How to tell?

[FrenziedEye]

Hi, I was wondering if you guys could teach me how to discern which terrain sites/features are good for creating which type of specialist cities (Like research, production, commerce, GP's...etc..)

Right now I'm kind of an all round person, who builds everything in the same city - I dont have one city for military production, or one city specifically devoted to research.

From reading around I know this is not efficient. Which probably explains why I can't get past Prince level. Help!!

Thanks =]

 

[warezfan]

There is a button you could press just above the minimap and you can see all the stuff like hammers, food, and gold on each tile.

Obviously place with lots of hammers are good for production.

Lots of gold good for commerce/research.

Lots of food good for great people farm and specialist city.

But generally you don't even need to look first, just build a city at a place most close to your capital. Then if that city is producing fast then it's obviously going to be your production city which you build forges and stuff. If you have a city with lots of population and food to grow then run caste system with lots of specialist.

 

[Michelangelo]

In the strategy forum there is a thread which describes city specialization. You might have to look in the older posts, as it might be filtered out.

link.

 

[svv]

Personally I think it's about the same for:

Commerce/Science city
Money/Religion city
GP farm

All of these need lots of food potential. Flood plains, grassland, maybe a food special or two.

There are a few things that would help the commerce/science city but not the other two. But, they are far from necessary; you could have a huge commerce/science city without these: (1) being on the coast (for extra commerce from sea rade lanes), (2) gold mines, silver mines, gem mines, and (3) rivers.

It's not an issue of terrain, but personally I select a money/religion city based on whether it has a shrine of a popular religion.

As for the other type of specialized city:

Military/Production city

You'll want a few hammer specials - like hills and strategic resources - but you'll also want a good food supply so you can work them - some flood plains or grassland and hopefully a food special or two. I would rather select a city that had three or four hammer specials, and a good supply of potential food, than a city with a ton of hills but very little food potential.