Factories

[Brucha]

Which cities is it best to build factories in? Should you only build them in barracks cities set up to produce military units?

And as a side question, at what point should courthouses be built? I have been waiting until corrpution is at 50%. Should they be biult before then?

 

[vmxa]

Courthouses is the easy one, just calculate the return. If it will pay for itself, then go ahead.

Factories, is another story in my book. In a normal game, I will generally only make about 4 factories. This is because I will not need to make more than 4 to 6 units every other turn as I will suffer few losses, due to armies.

In an map that is larger or super large, or in a variant, I will make more factories as I need more troops. So you want to have enough shields in the city to justify the expense and pollution.

Of course you will want a barracks as any arty city can do with out a factory or a rax.

 

[Mr_Fusty]

I usally construct factories nearly everywhere..with the exceptions of 1 tile islands and 'garrison towns' (ie in desert-mountains-tundra with no hope of growth) I just like to have my shield capacity as large as possible...just in case I need to produce many tanks/art/inf/fighters in a pinch. That, and it reduces the risk to sneak attacks.

vmxa, what would you do if I discovered where your half-dozen factory-cities were - then nuked them all? The chances would be if you had ICBM's they would be there too, so I would get some of them too.. I would cripple your production of heavy units, and if you had any Late Era Wonders/Small Wonders, I bet they would be there too. Then I would fling as much forces I could get together straight for them (If the cities were reachable) Perhaps this is just an example of not putting all of your eggs into one basket.

Call me paraniod about others using this tactic against me, I allways try to spread out the risks. Barracks/Civil Defence/SAMS in every city, Coastal Fortress in every coastal city, and as long as any improvement can pay for itself, its in.

 

[vmxa]

First nothing I say as any bearing on MP games, it is only epic games. I would and do play differntly in MP games.

Now the Ai is not going to be around to make nukes, unless I am playing conquest only on Sid. Even then I usually will be able to prevent nukes.

Do note that you will do NO damage to ICBM's with nukes, none at all. They are treated like wonders and can only be destroyed by razing the city. So you will not hurt my wonders either.

Of course I will not have more than 2 or 3 wonders anyway. The AI will beat me to nearly all of them.

Rest assured I am cutting back on production, because I no longer need it, otherwise I would not cut back.

You won't beat any strong players with your tactics. If you build all that crap you will be wiped out by early stages. You just cannot build all that junk and make troops and research at the same time, unless you play at low levels like Monarch.

May I just say making coastal batteries is crazy and civil defense is way over the top in all but a very rare case. In short you style is what keeps most players from getting in mid levels like emper and demi.

 

[gmaharriet]

what would you do if I discovered where your half-dozen factory-cities were - then nuked them all? The chances would be if you had ICBM's they would be there too, so I would get some of them too.. I would cripple your production of heavy units, and if you had any Late Era Wonders/Small Wonders, I bet they would be there too. Then I would fling as much forces I could get together straight for them (If the cities were reachable) Perhaps this is just an example of not putting all of your eggs into one basket.

Call me paraniod about others using this tactic against me, I allways try to spread out the risks. Barracks/Civil Defence/SAMS in every city, Coastal Fortress in every coastal city, and as long as any improvement can pay for itself, its in.

It sounds like you're talking about multi-player games against other humans. There's a separate forum for Multiplayer and PBEM games. Playing against the AI is completely different from playing against other people...the AI is more predictable and they probably wouldn't even think to target your factory cities, where a human would.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

if I had a 4-6 cities with factories and one of them got nuked...

I'd build a factory in another city. It's not all that expensive to build a factory fast in the modern age.

 

[vmxa]

Fact is the AI would probably nuke a town that had Ur connect to try to cut you off, that is what it does in the games I have seen. That is why it hits little tundra towns so often. Also will target Aluminum tiles.

 

[Quintillus]

My rule of thumb is to build a Factory in cities with production of 10 or higher, but not in cities that have production of 9 or lower. That way I don't have a bunch of near-useless factories, but I still have excellent production and can get lots of troops very quickly if I need them. The number of factories has depends on how good my cities' production is, and of course how many cities I have.

For spreading out the risk, Communism is your friend. But unless your core is still on your border late in the game, you don't need Communism to spread out the risk. Nukes are another matter, but the AI isn't too good about targeting nukes, as already mentioned.

Demigod being a medium level? I doubt many Civ players can beat it. I'll start a poll on the highest level CivFanatics can beat, though even then it is biased, as most lower-level, casual Civ players probably aren't memebers here.

 

[Mr_Fusty]

Well, I know that ICBM's are unneffected by a strike, as well as wonders. However - other units, population, buildings and surrounding tile improvements are are. Often in games that last into this era, the prize cities (the ones that are the strength of your rival's empire) often will have civil defence/flaks/fighters/population of 25+/tons of inf/SAM's which make any other tactic than a nuke look like the Western Front of WWI.

Although it is very rare, the AI also has done this to me a couple of times. It may of been after the resorces that the cities were near at the time, or it may just had been luck. I will never know.

Sorry for going OT...Quite correct. My general point being though, is that placing important and costly buildings in reach of a rival needs to be considered carefully, because even the AI may attempt to swipe it if it believes it can get away with it. You could turn your border into the one between the Koreas, but if you had the units to do that everywhere, the AI proberly wouldn't do it anyway.

I agree with Quintillus on Communism, usally. The only time I would remain in Democracy would be if the Corruption is below 50% on the fringe, and I have a healthy economy for rush-buying but a somewhat small population that rules out forced labour for large objects.

 

[vmxa]

Demigod being a medium level? I doubt many Civ players can beat it. I'll start a poll on the highest level CivFanatics can beat, though even then it is biased, as most lower-level, casual Civ players probably aren't memebers here.

Well Emperor has three levels below it and 3 above it. The next one above is DG, so I would say that is a middle level.

DG is not a cake walk, but it can be beaten at AW, so it seems to be to be a middle level. Deity is a high level as of course is Sid. These are levels that you can lose on without having a bad start location.

I will concede casual players cannot beat DG, they are not beating Emperor either, but I do not think anyone can truly say emperor is a high level.

 

[vmxa]

Mr_Fusty,
Glad to have you on the board.

"Often in games that last into this era, the prize cities (the ones that are the strength of your rival's empire) often will have civil defence/flaks/fighters/population of 25+/tons of inf/SAM's which make any other tactic than a nuke look like the Western Front of WWI."

This is what you see from the AI or a weak player, not from a strong player. They will not have tons of units sitting on their backsides. They will not have tons of sams or flaks or fighters. No civil defense either. These are expenses that will slow down your winning of the game.

I would say I have only used civil defense a few times. This is only if I have enough time to prepare from an onslaught on an invasion and then only on Sid. None on my homeland as even on Sid they are not able to invade, after I get to the middle ages.

I did use civil defense recently when I was able to land enough armies to block the AI from counterattacking my beachhead. Once I got the rax, wall and then civil defense up, I let them come in to get killed.

I knew I would face many hundreds of attackers and I want to be sure to not lose any armies.

Anyway, you do not want to over build defense. Four flaks/mobile sam are all that will be used in a given town, so any extra is jsut a waste of shields.

Fighters are marginal and I only build a few for recon as a rule.

"I agree with Quintillus on Communism, usally. The only time I would remain in Democracy would be if the Corruption is below 50% on the fringe, and I have a healthy economy for rush-buying but a somewhat small population that rules out forced labour for large objects."

Not sure what was said about Commie, but:

Demo, don't use it. It requires several optional techs and is not worth the time.

Commie, of rare value. There is a window where it has merit. You have to have an empire that is large, but not super large. This is seldom the case.

You have no need to research the tech or to suffer the anarchy to switch. Once you get too large the corruption will hurt the core and that is the place that most of your production comes from.

I have not used Demo in C3C ever and commie only a few times.

 

[Mr_Fusty]

Thanks.

I've never been in favour myself of stuffing cities full of units due to paranoia - those units could be used better elsewhere, or not built at all . The only time I've been guilty of this is when there is one city guarding the only viable land route (ie RW Istanbul, Suez, Panama etc) or when the city is right on the border of a highly agressive rival. Normally, each city will have a garrison of 2 defenders, a fighter if on the border, a patrol boat if coastal. If I feeling very generous, it will get another defender. The rest of my troops would be hiding out of sight.

I do build civil defence in all my cities - but they are not my 1st pirority (unless war is looming and I know I will be outnumbered) In peace, prepare for war. However, my people get some butter with their guns.

Well, you have helped me notice a very bad habit that I have got into. For a long time, I played PTW which had no flaks, so I built SAM's. From now on, I will build far less SAM's and a few more flaks. What did I think was going to happen? Air raid on a city 20+ squares behind the border? I doubt many Humans would do that, let alone the AI.

Yeah, fighters are just recon planes which just happen to be armed. I was so dissapointed with them when I built them for the first time in war (I had built 20!)

In most games, I'm Communist. I will only be Democratic if I have enough things to make 'em happy. By around Invention, I know what gov I will need, and will beeline accordingly.

One question - factories, power plants and pollution. When do you start to industrialize? Do you change all the build orders for them? And what power plants do you hook up at first (if any)? And what is your first pirority - whack-a-mole the pollution or build your railway network?

 

[ChaosArbiter]

In general, building your railroads should be your first priority (unless you lack either coal or iron - I didn't have a source of iron in one of my games, kept trying to trade for it, eventually couldn't and had to conquer for it). Also, I don't industrialize too much, as I prefer hilly/mountainous terrain to keep my production high enough that it's not necessary until I'm about to transition to the modern age. For Power Plants, I either go for the Hoover Dam or don't build them unless I'm going for a space race victory.

 

[PaperBeetle]

By around Invention, I know what gov I will need, and will beeline accordingly.

By around Invention you should already be in the gov you will need.

 

[vmxa]

My main point on governments is that you do not want to be switching, but once. Ok, religious civs can get away with it, but you are not going to be religious all the time.

That means going to monarchy or republic. I choose the one I need for my plan of winning. Normally I will play AW, so monarchy for me, but republic in a normal game.

Some games, you can win without really making any factories, but if it is conquest or domination, then I tend to do factories as soon as I can.

Then put up a coal plant, until I get hydro or not. IOW if it is a game I can get Hoovers or not. Pollution, you just clean it up.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I recently went to communism for the 1st time ever. It was in a huge deity 100K game. It was useful - poprushing and every city could build something.

 

[Mr_Fusty]

Thanks all.

Sorry it's been a while, but the RW came and suprised me again.

Sorry, when I wrote 'In most games, I'm Communist' I meant that in games that I have decided to change my govt. If I am finding that my current govt (usally Monarchy) is working fine, I don't bother. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I really don't go in for Republic and I have a complete mental block about becoming Fascist.

Unless I want a wonder or two, I have never built Coal Plants. I also use Hoover's Dam if I can get it.

The main thing I have learnt here is that my game has become somewhat staid in strategy. Bet I have got a few more bad habits that need correcting.
Thinking outside of the box never hurt anyone.

 

[D0NIMATRIX]

I build factories only where there are roughly 12 shields being used and roughly 15+ unused. And the commerce produced by said city SHOULD be able to pay for the factory, but that's not as important.