benstandby
Radio Host
I had been putting off writing this for nearly a year, and I finally decided to share this. It's rather long, so get comfortable.
This is all part of a once thought to be long-lost strategy guide from Alpha Centauri (SMAC) which was recently uneathed by Babbler (see below). It turns out that it was written by JChamberlin and Velociryx. Their guide is far more comprehensive and tackles a much broader suite of gameplay aspects than the following, but I have adapted some of the economic aspects of it for Civ 3.
The concept that the "Settler Factory" is derived from is called FOCUS. Here is how it works:
THEORY
- At base, there are 3 resources in the game: Food, Shields, and Commerce (energy in SMAC).
- The way one FOCUSes a city is to build improvements around it that jive with the city's FOCUS, you dig?
- Each Resource has multiple functions, but these are just specializations and therefore not part of the FOCUS concept in theory. (In application however, specialization is what makes a city a "______ factory").
- Every city in your empire should be placed so that it fits a specific FOCUS (ie. food, shields, or commerce).
- FOCUS does not mean that a city will produce only one kind of resource. All it means is that your primary concern for city X is that it produces primarily X resource and that all improvements in the city are tailored for that city's FOCUS.
- The overall goal is to cut down on those pesky expenses incurred by an over-built, under-developed civilization.
APPLICATION
Food:
Typical buildings: Granary, Temple, Harbor, Courthouse, Cathedral
Drawbacks: Food-FOCUSed cities tend to be temporary fixtures on the map (at least in their focus) and they tend to cause problems in terms of happiness and riots.
- "Settler Factories" are the most useful and obvious kind of food focus in the game, and I'm sure you've all read the numerous articles and posts concerning its creation and use. Enough Said.
- "Worker Factories" are slightly different. There are many places on the map that for some reason or other they have one decent square (like a forest with game) and are otherwise surrounded by tundra (or what have you). These little crap-hole cities are the perfect place to build workers out of. The city grows in 5, and it'll make a worker in the same number of turns. I tend to have at least one of these going almost the entire game (depending on demand [remember the AI will pay you good money for slaves, and you can always micromanage an exodus/migration into an important city that grows slowly on its own (don't make me tell you all the great things you can do with workers]).
- "Population Centers" are key for comercial civs to get the extra cash off the city square that is only recieved in cities sized 7 and above. These don't need any serious production while they build their size. But a "Pop Factory" will need to switch FOCUS once maximum size is reached.
Shields:
Typical buildings: see below
Drawbacks: Due to the nature of production cities, they tend to take flexibility away from your empire. If your major production cities are on one end of your empire, and a war breaks out on the other side, it is harder to react with the full might of your empire when your "might" is concentrated 2000 miles away. (Think of Russia trying to fight Japan)
- Troop Factory: (baracks, temple) High production values, Strategic locations, and (most importantly) a stagnation point. These cities are so incredibly important that they CANNOT go into revolt- especially during a war. So what you need to do is cut the city off at some acceptable size based on the production needed to produce units in 1-2 turns and based on the number of people you can reliably keep content or happy. EXTREMELY USEFUL!!
- Cultural Center: (temple, cathedral, library etc.) High production allows you to quickly build many cultural improvements which can help push your border and flip that AI city on the border.
- Naval Base: (Harbor, Temple) Same deal as above, but the commerce recieved off the ocean can make this city a hybrid Commerce/Shield city [see below].
- Wonder Factory: (Temple, Courthouse, Cathedral) These cities should be the cream of the crop in production AND population. They are hard to produce, but if you have one hell of a well-balanced city in your empire, use that one. Primary concerns are: NO RIOTS, HIGH POPULATION, and HIGH PRODUCTION.
Commerce:
Typical buildings: Marketplace, Bank, Library, University, Courthouse
Drawbacks: These cities contribute to the overall growth and power of your empire's economy, they provide the fuel for you to power through the tech tree and buy allies, BUT if you have too many of these cities, you forfiet your initiative to your neigbors. Commerce cities make your empire a juicy target and a soft one at that. They are also the most expensive to maintain- as they require constant upgrading throughout the tech tree with each building costing more and more in maintenance. They tend to make up for this though.
- There are ways to specialize this category of Focus, but in reality, these cities should be BOTH Cash and Science factories at the same time. Specialization will be determined simply by which buildings are built first.
SOME NOTES ABOUT FOCUS THEORY:
- Cities can change focus at varying costs (depending on terrain limitations).
- Food cities change to either shield or commerce cities rather easily. Sell the granary and build buildings based on the new FOCUS. Food cities are usually temporary anyway, due to the fact that they can only reach a certain size before stagnating (until aqueducts and hospitals).
- Commerce cities tend to be rather difficult to switch over to either production or food because of a) the number of improvements that a commerce city requires b) the economic power you loose in the transition. These cities are best left as commerce cities or changed to hybrid cities [below].
- Production cities are easy to switch over because they can build the needed imporvements in a short period of time while the terrain is improved to fit the change.
HYBRIDIZATION
- Engaging in hybridization is not easy. The biggest concern is when to begin. This question can be answered most effectively by categorizing the ways in which hybridization presents itself as an option.
COMMERCE/SHIELD HYBRIDS
+ The first situation that will present itself is at the time the city is built. If a city is on a river or on a coast and has some hills within its radius, it looks like a good candidate for commerce/shield hybridization. The drawbacks here are that it is difficult to decide which buildings to build and which tiles to focus on improving. If you start hybridization too early, you aren't focusing at all, and you may end up just building all sorts of useless buildings and improving lots of tiles before the city's population can make use of them
+ The next feasable time to start the process of hybridization is when one focus has been fully realized. One example is when all the tiles next to the river have been roaded and the population is large enough that you are starting to use the hills and forests. This is a good time to A) build the barracks and/or harbor and start churning out troops or boats, or B) start building a host of cultural improvements to push your borders.
FOOD HYBRIDS (both commerce and production)
+ These are obvious. Once a food-focused city reaches its population cap, start switching over its food production until it reaches "zero growth". Choose your focus by either mining the grassland tiles for shield focus, or roading and harvesting tiles like gold in the mountains or silk (wine, insense, etc.) on a forest or hills.
I have stolen and adapted all this information for CIV3 from some dude who wrote a strat guide for SMAC. I used it to kick serious AI butt for a year before sharing it here. Hope this is what you were looking for.
This is all part of a once thought to be long-lost strategy guide from Alpha Centauri (SMAC) which was recently uneathed by Babbler (see below). It turns out that it was written by JChamberlin and Velociryx. Their guide is far more comprehensive and tackles a much broader suite of gameplay aspects than the following, but I have adapted some of the economic aspects of it for Civ 3.
The concept that the "Settler Factory" is derived from is called FOCUS. Here is how it works:
THEORY
- At base, there are 3 resources in the game: Food, Shields, and Commerce (energy in SMAC).
- The way one FOCUSes a city is to build improvements around it that jive with the city's FOCUS, you dig?
- Each Resource has multiple functions, but these are just specializations and therefore not part of the FOCUS concept in theory. (In application however, specialization is what makes a city a "______ factory").
- Every city in your empire should be placed so that it fits a specific FOCUS (ie. food, shields, or commerce).
- FOCUS does not mean that a city will produce only one kind of resource. All it means is that your primary concern for city X is that it produces primarily X resource and that all improvements in the city are tailored for that city's FOCUS.
- The overall goal is to cut down on those pesky expenses incurred by an over-built, under-developed civilization.
APPLICATION
Food:
Typical buildings: Granary, Temple, Harbor, Courthouse, Cathedral
Drawbacks: Food-FOCUSed cities tend to be temporary fixtures on the map (at least in their focus) and they tend to cause problems in terms of happiness and riots.
- "Settler Factories" are the most useful and obvious kind of food focus in the game, and I'm sure you've all read the numerous articles and posts concerning its creation and use. Enough Said.
- "Worker Factories" are slightly different. There are many places on the map that for some reason or other they have one decent square (like a forest with game) and are otherwise surrounded by tundra (or what have you). These little crap-hole cities are the perfect place to build workers out of. The city grows in 5, and it'll make a worker in the same number of turns. I tend to have at least one of these going almost the entire game (depending on demand [remember the AI will pay you good money for slaves, and you can always micromanage an exodus/migration into an important city that grows slowly on its own (don't make me tell you all the great things you can do with workers]).
- "Population Centers" are key for comercial civs to get the extra cash off the city square that is only recieved in cities sized 7 and above. These don't need any serious production while they build their size. But a "Pop Factory" will need to switch FOCUS once maximum size is reached.
Shields:
Typical buildings: see below
Drawbacks: Due to the nature of production cities, they tend to take flexibility away from your empire. If your major production cities are on one end of your empire, and a war breaks out on the other side, it is harder to react with the full might of your empire when your "might" is concentrated 2000 miles away. (Think of Russia trying to fight Japan)
- Troop Factory: (baracks, temple) High production values, Strategic locations, and (most importantly) a stagnation point. These cities are so incredibly important that they CANNOT go into revolt- especially during a war. So what you need to do is cut the city off at some acceptable size based on the production needed to produce units in 1-2 turns and based on the number of people you can reliably keep content or happy. EXTREMELY USEFUL!!
- Cultural Center: (temple, cathedral, library etc.) High production allows you to quickly build many cultural improvements which can help push your border and flip that AI city on the border.
- Naval Base: (Harbor, Temple) Same deal as above, but the commerce recieved off the ocean can make this city a hybrid Commerce/Shield city [see below].
- Wonder Factory: (Temple, Courthouse, Cathedral) These cities should be the cream of the crop in production AND population. They are hard to produce, but if you have one hell of a well-balanced city in your empire, use that one. Primary concerns are: NO RIOTS, HIGH POPULATION, and HIGH PRODUCTION.
Commerce:
Typical buildings: Marketplace, Bank, Library, University, Courthouse
Drawbacks: These cities contribute to the overall growth and power of your empire's economy, they provide the fuel for you to power through the tech tree and buy allies, BUT if you have too many of these cities, you forfiet your initiative to your neigbors. Commerce cities make your empire a juicy target and a soft one at that. They are also the most expensive to maintain- as they require constant upgrading throughout the tech tree with each building costing more and more in maintenance. They tend to make up for this though.
- There are ways to specialize this category of Focus, but in reality, these cities should be BOTH Cash and Science factories at the same time. Specialization will be determined simply by which buildings are built first.
SOME NOTES ABOUT FOCUS THEORY:
- Cities can change focus at varying costs (depending on terrain limitations).
- Food cities change to either shield or commerce cities rather easily. Sell the granary and build buildings based on the new FOCUS. Food cities are usually temporary anyway, due to the fact that they can only reach a certain size before stagnating (until aqueducts and hospitals).
- Commerce cities tend to be rather difficult to switch over to either production or food because of a) the number of improvements that a commerce city requires b) the economic power you loose in the transition. These cities are best left as commerce cities or changed to hybrid cities [below].
- Production cities are easy to switch over because they can build the needed imporvements in a short period of time while the terrain is improved to fit the change.
HYBRIDIZATION
- Engaging in hybridization is not easy. The biggest concern is when to begin. This question can be answered most effectively by categorizing the ways in which hybridization presents itself as an option.
COMMERCE/SHIELD HYBRIDS
+ The first situation that will present itself is at the time the city is built. If a city is on a river or on a coast and has some hills within its radius, it looks like a good candidate for commerce/shield hybridization. The drawbacks here are that it is difficult to decide which buildings to build and which tiles to focus on improving. If you start hybridization too early, you aren't focusing at all, and you may end up just building all sorts of useless buildings and improving lots of tiles before the city's population can make use of them
+ The next feasable time to start the process of hybridization is when one focus has been fully realized. One example is when all the tiles next to the river have been roaded and the population is large enough that you are starting to use the hills and forests. This is a good time to A) build the barracks and/or harbor and start churning out troops or boats, or B) start building a host of cultural improvements to push your borders.
FOOD HYBRIDS (both commerce and production)
+ These are obvious. Once a food-focused city reaches its population cap, start switching over its food production until it reaches "zero growth". Choose your focus by either mining the grassland tiles for shield focus, or roading and harvesting tiles like gold in the mountains or silk (wine, insense, etc.) on a forest or hills.
I have stolen and adapted all this information for CIV3 from some dude who wrote a strat guide for SMAC. I used it to kick serious AI butt for a year before sharing it here. Hope this is what you were looking for.