capital = GP farm?

[cabert]

I found that very often, the best use of the capital is a combination of wonder + specialists.
It usually has more than one food ressource, and it's your first city, thus the city where you build your first wonders.
In addition, it's the city that gets to grow first, and reaches the happiness (and healthiness) cap fast.

Adding the bureaucracy bonus to specialists makes it a very efficient commerce city AND GP farm.

After a few games, where i tried to cottage it, i now think the farming / special ressources of the capital is the fastest/most effective way.

Why search for another GP farm, when you've got one from the start?

What do you guys think???

 

[Kurbads]

agree, so it happens in most my games. However, sometimes its a production core - after Bronze and Iron pops out. rear is the case of plain commerce.

 

[Black Waltz]

I found it made me a nice Science city in a game fairly recently. Of course I did move my palace (in order to cut mantanience) but it was a nice mix of floodplains and grasslands. With a lot of cottages and burocracy twas pumping out quite a respectable science/commerce. It helped also that I had a nice religeon founded there.

 

[the oob]

I find it makes a good combination GP/money city. It's good for GP for the above reasons, but since it usually becomes the holy city of your state religion, it gets the gold from the shrine (once you've built it, which you usually will). So I build the National Epic and Wall Street there, and once I have W.S I max out the merchant specialists so not only am I getting a lot of GP points but also a lot of money (each merchant produces 9 gold when you have a bank, grocer, marketplace, and W.S). This also makes it a good city to put any great merchant super specialists, since both the extra food and gold they provide are very useful in that city.

Of course, the tradeoff is that you're producing mostly merchant GP points, but this is only once you've got W.S, and by then you'll most likely already have the academies and shrines you need.

I prefer to use merchant specialists and shrines to generate gold for my gold city rather than cottages, since my science slider will usually be around 90%, in which case cottages provide very little gold (not to be confused with 'commerce' which becomes science and/or gold depending on your slider).

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Adding the bureaucracy bonus to specialists makes it a very efficient commerce city AND GP farm.

I don't think that works. Bureaucracy improves commerce and production, neither of which are delivered by specialists. So it's inefficient to be running specialists out of your capital when you are using that civic.

It may make sense to build the palace somewhere else, then turn your first city into a GP farm, but I'm still not sure - the capital is frequently notable for the large number of good tiles around it (ie improved tiles that are better than a specialist). I'd much rather have the same food surplus in a region where I don't have as many good tiles to work, because the opportunity cost of a specialist is lower.

 

[luckynick]

A GP farm need a trenmendous amount of good food tiles to be really effective.

The best nationnal wonder here are gloobe theatre + nationnal epic

If you have some hills it may become a good prod city too so it can be your cap for a while so you can build all needed building faster, but after that and until you need to build space part the +50% gold from bureaucraty is better so your palace should be put in a commerce city.

This is one of the reason i tend to have at least one or two improved production tiles available to all my commerce city so when i deeply need to build something quicker than with the usual +1-2 hammer of a pure commerce city, i can do it.

 

[cabert]

I don't think that works. Bureaucracy improves commerce and production, neither of which are delivered by specialists. So it's inefficient to be running specialists out of your capital when you are using that civic.

good point
I'll check, but it's very likely that science,culture,gold produced by specialists isn't included in the +50%commerce.
As for hammers by engineers, priests, or others, i don't know if it gains the +50% from bureaucracy. Must check.

thanks for the advice.

 

[cabert]

I find it makes a good combination GP/money city. It's good for GP for the above reasons, but since it usually becomes the holy city of your state religion, it gets the gold from the shrine (once you've built it, which you usually will). So I build the National Epic and Wall Street there, and once I have W.S I max out the merchant specialists so not only am I getting a lot of GP points but also a lot of money (each merchant produces 15 gold when you have a bank, grocer, marketplace, and W.S). This also makes it a good city to put any great merchant super specialists, since both the extra food and gold they provide are very useful in that city.

Of course, the tradeoff is that you're producing mostly merchant GP points, but this is only once you've got W.S, and by then you'll most likely already have the academies and shrines you need.

I prefer to use merchant specialists and shrines to generate gold for my gold city rather than cottages, since my science slider will usually be around 90%, in which case cottages provide very little gold (not to be confused with 'commerce' which becomes science and/or gold depending on your slider).

good strat
However i never had the case where my capital became a holy city.

 

[the oob]

good strat
However i never had the case where my capital became a holy city.

It's different for me since I usually beeline Polytheism for Hinduism, and by the time I get it I usually only have one or two cities.

 

[karmina]

Bureaucracy adds 50% hammers & commerce. Gold does not equal commerce; the only building adding commerce is the palace. Specialists don't add commerce, but beakers/gold/culture/hammers.

So, scientists don't profit from Bureaucracy, but priests and engineers do. Nonetheless I often find my capital to be a very nice GP factory for at least the first half of the game, when there are 2-3 good food tiles and not much good commerce tiles. If there isn't much food and/or e.g. 1-2 gold hills, the situation is different of course.

 

[maltz]

Just something to add:

I don't find the Globe theater very useful in a GP farm, since you will be running many specialists, each consuing 2 breads, the pop. doesn't grow very fast.

The only occassion I need to build a Globe theater in a GP farm is the GP farm is also a commerce city with lots of flood plains. But since I want more cottages to grow, that GP farm isn't doing very well in terms of GP points.

 

[cabert]

Just something to add:

I don't find the Globe theater very useful in a GP farm, since you will be running many specialists, each consuing 2 breads, the pop. doesn't grow very fast.

The only occassion I need to build a Globe theater in a GP farm is the GP farm is also a commerce city with lots of flood plains. But since I want more cottages to grow, that GP farm isn't doing very well in terms of GP points.

i agree, often globe theater isn't necessary
the oob's option of merchants specialists and wall street +national epic is very tempting.
putting a few GM in it, you could run your whole empire just from there.

 

[maltz]

Great Merchant farm may be nice, but I find myself usually very short-sighted.

In one game I want to Grenadier rush my next opponent, so I used the Economy free GM to a pop. 19 city on the other end of the world. I got 6900 G in this trade (Standard Pangaea, Marathon speed).

Now if you add a GM to a city, they provide 1 bread and 6 coins. Let's assume an ideal situation, that 6 coins is multiplied by market + grocer + bank + wallstreet, so it is a 200% bonus in total, 18 coins per turn. It would take me more than 350 turns to get 6900 G from that 18 coins per turn. A marathon game is about 1200 turns in total.

Each upgrade from maceman to Grenadier is about 250G (? or 300G, can't remember). I upgraded all of my maceman and still had 2000 G left. With those Grenadiers I rushed half of the Pangaea, taking 14 cities before Cavalry (mass upgrade again, from knights) comes out to take their major role. The game ended at 735 AD, which is 100-200 turns after the Great Merchant event.

So I think the GM is better used to get some instant cash if you are playing a war game.

 

[luckynick]

about globe theatre : if you already got pyramids and run representation and have many happyness ressources + building that increase them, it's ok....
... until you hit biology (unless you plan to win before)

On situation where you don't have pyramids and happyness ressources are scarce, globe allow you to skip the heavy garrison required under hereditary rule to maintain high pop, and therefore, let you build more offensive troops.

Btw i agree about wall street, especially if you don't plan to use caste system.

terrain also make big difference. If you support your GPFarm with only 1 food ressource and 3 flood plains + about 3-4 farmed grassland, you sure don't need globe, but if you got 2 seafood +corn+3floodplains and plan to go to biology i wonder how the hell are you going to quell people in this city, especially during long wars.

Note : i think philo leaders can skip national epic too, rather putting it in a specific engineer farm (with GE generating wonders and forge + eng specialist) and switch from one farm to another depending of wich type of great people you need next. Nationnal epic compensate the lack of engineer GP points early on, the other GP farm get easy with easy to get specialist (except priest) with caste system

 

[gdgrimm]

It's pretty rare for me to use my first city site as a GP farm. It's happened a few times, but it's pretty unusual. My Capital usually becomes my Research Center, or occassionally a production city.

The main reason is that I usually need some decent production for my first city site. It has to pump out the early warriors and settlers and workers and stuff.

My GP farm really only needs lots of food -- production isn't necessary. It has to be able to build a few buildings to enable specialists (i.e. temples, library, market/grocer, forge), which are fairly cheap, and the only Wonder it needs to build is the Epic, which is a National Wonder and so doesn't have to complete quickly. I can usually find a city site who's food situation is as good as my Capital's, but whose production situation is worse. That's what becomes my GP farm.

 

[Mulholland]

I find my capital rarley becomes my GP farm. Instead It becomes my financial and research centre. Cottages are laid early to produce commerce and fund expansion. It is also generally my oldest and most improved city with the first library/monestaty/observatory once I pump out a great scientist he's always there bulding an academy. Mid-game, the wall street and Oxford university National wonders make it a juggernaut.

 

[cabert]

In one game I want to Grenadier rush my next opponent, so I used the Economy free GM to a pop. 19 city on the other end of the world. I got 6900 G in this trade (Standard Pangaea, Marathon speed).

never had that much! On the other hand i almost never send my great merchants on tour, so it is somehow logical

 

[DarkFyre99]

Just something to add:

I don't find the Globe theater very useful in a GP farm, since you will be running many specialists, each consuing 2 breads, the pop. doesn't grow very fast.

The only occassion I need to build a Globe theater in a GP farm is the GP farm is also a commerce city with lots of flood plains. But since I want more cottages to grow, that GP farm isn't doing very well in terms of GP points.

I disagree... the globe theatre removes the happiness cap, allowing the GP farm to grow to the limits of its health and available food.

In addition, sources of artist specialists are rare, until you get access to broadcast towers. If you want to produce a Great Artist or two, you'll need the Globe Theatre to give you access to more artist specialists.

 

[cabert]

I disagree... the globe theatre removes the happiness cap, allowing the GP farm to grow to the limits of its health and available food.

In addition, sources of artist specialists are rare, until you get access to broadcast towers. If you want to produce a Great Artist or two, you'll need the Globe Theatre to give you access to more artist specialists.

that's what caste system is for!
what do you need artists for? cultural victory? Ok, then a few moves to the culture slider will bring the happiness problem to nothing.

I must say i usually make globe theater + national epic, but in the end you get almost only GA. Which is good for cultural victory but else not all that good.

 

[the oob]

There are other ways to make the GP farm happy without the globe theatre, such as building a cathedral for your state religion there, making sure it has lots of religions with the temples for each one, etc. This frees up the national wonder slot, which is needed for other things. IMO there are three useful national wonders for the GP farm: the national epic (obviously), Wall Street (for the merchants strategy I described earlier) or the Iron Works (helps the city build wonders, which contribute to the GP rate). Usually I would go for the first two, since by the time you get Iron Works there aren't many wonders left and using the GP farm as a wonder city stops it from focusing on specialists.

The Globe Theatre is put to better use in a 'draft city': a city which focuses entirely on food production to allow lots of units to be drafted, where the G.T cancels out the unhappyness this usually causes.