GP City: Better to have wonder production if it scarifies population?

[thejuicygoober]

Theoretically, would the perfect GP city be entirely farmed food tiles or would it be mostly farmed food tiles and a healthy set of mined hill tiles (like six)? Would being able to complete wonders for their free great people, offset having a slower growing, smaller max population? I appreciate anyone's comments! Thanks!

Edited to phrase question better

 

[Thedrin]

Ideally in the example you give use the hill city as a center for military output and use the grassland city for great people (assuming the remainder of your terrain is appropriate - that that you don't need the grassland for cottages). Remember that a great people farm based on specialists and high food is completely under your control. Getting great people from wonders requires beating the AI to wonders and, ultimately, produces considerably less great people. In any one game there are very few wonders that will truly benefit your economy. Specialists can be tailored to suit your economy.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Some rough math: flat grassland terrain gets a farm, which is 4 food. A grassland hill gets a windmill, with is 2 food. That's a full specialist difference.

So two hills is two specialists, which is to say 6 GPP/turn (base), which is the product of three Great Wonders.

So to do better, you would need the hills to give you three more wonders than you would have had with the farms alone, just to break even.

In practice, it is more complicated than that. It might be an interesting experiment to try in the world builder - play a game until you settle what looks to be a good candidate for a GP farm. Save the game, modify the map in world builder to turn a couple flats into hills, save again; play both. See which kicks out the GP more quickly.

 

[cabert]

for me a good GP farm is 3 or more food ressources.
The rest is not that interesting : you don't want to work tiles, you want specialists!

 

[Cookie Crumbs]

Actually, this is a decent combination. For example, when I got a coastal start as France which normally means several seafood sources, combined with lots of hills on land, I used it as my production city pre-State Property, and then switched it to GP production after settling my proper production city. When a wonder became available I would work the mines instead, pumping out wonders for me. This way, I could concentrate my wonder GPPs and specialist GPPs together.

 

[bassist2119]

Some rough math: flat grassland terrain gets a farm, which is 4 food. A grassland hill gets a windmill, with is 2 food. That's a full specialist difference.

This is only after biology. The game can wholly be decided before this!

So two hills is two specialists, which is to say 6 GPP/turn (base), which is the product of three Great Wonders.

Except that the three great wonders could, say, give 2 extra scientists, enable representation for 'em, and give you Civil Service for free...

In practice, it is more complicated than that.

Agree completely. I still recommend mixing the two. Starting with farms fuel the whip to produce specialist-granting buildings and then support said specialists. mining/milling allows tiles to hold their own and allows for the production of a wonder or two. When selecting which wonder to build, even in the GP farm, consider it's primary effect first and the GP points as an added bonus.

 

[ThomasHardy]

Are you saying six mined hills? That's an awful lot to be anything but a production powerhouse. A city with six mined hills and enough food to work them can crank out units and wonders at an amazing rate.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Except that the three great wonders could, say, give 2 extra scientists, enable representation for 'em, and give you Civil Service for free...

There are only (to my knowledge) two great wonders that give you an advantage if you locate them in your GP Farm: the Great Library (the free scientists are generating GP points that you would like to multiply), and the Angkor Wat (which has three priest slots - helpful in those circumstances where you are having trouble collecting enough temples and cathedrals).

The others can be built anywhere on the continent, and all you are losing is the multiplier on the GP points.

 

[CivDude86]

ToA gives a free priest but to good luck getting that in a GP farm if you have one that early.

 

[Murky]

I like my 2nd or 3rd city to be the primary GP farm. Early on it will have either mines, watermills or workshops to help build things like the national epic, library, granery and forge. If it gets any early wonders it's with a GE not by building. Most of the tiles do need to produce food. In the middle to later part of the game, every tile is dedicated to producing food for more specialist.

 

[bassist2119]

There are only (to my knowledge) two great wonders that give you an advantage if you locate them in your GP Farm: the Great Library (the free scientists are generating GP points that you would like to multiply), and the Angkor Wat (which has three priest slots - helpful in those circumstances where you are having trouble collecting enough temples and cathedrals).

The others can be built anywhere on the continent, and all you are losing is the multiplier on the GP points.

Point taken. To add to this, though, don't forget the Nwonders Ironworks with it's 3 engineer slots and the be-all-end-all: National Epic.

And my point was that there is much more that 3 wonders would provide other than 6 GPP. Though the discussion is about GP farms, I assume our application of the GP farm would be a tool to faciliate a successful game, which would have to include other factors that help the GP farm and the overall empire. In the early CE, the capital usually becomes the SSC, which in turn becomes home of the Great Library and, hence, a great people farm. Once Civil Service is acquired, it becomes a natural fit for making wonders. Capital equals 1.) SSC, 2.) natural spot for both wonder building AND a GP farm. So to restate, a mix of farms and mills/mines for wonders could make the best GP farm certainly for the capital, and quite possibly for other cities more than circumstantially.

 

[Landmonitor]

I prefer to have some produciton in my GP cities, as Voice of Unreason knows. I'm mostly posting here to see what people say, but from my experience, Cookie Crumb's method of alternating between mines and more specialists to get some wonders in teh GP city works pretty well, at least on Monarch difficulty. I'm sure as you move up in the difficulties, this becomes less viable.

One thing that I've pulled off more than once is, and this depends on getting stone, is to build the Great Wall, get an Engineer from that (maybe helped along a little at the end by some scientists from a library) and rush build the pyramids to really get you going with a SE. This also leads to a good shot at a second engineer to rush the GL or perhaps the Temple of Artemis.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

I prefer to have some produciton in my GP cities, as Voice of Unreason knows.

Production is a good thing. Mined hills... not so much. The problem being that you just can't convert hills to specialists in any meaningful way.

Compare a hill with cows, for example... in the early going, you pasture the cows to get the hammer boost. When you discover Biology, you can farm them over, trading the hammers away for another surplus food. The same idea is true of your other production resources provided they are on flat terrain.

Forrests would be another nice way to score some extra production, when you've got extra room under the happy cap. Eventually, you will mow them for farms (and extra hammers).

If things become really desperate, you've got the option of a workshop, or a water mill.

Flat is flexible. A hill is always a hill.

This is why I think an ideal GP farm doesn't have hills.