Ironworks and Heroic Epic

[Virulent]

Is building the Heroic Epic and the Ironworks in the same city overkill? Especially if you throw in a Military Academy. I usually put the Ironworks in my HE city as it's almost always my best production city and I like to use it to crank out wonders or spaceship parts if I'm not at war.

Building West Point might make more sense but sometimes if I'm playing a non Arg or Cha leader I might not get a unit's level high enough to build it. Red Cross might work as well but I like to save that for my secondary military city, if I have one.

 

[Elrohir]

Generally, both my Heroic Epic and Ironworks city can both build modern military units in one or two turns. (And I usually have a couple of secondary hybrid or production oriented cities that can build them in a couple of turns) Why would you want one mega city when you can have two great cities instead? By the time you can build the Ironworks, you can build great workshops and watermills in addition to mines. Sometimes I just take over a neighbors city that has a lot of river, and workshop and watermill over all the cottages and farms for a great production city. (And since they weren't my cottages before I took the city, my science rate isn't seriously harmed....it's the same as before I took the city)

Generally speaking, I think it is pretty wasteful to put them both in the same city. It isn't necessary to build what you need them to build, and if you have to fight a war while building an important wonder (Like the Pentagon or Eiffel Tower) then you're sort of stuck - either you give up on the wonder, or you have to make do without your primary military city pumping out units.

Almost always, have them separate.

 

[Sjaramei]

I do this a lot. At marathon speed you wont get as much overflow when building, and my game is over by the point i would have benefited from 2 cities with one in each.

If you feel you need a super army city, go for it (easier to settle warlords in there too, massive experience)

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Is building the Heroic Epic and the Ironworks in the same city overkill?

This question comes up every few months - but I don't think anybody has really had anything new to add in the last year.

 

[obsolete]

Your ironworks city will be making a lot of production. So if you're making a lot of production, is the HE really needed? HE is much better with something else that works well with it.

It really is a poor strategy when your HE city is working on other things than military units. That's a lot of wastage.

 

[Phrederick]

If I'm not playing a super-aggressive game, I tend to try to build HE in my second-best production city, so that the best production city can build wonders. If I'm playing a super-aggressive game, I don't reach Steel so the Ironworks aren't a consideration.

 

[UncleJJ]

It is a bad combination. The HE once built, which will normally be in the Classical age, should churn out military units as much as possible, hopefully boosted by some GGs settled as MIs. To then tie up that military production asset later in the game to build major projects like the Ironworks or even West Point is a poor move.

So I usually build Ironworks in another good production city (usually a captured one) and maybe build West Point in that city as well using the increased production. Most of the time the Ironworks is being built the HE city is still making top quality units (using the 100% production bonus and the extra experience from the MIs). If I want to boost the HE city even more I would add a Military Academy for another 50% boost. This approach ends up with 2 good military production cities and little lost production.

 

[Phrederick]

If I want to boost the HE city even more I would add a Military Academy for another 50% boost. This approach ends up with 2 good military production cities and little lost production.

I read here of the approach of sticking a military instructor with the HE and a military academy with the WP, and I like that idea a lot. One gets +4xp/+50% production, the other gets +2xp/+100% production, thus semi-evening out the differences.

 

[UncleJJ]

I read here of the approach of sticking a military instructor with the HE and a military academy with the WP, and I like that idea a lot. One gets +4xp/+50% production, the other gets +2xp/+100% production, thus semi-evening out the differences.

Exactly. I like to produce seige and grunt troops (sword, mace ...) with at least 2 promotions. Two promotions are much better than one. Getting CR2 is considerably better than CR1 and for defenders CG2 much superior to CG1. Also a medic comes straight out of the production city.

So unless I run one of the +2 exp civics I need a MI to get those two promotion units early on. IW and WP come later in the game and depending on how you do your research and trading about the same time. So building IW in a good production city and then using that extra production to build WP is a good approach as it's an expensive national wonder. So effectively I get +100% production from IW and +4 exp from WP in the second city. Which is good at that time when you need to churn out more expensive units like infantry, artillery and tanks.

Then if I've been warring enough I might get another GG or two and they can be used as either a MA or MI in either of those cities depending on whether I need more hammers or more exp. Although I don't value exp in excess of 5 anything like as highly as getting to 5. Units produced with 3 promotions are nice but not at the cost of making less units.

 

[Perugia]

It is a bad combination. The HE once built, which will normally be in the Classical age, should churn out military units as much as possible, hopefully boosted by some GGs settled as MIs. To then tie up that military production asset later in the game to build major projects like the Ironworks or even West Point is a poor move.

So I usually build Ironworks in another good production city (usually a captured one) and maybe build West Point in that city as well using the increased production. Most of the time the Ironworks is being built the HE city is still making top quality units (using the 100% production bonus and the extra experience from the MIs). If I want to boost the HE city even more I would add a Military Academy for another 50% boost. This approach ends up with 2 good military production cities and little lost production.

Yep. Works for vanilla too. I'm currently playing a Quecha rush marathon pangea game on Deity. The HE was completed 100s of turns ago in my best production city at the time and currently is churning out grenadiers and cannon. I do not want to waste HE turns on non-military assets. At least one of WP + IW gotta go somewhere else so they both might as well. My second mega-production city (which now has more production) is nearly done with the Ironworks and we are timing Military Trad to come in in time to use the 100% bonus to crank out WP in short order.

Can't afford either Vassalage or Theocracy as I want to stay with Free Speech and Free Religion (I have loads of CR3++ grenadiers to upgrade as soon as we reach Assembly line so need the gold) so I'll probably just keep the HE producing 4XP + Combat I Infantry. They can get up to 5XP in the field. Meanwhile the 8XP IW WP city will produce all the cannon and eventually tanks + any essential 8XP infantry such as Guerilla II & Woodsmen II.

 

[madscientist]

First, I play Prince huge maps marathon speed. My approach is the put the HE in best non-capital production city and settle the first GG there. I will have another city with lumbermilled forrests on the coast for the ironworks then build west point (and a dry dock). My second and third GGs generally go into another city as instructor/acadamy, this may be the capital unless there is another atractive city. That gets me 3 or 4 major military cities during the industrial age.

Another stat that has worked well for me is to place the HE and the first GG in the capital, run Beuracracy. I do this using imperialistic leaders and I see I can get 2 other cities as A a great person farm with the NE and B) a cottage spammed city for oxford and a acience acadamy.

 

[Harbourboy]

It does depend on game speed. It's completely pointless on Quick because it only takes 1 turn to build something anyway and you can't get faster than 1 turn. On marathon, there may be a case for it, if the it fit the game situation.