Building Research, Gold, or neither?

[iggymnrr]

Focusing on your victory condition, and, perhaps, tactical nessecity, is good advice. In the later stages of a space race, a lot of my smaller cities will be set to wealth/research. If there a some trees around these cities, I will put a useful building below wealth/research and chop away. (Hammers will pile up.) When enough trees have been chopped, I will then move the building up in the queue to finish it and then return to wealth/research mode. (You can also do this with spaceship parts.)

 

[lymond]

Focusing on your victory condition, and, perhaps, tactical nessecity, is good advice. In the later stages of a space race, a lot of my smaller cities will be set to wealth/research. If there a some trees around these cities, I will put a useful building below wealth/research and chop away. (Hammers will pile up.) When enough trees have been chopped, I will then move the building up in the queue to finish it and then return to wealth/research mode. (You can also do this with spaceship parts.)

So chopped hammers are essentially "banked" when building wealth/research/culture, as opposed to feeding it? I didn't realize that although I haven't tried it either way - I usually kill off the trees pretty quick anyway. However, if it works that way it could be quite useful, especially when you have nothing else to build other than the said desired building.

 

[lymond]

I rarely switch a city to building Wealth, Research or Culture because it appears that hammers don't translate into gold, beakers or culture points on a one-to-one basis.

I'm honestly not very good with the complicated math aspect of the game, primarily because it bores me. All I know is that once I started to utilize the build w/r/c feature, my game has improved dramatically.

 

[mcneebs]

All of my cities get every building because I believe they all have a purpose.

Jails, Intelligence Agency's, Security Bureau's, etc work towards national security.

Markets, Mall's, Grocer's, Granary's, etc work towards providing food and increasing city health

Banks, Courthouses, Custom's Houses' etc work towards bringing higher income

Broadcast Towers, Theatres, Temples, etc work towards increasing Culture and increasing city happiness.

So yes, all buildings have a purpose, it doesn't matter what type of city you want to build, building everything in every city will increase your national Approval Rates, Life Expectancy, etc.

Also, make sure that when you are able to, build corporations into your cities. (provided you play BtS)

I can't stress enough how strongly the opinions of the experts vary here (not to say that I'm an expert). This is a common mistake that many players make, and one that takes while to break the habit of (and one I still often make myself). Every city does not need everything, because different cities should have very different purposes. Building a market in a city that makes very little is a waste. Yes you might be getting 2 or 3 more per turn, but you could have instead spent the on something more useful for your city, like perhaps a forge if you're making a ton of in that city.

This is the real basics of city specialization, building what you need, where you need it. On another note, if you can build every building in every city and still win, you're difficulty setting is too low.

 

[Silu]

I usually try for the space-race victory, which is obviously heavily dependent on tech. Thus, does it make sense to build unis, libraries, observatories in all the cities (even those which are specialized for production as opposed to commerce)?

Generally, yes, but not until late. In the late game city specialization isn't as binary, as stuff like Towns start to get and Windmills . Trade routes are other significant lategame source of which benefits all cities. At the very least you will want an Observatory for Laboratories when you're building your spaceship.

Some thinking is required to choose between when to start building Wealth/Research instead of less useful infra.