City Specilisation

[Shafi-is-back]

From what i have seen thus far, and after having poured through the manual i don’t see any reason to think, we wouldn’t want to be specializing cities in Civ V too, so what type of cities would be looking at,

1) Gold cities
2) Culture cities
3) Science cities / GP farms
4) Production cities
5) Military production cities


Well here are my thoughts primarily on the buildings to put into each type of city the terrain type we would want and of course which wonders to add in.

(1)Gold Cities

Terrain – lots of riverside tiles, or terrain with lots of luxury resources, especially Gold & Silver to be exploited with the mint. Coastal cities too would be good for Gold cities.

Improvements – We will be looking to put down as many trading posts as possible, whilst making sure we generate enough surplus food to keep growing.

Buildings –

Bank - + 25% Gold
Market - +25% Gold
Mint (If Silver and / or gold is present) - +3 gold for worked silver or gold tile.
Stock exchange - +33% Gold


(2)Culture Cities

Due to the importance culture now has in the game, and the change in the mechanics, we would probably want to have at least a couple of these babies to help us along the Social Policy Trees.

Terrain & improvements – I would assume lots of farmland, and lay down plenty of farms and run Artist specialists. Locations with farmable land and access to incense or wine would make for killer culture cities.

Buildings –

Monument - +2 culture
Monastery -+2 culture from nearby sources of incense and wine
Museum -+5 culture
Opera House -+5 culture
Temple -+3 culture
Broadcast tower -Doubles culture output


(3)Science Cities / GP farms

Since beakers are produced by the population (one beaker per citizen) and specialists. Science cities would need to be near abundant food resources and look to grow as large as they can. So you’d want to lay down a bunch of farms. Another important fact to note is that the obsevatory is available if your city is built next to a mountain, so thats another thing to keep in mind when selecting the location for that mega science city.

Buildings –

Granary -+2 food
Hospital -+50% less food for growth
Library -+1 science for every 2 citizens
Medical Lab -25% less food for growth
Obsevatory -+50% science (City needs to be built next to a mountain)
Public school -+50% science
Research lab -+100% science
University -+50% science & +2 science from worked jungle

Given that your science cities are now going to be basically food heavy cities that grow large as they can, these same cities can be your GP farms. So, in essence your science cities will also double as your GP farms.


(4)Production cities

As in the past, terrain which can be mined, with access to food resource(s) and / or river tiles for feeding the population will be ideal. You can benefit from the solar plant if your production city is near a dessert. Also avoid building production cities on hills whenever possible to get the benefit of a windmill.

Buildings –

Factory -+50% production
Hydro plant -+1 production for river tiles (consumes 1 Aluminium)
Nuclear plant -+25% production (consumes 1 uranium)
Solar plant -+25% production (city needs to be on or near a dessert)
Windmill -+15% production (city cannot be on a hill)
Workshop -+20% construction speed of buildings

(5)Military Production cities

These are basically production cities heavily specialized for military unit production. With the significant reduction in the number of military units, I would assume you would only need about 2 such cities, however I guess we will need to judge after having played the game.

Everything under production cities above applies, in addition to which the following buildings would help further specialize the Military production city.

Buildings –

Barracks -+15 XP for land units
Armory -+15 XP for land units
Military Academy -+15 XP for land units
Forge -+15% production of land units (requires iron “nearby&#8221
Arsenal -+20% production of land units
Stable -+25% production of mounted units (requires a source of horse “nearby&#8221


Generic Buildings for all cities

In addition to the above, I would assume that the following buildings which are focused on growth as well as happiness would usually be present in most if not all cities.

Colosseum -+4 happy
Stadium -+4 happy
Theatre -+4 happy
Circus -+3 happy (needs horse or ivory nearby)

Granary -+2 food
Hospital -50% less food for growth
Medical lab -25% less food for growth
Watermill -+2 food (city must bordering a river)


Also the following buildings would be needed in all cities if you plan on building the respective National wonders.

Museum - Hermitage
Barracks - Heroic Epic
Workshop -Iron works
Library -National College
Monumen -National Epic
University -Oxford University

Do let me know what you think ...

 

[yanner39]

Good post and analysis Shafi. I've been thinking about specilization as well. I'm glad someone summarized it.

City specilization is what I think gives the human player an advantage over the AI so I definately think specialization is the way to go.

I would just add that a happiness center could also be created. Because happyness is empire wide, you could possibly have a city with a Granary and a circus, colosseum, and other happyness boosting buildings.

EDIT: A happiness centre is pointless. My mistake. As per the guide, 2 colosseums provide twice as much happiness as just one colosseum. So therefore, you would probably want happiness buildings in all your cities as needed.

 

[AntaranDream]

Can you build all of the different power plants in one city or do they exclude each other?

 

[Pragmatic]

Observatory apparently requires access to a mountain.

 

[JollyRoger]

I would think you could set up happiness cities where the first priority is happiness since the additional happiness is generically applied to the cap instead of the particular city. This focus allows you to perhaps bypass happiness buildings for cities with a different focus.

 

[Shafi-is-back]

Can you build all of the different power plants in one city or do they exclude each other?

I have noit seen anything to say that they are mutually exclusive and given the way they operate you cant just plop all three down in every city.

If you have uranium you can put down a nuclear plant in every city BUT that would cost you 1 uranium for EACH nuclear plant.

You can only build a solar plant if your city is on or near a dessert (obviously you may only have one or two such cities).

Hydro plant uses up 1 aluminium for EACH plant set up, so of course you would need to make an informed decision.

from what i have heard aluminium and uranium are scarce so, you may just have one or only two mega production cities. (there maybe other production cities, but you probably wouldnt put power plants in them for above reasons)

 

[Shafi-is-back]

Observatory apparently requires access to a mountain.

Thank you. Will edit that.

 

[Shafi-is-back]

I would just add that a happiness center could also be created. Because happyness is empire wide, you could possibly have a city with a Granary and a circus, colosseum, and other happyness boosting buildings.

I would think you could set up happiness cities where the first priority is happiness since the additional happiness is generically applied to the cap instead of the particular city. This focus allows you to perhaps bypass happiness buildings for cities with a different focus.

Whilst theoretically you can do so, it would not make much sense IMHO. since the same city can also be specialised to do one of the above tasks. (I.e. Gold, Science, Culture, Production), what could be done though is to set up such a city and build all available happy buildings before beginning on the specialisation of the city.

So far, my vote is on putting all the happy buildings in every city. Lets see how it goes when we get the game

 

[SirTurtle]

Good write-up!

1. I have one disagreement. There should not be separate culture cities. Rather culture buildings should be handled in a similar way as happiness buildings: every city should have them (when possible). Since social policy costs increase with more cities, having low culture cities in your empire will be a impediment to your entire civ's social progress.

2. There's another possible axis on which one could distinguish their cities: major cities vs minor cities.

• Minor cities would have only happiness and culture buildings, plus any buildings required for national wonders. They would be kept at a relatively low population and have relatively few tiles allocated to them. The purpose of these cities would be to control territory and resources, plus hopefully be a net source of happiness and culture.
• Major cities would have a high population and many buildings. These major cities could be specialized into the classes described in the OP such as gold, science and production.

 

[JollyRoger]

So far, my vote is on putting all the happy buildings in every city. Lets see how it goes when we get the game

Building every happiness building in every city waters down "specialization" as a concept.

 

[bjbrains]

I don't think you'll want more happy buildings than necessary unless you plan on utilizing Piety, where organized religion/Mandate of heaven increase the benefit of having surplus happiness.

Also, doesn't it make sense to make happiness buildings in your production cities? I mean, you don't want to take away the focus from your other cities. Cultural buildings will be more of a "in any/every city when I have time" thing.

 

[WeaselSlapper]

Good write-up!

2. There's another possible axis on which one could distinguish their cities: major cities vs minor cities.

• Minor cities would have only happiness and culture buildings, plus any buildings required for national wonders. They would be kept at a relatively low population and have relatively few tiles allocated to them. The purpose of these cities would be to control territory and resources, plus hopefully be a net source of happiness and culture.
• Major cities would have a high population and many buildings. These major cities could be specialized into the classes described in the OP such as gold, science and production.

I'm guessing your description of "minor cities" will most likely be your military production cities, since you normally only need a few highly productive tiles to be able to create good production in a city.

One flaw I do have to point out in the overall specialization strategy is that I think the strategy requires too many cities overall. Keep in mind every extra city adds additional unhappiness and higher required for civics. My guess is that most civilizations won't have more than five or seven cities. Especially since your best cities will be the ones you build yourself because it seems that captured cities add permanent unhappiness so even building more then 5-7 cites will probably be problematic unless on a lightly populated map.

 

[WeaselSlapper]

It seems that the Devs are trying to remove some elements of city specialization. With specialists now causing extra unhappiness and many national wonders require buildings to be built in all cities it seems specialization will be greatly weakened. There will probably be some specialization, but my guess is that every city will produce some happiness, culture, and maybe some science. I think we will only see two types of specialized cities, commerce and production with commerce cities also building science buildings.

But that's just my 2 cents.

 

[Shafi-is-back]

OMG ... so many different opinions ... and yet none seems wrong .... only few days to go .... so what do i do ... which way do i go .... my head is spinning ..... * passes out*

 

[RD-BH]

It seems that the Devs are trying to remove some elements of city specialization. With specialists now causing extra unhappiness and many national wonders require buildings to be built in all cities it seems specialization will be greatly weakened. There will probably be some specialization, but my guess is that every city will produce some happiness, culture, and maybe some science. I think we will only see two types of specialized cities, commerce and production with commerce cities also building science buildings.

But that's just my 2 cents.

I disagree.
I see nothing preventing the same level of specialization as Civ IV.
[edit]
To clarify:
... Civ IV Specialist cause 1 unhappiness
... Civ V Specialist cause 1 unhappiness
... ... with the right social policy they only cause 1/2 unhappiness
... ... you can run 2 Specialist for cost of one!
... This makes GP Farm more likely, not less.
[end_edit]

 

[DalekDavros]

Also, doesn't it make sense to make happiness buildings in your production cities? I mean, you don't want to take away the focus from your other cities. Cultural buildings will be more of a "in any/every city when I have time" thing.

Yes, certain happiness buildings make sense everywhere. Not every happiness building has the same ratio of happiness provided to production/upkeep cost, so it'd make sense to spam the ones with a better ratio in every city before trying to build the less efficient ones in a specialized "happiness city." Plus, some can only be built with certain resources nearby. E.g., every city near horses should probably build a circus.

 

[_hero_]

There is one serious problem with this. You're GP farms can't be cities that only build science buildings. The slots to train GP are opened by the building type. A Science city that mainly has those buildings you listed would only be able to pop out scientist GPs. They'd have few or no slots for training the other GPs.

You're GP cities simply must specialize in whatever GP they are trying to pop out. The other option is to have GP cities generalize. A few of each building. Since GP points only reset for the type of GP that pops out, you can train each GP separately without wasting any GP points. This is a great improvement from civ IV's method IMO, where you randomly got one of the GPs that you'd put points into based on the % of points.

 

[Shafi-is-back]

There is one serious problem with this. You're GP farms can't be cities that only build science buildings. The slots to train GP are opened by the building type. A Science city that mainly has those buildings you listed would only be able to pop out scientist GPs. They'd have few or no slots for training the other GPs.

You're GP cities simply must specialize in whatever GP they are trying to pop out. The other option is to have GP cities generalize. A few of each building. Since GP points only reset for the type of GP that pops out, you can train each GP separately without wasting any GP points. This is a great improvement from civ IV's method IMO, where you randomly got one of the GPs that you'd put points into based on the % of points.

True. But what do you usually do with your GP farms? for me it is almost always scientists. Engineers would be nice but how many buildings give slots for engineers? i assume not many.
Great Artists can be farmed from the culture cities, and if you want a great merchant run some merchants in the gold city.
I am not saying your wrong, but i would still think that a large percentage of the GP's i would want are scientists and hence would use the science cities for GP generation.

 

[playshogi]

Engineer slots are available with factory, workshop and windmill, the earliest is workshop at metal casting. But many early wonders provide GE points: pyramids, stonehenge, great wall. Building 1 of these could provide an early GE.

 

[_hero_]

True. But what do you usually do with your GP farms? for me it is almost always scientists. Engineers would be nice but how many buildings give slots for engineers? i assume not many.
Great Artists can be farmed from the culture cities, and if you want a great merchant run some merchants in the gold city.
I am not saying your wrong, but i would still think that a large percentage of the GP's i would want are scientists and hence would use the science cities for GP generation.

First of all, there are 3 buildings that provide slots for artists, engineers, and merchants, and 4 that provide for scientists. I can't remember if each building provides 2 slots or if some provide 3 some 2 and some 1. Either way, scientists do probably have a slight advantage in total slots.

Second of all, it may not be as clear cut for scientists as it used to. Gold is supposedly more valuable in Civ V than previous civs as there are more things to do with it than previous versions. Thus merchants might actually be worthwhile now. On top of giving a large amount of gold, trade missions also increase influence with the city-state, so it's kind of a double whammy, as it seems a major use of gold is getting friendly and allied with city states. Another use of gold is a 30 turn research pact. 150 gold for a 15% research increase in science for 30 turns probably gets you more techs than than one scientist. I'd guess a trade mission gives more than 150 gold so this might be the way to go now. Engineers are obviously useful and now that it seems like a very small number of wonders go obsolete that makes rushing wonders even more desirable (Bradygames guide only shows The Colossus as going obsolete but this may be inaccurate).