[BTS] City specialization questions

[scheines]

So as a new player I am learning how to best specialize cities. I am a little unclear on the how to avoid wasteful builds when it comes to national wonders that require some number of another building. Had a few questions on the topic:

1) Should I try to build all national (obviously not world) wonders each game, or only when circumstances point me there?

For example, Wall Street requires 6 banks in standard size maps. Most people seem to suggest nowadays you will have 1 gold generating city. Does that mean I should just accept I need to “waste” the time to make 5 banks in low gold cities to get Wall Street? Should I just knock these out in generally high commerce cities even if I’m, say, 70% science slider? Alternatively, should I only build Wall Street when I get a profitable holy city, corporation, etc?

Same is somewhat true of Oxford, but it is more feasible to me to have 6 cities with decent commerce or specialists to make 6 universities worth building.

2) When I make a cottage city, do I want to build beaker% buildings, gold%, or both? My intuition is that I’d want to do whichever I’ll have more commerce into (hopefully beakers), but this fluctuates over the course of the game.

3) Is there any math or otherwise suggesting if building wealth or research in cities is better?

4) Is it common to build something like a grocer or market just for the health or happy bonus, even if the gold% bonus is totally wasted?

 

[AcaMetis]

1. Only when circumstances point you there, and even than only if it's actually going to pay off before the game is over. Obviously a map that is going to end with a Cuirs rush doesn't have a big need for Oxford, even if you're PHI and have Stone to make it as cheap as it's ever going to be. If you're going Space instead, well, an obvious choice.

2. Ideally you're going to get enough gold from trading and/or failbuilding wonders/wealth to run 100% slider, so beaker buildings will actually give you a benefit whereas gold buildings will not. Realistically, of course, it depends.

3. Build Wealth until you're stable at 100% slider, and from then on build Research. The reason this is because the slider benefits from science boosts like Libraries and the like, which building Research directly does not.

4. I wouldn't say so, honestly. They're expensive buildings, and only provide an appreciable bonus if you've got resources that provide / in the first place.

 

[scheines]

So in terms of #4, does that mean once I hit the happy cap I am going to be whipping / balancing tiles to not grow further? Is it not bad that I am willfully not pushing that happiness cap higher for better research / production?

 

[vorlon_mi]

So in terms of #4, does that mean once I hit the happy cap I am going to be whipping / balancing tiles to not grow further? Is it not bad that I am willfully not pushing that happiness cap higher for better research / production?

I have the same question. Is the recommendation to grow most cities only to size 8 or so, 2-pop-whip down to 6, and then regrow? With the objective being to keep producing military units (like siege) in those cities?

Rather than growing "tall", a city of size 12 with nearly everyone happy or specialists?

 

[sampsa]

Is the recommendation to grow most cities only to size 8 or so, 2-pop-whip down to 6, and then regrow?

The thing is, most cities don't have enough "good tiles" to justify growing. For me, every green tile is good and worth growing onto, while every brown tile with the exception of riverside cottages is not worth growing onto. Every green tile gets cottaged or farmed, pre-biology/state property of course. Sometimes you don't need , so you don't want to whip. Then I'll just grow (on coastal tiles perhaps?) until /-cap and run specialists later, during a golden age.

 

[scheines]

Why wouldn't you want to grow if you have no happiness / healthiness caps at the time? Surely they’re last to be used, but eventually the options are use them, or stay stagnant. Is the increased maintenance the reason?

 

[sampsa]

Why wouldn't you want to grow if you have no happiness / healthiness caps at the time? Surely they’re last to be used, but eventually the options are use them, or stay stagnant. Is the increased maintenance the reason?

A small part of it. If a city is producing , it's just more effective to stay smaller, because the -bar is 2 longer every size. If a city really has no coast and no green, perhaps that city should just work specialists and remain small.

 

[rah]

While you're not going to capture any Universities, you can capture banks, so sometimes you'll just end up with 6 and then wall street might make sense, even in a conquest game.

 

[sampsa]

I don't think I've ever built Wall Street. Maybe it's useful on large maps or in space games.

 

[rah]

For my conq/dom games, also very rare, but every now and then it just falls in your lap.

 

[6K Man]

1. National Wonders are a mixed bag. Heroic and National Epic are almost always good to have. The others, as has been said, are situational. I wrote a NW Guide a while ago https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/national-wonders-synergies-and-strategies.465798/. I only build Wall Street if I have a good producing (50 or more) shrine. It can otherwise make sense (in fact, it’s almost required) if you have widespread corporations in your city.
2. Beakers
3. Wealth
4. Happy bonus, yes – at least in my games. Unhappy people are dead weight. -1 food per turn isn’t such a big deal. That said, until the mid game you can just whip away unhappy people

 

[sampsa]

A size 12+ city is a lot more productive than a city constantly whipping 4->2. Whipping 4->2 when you have the resources to grow is like a shot in the foot.

Absolutely. Like I said earlier, I think all green tiles are worth growing onto. Also, growing before the golden age is important. If you pack your cities correctly tightly, some cities won't have as many tiles as they'd like and will whip when running out of tiles.

 

[Snowbird]

I don't think I've ever built Wall Street. Maybe it's useful on large maps or in space games.

I think Wall Street is good in space game for corporation HQ. I typically just use state property as it is somewhat close in economic effect and significantly less pain to set up.

Forbidden palace is sometimes useful (lots of cities on another landmass, planning to win before state property).

Maoi can be very useful in extreme niche cases (trying to get production going on very watery maps). (On marathon with stone it can be source of failgold, I guess).

Globe is something I like reading about, but that just does not happen in my games. I would guess I just don't self tech Drama, which typically means not having a chance to set it before major war. (If going war having HR counter whip anger and just gifting city to target and recapture it on T1 is probably more like a thing I would try doing).

Hermitage is next to essential if going for culture win.

National park is... also a thing I like reading about, but I have hard times remembering having a forest preserve. I think it is more marathon space race thing or something like that.

 

[sampsa]

Maoi can be very useful in extreme niche cases (trying to get production going on very watery maps). (On marathon with stone it can be source of failgold, I guess).

Moai I often build, mainly for failgold.

 

[rah]

I usually have one city that just screams for Moai. So if I have stone, I'll indulge and also try to make a little fail gold out of it at the same time.