How to specialize this super-city?

[fed1943]

And cottage the floodplain, as the farm does no good (+5F v. +4F and the big
commerce).

Best regards,

 

[UncleJJ]

No, he definitely needs to keep the floodplain farm to help get the Moari Statues quicker by whipping and overflow and then to regrow faster. It's a pity he doesn't have stone as that helps a lot with 100% boost. With 2 gold mines and a plains hill he has a 6 food sucked out of becoming productive. He has a happy limit of 12 and is only size 6, plenty of room for whipping. But my main comment is he needs to build lighthouse urgently (much better than the library in this situation) as that will give him 2 food from the fish as well as making the coastal tiles worthwhile for expanding the pop and becoming whipping fodder that pays for itself.

 

[Wejer]

Good rule of thumb is that you should always have even amount of food growth. 17-12 food is not good. Build a Cottage on the Floodplain so that you get 16-12 food.

 

[qwertz]

What's so bad about having 17 -12 food

 

[Incan Emperor]

When it grows to 9 pop it will starve back to 8 automatically, then it will grow back to 9 and so on, endless cycle, you want an even number so that when it stops growing, it stops outright.

 

[qwertz]

well, when it grows to 9 pop he'll have 3 more pop working the water tiles. He will hopefully also have built a lighthouse, so he will still have 5 surplus food. When it grows to size 23 he might get that problem, but by that point of game he will have won/built supermarket/setteled a GM/founded sid sushi/whatever anyway, so it isn't really relevant.
In the worst case he can still MM a pop between water tile/specialist to even it out.

 

[Wejer]

I'm afraid a Lighthouse won't change the overall situation.

Another solution to the problem would be to settle a Great Merchant. But if we compare the simplicity of either turning a farm to a cottage or settling a GP, the choice is an easy one.

 

[Airefuego]

Hehehe - I've had a good time reading the advice here

A summary of what I'm hearing - and my reactions:

- Build Moai - yes! And my next city may well be on the green spot between the stone, so I'm about 15 turns off hooking stone up. Not ideal waiting too long but I could invest some of that time making sure I...

- Build a lighthouse! - yes! I really can't remember why I went for a library at this point.

- Useless city - no! ... don't worry Dave, I have some uber-cottaged cities too.

- Build WS - Yes I think I am convinced. Especially because I am running a CE, so late-game the gold should be mainly coming from a shrine or corps, not the slider, so this city can spread Confuc like ants at a picnic and get a shrine up. Anyway, as people mentioned it's eons away yet, so I can keep my options open for now, as long as I...

- Don't build HE here.

- Not NE either, wonderspam is fun but I think I need to start building troops against Monty's inevitable rush, not put wonders right on his border... NE can go in a real GP farm, if I can choose one properly this time!

- as for the floodplain, it seems clear that it should be farmed for now, so the Moai Monster can be grown / whipper / etc as fast as possible... Any concerns with odd-numbered food can be addressed (or not) later, once the city is max size I can watermill, workshop or cottage that tile. Anyway with luck I might get to settle a GM there for the WS boost, and the extra food will make a nice even number...

- The Ironworks idea is a very interesting one... again, luckily not one I have to think about for now. I'll assess my options again about when the second crop of national wonders become available. For now, I wanted to at least plan out FP, Oxf, HE, NE and Moai.

Many people's adivce contributed to my learning and these decisions, thanks!

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Useless or not, it's relative to what he has and what everybody else has. It's not a good city, but it's one that I will not raze if I capture it. 2 fish resources are significant. But yes, I agree on the usage of this city: worker production. The problem with wall street is that there's so few commerce running in this city that even with holy shrine, a plain cottaged city may net you more gold, assuming 70-80% science slider. It really depends on what kind of intercontinental trade routes you're getting in that city.

 

[Airefuego]

- - -
On the WS issue:

Where to put Wall Street in a CE game is always an interesting question, as SylvanL says. Because the science slider should hopefully be around 70-80%, commerce is not necessarily the main provider of gold.

I believe that a good shrine and a few settled GMs or GPs are often more lucrative, and they keep you independent from the science slider.

This city (once full size with the UB and the current tile improvements) totals 58 base commerce from tiles i think, plus whatever trade routes bring in. A little more if I windmill the hill and cottage the floodplain.

That's only about half of that provided by, say, 15 towns (which is, um, around 106-122 commerce depending upon rivers?) , but if you consider that the science slider is high, the difference in gold between those two cities will only be about 11-18 raw gold. The shrine itself should bring in at least 20 raw gold, and any settled GMs or GPs more still.

So I consider the holy city a much more important factor than the presence of a lot of cottages when picking a WS city early.

 

[vicawoo]

It has with lighthouse +10 food, but 4 goes to gold. That's only 3 specialists (i guess 4), and you can't work the plain/mine. Waste of NE, not enough commerce/food to warrant wallstreet/oxford.

Statues due to the sheer number of water tiles. Harbor later.

 

[schwartz]

IMO its a fair city.. good Moai site, and with the Feitoria and those 2 mines it should pull in some decent commerce too.