City Specilisation

[Shafi-is-back]

Second of all, it may not be as clear cut for scientists as it used to. Gold is supposedly more valuable in Civ V than previous civs as there are more things to do with it than previous versions. Thus merchants might actually be worthwhile now.

I agree we may need to figure out if scientists are as valuable as civ IV, i agree that my write up assumes so and this may not be the case.

 

[Shafi-is-back]

You missed out workshop in the production city thing.

Thanks for the spot fixed.

 

[yanner39]

Building every happiness building in every city waters down "specialization" as a concept.

As I put in mmy edit, the only problem is that for example, building 2 colosseums in 2 different cities is better than one colosseum. Happyness buildings are not like happyness resources. 2 or 3 gems count for 1 happiness. You can then trade the other 2. The more happiness building you have, the more happiness the empire has.

So you may get to a point where you'll have no choice but to build another colosseum in your militry city.

 

[yanner39]

Observatory apparently requires access to a mountain.

What does this mean? Does the city have to be settled right beside a mountain, or does the mountain simply need to be a worked tile or does the mountain only have to be in the cultural borders?

 

[Shafi-is-back]

let me add to that. even in civ IV we would build Aqueducts, Markets, Grocers in cities where they were needed right? so does that take away specilisation no? that is considered infrastructure.

Now you can stay just ahead of the hapiness curve and be happy but remember the more excess happy you generate the faster you get to your next golden age SO it absolutely makes sense to have as many happy buildings as possible.

 

[Shafi-is-back]

What does this mean? Does the city have to be settled right beside a mountain, or does the mountain simply need to be a worked tile or does the mountain only have to be in the cultural borders?

The city needs to be built next to a mountain.

 

[yanner39]

The city needs to be built next to a mountain.

That's tough. In the early game, you have to find the best food spots to setttle you city but you also need to settle it beside a mountain. Early planning for sure.

 

[Schuesseled]

I often found myself putting all my cities on rivers if possible even if there were better spots for the early game, ill probably end up doing the same thing in civ 5, but with more terrain to consider, put a city next to that mountain, put ones on those rivers, pput that on a hill etc.

 

[WeaselSlapper]

I disagree.
I see nothing preventing the same level of specialization as Civ IV.
[edit]
To clarify:
... Civ IV Specialist cause 1 unhappiness
... Civ V Specialist cause 1 unhappiness
... ... with the right social policy they only cause 1/2 unhappiness
... ... you can run 2 Specialist for cost of one!
... This makes GP Farm more likely, not less.
[end_edit]

In Civ IV specialists did not cause anymore unhappiness than the citizen needed to make the specialist, I saw a note talking about unhappiness and there was an entry there for unhappiness from specialists. I can't find that listing in the manual about specialists causing unhappiness so maybe that won't be the case, but we'll see when we get the game. Assuming specialists don't cause extra unhappiness happiness in general will be a much greater problem in Civ V than IV, I know with the exception of very early I never had problems with happiness and unhealthiness was only a problem in in my production cities on high difficulty.

Also trading tile improvements don't seem to be as effective. Trading posts produce one gold now, I have seen someone say that they will eventually give 2 gold and 2 science, but that's nothing compared to the seven gold and one production they could put out in IV.

Also when you take into account that the AI could never really get city specialization right its understandable that the Devs would want to nerf it.

I'm not saying you're not going to see any specialization, I'm just saying it's going to be a lot more limited.

 

[JollyRoger]

even in civ IV we would build Aqueducts, Markets, Grocers in cities where they were needed right?

But an aquaduct, market, or grocer in another city did not address the health or happiness issues of the specialist city that negleted them. SInce happiness is empire wide, using your spare cities addressing the empire-wide happiness issues allows you to keep your specialized cities more specialized. Would you rather be building a unit or a happiness building in your production city?

While it is true that you may want as many happinees building as you can, isn't that true of most any building type? The fact is, that you are not well served by aiming to build every building in every city. Choices must be made and having core happiness cities seems valid so that your other specialist cities do not have to divert from their specialization as much to address happiness.

 

[Pinstar]

Observatory apparently requires access to a mountain.

Access to, or next to?

It seems that most of the buildings that require specific local resources want them in the city's radius.

 

[Horserush]

Access to, or next to?

It seems that most of the buildings that require specific local resources want them in the city's radius.

Within 3 tiles (max city radius).

edit: oh and bookmarked, thank you for this

 

[gibson1314]

Shafi-is-back I hope you don't mind but I pinched your workings to come up with my own cites structure based on your workings, that I will try and use during my games. I feel happiness and food are so important that I've included these buildings in all the cities. I'm not sure how much money all these buildings might cost in upkeep, but obviously you could do without some if your upkeep was too high.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
(1) Gold Cities

Terrain – lots of riverside tiles, Coastal cities
Resources- Luxury- Gold & Silver (mint), Gems +3
Improvements –Trading Posts, Farms , Mines

Buildings –
Gold-
Bank : + 25% Gold
Market : +25% Gold
Mint (If Silver and / or gold is present): +3 gold for worked silver or gold tile.
Stock exchange : +33% Gold

Food-
Colosseum : +4 happy
Stadium : +4 happy
Theatre : +4 happy
Circus : +3 happy (needs horse or ivory nearby)
Granary: +2 food
Hospital: 50% less food for growth
Medical lab: 25% less food for growth
Watermill: +2 food (city must bordering a river)

Wonders
The Colossus
Effects: +1.Gold.from.all.worked.water.tiles.Must.be.built.in.a.City.located.
along.a.Coast.

Great People Improvements
Customs House: +4 Gold

------------------------------------------------------------
(2) Military Production Cities

Terrain- Hills, Grassland, River Tiles(Food), 1 Dessert (Solar Plant). Also avoid building production cities on hills whenever possible to get the benefit of a windmill.
Resources- Any Strategic Resources +1 Production.
Improvements –Mines, Farms

Buildings –
Production-
Factory : +50% production
*Hydro plant : +1 production for river tiles (consumes 1 Aluminium)
*Nuclear plant: +25% production (consumes 1 uranium)
*Solar plant: +25% production (city needs to be on or near a dessert)
Windmill: +15% production (city cannot be on a hill)
Workshop: +20% construction speed of buildings

Military-
Barracks: +15 XP for land units
Armoury: +15 XP for land units
Military Academy: +15 XP for land units
Forge: +15% production of land units (requires iron “nearby&#8221
Arsenal: +20% production of land units
**Stable: +25% production of mounted units (requires a source of horse “nearby&#8221

Food-
Colosseum : +4 happy
Stadium : +4 happy
Theatre : +4 happy
Circus : +3 happy (needs horse or ivory nearby)
Granary: +2 food
Hospital: 50% less food for growth
Medical lab: 25% less food for growth
Watermill: +2 food (city must bordering a river)

*Not all required depending on resources available.
** Can be sold/removed late game.

National Wonders

Ironworks
Effects: +20%.Production.in.the.City.where.this.is.built.
Heroic Epic
Effects: All.new.Units.in.this.City.receive.the.Morale.Promotion.for.free.
Pentagon

Great People Improvements
Manufactory: +3 Production

---------------------------------------------------------------
(3) Culture / GP / Happiness Cities

Terrain – Riverside tiles, Flood Plains, Grassland & Coastal cities
Resources- Luxury- Incense or Wine(culture); Any Bonus(Food)- Fish +2
Improvements – Farms

Buildings –
Culture-
Monument: +2 culture
Monastery: +2 culture from nearby sources of incense and wine
Museum: +5 culture
Opera House: +5 culture
Temple: +3 culture
Broadcast tower: Doubles culture output

Food-
Colosseum : +4 happy
Stadium : +4 happy
Theatre : +4 happy
Circus : +3 happy (needs horse or ivory nearby)
Granary: +2 food
Hospital: 50% less food for growth
Medical lab: 25% less food for growth
Watermill: +2 food (city must bordering a river)


National Wonders

National Epic
Effects: +25%.Great.People.generation.in.the.City.where.this.is.built
Hermitage
Effects: Doubles.output.of.Culture.in.this.City.

Great People Improvements
Landmark: +4 Culture

---------------------------------------------------------------------
(4) Science City

Terrain – Riverside tiles, Flood Plains, Grassland & Coastal cities. 1 mountain for Observatory.
Resources- Any Bonus(Food)- Fish +2
Improvements – Farms

Science-
Library: +1 science for every 2 citizens
Observatory: +50% science (City needs to be built next to a mountain)
Public school: +50% science
Research lab: +100% science
University: +50% science & +2 science from worked jungle

Food-
Colosseum : +4 happy
Stadium : +4 happy
Theatre : +4 happy
Circus : +3 happy (needs horse or ivory nearby)
Granary: +2 food
Hospital: 50% less food for growth
Medical lab: 25% less food for growth
Watermill: +2 food (city must bordering a river)


National Wonders

National College
Effects: +50%.Science.in.the.City.where.this.is.built.

Great People Improvements
Academy: +5 Science

 

[Shafi-is-back]

I agree with you. Hapiness and growth related buildings must go into all cities. (in my post i have mentioned them as a common infrastructure category)

There is one difference though, growth related buildings should be built as and when cities need them, however IMHO hapiness buildings must ALWAYS be built to maximise the excess happy and push you to the next Golden Age.

Good job getting the wonders included too.

I agree. Lets see how it goes in practice.

 

[es4]

I really only see three cities to specialize: military production, gold, and science. It might be possible to wonder-spam as well, I really don't know at this point.

The problem with a GP farm is that (A) it doesn't help to run multiple types of specialists, so you really want a certain type (logically engineers, merchants, and scientists); and (B) there is no "unlimited specialists" civic, so you can't run 12 scientists in a city.

I think culture and happiness buildings will be built in any city that has spare hammers; there aren't very many multipliers for these buildings, so the trick is just to get them up wherever possible. Specializing a city on these is basically just saying the city isn't good enough to specialize on anything else.

 

[bjbrains]

I really only see three cities to specialize: military production, gold, and science. It might be possible to wonder-spam as well, I really don't know at this point.

The problem with a GP farm is that (A) it doesn't help to run multiple types of specialists, so you really want a certain type (logically engineers, merchants, and scientists); and (B) there is no "unlimited specialists" civic, so you can't run 12 scientists in a city.

I think culture and happiness buildings will be built in any city that has spare hammers; there aren't very many multipliers for these buildings, so the trick is just to get them up wherever possible. Specializing a city on these is basically just saying the city isn't good enough to specialize on anything else.

I don't think that's completely true. I think the key is that not all the specializations are mutually exclusive:
For example, a GP farm can exist in any city that has the food surplus to run it. And unlike civ 4, there are definitely strong incentives to run as many specialists as you can: Because GP pools are separate, you can run 2 scientists, an artist, and a merchant in the same city with no pollution. So Gold and Science cities can both also be GP farms, basically depending on the time/production you have to build the required buildings. Another point is that there is quite probably a role for a production-oriented city that concentrates on buildings and wonders over units. Since Happy/culture buildings are good regardless of location, it makes sense to have some production-heavy cities focused on building them ahead of units.

In Civ 5, there seem to be 3 basic strengths a city can have: Food-heavy, Gold-heavy, and production-heavy. Food heavy cities are strong at science and generating great people (But you'll have to choose which one is more important). Gold-heavy cities are the simplest, but there are still choices to be made about whether to try to get more production or food. Production-heavy cities can prioritize units/military buildings, or wonders, happy buildings, and cultural buildings. While it's possible to be able to do multiple things with any city based on its strengths, you'll still have to choose what buildings and units you want to get first. There will certainly be cities that don't fit nicely into any of these strengths: What will you do with a city that has solid food and production? Will you try to make it better at production or at growth/science/great people?

There are, in my opinion, more choices than ever when trying to figure out what to do with a given city.

 

[bobbyboy29]

I'm not so certain that Happiness, Growth buildings will be going in ALL cities. The new aspect of CiV is that happiness is nationwide yes? So logically, in order to get happiness buildings up, your hammer cities will be the quickest to do so. You may simply not have the hammers (or gold) to spare in gold/science cities to build excess happiness buildings.

What I think this will mean is that there'll be some sort of balance obtained between gold cities built to pay for the rest of the empire, hammer cities to boost nationwide happiness as well as churn out units, wonders and science cities to pull the researching weight.

At the moment I would say the ratio may be 1 hammer city:2 gold cities:1 science city.

It will be interesting to see the interplay between science cities needing food to grow large and hammers/gold to get things like libraries built.

Also I think you'll probably end up with at least one specialised culture city to leverage the hermitage.

 

[King Jason]

I'm not so certain that Happiness, Growth buildings will be going in ALL cities. The new aspect of CiV is that happiness is nationwide yes? So logically, in order to get happiness buildings up, your hammer cities will be the quickest to do so. You may simply not have the hammers (or gold) to spare in gold/science cities to build excess happiness buildings.

There is virtually no reason not to build happiness buildings in every city since in most cases, the buildings produced will be working to recoup the lost happiness from building and growing the city in the first place.

A production city of pop 9 that constructs a colliseum and circus won't be offsetting the cost of your science city of pop 10 or your gold city of pop 8.

The more happiness you build per city, the more your outside sources turn into excess happiness, which translates into more cities and higher populations.

Of course, once you reach a point where you're satisfied in your growth, then technicaly you're right in that you no longer need to build happiness buildings in every city. However... if you have 10 cities of X pop and only 2-3 of them are production cities (per your ratio)... Even if you decide to no longer expand, you'll eventually reach a point of continued pop growth where you need to seek out more happiness from your empire... If those 2-3 production cities already built their happiness buildings, then you'd need to look to other cities in order to allow the populations of your empire to continue to rise without penalty.

 

[Shafi-is-back]

even after you have satisfied your growth potential, you would still want to build hapiness buildings wherever feasible, since all of the excess hapiness is what drives you to your next golden age!

 

[DalekDavros]

The reasons for having separate gold and science cities aren't as strong as they were in Civ IV. You aren't limited by the two-national-wonders-per-city bit in Civ 5, the best sources of gold (specialists and TPs) also provide science with the right SPs, you can now buy infrastructure with gold from the start, and the separate tracking of GPP means that you don't need to worry about "polluting" the pool.

Civ 5 will definitely have city specialization (based on what special buildings the terrain allows), but forcing the Civ 4 style specializations to fit Civ 5 is just going to handicap you.

even after you have satisfied your growth potential, you would still want to build hapiness buildings wherever feasible, since all of the excess hapiness is what drives you to your next golden age!

To some extent, yes. But if the production and maintenance costs of the buildings is outweighing the extra gold/production you get during the golden age, you've taken it too far.