Wonder Economy / Super Specialists

[kivanc]

I am planning to kick my game up to Monarch, first time ever, using the WE. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago (post nr. 149) that I often regenerate the map 20-30 times looking for an "ideal, perfect, optimum" site for my wonder capital, but that I often am unclear of just what it is I am looking for, besides stone and/or marble.

In other words, what should an ultimate site for the capital's BFC look like? Half hills, half grassland? More food or more something else? More floodplains than hills? Coastal or inland? Any happy resources? More of one thing and less of something else?

Because of the increased difficulty that Monarch will entail, all of these considerations are making my head spin. I understand that certain leaders will have different "ultimate" sites. For this upcoming game, I am going to use either Augustus or Huayna Cupac.

Please feel free to use WB and post an image or two of what you would consider to be a wickedly fine WE capital site, even is such a place would never show up in the game. I, for one, would then have a much better idea of what it is that I should be looking for.

--DeadDark

i suppose the attached screenshot prepared with WB (as you've requested) seems to be the best possible BFC for a WE game.

details:
* mostly grassland, since plains suck
* mostly forested tiles, gerat for chopping
* 2 unforested grassland/hills near a river which can give 1food, 3 hammers and 1 commerce even without teh need for bronze working.
* 1 gems which is very great for tech. gems and silver are always better than gold mines
*5-6 hills
* setteling on a plains/hill
* 2 happiness resources
* coastal city which will enable you to build sea wonders, still very few sea tiles sicne water tiles suck for production
* a very good BFC with high food and good pruction, also near the river. you will not have any health problem as well
* the BFC woudl be even much better if it was near a flood plaisn area or more food resoruces but still i didn't want to make it overpowered. this is a very good possible starting location, still not an utopia.

we can discuss furtehr on the BFC exampel if you would like.
don't stick on ALEX as a leader. it was just a mistake. i don't play with him much. on such a starting location, an imperalist leader like Augustus would be very good for a WE game. he could build teh 1st settler very fast, if he lieks to start building with a settler or a worker then a settler.

if you want a very good early and cheap production tiles, deer are very good. deers are good even without camps. especially if it is in your first 9 tiles, it enables vert fast settler production for IMP leaders.

and i didn't put the deer because it woudl really be overpowered. i assume, 3 food resoruces and 2 happiness resources (one of them being gems!) is already very powerful.

 

[DeadDark]

@ Camarilla: Many thanks for the great information! That is exactly what I was looking for. I understand what you meant by not putting in deer and some other bonuses--with WB, things can quickly and easily get out of control and crazy. "Wow, every single tile in my BFC has a great resource!"

Well, I am going to get this thing started. Like I said, my first Monarch game. I have a lot of jitters. I think my heart is racing, ha! Thanks again.

--DeadDark

 

[kivanc]

@ Camarilla: Many thanks for the great information! That is exactly what I was looking for. I understand what you meant by not putting in deer and some other bonuses--with WB, things can quickly and easily get out of control and crazy. "Wow, every single tile in my BFC has a great resource!"

Well, I am going to get this thing started. Like I said, my first Monarch game. I have a lot of jitters. I think my heart is racing, ha! Thanks again.

--DeadDark

you're welcome... hey friends, any more comments for my example?

i like to add a few details.

food and production is very imp for wodner city. your main wonder city (assuming capital) should grow fast and have a high prod.

if you have gold in BFC, that's good but don't work on it before 3/4. growth is more important in teh first scale.
2 food resources giving 5/6 food will be quite enough for fast growth, a 3rd food is really fantastic.
and about your flood/plains and hills question, of course hills.
i put 6 hills else than the settling tile in my example. you coudl also have 7/8 hills. if you have 2/3 food, it would be no problem.

in fact a pop like 20 is enough for a wonder city. your capital should grow fast but doesn't need to have a very high pop.

you can use anotehr city for a GP farm if you would like.
and farming flood plains is not a very good idea in early game as it brings early health cap. cottaging them is fine but you wouldn't like to do it in the wonder city. try not to build any cottages in wodner city.

a riverside city near a coast. well that'S rare in fact.
my example has limited and possible numebr of resoruces but it has fantastic features already if you would notice.
for example, elephants are very good. they bring good FHC and they gvie 1 happiness. and they enable war elephant which is best counter for knights.

if such a capti,al in the example seems to have a higher pop than 20, then assigning some engineers would be good. or you could also build workshops in some of the flat grassland tiles. by the way, i like State property very much.
it is very good for hammer economy (build wealth)

if you would play with Huayna Capac, you would probably have many cottage cities else than the capital. (you cna also have soem cottages within a SE as well, there isn't any such rule restricting this) so i would suggest you not to settle any of the great scientists. the best way to use them is to build academies in cottage-heavy cities.
a great scietist settled in a city gives 9 raw beakers while an academy in a cottage city can give a 25% more beakers on that city. it is roughly 20-25%, not 50% since the nonus is not multiplicative with university and otehr buildings. a 20-25% extra for a cottage city generally makes much higher than a settled gerat scientist. it makes much higher even if you settle him in an oxford university city. well, if you only have 5 cottage cities, then a 6th academy would be a waste. just count the beakers and decide like that.

i like long-term advantages so i don't use bulbing GSs. in immortal or deity level, it might be a requirement but i didn't need to waste them for bulbing up to emperor.

EDIT: by the way, a coastal city with 2 water tiles seems a litle fantastic. you wouldn't find such a location quite easily. so about your question, geenrally inland cities are better for wonders. if you would like to build TGL and oracle, a second wodner city near coast is also good.
frst priority is good production and fast growth.

 

[DMOC]

I agree with Camarilla about coastal capitals with 2 water tiles. These are the kind of capitals that can actually produce the Great Lighthouse. Of course, if you're going for that, you're going to need to make a sacrifice on another wonder (usually). In the end, it's just what the map dictates.

And for WE capitals, my main preference is STONE, then MARBLE, then FORESTS. Pray for a river, too, since lakes are really bad. An oasis (what's the plural for that?) isn't that bad (better than a lake in most cases anyway).

 

[kivanc]

I agree with Camarilla about coastal capitals with 2 water tiles. These are the kind of capitals that can actually produce the Great Lighthouse. Of course, if you're going for that, you're going to need to make a sacrifice on another wonder (usually). In the end, it's just what the map dictates.

And for WE capitals, my main preference is STONE, then MARBLE, then FORESTS. Pray for a river, too, since lakes are really bad. An oasis (what's the plural for that?) isn't that bad (better than a lake in most cases anyway).

yeah. sure stone and marble are very important. but it would be very rare for them to appear on a BFC. that's why i didn't put it in my BFC example. for me, i would be very bored to regenerate so many times until i find that resource in BFC and i believe it's sth like cheating practically.
especially, for a player that would like to try WE first time, stone in BFC isn't so good. Getting used to easy conditions is not an ideal way of learning, i believe.

besides this -getting used to comfort- issue, stone and marble should be early priorities for secondary cities. but while settling near them, don't neglect having strategic resources. another practical tactics for defense is archery.
even if you decide to defend with archers and postpone settling near bronze/horse, still you have to grab those resources to settle on later. find a way and don't let the enemy make you out of strategic resources. you will need them.
let's say you want a peaceful game. and you only have 2 neighbours;Pacal and Mansa Musa (or Gandhi etc), then in fact you don't need neither the horse nor the copper (until copper related wonders). with the IRON, you can train any copper-units anyway. such AIs like Gandhi won't declare and you can do w/o any strategic resource until iron. But iron is sure a must.

TGW/SH: if you want to pick 1 of TGW and SH, then choice should be clearly TGW for a WE game.
if you want to build the stonehenge and great wall both (i build both of them in most non-WE games as well) then you will need some chopping. otherwise you will not be able to build both or you have to postpone settler production until both are build. i generally build a worker, a settler, and then start building wonders.(i train a warrior when i need 1 more happiness)

stonehenge and great wall can easily be build together without the stone with a few chopping and fast growth. stone is important for the mids. so i suggest you not to hurry on settling near resource very much.
just research masonry, and all the worker techs and then settle near it. you can even build a road to the stone and settle after that. having it in first 8 not the 20 fat cross is better, still not an obligation.
try to have the stone before starting the mids.

adjusting the capital pop: it is a little micromanagement. when you need to hurry, hammers don't hep much so most prod comes from chopping. so i generally work best food tiles until 3. at pop3, i work a grassland/hill mine (1F/3H) and at pop4 i work a plains/hill mine (4H). if i have a hammer resource in capital, that's priority number 1. what are early game hammer resources?
not only copper, stone, marble but also deer, cow, horse, elephant.

for early fast teching, gems are very fine which gives 2 food. but still i wouldn't suggest working a pop on it before 3/4.

EDIT: about river/oasis/lake issue. not only for a WE capital and not only for a capital but for every city a river is a priority. it is a stonger priority for a WE capital because of LEVEE factor. The commerce is also the secondaruy factor about the strength of the river.
Else than commerce and levee factors, it is just a +2 health matter for me. i like water tiles but not much for a wonder city. so large lakes suck.
for a WE game, i would better have a farm and 1 more farm means 1 more pop, so it is practically 1 more specialist in the long term. so instead of a 2F,2C from a lake, i would have 4F from a farm and a 3C from the merchant.(plus the beakers with repr)

 

[kivanc]

@ Camarilla: Many thanks for the great information! That is exactly what I was looking for. I understand what you meant by not putting in deer and some other bonuses--with WB, things can quickly and easily get out of control and crazy. "Wow, every single tile in my BFC has a great resource!"

Well, I am going to get this thing started. Like I said, my first Monarch game. I have a lot of jitters. I think my heart is racing, ha! Thanks again.

--DeadDark

IMO, the main issue with the WE capital is about how you treat the tiles.
you cannot have very good resource combinations in BFC always but you can have a great WE capital out of a mediocre BFC as well.

you can see an example of such a mediocre BFC in my 2 screenshots of London in post 112.

there were only 1 animal and 1 agricultural food resource if I'm not missing any resource in that BFC picture. a 6hammer were there by the help of a quest, i think it was not an iron.
and the rest of them were lumbermills which are great for production.
well after working mainly farms until capital grows to happy cap, i continue with working on mines and lumbermills and workshops if i adopt SP.
if you really need the chopping, then workshops are good.
that London had only 3 hills but still it had over 200hammers even without the bureacracy civic. it becomes 300sth with the aluminum and build any unit in 1 turn in marathon.

that London built more than half of the spaceship itself.

 

[hairyman]

Hi, long time lurker, just registered...

Read through the first few pages of this thread the other day, it's a really useful guide to a way of playing I'd never considered before. Thanks.

Ran through a game with Rameses (Prince, large, epic) and while I was amazed at the hammers and beakers I was getting out of my capital, I did find that by the Renaissance era I was slowing down dramatically, especially with my research. Instead of out teching everyone, as per usual, I was on a par or slightly behind my nearest rivals. Ended up squeaking a space race victory by the skin of my teeth and much later than normal, some time in the 1990's.

I started with my capital and two other produciton cities to make units and one coastal city for commerce. I think I left myself with just these four cities for too long (until around Astronomy) before expanding through a fairly wasteful war and a couple of tundra cities (to grab oil). I'm guessing this would explain my slow research in the later period of the game? What sort of time would you recommend pushing yourself to 8-9 (?) cities from your original start of 3-4? I managed no cultural flipping, and because I'd been pumping out so many units my other cities were pretty underdeveloped. (Apologies if this has already been covered, it's a pretty daunting thread to read the whole way through from scratch!)

 

[kivanc]

I started with my capital and two other produciton cities to make units and one coastal city for commerce. I think I left myself with just these four cities for too long (until around Astronomy) before expanding through a fairly wasteful war and a couple of tundra cities (to grab oil). I'm guessing this would explain my slow research in the later period of the game? What sort of time would you recommend pushing yourself to 8-9 (?) cities from your original start of 3-4? I managed no cultural flipping, and because I'd been pumping out so many units my other cities were pretty underdeveloped. (Apologies if this has already been covered, it's a pretty daunting thread to read the whole way through from scratch!)

well, yeah. this seems to be the trick of civ4 anyway.
civ4 makes it hard to build more and more cities (economically) but the best way to guarantee the win is being large.
especially as you have been playing on large world, well you need a certain number of cities. in fact, we discussed this matter a little bit but not on first a few pages that you red maybe.
the larger size you select, the less the effect of the capital city settled super specialists is. so you need more cities for beakers for every step you make the world larger.

i prefer to get much larger during mid game. that stiffles my economy dramatically but i get back a skyrocket advantage after cities grew.

but how many secondary cities do we need for a guaranteed win(not a slight and hard win)?
i think this is one of the most important questions of civ4. why? because IMO, the answer of this question doesn't change much according to the following

* economy style you prefer
* what civ/leader you take
* what difficulty you play
* what map type you play
etc etc.

i believe answer of this question only changes according to the map size. i know, most players would prefer a smaller city number than mine but my preferrences are like the following (exampled as average for large world size and marathon speed)

* 3300 or 3000BC, build the second city. each new city you found should build a worker, then a defender unit, then a settler
* by 1AD, i generally have around 9-11 cities. and generally placed a little far from each other, leaving territory for me to fill in one by one inside
* during the end of the game, let's say 1800s, i have between 30-45cities, which makes nearly 30-35% of world territory without any vassal territory included.

by this number of cities, you will not miss any resources. during end of the game when i aim for a space victory, i generally can research the tech "future technology 1" in 10-12 turns (marathon) with this number of cities.

when I move up level, I still build the same numebr of cities, never less. that makes my "slow-down-research and expand both ways (horizontal/vertical)" period a bit longer (for every higher level i move) but gives the same result after that period is complete.

 

[hairyman]

I'll check the whole thread for the part on expansions as related to WE, thanks.

You aim for 35-40 cities?! My favourite victory types are cultural and space race, and I normally play on a large map. I only ever settle 6-7 cities, and top that up with up to five more from flipping, war, or taking barbarian settlements. The initial appeal to me on first reading this thread was that it presented an even more slimline way to run an ecomony, with the wonder capital doing the work of three or four normal cities. 35-40 sounds like those earlier versions of Civ, where you'd run out of ideas for new names for your cities!

I applaud your management skills... if I focused on settling that much I'd never get anything else done, and I'd probably be permanently running about 20% science until communism turned up.

 

[kivanc]

You aim for 35-40 cities?! My favourite victory types are cultural and space race, and I normally play on a large map. I only ever settle 6-7 cities, and top that up with up to five more from flipping, war, or taking barbarian settlements. The initial appeal to me on first reading this thread was that it presented an even more slimline way to run an ecomony, with the wonder capital doing the work of three or four normal cities. 35-40 sounds like those earlier versions of Civ, where you'd run out of ideas for new names for your cities!

yeah. in civ2, i used to build hundreds of cities
i don't want to give you a wrong idea. i don'y say building so many cities is about WE. it is common for me for all economy types and all leaders.

and i know most guys build very less cities like you but i believe, even if not 40, still you should build at least 25.

believe me, it gives the same result in every game. when you are so large, you need to slow down research for a long period, that's true. and on emperor that makes me behind in tech during mid game. but you can be sure that the result after 1500s will most of the time be the same. if you have 30-40 cities, you have guaranteed the win already.
after soem numebr of cities, you don't pay much for 1 more city anyway.

2 things are required for this:
A) an early strong economy for the first expansion wave. as this thread is about WE, let's put the example that way. so shortly every new great prophet settled will enable you to build 1 more city. you just look to the case this way. instead of increasing science slider after having a great prophet, you just build 1 more city. really. that's much better.
with this way, you will have to slow the research after a few turns and you will miss the mid game wonders. but who cares? you already had enough great prophets and otehr GPS with early wonders and then this enabels you to enlarge. and afetr soem period, as you have enlarged enough, no AI can race with you about the beakers. you will fall too much behind -maybe 10 techs- during mid game, but you will lead the tech after 1500s again. i generally can build all the later game wonders. mass media ones etc. because until that time, i become the tech leader already.
the key here is deciding when to slow researching. afetr each new great warring tech which are
1) BW or AH,
2) machinery+civil service
3) gunpowder
i slow down reserahc for some time and make war. expand and stiffle my economy. it's no problem for me to fall behind 5-10techs.

B) secodn requirement is having a strong ancient military. persia is the best candidate for this. celtia and rome are also good for ancient blitzkrieg. still, you can also do this with other leaders by ordinary axes. axes can have CR promos, so you always have the chance to kill. killing at least 1 neighbour is required during ancient era. and after maces time or gunpwder time, you shoudl kill the second. if you are persia, you shoudl be able to kill much more AIs. you cannot have enough number of cities, if you don't kill enough AIs.
why? because AI always REXes faster than the human. so just kill him before he overexpanded you.
another critical point here is about the number of units for attack. for your first killing, the number is 10. and you continue training while you are warring. with your first 15 units, you can kill 1/2 civs if you have attacked early enough.
during mid game, teh case is different. the best is travelling enemy territory with a spy or an explorer, counting its units, and multiplying this number by 2. if it has 15 cities. you train 30 attackers, plus 10 siege units. why 10? because attacking with 2 stacks is better, 3 isn't required much. and you need 5 siege unis for each stack.

roughly these are the numbers.
well, i suggest you to attack with 2times of number of enemy units by i generally train even more than that. if i need 30, i train 45. and afetr i kill teh 1st AI, the same army continues with the other neighbour.

 

[Kranden]

As long as you don't get attacked while your trying to wonder rush. Nothing says DOH like when your building the pyramids and 30 axemen just crossed your border

Also Camarilla I dig your style. I love playing on large maps with 15+ civs and massing an army of cities from the foes I conquer and enslave! Then Whip WHIP WHIP WHIP an army and keep on the warpath until my cities cant take any more unhappniess.

Fun fact Whipping cities from conquered nations is way more fun! mwahahha

 

[kivanc]

As long as you don't get attacked while your trying to wonder rush. Nothing says DOH like when your building the pyramids and 30 axemen just crossed your border

30axes during mids time isn't practically possible
and i don't leave my cities empty while rushing enemy.

by the way, you should sense who is preparing to attack you. for ex, as soon as justinian asks you for open borders, you should start training a lot of units.
if you have trained enough, then he will probably never declare. but if you don't train much after he asked for open borders agreement, then he will declare. he will declare if you have open borders or not.

EDIT: about whipping, i don't whip. i do it very very rarely. and i finish most games w/o even adopting slavery.
if you have enough number of cities, why would you whip? i can generally train 50 units w/o any whipping in a small time. 50 units is generally enough for mid-game killings.