Fat Cross and Citizens

[Solostian]

Hi,

I'm a newbie at CivIV (and Civ in general). I've been playing Tokugawa in the Earth scenario at Noble level, standard pace, since I bought the game. I just like to start from Japan.

The strat I've been employing up to this point is to rush-colonize the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia and North America (including Panama), staying well outside mainland politics. I keep ennemy AIs at bay thru a strong friendly relationship with China and a strong navy.

Although I do get a nice large empire with well-equipped cities, I find myself unable to take the lead in any of the victory conditions (always second or third). Moreover, although "Aggressive", I am unable to build any sizable army capable to conquer AND HOLD ennemy territories, at any time in the game.

I scoured the forum and found disjointed information tidbits on the Fat Cross and city micromanagement/specialization. Unfortunately, those tidbits are insufficient to really help improve my game. Thus, I have a few questions for more experienced players.

1. What is the impact of the Fat Cross on the surrounding tile improvements? Are there improvements that should usually remain within and others outside? Is the Fat Cross a good rule of thumb for a new city foundation's distance to others? (I usually put 3 cities in Japan.) Is the Fat Cross's size always 21 tiles? Can it expand?

2. Citizens are said to be "working" tiles within the Fat Cross. What does it mean for the tile improvements within and outside the Fat Cross? How many citizens can a city have and how much should it have? What about specialists, how should I micromanage them?

3. I realize now that my cities were not specialised and that my capital was hogging all the wonders. Apparently, this is a no-no. From the GOTM-2 forum, I kinda now get how to specialise a city for Tech research. I still don't get how I can specilize a city for troop mass-production. Does anyone have an idea how I can achieve this with Japan in the Earth scenario?

4. Is a colonization strat inapropriate for Japan? Shouldn't I try to rush China instead and try to expand through conquest?

5. Samurais are a great UU. Unfortunately, the required techs to get them are kinda numerous. I find that gunpowder units quickly steal their thunder. Is their a basic sure-fire way of mass-producing them (excluding The Oracle to get Civil Service)? Moreover, when could I expect to use them en masse: Antiquity, High or Low Middle-Ages? Should I wait for them before I attempt to rush any ennemy?

Thanks for any help,
Solostian
--
"Luckily for me, ridicule does not kill."

 

[Ozyman8]

Solostian, the answers to questions 1-2 can be found in the following link, under City Placement:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=144029

For 3, choose a hilly (high-hammer) location. Fill your hills with mines and your flatlands with farms. Tell your governor to emphasize hammers, of course. Later add workshops. Add forge, factory, and power improvements. Builld the heroic epic and westpoint national wonders. Also build the pentagon. You will have a solid military city.

 

[Radres]

1. What is the impact of the Fat Cross on the surrounding tile improvements? Are there improvements that should usually remain within and others outside? Is the Fat Cross a good rule of thumb for a new city foundation's distance to others? (I usually put 3 cities in Japan.) Is the Fat Cross's size always 21 tiles? Can it expand?

You'll only ever want to build improvements on tiles within the fat cross, with the exception of roads and railroads for connecting cities, and resources within your cultural border but outside of a fat cross. You can also chop forest outside the cross to get the one-time production bonus, but it is at a reduced rate from the tiles that are actually within your borders.

Certain tile types within your fat cross will affect the healthiness of your city. In general, jungles reduce health while rivers and forests increase health.

The fat cross cannot expand; your extra citizens will become specialists (scientists, priests, etc.).

It's a good idea to space out your cities so that the fat crosses do not overlap, but there are times when you will have to overlap some based on the amount of land available to you and certain strategic considerations.

2. Citizens are said to be "working" tiles within the Fat Cross. What does it mean for the tile improvements within and outside the Fat Cross? How many citizens can a city have and how much should it have? What about specialists, how should I micromanage them?

If you double-click a city, you will see in the center of the city screen the city itself and the surrounding tiles. Citizens are working the tiles that have icons over them. If you see a tile with 2 pieces of bread and 1 hammer, that means the citizen is making 2 food and 1 production. You can click on a tile to remove citizens from a tile; this will make a specialist. You can then click some place else to make the citizens work that tile. The game has a confusing specialist type called "citizen" that simply produces 1 production without working any tile.

I've never hit the upper limit of citizens. There is no ideal number of citizens; keep in mind that the more citizens you have the more you have to manage their happiness and healthiness. In some cases it's best to manage your citizens so that the city will not grow and become unhappy; that's when specialists come in handy. It's also a good idea to have one city devoted to having as much food and specialists as possible so as to generate the most great leader points so that you will get more great leaders. Each city generates its own great leader points, so there is no point in having more than one city devoted to this task.

3. I realize now that my cities were not specialised and that my capital was hogging all the wonders. Apparently, this is a no-no. From the GOTM-2 forum, I kinda now get how to specialise a city for Tech research. I still don't get how I can specilize a city for troop mass-production. Does anyone have an idea how I can achieve this with Japan in the Earth scenario?

Build the heroic epic in a city that has a lot of production bonuses like mines and mills with just enough food to maintain its population and a substantial rate of growth.

4. Is a colonization strat inapropriate for Japan? Shouldn't I try to rush China instead and try to expand through conquest?

It all depends on the situation :-/

5. Samurais are a great UU. Unfortunately, the required techs to get them are kinda numerous. I find that gunpowder units quickly steal their thunder. Is their a basic sure-fire way of mass-producing them (excluding The Oracle to get Civil Service)? Moreover, when could I expect to use them en masse: Antiquity, High or Low Middle-Ages? Should I wait for them before I attempt to rush any ennemy?

It sounds like once you get a better grasp of how cities work you will be able to make more of whatever unit you like. It can be a good idea to attack with swordsmen even though they are not a UU. Just because a unit gets outdated doesn't mean they are useless; the enemy still has to either upgrade all their units or make enough units to deal with your older army. UU's are usually strong enough to compete with the unit that comes after them.

 

[sokar]

Did I read correctly that farms and cottages outside the fat cross add nothing?

 

[Syntherio]

Did I read correctly that farms and cottages outside the fat cross add nothing?

Correct. But Ressources can be used outside the cross, as long as they are within your borders.

 

[Solostian]

Thanks for all the info. It clears up a few things.

One last question about the Fat Cross. Can the 21 tiles have another shape? (Because of a neighboring ennemy city for example.)

Solostian
--
"Luckily for me, ridicule does not kill."

 

[Solostian]

If you double-click a city, you will see in the center of the city screen the city itself and the surrounding tiles. Citizens are working the tiles that have icons over them. If you see a tile with 2 pieces of bread and 1 hammer, that means the citizen is making 2 food and 1 production. You can click on a tile to remove citizens from a tile; this will make a specialist. You can then click some place else to make the citizens work that tile. The game has a confusing specialist type called "citizen" that simply produces 1 production without working any tile.

This is confusing. I see icons well beyond the Fat Cross even though they appear to be sized smaller. There are white circles on the surrounding tiles that I can activate/deactivate/displace. From the resulting effects on the production, I'd wander a guess and say that they represent the tiles actually being worked by the citizens.

Is there a formula that can help us determine the maximum number of citizens a city can have? Moreover, what are the limits on the number of specialists? Is there a way to revert a specialist back to simple citizen?

Thanks,
Solostian
--
"Fortunately for me, ridicule does not kill."

 

[trundle]

Is there a formula that can help us determine the maximum number of citizens a city can have?

I don't think there's any technical limit on the number of citizens. The only limiting factor is food, and you could theoretically increase that indefinitely with great merchants.

There's a practical limit, though, that's probably somewhere between 25 and 35 for most cities. And even that's only with the discovery of biology. Until the modern era you'll probably either max out or experience very slow growth around the 12-16 range. I would be surprised to see anything above 40 in a non-World-Builder-altered city.

But really, I find that most of my cities (except 1 or 2 GP farms) never make it above 20 or so. The land is just much better put to use with cottages (commerce) or workshops/forests (production) than farms.

I generally play on Prince-Monarch, for what it's worth. So Emperor-Deity players may have better advice for you.

Moreover, what are the limits on the number of specialists? Is there a way to revert a specialist back to simple citizen?

The number of specialists of a particular type you can have is limited by the buildings/wonders you build in a city. Look at certain buildings in the Civilopedia and they'll tell you how many specialists they allow (e.g. Library allows 2 scientists, Angkor Wot allows 3 priests, I think). Also, with the Caste System civic, you can assign unlimited Scientist, Merchant, or Artist specialists.

I'm not sure what you mean by "simple citizen." If you mean just the 1 hammer Citizen "specialist," then you just click the + next to the citizen picture. If you mean setting them back to working on a tile in the fat cross, then just click on the tile. Note that if you assigned specialists manually, you'll have to click the - next to that specialist type before you can assign them back to do anything else. I think these manually-assigned specialists are indicated with a yellow-box around their picture.

 

[Gamesmaster]

One last question about the Fat Cross. Can the 21 tiles have another shape? (Because of a neighboring ennemy city for example.)

The "Fat Cross" is always the same shape, with your city at the centre. If you build or capture a city near to an opposing border the number of tiles you can use within the Fat Cross may well be reduced due to the cultural influence of the opposing border (increase your cities culture to extend your borders).

This is confusing. I see icons well beyond the Fat Cross even though they appear to be sized smaller. There are white circles on the surrounding tiles that I can activate/deactivate/displace. From the resulting effects on the production, I'd wander a guess and say that they represent the tiles actually being worked by the citizens.

The white circles are the tiles currently being "worked" by your citizens you can change them as you see fit or let the governor decide, but you can only ever work the tiles within the Fat Cross.

Is there a formula that can help us determine the maximum number of citizens a city can have? Moreover, what are the limits on the number of specialists? Is there a way to revert a specialist back to simple citizen?

Maximum population of a city is equal to half the maximum food output of the city since each person requires 2 food. Depending on what improvements you make can make this number vary alot, also some techs (Biology for example) increase food yield so the maximum population will change at certain points of the game.

In order to change a specialist in to a citizen click the "-" button next to the specialist you wish to remove he will then become a "citizen specialist" then click a tile on the city display to put him to work in the fields.

Specialists are limited to "citizen specialists" until you learn/build techs/civics/wonders that allow you to have the specialized specialist (Building the National Wonder Wall Street for example allows you to have 3 merchant specialists in that city)

I hope this helps