How about right here:
Pretty much that whole post is a misrepresentation of what I've written and is full of strawmen based upon those misrepresentations.
Then you shouldn't have any trouble pointing to a specific one, should you?
And I have explained the reasons why and the context I am giving them. Nobody has yet refuted the reasoning I provided with anything that could even generously be termed evidence. That includes you. The arguments against have been "because I say so's", misrepresentations of my arguments and flimsy statistical manipulations such as those provided by ZzarkLinux.
Actually, ZzarkLinux has repeatedly (& politely, I might add) run through the numbers for you. I don't dispute that larger cities generate more stuff. They also require more of an investment in time and shields and the return on that investment comes much later, if at all.
If you want my evidence that specialist farms work, there's a screenshot
here. It's from an unmodded, epic, Monarch level game, Carthage, standard size map, continents, 8 opponents. Second screenshot from the bottom. My science farms are generating 603 bpt. None of that is affected by corruption and it allows me to research The Corporation, at 2600 beakers, in 5 turns at 0% science. I don't even have Sanitation, as you can see from the screenshot. If I remember correctly, I never learned it, either. Started the game without horses, without iron, and without saltpeter and closed the game with Conquest win in 1756, just a few turns from Synthetic Fibers.
And I have explained the reasons why and the context I am giving them. . . . .
Here's where I throw the Hogwash Flag on this. By this time, you have explained some of your reasons and some of the mods to your game. But you've been unnecessarily rude and insulting to a variety of posters. And you got rude and insulting before you explained the context of your reasoning. It's very rude to accusing them of not comprehending under the circumstances of this thread: if they (or I) failed to understand what you were saying, it's because you did not mention how heavily your game was modded.
In this thread, and in the context of city placement & specialist farms, you started by saying:
I've found the AI will settle the unclaimed end tile on a long penensula and that can be annoying. And yes, the AI will settle one tile away from another's city. I've seen it happen often when I've let them. I usually don't leave any tiles between the city fat X areas. But having only 2 tiles between every city makes the game play to much like a repetious meat grinder. Not very interesting after a short while. Like watching the same film over and over. Do you like to watch the same film repeatedly? Anyway, I already explained I prefer to expand outwards with the settlers and grab more land rather than play with a densly packed beehive of small towns.
If you don't like that style of play, that's you're problem, not mine.
Post #22. I reviewed the thread. You had not "already explained" that, but how you prefer playing is not something to argue over.
You then went with:
As I wrote, AI tries to start cities one tile away (cxc) in every game I've played before the city expands to a fat x shape on the first culture expansion. If they have an opportunity. That's every game and when I'm not at war with them. In the thread I recently started here called 2 AI cheats I describe an example of this in the 2nd "cheat" description. There two different AIs tried starting cities one tile from a new town I began. Most of my early wars start when I attack their settler pairs or new towns in that situation to prevent them driving a wedge in my player's territory that way.
Getting back to temples, they are especially useful in newly taken towns on different islands when it is before sea trading can take place (before astronomy, I believe). Then, there is no luxury boost to these towns even after building harbors and you need something for happiness (except the uncommon ones who have luxuries in their radius). Also with conquests on your own continent, it can take a while to build up a road network to newly conquered towns, especially if the AI is close enough to be able to reach your workers. Temples are cheap and being cheap, rushing them is not as expensive. Besides the happiness benefit, they provide that 1st culure expansion sooner than the other buildings, like a library or colosseum or cathedral. Because of corruption and their smallish sizes, many of these new conquered towns only produce 1-3 usable shields a turn and unless you have a whole lot of gold where you can rush an expensive building on the 1st or 2nd turn from when you started building it, it will take a long time for one of those towns to build a library or one of the other more expensive buildings. And as has been already mentioned, they fill in those territory holes faster that the AI settler pairs like to exploit. At higher levels of play, above emperor, I can see where temples are not that useful as the front line has to be constantly expanded faster and towns are more unit factories than anything else and you concentrate on the research and production/commerce buildings almost exclusively instead in towns not building a constant stream of units.
Post 24. In fairness to you, I have tried to underline those sections which, arguably, pertain to the discussion of specialist farming, corruption, and city spacing. As of this post, you had not mentioned that you are playing a modded game.
Next, we get to post 26, which is the first mention that you make of playing a modded game:
. . . .
You missed the point. I specifically mentioned conquered towns on another island. An island you still can not connect up with your own luxury trade because of lack of the sea trading tech. Not some unoccupied spot you just settled. Comprehension. Look it up. See what it means. Then apply it. Your grades will improve. Trust me.
First off, this was rude. Second, only later do we discover that you're talking about a modded game.
Just scrap those 12-20 pop metros and build up some 5-6 pop towns in their place from scratch? No thanks. In no time flat I usually have factories up and those metros are producing front line units, on the front lines. The core can then concentrate on science, wonders, wealth and later, aircraft and missiles. Stuff like that. I've found this works through emperor. Above that level I find trying to keep the pop from rioting makes the game too tedious to be enjoyable in the stock set-up and setting the happiness threshold to 4 at all levels is the first thing I usually mod to get rid of that tedious rubbish. And 90% corruption? What do you play? Monarch all the way through? Having all those tiny cxc towns causes you to reach the max city number that causes that high corruption. You did know that - right? It's not a very large number, especially on the smaller sized maps.
The bolded section is the first mention that you make of having modded your game, and the only revelation is that you've increased the number of content citizens to 4 for all difficulty levels.
1 shield and 1 gold per city? What drugs do you use while playing? 
By late game, except for the just conquered cities, most of mine are metros that pump out 200 shield units in 4-5 turns and I usually have enough gold to rush a university or factory through in those newer cities so they can catch up.
And the town is just taking up space...
I'm currently playing a game where I'm in the very early middle ages. The oldest cities are around 7-9 pop, they produce 30-40 gold, shields in the upper teens and can whip out the latest unit in 4-5 turns. Research takes 5-7 turns per subject at about 3/4 science. This is a
mod where I upped the costs of units and research as I was finding it too easy to research and produce units in regular games. The cities that are currently the largest producers are ones I took in my first war soon after the game began. Because they are on rivers.
If I played as you are suggesting, By the time I reach the end of the MA, I would have a continent of perhaps 60+ tiny towns not capable of producing much besides corruption, a wee bit of gold, and a wee bit of science. Take over the next continent and I'll find the corruption threshold has been passed. Or, I can have about half that many cities, which I do, build them all up to the metro threshold, which they will easily be by the end of the MA and still have plenty of cities left to build before I cross the corruption threshold, to expand on other continents. And each and every one of those cities will be able to produce anything.
At this point, you've only explained that you've modded the game so that you always have 4 content citizens in every city, but you've stated that specialist farming only produces "perhaps 60+ tiny towns not capable of producing much besides corruption, a wee bit of gold, and a wee bit of science." Your words, not mine.
It hasn't been mentioned yet, but bears mentioning, that increasing the number of content citizens to 4 can have a serious impact on the effect of your lux slider, freeing up lots of gold for science and building maintenance.
I don't know how to do the screenshots so this is the info from a similar screen in the game I mentioned above.
Regent - Inca, republic (corruption setting=problematical, with the usual trade bonus tile flag)
Income=624, expenses=642, -376 sci, -0 ent, -95 corruption, -127 maint, -44 units, -0 other civs.
Sci=70%, lux=0%., chivalry in 4 t.
The following is town name, shield prod, commerce, maintenence, science, treasury, town size, current production item and how long to go ( the 1st figure before the slash in some is the bite corruption takes, the 2nd figure is the net).
And... 3/12, 4/21, 5, 15, 6, 7, colo-1t.
Are... 2/12, 4/25, 5, 18, 7, 7, colo-8t.
Ati... 2/6, 3/11, 1, 8, 3, 3, court-9t.
Bap... 1/9, 2/9, 3, 6, 3, 4, mark-7t.
Bej... 4/3, 5/5, 0, 4, 1, 4, court-22t.
Can... 1/5, 3/5, 0, 4, 1, 4, set-1t.
Chu... 2/2, 2/4, 0, 3, 1, 2, tem-5t.
Cor... 2/15, 3/46, 8, 33, 13, 8, Sistine-22t.
Cuz... 0/17, 1/40, 10, 28, 12, 7, drom-2t.
Compare those figures with the ones in the screenshot you mention in your link. Then note these figures are from the early middle ages, not the modern age. Both using the same level of corruption, problematical. In my sample above, only the 2 top and bottom 2 cities are older and of any size, the others are recent conquests or settled. Yet they are producing equal or more science, in the early middle ages, and with smaller populations, than those science farms are. And they are still fully capable of producing anything else at the same time. All of those cities will be size 12 by the end of the MA and all will be fully capable of building anything while producing probably nearly twice the science of the top two above are producing now.
Let me be clear: I don't dispute the validity of your numbers, but they're
not the product of a standard game. By ensuring that you have 4 content citizens, you can lower the lux slider, allowing you to raise the science slider. If you've built libraries or unis (if available at that point), that commerce gets run through the library or other multiplier. It's a direct effect of your modifications.
Now let's go back to the claim that your cities produce more science. If I remember Overseer's picture correctly, most of his farms were producing ~12-15 bpt. A few lower, a few higher. Let's look at the top 2 and bottom 2:
The following is town name, shield prod, commerce, maintenence, science, treasury, town size, current production item and how long to go ( the 1st figure before the slash in some is the bite corruption takes, the 2nd figure is the net).
And... 3/12, 4/21, 5, 15, 6, 7, colo-1t.
Are... 2/12, 4/25, 5, 18, 7, 7, colo-8t.
Ati... 2/6, 3/11, 1, 8, 3, 3, court-9t.
Bap... 1/9, 2/9, 3, 6, 3, 4, mark-7t.
Bej... 4/3, 5/5, 0, 4, 1, 4, court-22t.
Can... 1/5, 3/5, 0, 4, 1, 4, set-1t.
Chu... 2/2, 2/4, 0, 3, 1, 2, tem-5t.
Cor... 2/15, 3/46, 8, 33, 13, 8, Sistine-22t.
Cuz... 0/17, 1/40, 10, 28, 12, 7, drom-2t.
Now, you claimed that your cities, in the Middle Ages, were producing more science than the ones in Overseer's. The only ones that might be true for are the top 2 and bottom 2. Bear in mind that Overseer's farms, or the ones I use, provide free beakers. Also bear in mind that he's probably got ~70-80 of them. In the screenshot that I linked above, I have ~200 scientists. That's ~40-50 farms at that stage of the game.
And monarchy in the modern age? No wonder corruption eats up half their total potential income. Those cities don't have courthouses, which reduce a lot, as much of 50% of the corruption. There's also the forbidden palace.
You do understand that specialist output is unaffected by corruption, right?
Communism is better than monarchy if he's at war and the corruption is lower and you get that 2nd forbidden palace. I've played late era games using the stock civ communism government and with all the above aides the corruption wasn't that bad on far flung cities when I passed the number of cities that bumps corruption way up. They were good for at least 50% of what the core originals could do. If not at war, why not republic or democracy?
The closer city spacing makes the problem worse because you pass the optimum city number for the map sooner and with a smaller amount of territory under your thumb. In other words, that close placement at the centre of your civ sacrifices the usefulness of the cities further out. If you're an expansionist, crippling your outer cities makes further expansion more difficult because you cant make the units right there, but must transport them longer distances.
At this point, still no mention of the shields and commerce modifications to your game. No mention of changes to the optimum city numbers.
So was I. But nevermind.
. . . .
Those cities just got out of the ancient age and they were not using any scientist specialists. They were producing more science than the larger, modern age science farms you were using as examples in your link.
Here's the misrepresentation. Of your cities, only 4 are producing comparable amounts of science.
Besides doubts on the usefulness of these farms (if you are in the modern age, like in that exampole, and still not ahead of the AI in tech without having to use gimmicks and tricks the AI would not be able to use, well.... ), I also have a philosophical problem about them.
You can have a philosophical problem with them. That doesn't bother me. But I said it before and I'll say it again. They are very effective in the standard game. See my screenshot. If you don't want to play that way, that's your problem, not mine.
The AI obviously could not use specialist cities. The cities were not intended to be used in the game by the designers. And they make the game less realistic with regard to history. It also makes the game seem more like a gimmicky nintendo type game instead of a historical strategy game and I really don't care for that kind of thing. Also, if you are playing at the higher levels and the game requires players to use totally unrealistic, out of place, gimmicks like that in order to win, then there is something wrong with the way the game was designed. But, that can be edited....
The AI irrigates grass in despotism, too. It rarely uses gangs of workers larger and 2-3, and it gladly settles tundra far from its core in the Ancient Age, looking for oil that it won't use for 3000 years. I don't want to play like the AI. I want to beat it.
You accuse several posters of not comprehending your posts, but it's not until Post 34 that you disclose more of the changes that you've made to your game.
YW. I'm testing changes I've been making to the basic Conquests game. I've probably changed things on every "rules" page in the editor, some almost completely. The happiness part I mentioned, setting the threshold to 4 on all the levels so higher levels can be played without devoting so much time to happiness micromanagement. Doubling the number of optimum cities in world sizes is another easy change that vastly improves play I think. I'll list some more specific things I'm testing now in another post since Padma is making some faulty assumptions.
. . . .
You've accused me of misrepresenting your posts. and using strawmen, but you've failed to point to any in particular. You've insulted my comprehension, as well as ZzarkLinux's and said that
. . . . Nobody has yet refuted the reasoning I provided with anything that could even generously be termed evidence. That includes you. The arguments against have been "because I say so's", misrepresentations of my arguments and flimsy statistical manipulations such as those provided by ZzarkLinux.
And your reasoning is backed only by "proof" from a modified game that gives you 4 content faces, in addition to a host of other changes. If you want to play with only a few large cities as your empire, have at it and enjoy yourself. I truly mean that. But please knock off the rude and insulting comments.
Other posters, please forgive my threadjack.
)
