Increasing Production in "Colonial" Cities

[CivLuvah]

I've noticed something whenever I settle "colonies" outside my home continent. The production levels on some of my cities are so low, it takes 100+ turns to produce a builder. It isn't the case with a few cities which are settled near rivers or who have a big housing capacity.

From this I could guess that production is contingent with housing and proper water sources (oases don't seem to give the same value as rivers). I figured it's a matter of producing food for my cities. I had one city where every tile surrounding it was farmland. But it still didn't work, and it takes me around 50+ turns to build a Campus on that city.

What am I doing wrong? Do you guys have any tips on how to max production in cities that are outside the home continent, besides policy cards?

 

[gimper42]

Trade routes, mainly. That and getting a builder over there to chop and improve some production tiles. I try to move a trader unit to a new city ASAP and usually connect it to my capital or a similar city nearby. Usually I'm going to connect to whichever city will give the highest number of cogs.

Production has nothing to do with housing except that more housing can allow for faster growth which can lead indirectly to more production. I tend to leave a lot of cities locked at 3-5 pop and can sometimes generate surprising amounts of cogs from them. Similarly, water sources do not affect production directly. Also, food does not translate into production, not even for settler units like it did in Civ 5. Production is cogs. Get more cogs, gain more production.

 

[Gus_Smedstad]

It's not housing, it's that many of the costs escalate with time. Builders and districts in particular. It's not so visible with the early cities because your production there is so high compared to a starting city.

For the most part, I don't expect colonial cities to do much. I found them to snag luxuries and strategic resources. Maybe, if I settle them early enough, they might produce a commercial district to enable another valuable trade route.

I try and send a builder with the settler, or immediately behind, because the new cities won't be able to make builders on their own, and improved tiles from the beginning help a good deal. I don't use trade routes to boost them because I don't think it's worth the investment. The trade routes stick to either boosting critical production (i.e. wonders) or otherwise boosting the much more useful core cities.

 

[The googles do nothing]

With colonial city i try to keep the beginning of game mind set. Build a monument and then a settler before a district.

 

[Victoria]

I love colonial cities... I have even moved my entire empire offshore once.

So there are 2 things but first lets looks at your 100+ turns and break down the issue as I see it

This is because your city centre produces 1 prod and your citizen is likely also producing 1 prod.... 2 lousy production. Now if
you had 4 production it would be 50 turns
You had 8 production it would be 25 turns
you had 16 production it would be 12-13 turns.

If you can get 2 trade routes there and maybe they average out at +3 each you would have a total of +8 production... so already with what @gimper42 suggests you have only 25 turns to build.
If you either first produce a builder or much better buy a builder you can fist chop some trees to mostly get another builder and let the trade route finich it off first. You then have about 5-9 build charges.
If you chop some cows or wheat or other food your population increases by 1... Do that twice then you have a +3 population in a couple of turns.
Now change those +1 hills into +4 hills with a couple of mines and 1 citizen on each and 1 citizen on food and you now have

+ 8 from mines
+ 6 from trade routes
+ 1 from city centre and maybe +1 from the extra citizen
1-5 builder charges left

You now in a few turns have a city that can produce a campus in another 6 turns (assuming 8 turns to grow this city with builders)
You can probably consider the trade routes can be detached when they come free as your city can now grow faster and be decent quickly
You now realize you may have been better getting something like a harbor first and then a campus (harbors are great for growing cities fast)
before you know it you are at 7 pop with 3 districts and a great benefit to your empire.

I really honestly think people are missing this trick. The escalating costs only triple over time so the +100 looks scary but is really down to your city centre only producing 1 production. More importantly the AI does not seem to work like this so you have suddenly got a huge advantage over them. This is one way in deity you can suddenly catch up mid game as long as there is some spare room around. It really works. People also need to apreciate that lighthouses turn fish into +4 food and all sea tile eventually end up producing 3 food and 2 gold. The hourbor district as a whole provides roughly 3 gold after removing maintenance and produces another +3 food and normally around +5 production (doubled with the adjacency multiplier) and with all that food around you can afford to slot the harbor giving +3 science and +6 gold.

 

[gimper42]

That was explained really well. I pretty much do exactly that when I want a new coastal city to grow. I'm a big fan of using a builder charge to chop a tree tile to build another builder in this situation, too. Having all of those builder charges available gives you a lot of flexibility.

 

[cazaderonus]

Yeah there's no point founding a new city past T150 if you dont send enough resources to jumpstart it. Aka having a builder going with the settler and a Trade Route available to transfer.

Only case where i dont bother is if i just settle to grab a strategic resources. And even then, i ll send a builder to insta improve the resource.

 

[Victoria]

Yeah there's no point founding a new city past T150 if you dont send enough resources to jumpstart it.

buying a builder and trade routes are alternatives