city specialization guesses

[Slinko]

Thanks to AriochIV we have almost all of the info about the game. Let's start making some early guesses about what city specialization will be like.

What type of city's will there be: Science, Culture, Wealth, Production, Great People, etc.

What will be some of the characteristics of each of the different types of cities? e.g. will science cities have a huge population and lots of jungle?

 

[Tomice]

As I said in the other thread, this topic is extremely interesting, but I don't think we'll be able to figure anything out before we have the game. Also, I doubt that the concepts of SE and CE, of production/GP/science cities and much more were clear until civ4 was out for several months.

The fun about the new game is that we'll be able to try out all kinds of strategies without having optimized guides for everything. Nothing will be "wrong" for some time.




What could become commonplace may be shifting tiles among cities.

We have 3 rings of workable tiles, but since they grow slower than the BFC in civ 4 (which was almost instant), we probably won't leave so much (initially) unused space between our cities.
As a result we could have huge overlaps. I imagine we could give the outer mine and lumbermill tiles of our production cities to science cities during peace, to build universities and markets there. In wartime, we might hand them back to the cities with barracks and shipyards.
Of course this is limited due to population sizes. There might also be something else preventing this I haven't thought about?

What do you think of this? It definitely sounds fun to me!

 

[KrikkitTwo]

City Specialization... should mostly be based off of Building limitations.

Since no city NEEDS any particular resource locally (tiles can be bought for low culture cities, and buildings can be bought for low production cities)

We're not sure of the GPerson mechanic so specialization might not be as important for it.

Science cities would have tiles with either Farms or Jungles. They will probably generate a lot of Great people because of the specialists, so Gardens might be useful.

Science cities will need happiness buildings to support them. They will give good trade route income as a bonus.

Culture...a "Culture Focused city" will be small population, just enough population working farms to support the specialists. (unless some Landmarks are built, then they work those).
(small population also helps your culture if you have the mandate of Heaven.. extra happiness->culture)
An alternative Culture focused city is one with high production to build Wonders.

Gold.. normal city working almost entirely trade posts and farms. These will be necessary to support some of the previous specialist cities (which would have low production) in buying/maintaining their buildings.


Production: these cities have 2 subdivisions
Wonders
and
Units

In general they should have a lot of Forests/Hills, with just enough Farms to work the tiles, and possibly some production specialists.

Wonder Production cities would benefit from the Garden and any Culture% booster buildings.. and so could end up being a culture booster (since culture buildings will be good to build with them). They don't need 'unit production booster buildings'. Building production boosters will be good though.

Unit production cities should get any unit production booster/and unit Experience booster.. It will be useful to build them near horses (early game)




And I really like the idea of shifting tiles between cities.

 

[Tomice]

What I forgot: If we get empire-wide GP-points, which I hope, dedicated GP farms would be gone. they were never realistic anyway, merely an abuse of the game rules.



Also, going back to the idea of shifting tiles, I increasingly fear the fact that you need a citizen working it, which would often not be available in the receiving city, makes my idea far less practical than I initially thought. Which is a pity, because the citizen lives on the tile, not in the city. The question is just where he delivers his goods... Realistically, the citizen should switch with the tile!

 

[KrikkitTwo]

What I forgot:

If we get empire-wide GP-points, which I hope, dedicated GP farms would be gone. they were never realistic anyway, merely an abuse of the game rules.

You would still have dedicated GP farms... but that would be Plural... those are the places you build the Gardens.. or the National Wonder that boosts GP output.

 

[Tomice]

You would still have dedicated GP farms... but that would be Plural... those are the places you build the Gardens.. or the National Wonder that boosts GP output.

Would it matter where those are? well, probably a bit, but less so than in civ 4 I guess.

 

[Slinko]

Science cities will need happiness buildings to support them. They will give good trade route income as a bonus.

Culture...a "Culture Focused city" will be small population, just enough population working farms to support the specialists. (unless some Landmarks are built, then they work those).
(small population also helps your culture if you have the mandate of Heaven.. extra happiness->culture)

.

Happiness is empire-wide not city specific.

 

[Slinko]

You would still have dedicated GP farms... but that would be Plural... those are the places you build the Gardens.. or the National Wonder that boosts GP output.

I agree. There will probably still be GP farms even though the GPP's are empire-wide. I think it will make GPP's easier to manage. You could have several GP farms and they would pool their points together.

 

[Calouste]

Since no city NEEDS any particular resource locally (tiles can be bought for low culture cities, and buildings can be bought for low production cities)

You're wrong there. You can't build certain buildings unless you have certain resources in the area of that city (Stables need Horses for example), and there are other buildings that benefit from resources nearby, like Monasteries get additional culture for Wine and Incense. Local resources are going to have a big influence on what you specialize your city into.

 

[Arkangelus]

It'd be beneficial to have your military production cities with Horse in the radius, for example. Plus the Mint gives lots of extra gold to tiles that work gold or silver, so if you can get a city near a few sources of that, and on a river, you could really focus on gold there.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

You're wrong there. You can't build certain buildings unless you have certain resources in the area of that city (Stables need Horses for example), and there are other buildings that benefit from resources nearby, like Monasteries get additional culture for Wine and Incense. Local resources are going to have a big influence on what you specialize your city into.

I was talking about general resources. as in things that get used by a city.

The only locally used resources are
Production...needed to put the buildings in a a city
Culture...needed to get tiles for city use
Food...needed to get the population to work the tiles

Production and Culture can be replaced with Gold a non-local resource.


Now as for "Resources" like Horses/Ivory/Incense etc. then of course those will affect what to make a city.

I was talking about how specialized a city can get.

so a Science city can be Totally specialized in science.... Nothing but Farms and Jungles=good science city.. you need 0 production, just rush it with gold.. you need 0 cultural buildings..just buy tiles with gold.

So a Science city
Ideal Terrain: Large space mostly Flat grassland and Jungles... all non-Jungle/resource tiles Farmed (or with an Academy)
Buildings needed In city: Science+Food boosting buildings only (a Garden might be useful)
Support needed: Lots of Happy, small amount of gold(it will produce a good trade route, so it doesn't need that much)

Culture city
Ideal Terrain: Small space of Flat Grassland with Wine+Incense.. all non-resource tiles Farmed (or with a Landmark)
Buildings needed In city: Culture+Food boosting buildings only (a Garden might be useful)
Support needed: a Some Happy, Some Gold
*can be combined with almost any other

Happy city
Ideal Terrain: tiny space, Horses+Ivory present
Buildings needed In city: Happy Buildings
Support needed: Some Gold
*can be combined with any other (because of no terrain working requirements)

Gold City
Ideal Terrain: Large space Flatland with rivers.. Gold/Silver.. Water tiles OK: Trade Posts on all non-resource tiles (farms as needed to maintain population+specialists)
Buildings needed In city: Gold Buildings, Water working buildings
Support needed: Medium amount of Happy

Wonder Production City
Ideal Terrain: Large space Hills and Forests: Mines+Mills on all non-resource tiles once enough farms for working all terrain and production specialists
Buildings needed In city: General production+Food boosters, Culture+GPP% boosters.. Culture buildings
Support needed: small amount of gold for maintenance, Medium amount of Happy

Military Production City
Ideal Terrain: Large space Hills and Forests, Horses present: Mines+Mills on all non-resource tiles once enough farms for working all terrain and production specialists
Buildings needed In city: Military production+Food boosters, Experience booster buildings
Support needed: small amount of gold for maintenance+tile expansion, Medium amount of Happy

 

[Tomice]

I'm not sure how much I like the idea of a city focusing on "generating happiness", but you're right, this might be a viable strategy

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I'm not sure how much I like the idea of a city focusing on "generating happiness", but you're right, this might be a viable strategy

Well as I mentioned, there are no real requirements for that so it is an addon

So I have 4 cities
Science
Culture
Gold
Military Production

All/any of them could also focus on building Happiness (Production focused cities would tend to be the best at that since they have the production)... but a Science/Culture/Gold city could as well.

And in the worst circumstances, if you have low happiness, and a lot of gold... build a settler, found a city and buy all the happiness buildings you can get... have that city not work any tiles (put the one citizen as a specialist in .. something)

It might not be worth it to get positive happiness for golden ages if the cost of a golden age depends on your size... but if not.. it could be worthwhile.


That would a way I would see ICS working... every tile has a Trading post on it (except for the occasional Mine/Farm) and the cities all consist of not much but Happy+Gold buildings. (maybe culture... or they might rely on City-States for that)

 

[Polobo]

I'm not sure how much I like the idea of a city focusing on "generating happiness", but you're right, this might be a viable strategy

Think Las Vegas; swallowing a large part of your income but making people happy

 

[Zhahz]

I'm hoping GPP are global, then mixing in specialists anywhere is more attractive (to me at least).

With each city having so many tiles available and the likelihood of population rarely using them all, you could easily have cities that can fill several roles, including specialists, and shift as needed, possibly moreso than in the past, especially if number cities is somewhat lower this time around.

 

[Lyoncet]

I really don't like over-specialized cities in general, so while I used them in CIV out of necessity at Emperor, I always wished for a slightly more organic feel to my empire. Although there will obviously be some city specialization in CiV, it looks like with the changes to GPP (if they are indeed empire-wide), BFC (which I suppose needs a new acronym – how about Big F***ing Circle? wait…), and happiness that's exactly what we'll get.

The ability to rush-buy from the getgo may also mean that exclusively hammer-based cities may be less important as well, depending on the conversion ratio.

 

[Slinko]

Think Las Vegas; swallowing a large part of your income but making people happy

... I was planning on saying that.

I think it is very interesting that happiness cities might be a viable strategy, but like someone said earlier happiness buildings will probably just be bought or built in production cities.

What would really make happiness cities a viable strategy is if there was a building that gave +% happiness to a city.

 

[Polobo]

... I was planning on saying that.

I think it is very interesting that happiness cities might be a viable strategy, but like someone said earlier happiness buildings will probably just be bought or built in production cities.

What would really make happiness cities a viable strategy is if there was a building that gave +% happiness to a city.

Building: "Drug" House - increases happy output and maintenance from happy buildings by 50%;

 

[chaotoroboto]

Building: "Drug" House - increases happy output and maintenance from happy buildings by 50%;

More likely, there will be buildings that say "Reduces unhappiness from population in this city by 50%."

If Colosseum isn't statted, then that's exactly what I expect it to say.

In general, I think specialist cities are both realistic and gameplayistic. The biggest issue is that as cities get REALLY LARGE, then there's some limit to how much they still specialize.

Cases in point:

New York is a Merchant city. New York would not exist in its modern form if it were not for the financial services industry. There are more people in New York working in banking than in the whole of most states - say Missouri. But the percent of people working in the banking industry in New York is much lower than the percent working in Kansas City. In gameplay terms, New York should have a pop of 25, about 5 of whom are merchants, while Kansas City should have a pop of about 6, 2 of whom are a merchants.

San Jose is a research city - even though most of the research really happens in Palo Alto and Berkeley. The Bay has more people working in IT, IS, and CS fields than Austin has people. But the Bay has a much lower percent working in those fields than Austin does.

Now, when you have your capital at a size 19 or 20, and every 3 turns it's popping a great prophet because everyone is either a farmer or a priest in 1950, that's a little silly.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

If Colosseum isn't statted, then that's exactly what I expect it to say.

It is stated, it says +4 happiness, same with all the happy buildings we have seen so far. (+X happiness) for cicus and theatre.

There may be some buildings with a local effect, but none are known.

Part of the point of "Empire wide happiness" and Golden Ages triggered by happiness is so that 'excess happiness' is not wasted.

In that case what is wrong with a city designed to produce happiness.