Where should the NC be built?

[Bamboocha]

The NC (National College) is considered a very important national wonder especially in high level play because it gives you loads of science, allowing you to catch up to the insane AI. Usually where to build it isn't a hard question to answer: the most populated city (ie. the one that generates the most science, for the +50% bonus to be maximized) which is usually your capital.

The problem arises when you also have a city that isn't the capital, isn't your most populated city... but is constructed next to a mountain (while the capital is not). Later on this allows you to build the observatory, which gives you +50% science as well. The question is: what is better in this case? Should you just build the NC in the capital and take the observatory in your mountain city as a nice bonus, or should you build the NC in your mountain city to stack two +50% bonusses?

 

[Browd]

If I am confident that I can send enough food caravans to my mountain city to make it as large, or larger, than my capital, I might build NC in the mountain city, but that has to be compellingly obvious at the time I build my NC. All too frequently, that mountain city will be settled pretty late, so building the NC there will take excruciatingly long, leading me to default back to my capital.

 

[Iamteehee]

Since science bonuses are additive, building the NC in the observatory city instead of the capital will yield science equal to half of how much more base science the observatory city is making over the capital. This also doesn't really include the fact that building the NC in the capital and sending trade routes to it allows you to take advantage of things like landed elite and monarchy if you are going tradition.

 

[claudiupb]

If you run tradition it's always the capital, Landed elite gives exclusive bonuses for capital, and monarchy allows it to grow twice as much as any other city. The bonuses are additive anyway so it does not matter if the capital does not get an observatory and an expo does. The city with the best potential for base science (before multiplicators) should get it. Unless you have an expo with lake Victoria as Spain, I don't think other cities will qualify.

 

[joncnunn]

95%+ of the time, NC should be built in the capital. It needs to be built so early that chances are extremely high that the capital's production is much higher than all other cities built.

It basically takes hitting the Natural Wonder jackpot as Spain (such as El Dorado or Deep Sea Rift only a few tiles away from Madrid) to found the second city so quickly that it could compete with the capital for production that early; and if you've hit this jackpot you've probably already won the game anyway.

 

[apocalypse105]

Allways capital but on rare ocasions where you didnt go tradition and youre capital is food poor and youre other city has massive bonus food resources and lots of food and grows faster then the capital then there.

rules:

tradition = capital NC
liberty = NC capital if largest city and lots of food if grows slow capital use city who has larger population.