economy questions

[johncross21]

i am playing a game using the cottage economy

I have improved my game slightly by curbing my building addiction and specialising cities but I still have problems managing my economy

a couple of questions

a) in cities with lots of coins is it best to build a mixture of commerce buildings and libraries in one city or specialise in either research or commerce (one city for research and one for commerce {edit Gold}). I can't see any advantages in making one city a research city and another a commerce {edit Gold} city but tell me if I'm wrong ?

b) if like me you only have a few scattered specialists around the map how do you influence whether you get a great scientist or great engineer etc

c) how often do you build wealth in your commerce cities (and where do you build wealth and where do you build science). I never build science (should I ?)

cheers

 

[lilnev]

a) By "commerce city" I take it you mean a gold city , rather than , which converts to either research or gold depending on the slider. There's no such thing as a specialized "gold city" unless you have non-tile sources of gold: a shrine, settled GPs and GMs, or corporation headquarters. If you do have such things, adding market/grocer/bank/wall st. makes all sorts of sense. But if you're talking about tile-based commerce (e.g. cottages), your slider should be high enough that science multipliers are good -- they'll be primarily research cities -- and gold multipliers may or may not be worth it, depending on how low you have to drop the slider to cover expenses.

b) Running a cottage economy, you should have only one GP farm, defined as the city that gets the NE. One type of GP farm runs off food surpluses and lots of specialists. If you're in Caste System, you can fairly reliably get GSs or GMs this way, but otherwise your specialists are limited by the buildings you've got, and you won't have a lot of control. If you really like late-game GEs, you can combine forge+factory+Ironworks+industrial park, and run quite a few engineers that way. The other type of GP farm uses high production (typically in the capital) to produce a lot of Wonders. You'll generally emphasize GP and GE wonders, with maybe a few GMs and GSs thrown in as well (try to avoid GAs). And again you won't have a lot of control. Early on it's easier to specify which type of person you get, as you can just run two scientists off a library to get a GS, or an engineer off a forge for a GE.

c) I sometimes build Wealth late in the game when I'm going for spaceship or cultural wins, and I feel good about my diplomacy (I don't expect to be invaded). The cities with the best military multipliers (HE, military academies, settled GGs) should probably keep building troops to leverage those multipliers, and many cities are likely to stay focused on commerce buildings, but some production cities that don't need more building can be diverted to Wealth. I seldom build Research unless it's very short-term (speeding up a key tech by one turn), or sometimes early on if most of my cities are heavily production-biased and I need to get to key economic techs (Alphabet, Monarchy, Currency) to get my economy off the ground. But not often. Note that if your empire has more research multipliers (e.g. libraries) than gold multipliers (e.g. banks), it generally makes sense to build Wealth and set the slider higher, rather than build Research. Building a Wonder that you don't plan to finish can be even more profitable if you're Industrious and/or have the resource to boost it (assuming you can afford to wait until someone else finishes it, of course).

peace,
lilnev

 

[Big Boss Man]

Breif answers : Decide what the city will provide to your empire , a research capital for example . b : Wonders + buildings + specialists , engineer example Hanging Gardens + forge + specialist . c : If you really need money . Build wealth in a city that has the most cash flow i.e. market place , bank ect. Sci Build , mabey to lower a techs cost

Suggested : Visit the war Academy and read up on topics
My reply was breif because the answers are already covered in so many great articles . Sisiutil's Civ IV Strat Guide for beginners ect.

Good Luck

 

[hal08]

a) Specializing research and money is the way to go. That's not to say that you won't build library/university/etc in your money city (in fact you often will due to needing X universities for Oxford and because a good money city will put out a decent amount of science), but that bank/market/Wall Street are a higher priority. Health/happiness buildings of course need to be built as needed.

It really doesn't need to be complicated to specialize your cities. For your science city you will build library, university, observatory, Oxford University, Academy (via great scientist), laboratory, and possibly scientist specialists and settled great scientists. Whereas a money city would have market, grocer, bank, Wall Street, possibly merchant specialists and settled great merchants, and if you're lucky a holy city shrine.

As an example, a game that I played not too long ago my capital was my main science city, and at the end of the game I was getting 770 beakers per turn but only 12 gold. My main gold city was getting 210 gold per turn and 186 beakers. As you can see, it's really not a high priority to put money buildings in my science city since the return is relatively low. Btw I was running a specialist economy, so cottage economy might give a bit more gold.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

You may be confusing commerce buildings (harbor, customs house) with wealth buildings (market grocer bank). If so, taking some time to get the distinction straight is a good idea.

in cities with lots of coins is it best to build a mixture of commerce buildings and libraries in one city or specialise in either research or commerce (one city for research and one for commerce). I can't see any advantages in making one city a research city and another a commerce city but tell me if I'm wrong ?

There are some micromanagy opportunities for taking advantage of this, to some degree. But at the strategic level, you aren't wrong.

The issue here is the commerce sliders. What you really want is to be in a situation where all of your commerce is converted to wealth, then multiplied by wealth buildings, or more commonly all of your commerce is converted to research, multiplied by your research buildings.

Of course, if all of your commerce is being converted to wealth, then you need research to come from somewhere else (scientists, lightbulbing, trade, etc), or vice versa.

With the sliders set for 50% research, 50% gold, specialization loses much of its luster.

For games that are going to use a lot of research (ie space races and late game military), the most common approach it to try to drive the slider a particular direction. If your biggest/oldest/best commerce cities are specialized a particular way, then you want to push the slider as hard as you can in that direction, and run the other way in the subburbs.

So for a game concentrating on space, the old cities (with towns, academies, monasteries) tend to be research focused. So you want as much commerce as you can manage dedicated to research. Your newer cities therefore should try to provide the wealth you need (hiring merchants, building wealth).

On the other hand, if your older cities are wealth focused (shrines of important religions), then you may want to go the other direction - floor the slider, and hire scientists in the outskirts.

if like me you only have a few scattered specialists around the map how do you influence whether you get a great scientist or great engineer etc

Change your style of play? You can also try to group the wonders you build more effectively. If you want scientists, put all the science wonders together, separate all of the artist/priest wonders, and so on.

c) how often do you build wealth in your commerce cities (and where do you build wealth and where do you build science). I never build science (should I ?)

Building science isn't something I do often. It's generally more effective to build wealth, and dedicate more of the commerce slider to research (because the bigger commerce cities have better multipliers).

If you are already running a surplus even with the science slider set at 100%, then maybe build wealth.