Capital City poor production

[radsailor]

I have only been playing CIV 4 for a few weeks on first three levels. I notice that in contrast to Civ 3, my capital city always has weak hammer production. Am I doing something wrong or is this a quirk of the game?

 

[cabert]

I have only been playing CIV 4 for a few weeks on first three levels. I notice that in contrast to Civ 3, my capital city always has weak hammer production. Am I doing something wrong or is this a quirk of the game?

what do you call weak?
in the early game, 20/25 hammers is a lot
often, my capital has a lot of food (specials), which gets converted to hammers through slavery

 

[radsailor]

this problem persists throughout the game and I have played several all the way through to 2050.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Start of the game that depends on how many hills you have around the Capital (and if you have researched Mining.. without mining there is almost no way to get good production.

just after the start (after resarching, Bronze, Iron, and Animals) it depends on how many of those +production resources (copper, Iron, Horses) you have [and the Hills].

By the late game it depends on what improvements you built around your Capital... did you build Mines and Workshops or Cottages and Windmills.

 

[radsailor]

I usually build cottages and then once things get "busy" on the map I automate the workers. I guess automating the workers is probably the problem. Don't yell.

 

[michael4000]

It could be just a relative thing. In CIV III, you got used to seeing your capital as a powerhouse because corruption reduced the production of most other cities that weren't right next door to virtually nothing. In CIV IV, that doesn't happen, so even if your capital is doing quite well it's not necessarily going to be the end-all and be-all of your empire's production.

 

[michael4000]

Oh, and can I be the first one to say it?

You really shouldn't be automating those workers.

 

[Corporal Kindel]

I have only been playing CIV 4 for a few weeks on first three levels. I notice that in contrast to Civ 3, my capital city always has weak hammer production. Am I doing something wrong or is this a quirk of the game?

It's been my experience that most cities have weak hammer production at first. Later in the game some cities (near hills, iron mines, etc) will improve hammer production, others (usually near coast) will always have a weak hammer production that's only overcome by building forges, factories, etc. Late in the game food is the problem, and I'm always having to convert mines to windmills in order to keep my cities in the green (growing). Biology helps a lot late in the game to increase city size (+1 food for farms).

Early in the game you have to substitue populatin for hammers (slavery & whipping), and use workers to chop trees in cities with low hammer output, otherwise they stagnate too much & get behind.

 

[michael4000]

Later in the game some cities... will always have a weak hammer production that's only overcome by building forges, factories, etc.

Hmm, that brings up a question. I build forges and factories to capitalize on the strength of cities that have strong hammer production, and generally wouldn't bother with them in cities that don't produce many hammers. Am I screwing up?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

No that's generally a good idea, usually ppor hammer cities are better spent putting their few hammers into other buildings, however, getting the Forge/Factory means those other buildings are cheaper (even if you are Pop/Chop/Gold rushing them.)

 

[JonnyB]

It's not always best to establish your first city in the first turn, there may be a better spot 1 or 2 moves away. Waiting can really pay off in the long run... unless animals eat you.



I guess animals won't eat you. Thanks Cabert!

 

[cabert]

It's not always best to establish your first city in the first turn, there may be a better spot 1 or 2 moves away. Waiting can really pay off in the long run... unless animals eat you.

animals don't eat your first settler unless you wait a reallllllly long time (more than 10 turns!).

 

[Corporal Kindel]

Hmm, that brings up a question. I build forges and factories to capitalize on the strength of cities that have strong hammer production, and generally wouldn't bother with them in cities that don't produce many hammers. Am I screwing up?

The thing is though, I don't want a production-poor city to spend half the game building one Confucian Temple. It's been my experience that forges ( Metal Smelting? can't remember the tech name right off-hand ) is usually gotten early in the game, and coupled with slavery & "whipping" one can usually fairly quickly build a forge in just about every one of your early cities in a reasonable amount of time. I think having a forge really helps a city's production output (in early to mid-game). Later in the game, you need factories because the buildings seem to increase in cost as the game goes on (Factories, Drydocks, and Universities are much more production-expensive than Graneries, Temples, and Lighthouses, for example). I think it's important to keep up with the production increase (on huge maps with 11 AIs), otherwise you'll lose many of the wonders to AIs (which happens anyway, but I like to get a good proportion of them). On smaller maps, it's probably not that important (against just two or three AIs).

 

[napoleonbee]

I find a lot of starts I get are forest-heavy with grasslands or plains underneath with few (if any) hills, and of course once I chop those forests their production (and health) turns into the commerce/food of a cottage/farm. Your problem could be cutting down too many trees in the fat cross of the capital, if you're chopping for a wonder or a settler or something else important, you might want to chop a forest outside the fat cross but close enough so that the hammers won't go to another city. That's not always feasible, however. I would say keep the forest tiles you're able to work in the fat cross for a while in the early game until you have a good production city set up, then you can start replacing them with whatever it is you need. I usually start by chopping the ones by rivers and putting cottages there for the extra commerce. Speaking of rivers, many starts are also river-heavy, and once you unlock watermills you can turn your capital into a powerhouse that way if you wish.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Hmm, that brings up a question. I build forges and factories to capitalize on the strength of cities that have strong hammer production, and generally wouldn't bother with them in cities that don't produce many hammers. Am I screwing up?

I don't think that's screwing up. A forge and factory does let you use an engineer specialist if you want to increase total production in that city later for whatever reason. If you micromanage, you could make an economic case if you had a really long production horizon for that city (so many hammers invested in a forge returns a hammer increase, paying off in x turns). But if you don't need the production in that city (well developed non-production city), a forge would only be for the happiness bonus.

 

[HectorSpector]

It's not always best to establish your first city in the first turn, there may be a better spot 1 or 2 moves away. Waiting can really pay off in the long run... unless animals eat you.



I guess animals won't eat you. Thanks Cabert!

I think I've yet to play a game where the settler's starting position wasn't the best for my capital.