automation and city buildings

[leroyparnelly]

How much do you use automation of cities, workers, specialists, etc.? Also, in your cities, are you very selective of what buildings get built? I have found that I tend to try to build every building in every city I can and I think I'm missing the boat on how to do this best. I'm new to civ (probably obvious) and find myself getting "lost" in the mid to late game. Suggestions?? thanks!!

 

[Pantastic]

You want to manually run workers, automatic workers disrupt their own improvements and build to many expensive roads. In the very early game I usually manually manage all of the tiles in my capital and one other city, since getting an extra pop before starting a settler or finishing that worker 2 turns early makes a big difference. As the game goes on, I just use the general focus buttons unless I'm doing something really odd in a city. You want to try to specialize cities if you can, having a few good production cities for wonders and military units is really handy.

Note that the automation buttons act weird if your happiness drops below 0 or -10, for some reason the emphasize food and emphasize production buttons seem to switch functions. Also, from what I've been reading, I should probably manually force more scientists to pop great scientists.

You want to be pretty selective about what gets built, the maintenance costs will crush you if you're not. Generally every city needs culture buildings (borders and policies) and happiness buildings, and probably a workshop. The economic buildings are good everywhere since they're free, most cities want to build them ASAP after a monument, though production cities generally want to build other things first. Libraries are great and cheap enough to put everywhere. Only a few specialist cities need things like barracks and armory. Generally your capital and production cities might want granaries/water mills, other cities don't need high growth, and maritime city-states are generally the best way to get lots of spare food. Always look at your civ's unique buildings, some of them are really great and change what you should be building.

Remember that all units cost maintenance, including captured workers. In a lot of games I capture a ton of workers during war, fully improve all of my existing cultural areas, then disband all but a few (like 1 for every 2-3 cities). You don't need a unit garrisoning each city like in old versions of civ, that can be a huge cost.

 

[renegadechicken]

An excellent summary, Pantastic-- thanks!

 

[OTAKUjbski]

How much do you use automation of cities, workers, specialists, etc.?

Never, never, sometimes, etc.

Also, in your cities, are you very selective of what buildings get built? I have found that I tend to try to build every building in every city I can and I think I'm missing the boat on how to do this best. I'm new to civ (probably obvious) and find myself getting "lost" in the mid to late game. Suggestions?? thanks!!

When playing on difficulties below King, you can build whatever you want wherever you want with pretty much no thought. Starting at Prince, you should definitely adopt selective building practices -- else maintenance will bury you.

For the most part, the only buildings you should want in every city are Monument, Temple (optional when playing as France, imo), Library & Market. If you have the money to rushbuy a Workshop, do that first -- otherwise I tend to skip it, since the lifelong savings usually don't add up.

As with many previous CIV editions (esp cIV), you want a core of specialized cities. Depending on the land, I usually have a Core3 (Science, Gold, Military Production) or a Core5 (Core3 + Wonders, Gold) with all associated applicable buildings. Every other city gets the basics plus happiness buildings.

NOTE: Because of the lack of production, I tend not to build happiness buildings in my core cities until vital -- simply because there are more important things to be doing (building specialist buildings, working commerce tiles, being specialists, etc).​

 

[leroyparnelly]

Thanks!! That's helpful!!

 

[K1ler]

I still wonder if there is not some hidden mechanics. I have played four games so far, Germany, Greece, France and now Rome. Germany was a learning game, yet money was not much of a problem. Greece was a cakewalk. France was harder. But now, as a Rome I managed to get 5 cities and yet I am glad if my cashflow is around +10 per turn. All games were on the normal difficulty.

 

[Tarkeel]

I still wonder if there is not some hidden mechanics. I have played four games so far, Germany, Greece, France and now Rome. Germany was a learning game, yet money was not much of a problem. Greece was a cakewalk. France was harder. But now, as a Rome I managed to get 5 cities and yet I am glad if my cashflow is around +10 per turn. All games were on the normal difficulty.

It really depends on if you start with a river or not. Starts without rivers and luxuries are brutal on your income.

 

[Pantastic]

It really depends on if you start with a river or not. Starts without rivers and luxuries are brutal on your income.

A river is really helpful since it's extra gold for free. Luxuries are not bad, but I'd really rather have forests, mountains and 1-2 food resources (cows, deer, wheat) along the river for the capital. In the really early game, your actual income is dwarfed by huts, barbs, and OB/luxury sales, but getting an extra pop point before working on settlers or being able to work a mine without starving is huge.

IMO a quick-building capital and a 2nd and 3rd city seizing resources gives you a stronger start, and the more rivers anywhere the better.