Every city does not need every building?
- Thread starter madscientist
- Start date
OK, I get the point. This thread brings up a question I've had for a while. (Probably a really dumb one but I'm going to ask it anyway).
Obviously forges and the like effect the health of the city - but do other buildings as well? It seemed like when I stopped building every building available, whether it had the negative health modifier or not, in my early cities I saw
a lot less.
Course that was also about the time I started actually paying attention to and managing my cities a little more so it's tough to say.
Obviously forges and the like effect the health of the city - but do other buildings as well? It seemed like when I stopped building every building available, whether it had the negative health modifier or not, in my early cities I saw
a lot less.Course that was also about the time I started actually paying attention to and managing my cities a little more so it's tough to say.
vicawoo
Chieftain
- Joined
- Feb 12, 2007
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- 3,226
You don't get bonuses (except from production boosts) on building science/wealth.
And about the building 20 units, 20 should barely go into your supply limit, so that's ok. Without any initial buildings in your empire, you're going to be running at really low research with 12 cities, especially if you haven't built courthouses. And if they get to longbows, you'll need a lot more units than that. And building 4 settlers = 480 production (though you probably won't have anywhere to expand to).
What happens when they have higher tech units, like riflemen? Is it cost-efficient to take cities, when each of your units is like 2/3 a building, and they have several defenders? The answer is, your production isn't transferable across cities, and you can't expand anymore.
And about the building 20 units, 20 should barely go into your supply limit, so that's ok. Without any initial buildings in your empire, you're going to be running at really low research with 12 cities, especially if you haven't built courthouses. And if they get to longbows, you'll need a lot more units than that. And building 4 settlers = 480 production (though you probably won't have anywhere to expand to).
What happens when they have higher tech units, like riflemen? Is it cost-efficient to take cities, when each of your units is like 2/3 a building, and they have several defenders? The answer is, your production isn't transferable across cities, and you can't expand anymore.
madscientist
RPC Supergenius
This thread brings up a question I've had for a while. (Probably a really dumb one but I'm going to ask it anyway).
Obviously forges and the like effect the health of the city - but do other buildings as well? It seemed like when I stopped building every building available, whether it had the negative health modifier or not, in my early cities I saw
Course that was also about the time I started actually paying attention to and managing my cities a little more so it's tough to say.
Good point and it applies to this thread. With BTS unhappiness is a very serious issue. Factories get +5 unhealthiness if you have coal and oil, add +2 for a coal Plant, +1 for a forge that's +8 unhealthiness. SO you will eventually need a grocer/Aqueduct in most cities (unless you do not want to industrialize).
Drydock is not as bad since you susally have a harbor.
Also smarter trades help. Trading extra fish for bananas rather than wheat if you have agranery and no grocer doesn't help.
madscientist
RPC Supergenius
Yep, and you really cannot ignore the medicine tech anymore. For hospitals and the environmentalism civic.
VoiceOfUnreason
Deity
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- 3,663
Oops, right. So build wealth unless your commerce slider is already maxed on useful stuff.
popejubal
Emperor
My thought on this is that every city would like to have every building, but that you need to keep your empire's priorities in mind first.
I'd like to put a library in that city with 4 farms and 6 grassland mines, but I could be building a theater instead and I have a war coming (War Weariness makes me cry).
Okay, now I have a Theater in that city. I could build a library (and I'd still like to), but instead of a library, I think I'm going to build another few military units. The faster I can finish my next war, the faster I can start thinking about putting libraries in all those shiny new cities.
Now I'm in the middle of the war. I guess I should keep building military units in that city instead of the library. With 6 grassland mines available, I'd be foolish not to take advantage of that production.
Hmmm. Even with the Theater, War Weariness is getting to be a problem. Maybe it's time for a Market or a Coliseum.
As much as I'd like a library in this particular city, something else always wants to be built first. If I have enough production to actually build every building in every city, then why haven't I taken over more of the world yet? I'd rather grow my empire as a whole than grow each individual city. Sometimes that means building more infrastructure (like Workers, Libraries, Granaries, etc). Sometimes it means building more military. Sometimes it means building something else entirely.
If I actually do have the luxury to build buildings that aren't going to directly benefit my empire, I'm sometimes better off building science to get to my next research goal faster and advance my win condition.
...in other words, opportunity costs, just like most everyone else said.
I'd like to put a library in that city with 4 farms and 6 grassland mines, but I could be building a theater instead and I have a war coming (War Weariness makes me cry).
Okay, now I have a Theater in that city. I could build a library (and I'd still like to), but instead of a library, I think I'm going to build another few military units. The faster I can finish my next war, the faster I can start thinking about putting libraries in all those shiny new cities.
Now I'm in the middle of the war. I guess I should keep building military units in that city instead of the library. With 6 grassland mines available, I'd be foolish not to take advantage of that production.
Hmmm. Even with the Theater, War Weariness is getting to be a problem. Maybe it's time for a Market or a Coliseum.
As much as I'd like a library in this particular city, something else always wants to be built first. If I have enough production to actually build every building in every city, then why haven't I taken over more of the world yet? I'd rather grow my empire as a whole than grow each individual city. Sometimes that means building more infrastructure (like Workers, Libraries, Granaries, etc). Sometimes it means building more military. Sometimes it means building something else entirely.
If I actually do have the luxury to build buildings that aren't going to directly benefit my empire, I'm sometimes better off building science to get to my next research goal faster and advance my win condition.
...in other words, opportunity costs, just like most everyone else said.
Welnic
Emperor
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Building a bank because you are going to be building wealth is not helpful. The buildings that multiply research or gold have no affect if you are building research or wealth. Building wealth or research just converts hammers to gold or beakers, the buildings that modify production such as forges are the ones that count.
Since you usually have more cities with science multipliers, the higher you can run the science slider the better off you are. So if building wealth lets you run the science slider higher, you get a better return on your investment than building research. So consider building wealth if you don't have anything that you really need to build.
I usually build markets/grocers for their happiness/health benefits in the cities that need them. I hardly ever build banks, unless I have a city that is producing lots of gold for some reason, captured shrine or something like that.
One thing that I am going to try is giving away my coal if I can build the 3 Gorges Dam and I have oil and aluminum. If you have all of that then you no longer need coal for anything. You can build railroads with oil. If you don't want to trade it for strategic reasons then just build windmills instead of mines on the coal. Then you lose a lot of the health demerits with factories. You also lose production from IronWorks, but I think that it would usually be worth it. Once you got to Genetics or you forced everyone to run Environmentalism so you could spread your corporations then you could quit trading it away.
madscientist
RPC Supergenius
I agree on this, coal is a temporary thing now and should be gotten rid of ASAP. 50% production in irow works aint worth all that unhealthiness. I was thinking of windmilling the coal hill but trading it makes more sense.
Lurking Liu
Prince
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- 344
The funny thing about how some of the unhealthiness penalties are worded is that you can't avoid them with a Recycling Center. Industrial Park, for instance, applies the penalty directly to the resource. So, while it gets rid of the Forge and some of the Factory's penalties, Recycling Center isn't the life-saver it used to be (not that anyone built it in the past, but you get the idea).
Anyhow, from here on out the rest is pure opinion and your mileage may vary.
I don't play Civ4 as a wargame, so to me building 20 units and capturing 4 cities isn't necessarily the optimal solution. If I wanted to play for a Conquest or Domination win, I would obviously build the units and go for it. In that case, it's 100% the bang-on smart choice. However, going for the Conquest and Domination wins... It's not really that hard... You play the game like pressing buttons into a calculator, set up mental spreadsheets to see what's the most efficient move, and then do it. Chess is a fun game against a real person, but against a computer... Meh. So I go for the other types of win--or, most challenging of all, Domination without conquering the hell out of absolutely everyone--in which case doing the Builder thing is more helpful.
This is especially so because I play Marathon, in which unit cost is doubled, but building cost is tripled. Meaning that I hit my unit capacity relatively early, leaving the rest of my cities with nothing to do. Once you hit 100% and are still making a profit from Wealth building, there isn't much of a point of doing more Wealth building to make more of a profit, so I start/continue building infrastructure. Right around the Medival Era, you find that available buildings are down to one or two at most, so you're not constantly trying to catch up. In this case, buildings just make good sense.
Again, all this is in my experience and my playstyle, so as I said your mileage may vary.
Anyhow, from here on out the rest is pure opinion and your mileage may vary.
I don't play Civ4 as a wargame, so to me building 20 units and capturing 4 cities isn't necessarily the optimal solution. If I wanted to play for a Conquest or Domination win, I would obviously build the units and go for it. In that case, it's 100% the bang-on smart choice. However, going for the Conquest and Domination wins... It's not really that hard... You play the game like pressing buttons into a calculator, set up mental spreadsheets to see what's the most efficient move, and then do it. Chess is a fun game against a real person, but against a computer... Meh. So I go for the other types of win--or, most challenging of all, Domination without conquering the hell out of absolutely everyone--in which case doing the Builder thing is more helpful.
This is especially so because I play Marathon, in which unit cost is doubled, but building cost is tripled. Meaning that I hit my unit capacity relatively early, leaving the rest of my cities with nothing to do. Once you hit 100% and are still making a profit from Wealth building, there isn't much of a point of doing more Wealth building to make more of a profit, so I start/continue building infrastructure. Right around the Medival Era, you find that available buildings are down to one or two at most, so you're not constantly trying to catch up. In this case, buildings just make good sense.
Again, all this is in my experience and my playstyle, so as I said your mileage may vary.
popejubal
Emperor
In point of fact, this is one of the reasons why a specialist economy works in spite of the fact that a cottage economy is "better".
A specialist economy tends to get its reward for the investment sooner than a cottage economy does and it can then reinvest that reward to grow the empire and end with a significantly larger and stronger empire and a larger and stronger total economy than it could have if that profit had come later.
Cottage economies will eventually have stronger rewards from their individual cities, but might not have as many cities because the cottage economy's return on investment came later and was not as available for reinvestment.
That's why a Specialist Economy is always better than a Cottage Economy.
Except when the Cottage Economy is better.
(Please note that I am not trying to start a SE vs. CE argument, but merely point out one particular aspect of an argument that I had observed over more than a few games of Civ IV. YMMV. TANSTAAFL. WFYABTA.)
kakitadairu
Chieftain
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2007
- Messages
- 71
Imagine your empire as one large megacity, and each city is a building. Just like the buildings of your city support each other, the cities of your empire support each other.
Your border cities need culture, your interior cities do not.
Your largest cities need health/ happiness, your smallest cities do not.
You have to ask yourself, what does each city bring to your empire? Even with libraries, etc... the majority of your beakers/ coins/ culture is going to come from your key cities, not your fringe cities. Once you've built the necessities, it's more important for your fringe cities to be building Wealth (so you can run at 100% beakers or culture), Units to raise your power and defend, or Culture to expand your territory/ fight off expansion.
Basically, what each city is adding to your empire is:
An extra temple for Cathedrals in your key cities.
An extra courthouse for Forbidden Palace.
An extra university for Oxford.
An extra bank for Wall Street.
Ok so here is some breakdown:
Each city should have (in priority):
Granary for whipping
Forge to increase production
Levee to increase production, if applicable
Temples to build cathedral and to get bonuses from Sistine Chapel, University of Sankore, Spiral Miranet
Courthouse for Forbidden Palace and maintenance reduction
Library for University and culture
University, for Oxford University and culture, although after you get Oxford you don't build this except for high commerce cities
Banks are of low priority because Wall Street is so late.
In your border support cities, you will want:
Theater for culture and Artist specialists
In your interior support cities, you will want:
Market and/ or preferably Grocer, to run Merchant specialists
Jail, Intelligence Agency and Security Bureau when you have cash overflow/ production to spare
In your sea cities you will want:
Customs House to increase trade yield
Harbor to increase trade yield
Lighthouse to increase food production, but only if it's more advantageous to work coast tiles instead of Merchant/ Artist specialists
In your capital you might build:
Wall/ Castle, but only if you get Engineering very early, and only if you have stone
Everything
In cities along a hostile border:
Barracks
Stables
Units with some production queued up to be whipped, and perhaps some happiness buildings as well
Observatories: Only build in your capital and high commerce cities
Colosseums: Don't build them unless it's your UB or you whip too much
The key concept is raw commerce. You want your raw commerce to be as high as possible, since it can be directed into Beaker or Culture, and Coins when you run low on cash. The multipliers such as Market/ Library are useful, but only in larger cities. Thus buildings that increase raw commerce such as Harbor/ Custom House >>> Market/ Library. By building wealth/ running Merchant specialists in your small cities instead of building Universities, you will be able to run at 100% beakers more often and therefore be much further out ahead.
Production is the most critical limiting factor to your growth. You need to prioritize your limited whipping ability by spending hammers on what is most important.
Cheers,
Dai
Your border cities need culture, your interior cities do not.
Your largest cities need health/ happiness, your smallest cities do not.
You have to ask yourself, what does each city bring to your empire? Even with libraries, etc... the majority of your beakers/ coins/ culture is going to come from your key cities, not your fringe cities. Once you've built the necessities, it's more important for your fringe cities to be building Wealth (so you can run at 100% beakers or culture), Units to raise your power and defend, or Culture to expand your territory/ fight off expansion.
Basically, what each city is adding to your empire is:
An extra temple for Cathedrals in your key cities.
An extra courthouse for Forbidden Palace.
An extra university for Oxford.
An extra bank for Wall Street.
Ok so here is some breakdown:
Each city should have (in priority):
Granary for whipping
Forge to increase production
Levee to increase production, if applicable
Temples to build cathedral and to get bonuses from Sistine Chapel, University of Sankore, Spiral Miranet
Courthouse for Forbidden Palace and maintenance reduction
Library for University and culture
University, for Oxford University and culture, although after you get Oxford you don't build this except for high commerce cities
Banks are of low priority because Wall Street is so late.
In your border support cities, you will want:
Theater for culture and Artist specialists
In your interior support cities, you will want:
Market and/ or preferably Grocer, to run Merchant specialists
Jail, Intelligence Agency and Security Bureau when you have cash overflow/ production to spare
In your sea cities you will want:
Customs House to increase trade yield
Harbor to increase trade yield
Lighthouse to increase food production, but only if it's more advantageous to work coast tiles instead of Merchant/ Artist specialists
In your capital you might build:
Wall/ Castle, but only if you get Engineering very early, and only if you have stone
Everything
In cities along a hostile border:
Barracks
Stables
Units with some production queued up to be whipped, and perhaps some happiness buildings as well
Observatories: Only build in your capital and high commerce cities
Colosseums: Don't build them unless it's your UB or you whip too much
The key concept is raw commerce. You want your raw commerce to be as high as possible, since it can be directed into Beaker or Culture, and Coins when you run low on cash. The multipliers such as Market/ Library are useful, but only in larger cities. Thus buildings that increase raw commerce such as Harbor/ Custom House >>> Market/ Library. By building wealth/ running Merchant specialists in your small cities instead of building Universities, you will be able to run at 100% beakers more often and therefore be much further out ahead.
Production is the most critical limiting factor to your growth. You need to prioritize your limited whipping ability by spending hammers on what is most important.
Cheers,
Dai
Sorry I have not had time to read all replies but I'll say this.
Generally when talking about specialising cities you don't choose between gold-boosting buildings and science-boosting buildings. Commerce cities - one of the most important specializations - benefit from all types of commerce improving buildings like libraries and banks etc.
These are the city types I employ:
Then there are a few types which get dedicated to one city (or in the case of the military pump, it depends on the size of empire).
I'm a specialization supporter through and through. It makes sense. For example, a city which produces only 2 commerce would benefit very little from building a bank, especially if you tend to run the research slider quite high. Military units etc. are far more useful in commerce-poor cities. I suppose it also depends slightly on whether you are a CE or SE advocate. I usually prefer CE which I think tends to encourage specialization a bit more fiercely.
Generally when talking about specialising cities you don't choose between gold-boosting buildings and science-boosting buildings. Commerce cities - one of the most important specializations - benefit from all types of commerce improving buildings like libraries and banks etc.
These are the city types I employ:
- Commerce
- Production... I use these mainly for military, but these tend to be best for nabbing important wonders too.
Then there are a few types which get dedicated to one city (or in the case of the military pump, it depends on the size of empire).
- GP Farm
- Super Science city
- Wall Street (or Holy Shrine) city
- Military Pump (usually more than one)
- National Park city (lots of forests) - actually I haven't done this one yet but plan to make one of these in my games that go long enough.
I'm a specialization supporter through and through. It makes sense. For example, a city which produces only 2 commerce would benefit very little from building a bank, especially if you tend to run the research slider quite high. Military units etc. are far more useful in commerce-poor cities. I suppose it also depends slightly on whether you are a CE or SE advocate. I usually prefer CE which I think tends to encourage specialization a bit more fiercely.
A point I think worth of notice is that buildings or units or whatever do not just
cost hammers, but also time, turns.
And that time/turn cost is the reason I always try to specialize cities (try not
always achieve).
Best regards,
cost hammers, but also time, turns.
And that time/turn cost is the reason I always try to specialize cities (try not
always achieve).
Best regards,
madscientist
RPC Supergenius
Well this has been a usefull and helpful thread, thanks all for the input.
My current game with Churchill on isolated continents/islands although in contact with all AIs has me actually spamming as many buildings as I can. I have probably too many units already, and have been able to defend a costal city from Bouducas amphibious landing using only one CGII longbow (gotta love protective leaders sometimes). With most of my infrastructure in place, and far ahead in tech (My longbow have been upgraded to redcoats) I now plan to use all my cities to produce a stronge navy and land army to start "liberating" some AIs. SO perhaps this is an example of building first then worrying about military. Investment versus profit, well in this case there was no profit to building a massive army to be carted arround in a ton of galleys so the profit was actually investing in infrastructure.
So what most people have suggested on this thread and which makes alot of sense to me is play the game as given and do not build a building for the sake of it. PRIORITIZE and SPECIALIZE keys up most of the advice.
The above described game sort of led me to start this thread (also it was briefly mentioned in another one as a reply), and the question is it wrong to build predominantly buildings. Well, now given the situation and leader traits (charismatic and protective) the answer is no. I think I played the situation as it was dealt. I have used some restraint in building, no theater or colliseums yet as there is no cultural border problems (YET) and war weariness is not an issue as I am starting to build jails.
Thanks for all the help and suggestions.
My current game with Churchill on isolated continents/islands although in contact with all AIs has me actually spamming as many buildings as I can. I have probably too many units already, and have been able to defend a costal city from Bouducas amphibious landing using only one CGII longbow (gotta love protective leaders sometimes). With most of my infrastructure in place, and far ahead in tech (My longbow have been upgraded to redcoats) I now plan to use all my cities to produce a stronge navy and land army to start "liberating" some AIs. SO perhaps this is an example of building first then worrying about military. Investment versus profit, well in this case there was no profit to building a massive army to be carted arround in a ton of galleys so the profit was actually investing in infrastructure.
So what most people have suggested on this thread and which makes alot of sense to me is play the game as given and do not build a building for the sake of it. PRIORITIZE and SPECIALIZE keys up most of the advice.
The above described game sort of led me to start this thread (also it was briefly mentioned in another one as a reply), and the question is it wrong to build predominantly buildings. Well, now given the situation and leader traits (charismatic and protective) the answer is no. I think I played the situation as it was dealt. I have used some restraint in building, no theater or colliseums yet as there is no cultural border problems (YET) and war weariness is not an issue as I am starting to build jails.
Thanks for all the help and suggestions.
DarkFyre99
Prince
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2006
- Messages
- 419
Does every city need all the buildings?
No.
Production cities certainly don't need science or gold buildings in them. The hammers spent on those buildings aren't worth the handful of gold or science gained from trade or riverside commerce. They're better off spent elseware.
But what about the rest of your cities? The non-production cities? Surely they could you use every building?
No, I really don't think you need to build every building in the rest of your empire either. Every building you build carries with it an opportunity cost. Not necessarily in military units, but other costs as well. Every turn a citizen spends working that mined hill or sacrificed to the whip to help build a financial or science building is a turn lost working to mature a cottage, working a farm to grow population, or working as a specialist.
My general goal in the game is to have as large a population as possible, working as much land as possible, while keeping the slider as close to 100% as possible and still be in the green. I do this by producing specialized gold, science, and espionage cities. Usually, I use cottages in my science cities, and specialists in the other cities. Thus, the 100% slider goal.
Sure, all my cities will get commerce income from trade routes, those with rivers get some as well, and most of that would normally be converted to beakers. But is it really worth takeing a merchant or two away from making gold to help build a science building to maximize the few beakers I get from those sources? No.
And of course, if my science slider isn't running at 100%, my science cities might make a couple gold. But is it really worth diverting a few citizens from working cottages to produce a gold building? Again, no.
And what about production buildings? I'm not planning on building anything except the necessary infrastructure in non-production cities, so why try to maximize my hammers there.
Every city doesn't need every building. A highly effecient empire means highly specialized cities, each tasked with one function: whether its producing science, gold, espionage, units, or wonders. A city producing science and little gold doesn't need a gold building, and vice versa.
That said, Oxford, Wall-Street, and Ironworks all require a minimum number of buildings to be said. While science cities tend to dominate in an empire, gold and production don't, so its inevitable that you'll need to build some forges in non-production cities, and some banks in non-gold cities. But that's a far cry from every city needing every building.
No.
Production cities certainly don't need science or gold buildings in them. The hammers spent on those buildings aren't worth the handful of gold or science gained from trade or riverside commerce. They're better off spent elseware.
But what about the rest of your cities? The non-production cities? Surely they could you use every building?
No, I really don't think you need to build every building in the rest of your empire either. Every building you build carries with it an opportunity cost. Not necessarily in military units, but other costs as well. Every turn a citizen spends working that mined hill or sacrificed to the whip to help build a financial or science building is a turn lost working to mature a cottage, working a farm to grow population, or working as a specialist.
My general goal in the game is to have as large a population as possible, working as much land as possible, while keeping the slider as close to 100% as possible and still be in the green. I do this by producing specialized gold, science, and espionage cities. Usually, I use cottages in my science cities, and specialists in the other cities. Thus, the 100% slider goal.
Sure, all my cities will get commerce income from trade routes, those with rivers get some as well, and most of that would normally be converted to beakers. But is it really worth takeing a merchant or two away from making gold to help build a science building to maximize the few beakers I get from those sources? No.
And of course, if my science slider isn't running at 100%, my science cities might make a couple gold. But is it really worth diverting a few citizens from working cottages to produce a gold building? Again, no.
And what about production buildings? I'm not planning on building anything except the necessary infrastructure in non-production cities, so why try to maximize my hammers there.
Every city doesn't need every building. A highly effecient empire means highly specialized cities, each tasked with one function: whether its producing science, gold, espionage, units, or wonders. A city producing science and little gold doesn't need a gold building, and vice versa.
That said, Oxford, Wall-Street, and Ironworks all require a minimum number of buildings to be said. While science cities tend to dominate in an empire, gold and production don't, so its inevitable that you'll need to build some forges in non-production cities, and some banks in non-gold cities. But that's a far cry from every city needing every building.
I believe the problems most people have with overbuilding(im one of said overbuilders!) is that whenever i make a settler, i cant fathom using it to anything except:
A) settle somewhere where ill make a 20 pop pure production/cash/GPP/whatever power house or
B) simply settle up in the tundra because there was copper/silver/fur/whatever that i needed and leave the city at 1-3ish pop.
I just think managing cities that arent "really good" is a huge bother.
Basically, i dont settle cities that arent gonna be able to use a crapload of buildings to improve them, if i make a quick count and i realize that a particular site will never make it above pop 10 then i just dont build a city there which also makes it so that it feels very awkward to NOT build libraries/banks/unis/observatories etc etc because in my mind im always thinking "Damn this city is gonna be so good when im done!".
Im guessing i should just spam cities everywhere like the AI does or what? It just seems like such a waste of settlers(because of having to build all the "must-have" buildings for each, like courthouses and granaries etc).
Edit for clarification: in the case of A) the point is that 20 pop powerhouse cities can usually make use of most buildings because theyll have decent production even if its a cottage city(universal suffrage and levee since i would usually plant such cities at a river) so ill want a rax and hammer boosting buildings, ill want libraries etc to boost the massive cash into science, i want commerce buildings because they usually add happiness and health since its a high pop city and of course, its already a commerce city to begin with. now all of a sudden ive included pretty much every building there is? Of course theres the point that the city will not become very high hammer wise until US and levee's but even so building all the other buildings would make me want to build the production boosting buildings first to speed it all up!
Basically, its really hard to think that a city i place will NOT need all the buildings because of just how massively awesome that city would be if it had all the buildings it could have.
The only real exception is pure production cities where i only really need production boosting buildings and enough happy/health that i can grow to a size where i can use all the nice mines/workshops/whatever.
A) settle somewhere where ill make a 20 pop pure production/cash/GPP/whatever power house or
B) simply settle up in the tundra because there was copper/silver/fur/whatever that i needed and leave the city at 1-3ish pop.
I just think managing cities that arent "really good" is a huge bother.
Basically, i dont settle cities that arent gonna be able to use a crapload of buildings to improve them, if i make a quick count and i realize that a particular site will never make it above pop 10 then i just dont build a city there which also makes it so that it feels very awkward to NOT build libraries/banks/unis/observatories etc etc because in my mind im always thinking "Damn this city is gonna be so good when im done!".
Im guessing i should just spam cities everywhere like the AI does or what? It just seems like such a waste of settlers(because of having to build all the "must-have" buildings for each, like courthouses and granaries etc).
Edit for clarification: in the case of A) the point is that 20 pop powerhouse cities can usually make use of most buildings because theyll have decent production even if its a cottage city(universal suffrage and levee since i would usually plant such cities at a river) so ill want a rax and hammer boosting buildings, ill want libraries etc to boost the massive cash into science, i want commerce buildings because they usually add happiness and health since its a high pop city and of course, its already a commerce city to begin with. now all of a sudden ive included pretty much every building there is? Of course theres the point that the city will not become very high hammer wise until US and levee's but even so building all the other buildings would make me want to build the production boosting buildings first to speed it all up!
Basically, its really hard to think that a city i place will NOT need all the buildings because of just how massively awesome that city would be if it had all the buildings it could have.
The only real exception is pure production cities where i only really need production boosting buildings and enough happy/health that i can grow to a size where i can use all the nice mines/workshops/whatever.
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