together with many settled GGs and a charismatic leader. Lvl 6 units right of the bat is awesome! You can make a commando army that way, or Gunships with Blitz.

 

[madscientist]

While those seam like perfect city setups, I fiind they do not always work out.

Some of my ideas

1) NE is the most powerful National Wonder early on and I almost always pop it into the Capital looking for GPs earlier in the game where they have more effect. Pooling the NE with the GT in a high food city makes ALOT of sense but I just never get to that point. I actually prefer to put the NE with the NP for those free specialists.

2) I put the Maori and WP together more often because WP +4XP also apply to naval units. A drydocks plus WP and perhaps theocracy or settled GG means 10XP destroyers out of the gate!

3) IW with a factory/power is powerful as it is.

4) HE I usually let alone and will occasionally add the Red Cross if it applies.

5) WS and OX in capital makes sense prviding I have not built the NE there which is probably the case in 90% of my games. WS always goes into a shrined city or potential corp HQ.

 

[Silence101]

• I don't like combining the Heroic Epic and West Point in the same city. Building West Point takes too long at a time in the game when I'm usually at war or about to be and need to produce units. I prefer to put WP in a different production city so the HE city can keep pumping out units. I'll usually settle 1 or 2 Great Generals as military instructors in the HE city to give it the XP-granting equivalent of WP. I will sometimes combine either the HE or WP with the Red Cross--if I bother researching Medicine and need that many hospitals.

I don't recall off the top of my head how long it takes to build WP... I didn't think it took too long to build (probably because this is my star production city, after all), and I guess intuitively it seems like this would pay for itself, especially in the late game. However, you play a higher difficulty than I do and there's probably a lot of validity to what you're saying, especially with settling GG's to get the same effect. I usually settle my GG's too (except the first one) until I get... I think it's military science that allows you to build the military acadamies.

• I never, ever make the Ironworks city coastal if I can avoid it, and I'll avoid lakes if at all possible in its fat cross too. Even if you build the Moai Statues there, water tiles suck for production. Contrast them with tiles hosting mines, or watermills, or workshops. No comparison. Ideally, for me, the Ironworks gets built in a land-locked city with lots of river tiles for watermills.

Let me qualify my previous statement a little. Keep in mind that though this city is coastal, it is first and foremost a production city, which can still have rivers and hills in it. Granted, water tiles suck for production, but even in your highest production cities are going to have tiles being worked that have little to no production value and are mostly used for food. I do agree that coastal cities don't typically make the best production cities, but I try to settle a least one good production city on the coast.

Plus, it doesn't really seem like my (#1) production city really needs ironworks. With HE, it can already spit out military units in 1 - 3 turns (marathon speed) - it just makes sense to me to have several cities that can produce military extremely quickly. Probably more to your point, my coastal production city usually is the one that seems to benefit the most from it because they do tend to have weaker overall production in comparison to some non-coastal production cities.

• I used to like combining the MS with one of the military wonders (HE or WP), but I no longer do this. I still usually make the HE and WP cities coastal so they benefit ship-building, but I've noticed that working so many water tiles means the MS city produces a lot of commerce and research, and I'd rather not waste hammers in my military cities building the commerce and research multipliers.

Yeah, the water tiles lend themselves better to commerce than to production. I mentioned earlier that I don't build commerce and research buildings in production cities. (Actually, I may put some research buildings there only to boost the cultural output if the city is a boarder city that's being pressured, but that's more the exception than the rule.) So any little commerce comming into a production city, for the most part, doesn't get multiplied.

• Combining the National Epic with the Globe also seems counter-productive to me. Most players leverage the Globe's no-unhappiness power through either drafting or whipping or both. But it makes no sense to draft or whip away specialists in your GP farm, especially as the game progresses and you need more GPP to produce the next great person.

Honestly, most of the whipping I do in the early game. That may be a flaw in my strategy, but I don't do a lot of whipping by the time drama rolls around. However, your statement again is a bit counter intuitive to me simply because a GP farm should have the highest food production capacity, so it seems to me that whipping there would enable you to replace whipped population (and specialists) very rapidly.

 

[Silence101]

I seldom match HE and West Point together although it did happen in my latest game. Usually my HE city will have several settled GGs due to early wars and can produce the early and mid game units efficiently. I especially value siege units built with more than 5 exp, as CR2 and CR3 units have a high survival rate.

There seems to be a lot of that going around. I may have to try splitting up HE and WP in my next game to see if I like it better. (Although, admittedly I cringe at the idea of not having WP in my best production city...)

 

[Beamup]

I don't recall off the top of my head how long it takes to build WP... I didn't think it took too long to build (probably because this is my star production city, after all), and I guess intuitively it seems like this would pay for itself, especially in the late game.

Well, it's 800 hammers (+100% for stone). If we presume that Stone is available, then the production rate for WP will equal that for troops (the +100% from Stone and that from the HE balancing out). That's 8 Cannons, for instance.

If Stone is NOT available, then we're probably talking +25% (Forge) for WP vs. +125% for units, so 640 base hammers of WP would become 1440 hammers of units - 12 Cavalry, say.

 

[Silence101]

While those seam like perfect city setups, I fiind they do not always work out..

You're right - I listed an ideal... what I look for when deciding city placement. But most maps are going to force some compromise, which for me is one of the more challenging aspects of the game.

1) NE is the most powerful National Wonder early on and I almost always pop it into the Capital looking for GPs earlier in the game where they have more effect. Pooling the NE with the GT in a high food city makes ALOT of sense but I just never get to that point. I actually prefer to put the NE with the NP for those free specialists.

In the early game, my capital is usually preoccupied building settlers and by the mid-game, it's usually focused on military support and building construction (it usually ends up becoming more of a hybrid city), so I don't usually have a lot of specialists or wonders there for NE to really take advantage of. However, I can see the value in that if I did. The thing about NP is that it comes so late... and by that point, it doesn't seem like I have that many forests left anyway. (I'm chop crazy)

2) I put the Maori and WP together more often because WP +4XP also apply to naval units. A drydocks plus WP and perhaps theocracy or settled GG means 10XP destroyers out of the gate!

That's not a bad idea - I might have to try that in my next game.

5) WS and OX in capital makes sense prviding I have not built the NE there which is probably the case in 90% of my games. WS always goes into a shrined city or potential corp HQ.

I don't usually like putting WS and OX in my capital because it's typically not my best commerce city. (Maybe if I ran beaurocracy later, I could see the value in it more.) Most holy cities arn't going to be in the capital either, and I like to take advantage of shrine income when I build WS, like you mentioned.

 

[futurehermit]

I prefer to have HE and WP together usually. I just build the WP at a time when unit production is not a priority (i.e., during a tech cycle).

IW in a landlocked city definitely. I don't get the love for watermills, really. I prefer mines and workshops as I want sheer in my IW city and don't care about the from watermills (exception being if I need the )

Ox usually goes in my commerce capital or best commerce city.

NE in my gpfarm. Usually combined with GT.

 

[Silence101]

Well, it's 800 hammers (+100% for stone). If we presume that Stone is available, then the production rate for WP will equal that for troops (the +100% from Stone and that from the HE balancing out). That's 8 Cannons, for instance.

If Stone is NOT available, then we're probably talking +25% (Forge) for WP vs. +125% for units, so 640 base hammers of WP would become 1440 hammers of units - 12 Cavalry, say.

Thanks for the info.

I'm tying to justify in my head not putting WP in the primary production city. Yeah, you'll have to not build units for a time... (as is the case with any production buildings you build) but unless you just don't build it at all, that's an issue you'll run into no matter where you build it. It's either worth building or it's not... and if it's worth building, wouldn't you generally want it in a city that can build it quickly (during peacetime, of course). It seems to me that you'd want it in a city where you plan to build a lot units anyway, in order to take maximum advantage of it.

EDIT: Does anyone think that it's just not worth building?

 

[wioneo]

It seems that most of you pile up all your generals together, am I the only one who spreads them out to all the top production cities before doubling up? Usually without charisma a second general would not get you a third promotion unless you are running vassalage/theocracy(I think).

 

[Beamup]

Well, it's 800 hammers (+100% for stone). If we presume that Stone is available, then the production rate for WP will equal that for troops (the +100% from Stone and that from the HE balancing out). That's 8 Cannons, for instance.

If Stone is NOT available, then we're probably talking +25% (Forge) for WP vs. +125% for units, so 640 base hammers of WP would become 1440 hammers of units - 12 Cavalry, say.

Actually, on further reflection, this isn't the way to think about it. After all, we're not talking about building WP or not - we're talking about whether to build it in the HE city or not. So we ought to consider how many units the *other* city would have produced while the HE city built WP, too. (Still assuming a Forge and no other production boosts.)

If we've got stone, WP costs 356 base hammers. These could become 800 hammers of units in the HE city, or 444 in the non-HE city. So the cost of putting WP with HE is 356 hammers-worth of units - about 3.5 Cannons or 3 Cavalry.

If we don't have stone, WP costs 640 base hammers. These would have become 1440 hammers of units in the HE city, or 800 in the non-HE city. So the cost is 640 hammers-worth of units - 6.4 Cannons or 5.3 Cavalry.

Essentially, the cost is the +100% HE bonus for however many base hammers it takes to produce WP. This could be generalized to cover other situations of production bonus. For example, if you leave it until after you have powered Factories, WP with Stone costs only 267 base hammers, or about 1.5 Tanks.

OR skews things a bit, since it provides a bonus to WP but not units, so the proper cost is 75% of the base hammers, instead of 100%.

The benefit is then 4 XP for units costing 100% of all base hammers the HE/WP city devotes to units from that point on. No easy way to quantitatively compare that to the cost, unfortunately.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

The benefit is then 4 XP for units costing 100% of all base hammers the HE/WP city devotes to units from that point on. No easy way to quantitatively compare that to the cost, unfortunately.

I think you can come up with an accurate estimate, provided you don't try to tack on too many decimal places.

First assumption - that if you are going to be on the offensive in the post WestPoint era, the two cities under our consideration (the HE city and the best acceptable alternative for WP) are going to be cranking troops regardless of where we place the second wonder.

So you project what your army looks like in the first case, and in the second case, and estimate the number of combats you win in each example (or, if you prefer, the probability of winning some fixed number of combats). Guestimate one extra promotion at 25% improved combat odds (or whatever you like), and see where you get.

 

[Beamup]

So you project what your army looks like in the first case, and in the second case, and estimate the number of combats you win in each example (or, if you prefer, the probability of winning some fixed number of combats). Guestimate one extra promotion at 25% improved combat odds (or whatever you like), and see where you get.

I'd considered that, and concluded that it fell firmly under "not easy".