Are allies important, and a few other questions...

[funxus]

I'm not sure I understand your question, if I haven't I'm sorry.

I think a good reason is usually isn't that you've run out of other things to build, but that your city needs the improvement. If the city is on the verge of a disorder, get it a temple/MP, if it has good trade build a library, if it's reaching size 8/12 build sewers and aqueducts, if it has a lot of shields build a factory. The opposite of a good reason is to build an MP in a city with no lux and very little gold or an aqueduct in a size 5 city.

 

[mardukes]

I guess what I meant by diagnosis is what am I doing wrong. I think I understand there is a specific need for a temple, library leverages trade and get the aqueducts up before a box of grain gets flushed. I was suggesting in my question that there are situations where I can't do anything else but build caravans, so I build walls or marketplace or something that I can't say has a good reason. When are the caravans better? Etc.

 

[ElephantU]

Originally posted by mardukes
...there are situations where I can't do anything else but build caravans, so I build walls or marketplace or something that I can't say has a good reason. When are the caravans better?

Caravans are better than any other "got nothing else to do" build. If they are commodities, you can cash them in for gold and beakers; if they are food, you can save them for wonders or spaceship parts. Even if the caravans are not demanded you still get a payout, it is just lower.

 

[Achinz]

You can also use food-caravans to unblock commodities in another of your cities particularly your SSC (important if rehoming of caravans is not allowed by the rules). As usual, the reference is the solo guide.

Edit: removed redundancy.

 

[harperbruce]

Originally posted by Titi

Finally, I don't bother to have "specialized" cities. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think you can afford not to have the various improvements that allow happiness, gold and production. IMHO, even if you want an "industrial city" somewhere, you'll need coliseum, temple, cathedral (or get the wonder that gives you one in every city - I'm not sure of the name it has in the English version) otherwise your city will not work because of unhapiness !

Quite correct. I suspect that people who play "specialized" cities still have many of the basic needs in the other cities. In my experienced, you're rather forced to build, anyway, until you discover Corporation and can set a city to Capitalization, so it's impossible to not build something. The Super Science City concept is to build a city with a ton of trade (such as on a long river or seacoast; water does great things for trade), and plant the trade and science-boosting Wonders in that city. But if the rest of your empire suffers from neglect.... (shrug) This may be my philosophy because I play MPG, where the AI is apparently more aggressive, and you need a good deal of backup support when you get sneak-attacked. But the way I build seems to work for my style.