Too much of a good thing: Financial & Stone

[carl corey]

Usually when I get stone near my capital in a good city location I aim for the Great Wall and the Pyramids. Most of the time I have to build/chop them in the capital, as that second (or third) city isn't up to the task of completing both. That means the capital will have a GE pool for now, and I could add the Great Library in it with the first GE. It all points to a SE with the capital as main GP farm, which makes Bureaucracy very unattractive.

On the other hand, with a Financial civ I'd rather cottage the (usually) high food capital early on for a good boost in research. Boost that becomes more important with the arrival of Bureaucracy.

So what do you do when you have a combination of these two elements? Run the capital as a GP farm and hope to take out an AI to move the capital to his own? Cottage your capital and forget about Pyramids? Separate the Great Library from the GE city? That usually means that in the long run you'll get way more GSs since the GL city will have a faster GP generation rate. Somehow it seems a waste of the GE points in the capital. Anyway, I haven't found a proper solution so far. I know it depends on the map , but I'd like to hear everyone's experiences with this.

 

[Jet]

Personal experience I don't know, but if it's a Financial leader with the Pyramids and a good cottage capital, I'd simply cottage it, and even put the Great Library there if building the Great Library is in the plan. Representation and Caste System don't in any way decrease the value of a Bureaucracy capital. Just run specialists in one or more other cities and let the different GP generators leapfrog each other.

If the capital is natural for a GP farm rather than cottages, fine, run specialists there. Maybe you can then take advantage of Vassalage instead. Or move the Palace, or whatever.

Now, it would be an unusual circumstance where I'd go so far as to put Oxford in a non-cottage city with a Financial leader. In a war game with a low science rate and Caste System and/or settled Great Scientists, I guess maybe.

I might easily however put an Academy in a non-cottage city if I had Representation plus Caste System and/or the Great Library. Even without Caste System, the Academy would still boost the Representation beakers from the 1 Engineer + 2 Scientists + 4 Merchants or whatnot. Or, I would not a priori be reluctant to build the Academy and run some specialists, but fewer than the maximum, and some cottages.

 

[cabert]

Pyramids can be used for other things than representation.
Police state for example

 

[AlessioCerci]

.....or universal suffrage

 

[cabert]

.....or universal suffrage

true but useless as long as you have no towns and aren't swimming in money

 

[futurehermit]

The extra happiness bonus from representation alone is worthwhile.

I would still cottage the capital and other good commerce cities. But then look for some good surplus-food cities to run some specialists. Your capital can often run 2 specialists as well and still grow working lots of cottages. So, putting the GL in your capital can be ok because even with 2+2 scientists you will produce a consistent string of GSs.

However, if you can put the GL in a high-food city (possibly an enemy capital) then that is the way to go.

But mainly the bonus from rep is great. And the GE is great as well. Of course in the xpac the GW gives GSpy pts instead of GE.

 

[sveusb]

There is also the possibility of moving your capital later. Now, you can use the capital bonuses to build what you need in this city. You could move your capital to an enemy capital.

 

[Bjorn190]

How about this? Cottage everything except special resources, and get the GP points from the wonders.. settle all the ppl in the town, unless you need them for a fast tech.. then build the national epic and the oxford university in that capital town. This way 400-700 beakers output from your capital can be possible.