Building NC outside of capitol

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

So i had this peculiar situation occuring in which i decided to build my NC outside of my capital city.

I am Spain. Madrid is a fairly productional capital but not on mountains. Afcourse i build enough early scouts early on and i finds a few natural wonders, one gives me faith and happiness and is quite close by, i settle it imediatly and the added happiness and religion it gives allows me to easily settle more city's withought needing to care at that point for religion buildings or happyness.

My luck however continue's, and how.. at aroudn turn 25 i discover King Solomon's mine's, about 20 tiles away from my capital and not to far to Portugal, but screw it i send a settler there and settle it. King Solomon's sits against a mountain so it's easy to plant the city on the mountain it sits besides, also it's situated in a dessert area with a load of petra hills, i mean coman.., So i use that 12 production to emediatly pump out a granery so the city can grow to cow while working the mines, a worker, a unit, a stables, all this afcourse goes rather superfast and about 10-15 turns later the city sits at +20 production. Next step is obvious, Petra and Hanging gardens if possible, and i get both.

At this point i was rushing towards NC and i was like, hey wait a minute, this might be a rare case in which i really should build the NC in that city that sitting on a mountain with king solomon's mines, hanging gardens and petra, rather than my mountainless capital. Seems quite obvious right? And then i continue'd with keeping my capital smaller than my NC city.

So, did anyone ever come to the situation where they considered building NC out of capital? Usually other city's will lack the production early on anyhow, but at what point does it become more interresting to build it outside the capital as a liberty player?

i reconsiderd some things about opening with Liberty:

- Normally, whenever i play a game, i would tend to look out for mountains i could settle my capitol on. the benifit of a capital on a mountain is obvious for a tradition player, but maybe not really for a liberty player. Afterall the liberty player doesn't get bonusses to food and happyness in his capital, so it doesn't matter which city grows tallest from that perspective. Say that i was planning to play with liberty, and i start in a spot that is great for production but not on a mountain, and there is a mountain nearby but the food and production around is less good though adequate. in the past i would have felt motivated to waste a few turns maybe to move on that mountain, but i guess as liberty player you shouldn't if youre capital could be settled in a more productive spot.

- The 2nd city in liberty can come fairly early, and because you might tend to settle a few city's more with liberty after that and get NC a bit later, it's quite possible that the 2nd city you have settled will have grown to a fair size by now and boost some good production too. Seeing as this tends to be usually how it goes, i wondered if maybe i should take more care as to settling that 2nd city specificly in a spot that would be great for research if i didn't put my capitol on a mountain. Such a 2nd city could be one on a mountain with some good production, great food for the long term and possibly having such things like jungle tiles around.

This way, it seems that with liberty one could take an aproach where he focussed on settling his capitol on a spot that is optimized for production and possibly even leaving a mountain for that if that looks interresting, and then specificly focus to build a 2nd city optimized for research and supply it with workers to make it good by the time NC comes around and then build it there. With this aproach, a liberty player would not need to care about settling his capitol on a mountain, nor waste time with building NC in it thus leaving it open to build a wonder instead, and for a liberty player optimal early production makes more sense anyhow. The NC city could focus less on various other buildings or wonders and more on getting it's research buildings up asap, as well as that food caravans would then need to be run to the NC city.

in fact, because a liberty player will often see the growth of his capitol stunned due to settler production while the 2nd city is growing just fine, it has often happened that the 2nd city got as big or bigger than the capitol by the turn the capitol was finished building settlers.

Imho it renders practicly null the notion that you better settle youre capitol on a mountain when playing liberty or any other i guess but tradition. Indeed, because you would have more time to choose youre ideal 2nd city spot, it's more likely that youre 2nd city could be a better city for research anyhow. A liberty player shouldn't leave an ideal productional spot for his capitol for a mountain spot tht has less early potential and/or cost him time getting there, instead i guess in such a scenario he should focus on making his 2nd city ideal to build NC in whn it arrives.

 

[Dr. D]

As you found, this is probably most easily accomplished with Spain. The last time I put the NC In a city other than the capital was with Spain when I found Lake Victoria near my capital. There were a bunch of river desert hill tiles nearby and a number of oases so I settled right next to Lake Victoria. Huge science city.

 

[Acken]

Mountains do not matter for the NC. Both are multiplier bonuses. Since multipliers are additive and not multiplicative the NC should just go into your biggest base science city. Your base science is a function of population, specialist slots, jungles and academies. If your mountain city also has the potential to have the biggest base science then it becomes a good idea to make the NC there.

Tradition is more capital centric because of Monarchy.

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

Mountains do not matter for the NC. Both are multiplier bonuses. Since multipliers are additive and not multiplicative the NC should just go into your biggest base science city. Your base science is a function of population, specialist slots, jungles and academies. If your mountain city also has the potential to have the biggest base science then it becomes a good idea to make the NC there.

Tradition is more capital centric because of Monarchy.

Indeed, thats how it is. But the thing is that there is a large likelyhood that youre capitol spot won't be as ideal for science for all the factors you mentioned as a better site you might find for this somewhere nearby. Simply put, how much chance is there that youre capital will have the maximum potential of any 6 to 8 city's for ex. that you might settle with liberty? Well it's quite simple, there is respectivly about 1/6th and 1/8th chance that youre capitol will be the most optimal city for science of all the city's you settle. Or otherwise put, it's likely that there will be a better spot for a NC somewhere not to far. Being aware of those odds, one could look out for the optimal science spot as to settle his second city.

I tested this out myself yesterday, i played as Maya, i settled in grasslands with a river, a few bonusses and a few hills, no mountain. 8 tiles away of my capitol there was a mountain with some hills around it and a river running along it smack dab in the middle of a large patch of jungle and boosting copious amounts of potential food, i'd say the city had around 15-20 jungle tiles some with a bonus resources like bannanas, no unique lux though and that was a bit of an issue during expansion i must admit. it had a long river along it and some grasslands along that river, and a sheep and a horse tile. It had way more potential for a science city, i can make a rough guestimate of potential beakers too.

But imho the point can be easily made that when playing liberty there is an very large chance that youre capitol won't be the best city in youre future empire for science, but that then again it shouldn't be too easy to find a more optimal spot nearby and settle it as the second city. In fact, i guess because of the hex map, there is about 6/7th a chance that a city spot 7 tiles next to youre capitol will be better for science than youre capitol.

Therefore it makes sense to me that a liberty player should look out for that city spot nearby that has 85% chance of being better than youre capitol for NC, and settle that city first to quickly develop it and build NC there.
This consideration has hughe consequences for how im now thinking about liberty. This might mean that i could let my capitol continue making settlers until the x amount of turns it would take him to finish a library so that the NC city could start on NC asap. The thought that one could actually forego some growth on his capitol in favor of production while letting the 2nd city specificly grow looks to give interresting opportunity's imho for what regards build orders, not in the least in that since the capitol doesn't have to build NC, it might use it's production for a wonder instead.

 

[Acken]

You can't really count your 6th, 7th etc city into it. They'll be at a very low pop when you should have your NC. Very bad idea to build it there.

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

You can't really count your 6th, 7th etc city into it. They'll be at a very low pop when you should have your NC. Very bad idea to build it there.

Afcourse, but you are understanding me wrong.

All one need to do is make an assesement of the land around the capitol, consider which of the city's one wants to settle is going to be best for science, and settle that specific spot with youre first settler as the NC city.

There is a very large likelyhood that you CAN settle a 2nd city that will be better for science, and with this 2nd city you would have some time to build it up while youre capitol is building more settlers so to make it ready to build NC when the required tech is researched. In this sense, a liberty player would be unwise not to settle his second city in the spot nearby that is likely better for science than the capitol.

And the odds change somewhat with a coastal start, but even then it's usually a 75% chance that there will be a better science city 7 tiles away from youre capitol. And for a normal lands start if you take a 15 tile distance then there is 95% chance that you can settle a 2nd city in that range that will be better for science than youre capitol.

Afcourse, this usually requires that the 1 settler produced is going to need to go to that spot which in youre assesment was going to be better for science in the long term and can be brought up to good production fast enough, but that spot has a very high likelyhood to exist nearby.

 

[Acken]

I think you really overestimate that probability. The city we're talking about has to be way better than the capital to compensate for being 35turns behind. You would probably need to use a GE for it also so no GS or no Petra GE.

I don't say it never happens but it being good 95% or 75% of times ? No I don't think so.

 

[Lexicus]

The probability that the capital will be the best NC city out of 6 or 8 cities is not 1/6 or 1/8. For one thing it isn't a simple matter of probability because city placement isn't random and yields (mostly food) are not evenly distributed on the map. For another I'm pretty sure the capital's location usually has something good in the way of resources/dirt though I might only think that because I play Legendary Start.

For another as Acken notes the capital starts earliest and so has a natural advantage no matter what the dirt looks like.

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

I think you really overestimate that probability.

You are welcome to give reasoning behind youre own estimations in terms of probabilety of more optimal land.

The city we're talking about has to be way better than the capital to compensate for being 35turns behind. You would probably need to use a GE for it also so no GS or no Petra GE.

NC, at 125 hammers, is not such a hard one to build in a reasonable time imho with a second city. At say 11 hammers, it would be 12 turns. A 2 pop liberty city on a hill with a granery and some improved hills nearby can easily get 9 hammers, but you'd rather i guess like some horse/cow/sheep around to be able to grow and add hammers as you can.
The potential is also there that you have some stone nearby and that you can build a stonemasonry at that point in this 2nd city, or maybe even a stables or a lighthouse if you had reason to give some priority to that before NC. And besides that, there is always this chance to stumble on a variety of natural wonders that would aid you in this, like lake victoria. Getting to those 11 hammers might be quite doable even if 12 turns is not so short, but youre on liberty and youre aiming afterall to make more total science with NC in that city. But besides that, there is afcourse also the possibilety to chop a few forrests down to make it faster, there is a good potential that you can do this with this 2nd city, and just 3 forrests would half down the time, while you had reason to send workers there to improve production anyhow. So, i guess something between 6-12 turns for NC in a 2nd city withought using liberty's GE should be possible and acceptable if started early enough.

edit: ah yes cost goes up for numbers of city's, so how much does it costs at say 5 city's?
I also need to add that at that point one could run 2 caravans or maybe even trade ships to the 2nd city and increase growth and production there like that. Obviously caravans should at that point go to the NC city, not the capital.

I don't say it never happens but it being good 95% or 75% of times ? No I don't think so.

Try it for yourself, i have loaded up a few games and scouted around and so far i always have found better spots within a 15 tile radius, usually even within a 7 tile radius. On pangea! Afcourse it would be different on other maps, just saying that those odds were given on Pangea, on islands it would likely be a lot different afcourse, but thats rather logical.

The probability that the capital will be the best NC city out of 6 or 8 cities is not 1/6 or 1/8. For one thing it isn't a simple matter of probability because city placement isn't random and yields (mostly food) are not evenly distributed on the map. For another I'm pretty sure the capital's location usually has something good in the way of resources/dirt though I might only think that because I play Legendary Start.

Try it for yourself in a few scouting test games, just look around what land that you have.

Afcourse, map settings matter! But that doesn't nessecarily has to devaluate so much the things im saying here. Afcourse some people play with pangea or continents and others might play only islands and with other settings like yours, and those things often change various strategy's anyhow. I guess for what regards the settings i mostly tend to use, this strategy all the more makes sense, but that doesn't mean that it isn't a good strategy under those settings, no'r that i use settings that are not often played, as i play Pangea and balanced resources, a comon setting iirc in multiplayer and thus possibly interresting in such games.

 

[Acken]

You are welcome to give reasoning behind youre own estimations in terms of probabilety of more optimal land.

?

NC, at 125 hammers, is not such a hard one to build in a reasonable time imho with a second city. At say 11 hammers, it would be 12 turns. A 2 pop liberty city on a hill with a granery and some improved hills nearby can easily get 9 hammers, but you'd rather i guess like some horse/cow/sheep around to be able to grow and add hammers as you can.
The potential is also there that you have some stone nearby and that you can build a stonemasonry at that point in this 2nd city, or maybe even a stables or a lighthouse if you had reason to give some priority to that before NC. And besides that, there is always this chance to stumble on a variety of natural wonders that would aid you in this, like lake victoria. Getting to those 11 hammers might be quite doable even if 12 turns is not so short, but youre on liberty and youre aiming afterall to make more total science with NC in that city. But besides that, there is afcourse also the possibilety to chop a few forrests down to make it faster, there is a good potential that you can do this with this 2nd city, and just 3 forrests would half down the time, while you had reason to send workers there to improve production anyhow. So, i guess something between 6-12 turns for NC in a 2nd city withought using liberty's GE should be possible and acceptable if started early enough.

edit: ah yes cost goes up for numbers of city's, so how much does it costs at say 5 city's?

Something like 280... I'd expect you to know that.
Edit: 275.

Try it for yourself, i have loaded up a few games and scouted around and so far i always have found better spots within a 15 tile radius, usually even within a 7 tile radius. On pangea! Afcourse it would be different on other maps, just saying that those odds were given on Pangea, on islands it would likely be a lot different afcourse, but thats rather logical.

Try it for yourself in a few scouting test games, just look around what land that you have

Erh, I'm not the one trying to prove something. Sorry but if you want to go further and prove that it's a good idea in 95% of cases you'll have to show it to us through results and/or with real game numbers. This way we'll also have concrete examples to debate upon. Like I said I'm not dismissing the idea entirely however. If you spawn in some dry land and your expansion has the opportunity to be a lush grassland river mountain area then yes it's a very strong possibility.

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

Ok here is what i can do for a first quick test: ill load up 10 games as say rome on pangea, settle in place, scout the immediate surroundings and upload screenshots which will either show the mountain i could settle my capitol on in 2 turns or where ill have a spot marked that i would consider better for NC.

Testing a number of full lenght games afcourse takes some time, and is difficult to compare to results you'd have if you had build NC in youre capitol. And rather a lot of work really, almost would bore me out of the game, though i'm likely to test out the strategy but maybe not so extreme.

I mean it's just an idea, and while you could be right, i thought i had given some good reasoning why a liberty player might want to think about settling his 2nd city in a better spot for NC.

Something like 280... I'd expect you to know that.

Couldn't find a reference for the actual increase. So yeah i didn't know, and im not even ashamed of it, because i guess this is the place to ask questions like this. So how does this increase work? Its a 160 difference here for those 4 extra city's, is this a flat out 40 hammers per city? Or is this maybe something like an added 25% cost per city?

 

[Acken]

Well I'm not expecting you to try it through 20 games of course but if you give us a game and reasoning behind the decision and some results further down the road that'd be a good step to support the claim and discuss why maybe I'd think it's not such a great idea.

The actual cost for 5 cities is 275. Cost is 125 + N * 30. N is number of cities capital included.

 

[reddishrecue]

Once you build the national college in a city, you dont have to worry about having a library in all your cities before expansion.

 

[phillipwyllie]

...Since multipliers are additive and not multiplicative the NC should just go into your biggest base science city. Your base science is a function of population, specialist slots, jungles and academies...Tradition is more capital centric because of Monarchy.

What he said.
In all my time playing civ5 I have never had a city that produced more science than may capital. In fact most often than not the capital will be producing twice as much science as the next city.
@OP: I know what you were thinking you wanted the NC out quick, I've done that myself once but it is usually best to build you NC in your capital.

 

[Redaxe]

An early King Solomons mines or Lake Victoria as Spain is basically a free win

I think the OPs scenario is about the only time when it is possibly beneficial to move the NC to another city - but this is only so long as you don't play Tradition.

That said you have to consider how much food this city with KSM can get. What really determines the use of the NC is population and of course the number of academies you can plant.
National College & a mountain for the Observatory is the best because you will get a 100% science boost on academies.
If its mostly desert hills then you will run into problems. A coastal access will help because you can run food ships but still you want to get your city with a NC to population 40 if possible.

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

In all my time playing civ5 I have never had a city that produced more science than may capital.

And that would be pretty obvious if you always build NC in youre capitol, not really a good argument if you don't consider the effect of NC in that capitol.

Besides that, as i sauid before, caravans should run to the NC city if the NC city is not the capital. This means that ultimatly the NC city should be possible to grow about as fast as a capitol would with caravans. And caravans make a big difference on this science production.

Afcourse, indeed the NC city needs to have more growth potential than the capital, and prefferably all the best modifiers, but i am still of the oppinion that a better science spot is more likely to be found outside youre capitol.

@OP: I know what you were thinking you wanted the NC out quick, I've done that myself once but it is usually best to build you NC in your capital.

This has nothing to do with getting NC quick, even afcourse that it shouldn't take to long obviously. The real objective of this strategy:
- To get a better top science city than youre capitol could ever be
- to be able to specialize a 2nd city towards science and the capitol towards production of wonders. Rather than say use the capitol for both these thinbs.

I think the OPs scenario is about the only time when it is possibly beneficial to move the NC to another city - but this is only so long as you don't play Tradition.

No, again i think it's atleast a 75% chance that some city spot in the 7 tiles range from youre capitol will have a larger "science potential" in Liberty.

...Since multipliers are additive and not multiplicative the NC should just go into your biggest base science city. Your base science is a function of population, specialist slots, jungles and academies...Tradition is more capital centric because of Monarchy.

What he said.

And i have no issue with this whatsoever. Indeed NC should go in youre biggest potential base science city, it's simply my oppinion that there is far more chance that in liberty a spot outside youre capitol will have more potential in this regard than youre capitol, and then you should build NC in that better potentia science city, and make sure to settle it as youre 2nd city so you can quickly grow it up to good production while youre capitol is wasting production and growth on hard building settlers.

 

[whyidie]

Coincidentally, just built NC outside of my capitol in a game last night. 2nd city had great Petra layout. Worked floodplains until Petra. By Industrial capitol was 3 pop behind, even with a food bias in capitol.

I did select Liberty. I did not use food caravans for capitol or second city. Worker was late, perhaps stunting early growth of capitol.

This isn't the first time I've had a scenario like this, but it does usually involve Petra or a NW. Can't recall if I've ever had comparable population in non-cap cities without Petra or NW.

 

[bc1]

in my experience the capital is often the the best science city

1. the map generator is biased to make spawing areas better
2. the capital gets a head start on all other cities
3. the capital has a unique palace which generates 3 extra beakers, to which multipliers apply
4. the capital is eligible to other unique bonuses, especially if using tradition

cheers

 

[reddishrecue]

in my experience the capital is often the the best science city

1. the map generator is biased to make spawing areas better
2. the capital gets a head start on all other cities
3. the capital has a unique palace which generates 3 extra beakers, to which multipliers apply
4. the capital is eligible to other unique bonuses, especially if using tradition

cheers

The capital isn't always the best science city to build in because there isnt always a lot of food in the capital.. I had a hills start once and it was difficult to grow since there were hardly any grass tiles where you can build farms in.

 

[DocRock]

If I can found my 2nd city in the middle of a jungle next to a mountain.. Why not? Just use your caravans for a massive growth, beeline universities and you should overtake your capital. Especially if it's not next to a mountain.