City Specialization: WHERE I do it.

[cripp7]

One city that you forgot is the espionage city. But that city, you can pump out nothing but espionage and super spies

 

[Cruiserip]

thanks for sharing

 

[cripp7]

One city that you forgot is the espionage city. But that city, you can pump out nothing but espionage and super spies

 

[Dier]

That would fall under a GP farm, surely.
That would fall under a GP farm, surely.

I like the mention of the defensive unit (weak) production city, in the actual game examples. I use similar cities to crank out spies or missionaries non-stop, so my real cities won't miss production turns. The smallest city put to this use was one with plains marble and plains horses, settled on a plains hill. It didn't grow past size 3 until very late. It was super useful just the way it was. Specialization can come in many shapes I guess...

 

[yanner39]

Hello,

This is a great article for someone like me that's still learning the game. I do have a question regarding this part:

These are typically the steps I start with:

1. Check the production. Using only hills and production resources (consider them both as improved), count up how much production the city can handle, how much food it costs to maintain it and how many citizens are required to work the production tiles used. Ideally, you want to see high production (15 - 20+) with few tiles (4 - 7).

For example, a city (1P) with 2 Grassland Hills (-1F, 3P each), 2 Plains Hills (-2F, 4P each) and a Plains Horse (-1F, 4P) would be -7F, 19P @ 4 – meaning the city can generate 19 hammers at the expense of 7 food using 4 Citizens. Even though the city center produces +2F, I often keep its food production with the food calculation.

Should this read read 5 citizens instead of 4? A citizen would be needed to work the 2 Grassland Hills, the 2 Plains Hills and the 1 Plains Horse. 2+2+1=5.

Am I missing something? The rest of the article is crystal clear.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Hi yanner,

you are right, OTAKUjbski made a typo... to have that production you need the 5 mentionned citizens + the guys feeding them (working food resources and/or farms)...

Cheers,
Raskolnikov

 

[Roxlimn]

Minor point of update:

Food-high cities are not always distinct from production high cities. In the early game, you can use Slavery and the whip to coax good production from otherwise production-poor sites, and after Caste and Guilds (with Machinery), you can "make" hills out of any flatland as long as you have the food to support the citizens to work them.

Add Chemistry and Police State to that and you won't be missing any stinkin' hills.

In terms of specialization, I tend to focus more on output rather than terrain, though terrain is certainly a focal consideration in most cases!

 

[carl corey]

Add Chemistry and Police State

I think you wanted to say State Property instead of Police State.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

A great article, perfectly applicable to higher levels as well. In theory it applies to most strategies as well. But I do wish to caution that in practice this method does lend itself to a more peaceful strategy. An aggressive player, once they take land from their neighbours, would simply use whatever improvements the conquered peoples left behind.

 

[Roxlimn]

carl corey:

No, I meant Police State. I think.

State Property certainly helps you to ameliorate the food hit you'll get from intensive Workshopping, but by itself, it doesn't actually get you more hammers. Police State grants you a production bonus (+25%, I think) for the purpose of producing units. Also reduces WW.

 

[carl corey]

Understood. But State Property does add production by adding food. Thing of it this way: you have a city with 18 grasslands and 2 plains. What production do you get if you have to go farm+workshop when out of SP? Instead, in SP you can simply workshop all the tiles (the 2 deficit food is compensated by the city square). That's quite a production jump (size 20 city in all cases, city center with 1 hammer):
- pre-biology, not in SP, farms+workshops: you need 10 farms for 10 workshops, that's 43 hammers
- post-biology (and replaceable parts), not in SP, farms+workshops: 6 farms, 12 workshops and 2 watermills, 55 production
- workshops in SP: 20 workshops, 83 production

That's a nearly 51% increase in hammers in SP. Plus 10% production bonus from SP itself. Can't beat SP production-wise unless you use corporations, and even then it's hard to bridge the 38+SP bonus gap in production.

Police state is icing on the cake, but Police State can be used with hills as well as with workshops, so that's not a real difference. And railroaded grassland hills are -1 food, +4 hammers, equivalent to grassland workshops without SP; they can't compete with SP workshops.

 

[Roxlimn]

Yes, that is quite buff. I suppose I should wean myself from Corps more.

 

[carl corey]

Well, it depends on the game. If you have a lot of land than SP is certainly the way to go as it also reduces maintenance. If for example you're going for Space Race with a middle sized empire, then the biggest problem won't be production but research, so Free Market might be better. You could spread the corps when you start mass producing ship parts when your research is almost over. For late cultural corps are also better. Or for a (true) diplomacy win you might want to grow your cities, which could mean Environmentalism.

But yeah, big empires and domination/conquest pushes almost always find me in SP.

 

[cripp7]

The only disadvantage of SP is the no trade routes compared to FM. I love SP when going for Dom/Conquest, can't beat it.

 

[Bleys]

I miss OTAK, he is a great player who explains his thoughts and reasoning very well. He would LOVE the Emp, Immortal and Deity Cookbooks.

For myself, I am addicted to SP. I find myself heading there every game. I also like the GSpy, and the Kremlin. Its a mega-package for 1 tech.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Along with constitution, communism allows an above average-to-large empire to put up large #s of effective tech rate with espionage. The buildings themselves have base espionage, and this is an extremely powerful effect. Could you imagine if universities gave +8 beakers and libraries +4 before doing anything else? Intelligence agencies do the equivalent of this, but with a larger multiplier. Considering the relatively common possibility of 1 EP ---> 1 beaker, this is a really dangerous setup in a SP hammer empire. As the empire grows, its chances of losing drop very, very fast. New cities are just workshopped, gaining the necessary granary/forge/factory/power plant in very little time and cranking more units...and after those things they can take a 5ish turn break on normal to have an outstanding effective tech rate via espionage.

I like sushi and jewelers for culture. I like sushi and mining for hammers in a mid sized empire or smaller where the game is tight and I've yet to expand. Anything else seems to greatly favor state property.

Staying in caste is a bit tricky but some civs can swing it, or if you get a favorable spawn and can wipe people out.

 

[Aleph_Strategy]

Outstanding Article, it really helped me improve my game!

 

[Crusher1]

Nice article. I did have to read it a few times to understand the way you count tiles though ^^. I have always counted something like, 1 irrigated corn and 2 food plains and my capital is +10 food which means I can work other tiles adding up to -10 with no growth.

 

[generalwar]

Thank you! Till now I haven't understand anything about specization and city specilization and about commerce, but know I understand. It's a very good article and it has pictures and everything is clear and everybody can understand.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

Should this read read 5 citizens instead of 4? A citizen would be needed to work the 2 Grassland Hills, the 2 Plains Hills and the 1 Plains Horse. 2+2+1=5.

Am I missing something? The rest of the article is crystal clear.

Nope; you are correct. This typo has been corrected. Thanks for pointing it out.

I miss OTAK

You don't have to miss me anymore; I've been released from my hiding place.