City Specialization: WHERE I do it.

[Wodan]

What a stoopid strategy! Who ever came up with that one must only play below Prince, because it will never work on the higher levels.

Obselete: I agree with your point, in the way that a GP farm cannot ever be from just building lots of wonders. But claiming that the author never plays above prince is an unfounded assertion. Besides, so what if he/she doesn't?

I disagree, because a GP farm CAN be from just building lots of wonders, even on higher levels, in fact, it's an effective strategy on higher levels. You just have to know how to go about it. It takes skill and a nonstandard approach, so yes it doesn't work for lower skilled players on higher levels, but they aren't playing on higher levels anyway. So the disparaging comment is unfounded.

 

[Wodan]

Personally, I think the article could benefit from a little added attention to specialists, and secondly, a little added attention to different types of commerce cities. A city, for example, can be a type of city or it can be done with :merchant: specialists. Some discussion about both of these aspects would improve the article. There's also cities, both with and with :scientist: specialists.

The article is great about the basics, I'm talking more about fine tuning your specialization. Now, to be fair, the OP subject is about WHERE not HOW.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

So the disparaging comment is unfounded.

It's been a while since that comment, but I read it as sarcasm ... I seem to remember Obsolete writing many articles about wonder-hogging GP farms at deity to prove it could be done and that it was not a Prince-only strategy. I think it was a tongue-in-cheek self-plug kinda thing.

The article is great about the basics, I'm talking more about fine tuning your specialization. Now, to be fair, the OP subject is about WHERE not HOW.

/nod

While clarifying specifics about how to turn a GP farm into an or or city, you hit the nail on the head -- this article's only about where to build the cities (a guide to dotmapping, if you will).

 

[Wodan]

It's been a while since that comment, but I read it as sarcasm ... I seem to remember Obsolete writing many articles about wonder-hogging GP farms at deity to prove it could be done and that it was not a Prince-only strategy. I think it was a tongue-in-cheek self-plug kinda thing.

Coulda been. I took it at face value. Any context outside of the thread where it's posted seems to me would warrant at least some kind of allusion or mention in .sig or something. Otherwise, you're just setting yourself to be taken out of context.

Anyway.

While clarifying specifics about how to turn a GP farm into an or or city, you hit the nail on the head -- this article's only about where to build the cities (a guide to dotmapping, if you will).

Sure. Though, with dotmapping and WHERE, you still need to have in the back of your mind what/how you plan to do there insofar as it affects the placement.

True, however: for city placement, whether you plan a or specialized city is fairly moot. vs vs is relevant, but not the further detail. Until the second you found the city that is. Then you'll have to start making the detail decisions.

 

[vanatteveldt]

You must be new here

 

[Wodan]

You must be new here

Who are you talking to? Are you new here?

 

[Marius Titulesc]

Thanks for the tips. Still a noob at civ4, but you guys are helping me evolve.
__________________________________
Marius
Customs training

 

[Izuul]

Be wary of 9 year old info.

 

[Genghis Dhan]

Thanks for all this. I've been playing Civ IV a long time (didn't like Civ V, haven't checked out Civ VI yet and in no hurry to) but am trying to up my game. In Civ much of your fate is driven by the terrain; you don't have unlimited choice to create an ideal balance of cities. So you have to work with what you have, and I'm trying to figure out a more systematic approach than what I've been doing. I had already figured out food surpluses, but not the decision branch it allows - deciding whether to go GP farm, whether to amp production with Workshops, or whether to build a lot of cottages yielding fast growing towns. I have also observed the 20+ production is good for a production city, 10 or so an adequate amount to support a city not all about production. What I'm specifically trying to figure out now is how many forests to cut down. I reflexively saved them for years, because of the health benefit and because of their production potential when lumbermilled/railed up. But now I'm seeing you don't need all of them for health, and a lumbermill plot gets you fewer total points (F+P+C) at end game than, say, a town plot with late game bonuses. A lumbermill is going to top out at around 6 total points with rail, while the town will be at 10 or 11, maybe as high as 13, I think that's in a flood plain. So cutting forests to build cottages may result in not that much less P, while yielding a whole lot more C.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Im not sure specialization is necessary or efficient in most cities. I mean there's the glaringly obvious GP city with two 6 food resources and little production and the all-too-easy to spot 13 riverside grassland / floodplains bureau capital. But most cities in my games serve multiple purposes for whatever the moment requires. I'll whip commerce cities and farm some of their tiles to prep a rush, I'll whip overflow into Globe Theater in a double food city and just endlessly whip units, I'll use a production city to build wealth and or research, and I'll oscillate a GP farm between GP farming and production given a few decent hammer tiles. Most of what would be considered specialized cities according to this article end up being a hybrid between commerce and production. And many cities that the article considers commerce worthy end up getting farmed for whipping.

Outside of the bureau capital working commerce tiles in the mid game and beyond, the early game turns are the most important and sets up the game. And it is during the early game that I'm switching around worked tiles for all cities and often reprioritizing the city's purpose every few turns.

These older hard - and - fast tips are somewhat antiquated. Though I will say that production spots are never worth trading up for something else. Good production spots should be exploited as much as possible to juice every last hammer out. But when it comes to settling, I take a more simplistic approach. Settle cities with food in the first ring and if you can get any other resources in the first ring, even better. Then adapt the city to whatever the situation presents. If I need commerce, I'll cottage non riverside grassland etc.

I do use this article's technique when determining the best role for my capital on turn 0. But often even my capital ends up a hybrid if it's not an obvious bureau cottage spam or candidate for wonderspam

disclaimer: shaky deity player though consistent on Immortal.

 

[Genghis Dhan]

Im not sure specialization is necessary or efficient in most cities. I mean there's the glaringly obvious GP city with two 6 food resources and little production and the all-too-easy to spot 13 riverside grassland / floodplains bureau capital. But most cities in my games serve multiple purposes for whatever the moment requires. I'll whip commerce cities and farm some of their tiles to prep a rush, I'll whip overflow into Globe Theater in a double food city and just endlessly whip units, I'll use a production city to build wealth and or research, and I'll oscillate a GP farm between GP farming and production given a few decent hammer tiles. Most of what would be considered specialized cities according to this article end up being a hybrid between commerce and production. And many cities that the article considers commerce worthy end up getting farmed for whipping.

Outside of the bureau capital working commerce tiles in the mid game and beyond, the early game turns are the most important and sets up the game. And it is during the early game that I'm switching around worked tiles for all cities and often reprioritizing the city's purpose every few turns.

These older hard - and - fast tips are somewhat antiquated. Though I will say that production spots are never worth trading up for something else. Good production spots should be exploited as much as possible to juice every last hammer out. But when it comes to settling, I take a more simplistic approach. Settle cities with food in the first ring and if you can get any other resources in the first ring, even better. Then adapt the city to whatever the situation presents. If I need commerce, I'll cottage non riverside grassland etc.

I do use this article's technique when determining the best role for my capital on turn 0. But often even my capital ends up a hybrid if it's not an obvious bureau cottage spam or candidate for wonderspam

disclaimer: shaky deity player though consistent on Immortal.

Thanks much. I haven't used whipping enough other than for early game defense against invasion, and should probably consider it more. I imagine you want a spiritual civ with no anarchy to facilitate going to and from slavery, correct? Otherwise you're losing a lot of productivity empire-wide each time you do it.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Thanks much. I haven't used whipping enough other than for early game defense against invasion, and should probably consider it more. I imagine you want a spiritual civ with no anarchy to facilitate going to and from slavery, correct? Otherwise you're losing a lot of productivity empire-wide each time you do it.

Unless I'm going to turtle and spam great people using mostly specialists, I'm generally in slavery for most of the game... unless I'm a spi leader, of course. The way I like to describe whipping is getting anything you need very fast at the cost of a temporary 1 happy cap reduction. Regrowth is generally pretty fast in any city with even a moderate food. If you are in slavery and not whipping at least every 10 turns in non-commerce cities (given that there's something your city needs) you're seriously missing out on the extreme OP that is slavery in Civ4.

Whip workers, settlers, granaries, barracks, stables, libraries, forges... ANYTHING you need given your planned strategy. On deity, whipping is the main reason most players don't get blocked in with only 3 cities in every game. Whipping allows player to go from 5 units to 20 in a matter of 10 turns (given ideal overflow) before getting heroic epic. If you are Industrious leader and/or have bonus resources, you can construct an entire wonder just from whip overflow even on deity. Recent deity game as Ramesses with stone start, I did just that to get Mids (might've chopped 2 forests pre-maths but that's nothing special).

Practice the whip, my friend. It is the most OP feature in Civ4 IMO

As you said, though, if spiritual, you can switch in and out of civics every 5 turns with no penalty. So the usual combinations are to switch between slavery/hereditary rule/org religion (building phase) to slavery/police state/vassalage/theocracy (prepping & executing a war), to rep/caste/merc/pacifism (GP rushing and specialist teching), to bureau/free market (commerce tech rushing). Of course, adjust the combinations based on civic availability and goals.