help me plan science city- screenies included

[civvver]

I'm playing as memed, about 25 turns from liberalism and a few techs from astronomy. Screens are attached.

City one is inland with 10 river side cottage tiles (some fp, some grassland, some plains), 6 non river cottages, 2 corns with 1 river side, river side pigs and horses. My calculations with all the cottages as towns, is 77 commerce. With printing press 93, and 125 with free speech.

City two is coastal with 8 river side cottage sites, 3 incense, 5 coasts and 1 ocean tile. The other tiles net no commerce. That gives me 69 commerce, 77 with printing press, and 93 with free speech.

Now it seems obvious to go inland, big difference with printing press, free speech is a wash I suppose cus of bureaucracy. But what concerns me is trade routes. I do have the GLH, but am a little ways off from astronomy and am not good at calculating routes. I figure the intercontential ones will be worth ~12-14 commerce and I could get 5 of them at economics, before corp to obsolete GLH. The inland ones will probably top out at 7 commerce and only have 3 routes. On the high end of my estimation that's a 49 commerce difference, making it 163 for the coastal city and 146 for the inland one. With corp things balance out to the inland city pulling ahead, but again, that's only if I'm accurately estimating the trade routes.

So, I really don't know which city. I'm leaning towards the inland because I did build the great library there. Please help!

 

[Single Malt]

Remember that corp obsoletes the great lighthouse by giving every city +1 trade route. Also Free speech is a lot more powerful that bureacuracy, because it affect every town in the empire, not just the cap.

 

[civvver]

Remember that corp obsoletes the great lighthouse by giving every city +1 trade route. Also Free speech is a lot more powerful that bureacuracy, because it affect every town in the empire, not just the cap.

Yep which I think makes the inland city slightly better post corporation. But prior it seems the coastal city is better and early beakers are usually better than late beakers...

 

[Single Malt]

25 turns from lib is far from early. Now you need to think long term. If the inland nets more through the industrial era where techs get fierce expensive, then thats the main science city. Just cos a coastal city is better now, doesn't make it so later.
Edit, intercontinental trade routes are only really powerful with a customs house, post corp.

 

[Babibo]

Your cities suffer from unhappiness, which should be avoided at all costs. Build markets instead of palace/confucian monastery. If you have gold/gems/silver, forges can be nice too (I see that you didn't research metal casting, which I find strange).

Also, these cities have no production but high food, which probably explains why you didn't build these markets. You should use slavery more : at normal speed, you'll get 30 roduction: out of 1 pop. With a granary, and that population, it's about 1.5 for 1 ratio. Add a forge and organized religion, and you'll boost this even more.

When planning on food high-low prod cottage cities, I advise whipping the most essential building (especially happiness buildings) and keep the city small (around size 8) for an efficient whip.
When your happiness cap is high enough, let the city grow to max size. You should have researched Democracy by then, and run Emancipation + Universal Suffrage.
Since Emancipation doubles the growth of cottages, you want to work them all at this stage. Soon, you will have towns everywhere, and Universal Suffrage will boost your production.

 

[Babibo]

Also, you should reconsider your tile management in Bursa. The desert incense is a poor tile, although it yields 6 . Working the clam or the flood plains would be better.

Let me explain this :
- for example, with 2 you can run a scientist, which yields 3 + additionnal GPP. I personnally have a rule of thumb that, at this stage of the game, 1 > 3 .

Also, we have seen that > because of the whip. The trick is to use it often.

Another way to decide on a ratio between and is Universal Suffrage : 1 costs 3.

Conclusion :
A clam, which yields 4 2 is much better than a desert incense (6).

 

[vanatteveldt]

And for that reason the inland city will be better overall, I think...?

 

[Killroyan]

Definitely the inland city. It has the great library already, has great GREAT food so you can run about 5 scientists without problems. Since the palace is going there it will even generate more beakers. This city is just plain great. It just screams MAKE ME YOUR SCIENCE CITY!!!! You don't happen to have the pyramids so you can run representation (also immediately solves your angry problems = 2 scientists)

 

[Skallagrimson]

The only argument I could see against using the inland one for GSS would be if you wanted to convert it to a GP farm instead. Three major food pits plus floodplains. It's CHOW time.

 

[civvver]

I was building the palace there because I had intended to use the inland city. If I changed my mind I would've built the palace coastal (only 2 turns spent on it I think). The reason I have no markets and forges is because I have none of those resources- only happiness on my continent was spices and incense. Kinda sucks. Looking at the screenshots last night I did realize I had a huge happiness problem so I built a bunch of archers. As soon as I got astronomy I was able to trade for every other happy resource with my incense and corn and got a great happy cap. I guess I was a little light on using the whip, but again when I don't have the resources for the happys from forges and markets I didn't see the need to rush them (although angry citizens don't benefit either I suppose).

 

[Ultimocrat]

The inland city, if you can raise happy and health caps enough, is an insanely good science and GP city. Post-bio, you could grow to size 27 working 16 cottages, as you noted, for a possible 127 commerce (8*10 + 7*6 + 2*1 + 1*3 + 0*1) - (commerce category * #tiles with that commerce). Furthermore, you get to run 7 scientists -- that gets you 42 base science with representation. Move your palace for +8 commerce and throw in 3 trade routes for +8 each and you're talking ~160 base commerce, plus 42 base beakers.

 

[UWHabs]

I think the real answer is that they both are awesome. Whichever one you pick will be utterly devastating as a science city.