conflicting advice on buildings vs military units?

[rafisher]

I am now at Noble level, like to go for space victory, and will not go to war (only to defend).

In many of the advice pages, I read that one should not build every possible building in each city: ie, don't build barracks or forges in commerce city, etc. Also, use production city to pump out all the military units. But then, what do you have the other cities do? If my non-production cities don't produce military units, then they end up building almost all the buildings (banks, forges, markets, etc) because they don't have anything else to do. If I do have them also produce military units, then I find that the cost of all these military units becomes a burden. Should I have the cities instead choose the Research/Wealth/Culture options?

Also, if I want Steelworks or Oxford University or Wall Street, then all my cities do need to build forges or universities or banks. (Note: because I don't like to be aggressor, I can only found 6-8 cities max before I run out of room).


Thanks.

 

[Macha]

Try a longer or shorter game speed and different ppl play differently so you will get different advice

 

[CivCorpse]

Once you have alphabet, set them to building research. However, if the AI starts wars then they will have more cities producing both science and spaceship parts. Plus you may need to start a war to get aluminum for the space race.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

I am now at Noble level, like to go for space victory, and will not go to war (only to defend).

In many of the advice pages, I read that one should not build every possible building in each city: ie, don't build barracks or forges in commerce city, etc. Also, use production city to pump out all the military units. But then, what do you have the other cities do? If my non-production cities don't produce military units, then they end up building almost all the buildings (banks, forges, markets, etc) because they don't have anything else to do.

This might indicate that you are getting too many hammers out of your commerce cities. 100 turns after your commerce city is founded, how many hammers has it invested in buildings?

 

[rafisher]

Part of the problem is that I often have trouble having a purely "commerce" city: most the time, I seem to get lands that have mixtures of plains, hills, mountains or grassland. So, even when I try to designate one city as "commerce," I still have to build some farms on plains. Plus, I mine the hills/mtns (until I get windmills).

 

[DaveMcW]

It's all about the food.

Grassland tile = +1 cottage
Floodplain = +1 cottage, +1 plains cottage.
Pigs = +3 plains cottages
plains/grassland hills = extra cottages as long as you have food

Try to find sites with enough food to support 10 cottages. The really good sites probably won't be available due to your pacifist handicap.

 

[acidsatyr]

well, relatively speaking all cities should still get b-rax for their +2 from nationalism (then again if you never use it...)
, and forges for their extra happines..

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Part of the problem is that I often have trouble having a purely "commerce" city: most the time, I seem to get lands that have mixtures of plains, hills, mountains or grassland. So, even when I try to designate one city as "commerce," I still have to build some farms on plains. Plus, I mine the hills/mtns (until I get windmills).

You might want to rethink that. The problem with putting a mine in a commerce city is that you will be tempted to use it.

Or, put another way, the whole point of specializing a city for commerce is to try to arrange things so that the marginal return that you get from working a commerce tile is more than the opportunity cost of the hammers. That means if you are working the hill with the mine instead of the hill with the cottage, something isn't quite right.

Yes, there will be circumstances where you'll work a mine instead, but not frequently, and not many mines.

Instead, you'll convert the surplus food you've got to hammers - either with the whip, or by working cottages on tiles which have a natural hammer yield.

At least, that's how I try to run my commerce cities.

 

[dragomaster]

In my latest Monarch game i found a spot i badly wanted. to bad though, the egyptians founded a city near the spot and there cultural boardes stretched over it, those bastards

They where on top in cultural techs and cultural buildings so there cultural boarders begun to press my citys. the only thech that i was adwansed in was IW so I started to make me an army of sword's, spear's and and axes.
When I begun the war against Egypt, Alexander went to war against them aswell, after som years of war I finaly got my spot.

Just Imagin when its finished. 10 cottages aside the river three more cottages on the lowest sqares plus two greem resorses. this baby is going to give me some serius cash.

 

[dragomaster]

how stupid i am, wy diden't i found it one square the east.

Is it possible to rase my own citys?

 

[Zombie69]

That is indeed the stupidest city placement i've ever seen. Passing up a flat grassland gem, a grassland banana and 3 other flat grassland tiles for 2 grasslands and 3 grassland hills (same as flat plains in commerce cities). Wow, i'm truly shocked.

The only ways to resettle to the east are :
1. gift the city to another civ, then attack and raze it
2. reload the game at an earlier date

Next time, take some time to weigh all the possibilities carefully before settling.

 

[Zombie69]

Oh, and to the OP :

Don't build mines in science cities, ever! Hills should either be cottaged or have a windmill. That should solve your problem.

 

[acidsatyr]

Don't build mines in science cities, ever!

That's not true, at all. Btw cottaging a hill is probably the last thing you should do with it, it's like cottaging a plains. Can't be that desperate for cottages rofl!

 

[Zombie69]

You're a SE fan, you wouldn't understand. I'd rather have a plains cottage in a commerce city than a stupid mine. I can get all the production i need in my commerce cities with slavery alone, and if food isn't plentiful enough, then just build less infrastructure, it's still better than using a stupid mine that does nothing for your cottage growth. The only exception, of course, is if there's a resource to be mined, then it's worth it.

 

[Elandal]

A grass hill in a cottage city may be mined or cottaged - it's situational. Most of the time I prefer getting the hammers out of a mine to getting them with the whip - if I whip, one or more tiles will not be worked for some time.

The whip is best used when you don't have enough hammers otherwise. Stagnating working mines is often better than the whip. Stagnating working cottages and a mine with a scientist or few as the food surplus allows is likely better than whipping the scientists away. But when you have farms, unimproved forests (I don't think there are many left after acid has had his workers go the rounds), and no real way to get at least 2.5 hammers per citizen (now counting those citizens that would be whipped), then you whip.

 

[Zombie69]

Look at the article in my sig, it was clearly demonstrated that you'll get more cottage turns using the whip than using mines, for the same production.

 

[acidsatyr]

You're a SE fan, you wouldn't understand.

Bwaha. Excuse me Mr. know it all.
So the fact that i play SE means i don't understand when or why a hill should get a cottage? Please.

I'd rather have a plains cottage in a commerce city than a stupid mine. I can get all the production i need in my commerce cities with slavery alone, and if food isn't plentiful enough, then just build less infrastructure, it's still better than using a stupid mine that does nothing for your cottage growth. The only exception, of course, is if there's a resource to be mined, then it's worth it.

A choice for a stupid mine, a cottage, or some other improvement depends mainly on your play style and is not written in stone, because none of the strategies for utilizing a hill are considered to be best.
I know from your posts that you like to extremely specialize your cities so that they are maximally geared for beakers/commerce. Your commerce cities also get a minimal amount of farms, just to support the growth, and none of the mines, meaning slavery and whipping is less than optimal in such cities. Good for you. I don't play like that, as I don’t believe in fully specializing cites. Whipping for commerce cities fails when they reach certain size, especially since they don't have farms.

 

[Elandal]

Hasn't the whip exploit been fixed already? I've never played vanilla pre-1.61, and have mostly played Warlords. Your article seems to assume whipping bug and exploiting that - yes, exploiting the bug makes whip powerful indeed.

Also, are we assuming stagnated at happy cap working best tiles available, possibly with best specialists available (eg. working only cottages with two librarians.. hired scientists that is)?

 

[Zombie69]

Bwaha. Excuse me Mr. know it all.
So the fact that i play SE means i don't understand when or why a hill should get a cottage? Please.

The fact you're an SE fan means you're no expert on cottage cities (which is what we're talking about in this thread), just as i, as a CE fan, am no expert on multiple GP farms.

 

[Zombie69]

Hasn't the whip exploit been fixed already? I've never played vanilla pre-1.61, and have mostly played Warlords. Your article seems to assume whipping bug and exploiting that - yes, exploiting the bug makes whip powerful indeed.

Also, are we assuming stagnated at happy cap working best tiles available, possibly with best specialists available (eg. working only cottages with two librarians.. hired scientists that is)?

The discussion i'm talking about, which took place for a few pages near the end of the thread, was assuming no production bonus, and hence no way to exploit the bug. With the bug, it just gets even better for slavery versus mines, but even without it, slavery wins.