Is the city list broken or just bad?

[Willowmound]

On your list of cities (F1), the number of hammers per city does not show correctly. Or rather it shows the base number - I think - without taking into account Forges, Factories etc. This renders the list pretty much useless. When I need to find the best city for a wonder, I need the total hammer-count as well as other stats.

So is it broken, or just bad? As it is, I have to manually toggle through my cites, taking notes on a friggin' piece of paper!

 

[Runriot]

On your list of cities (F1), the number of hammers per city does not show correctly. Or rather it shows the base number - I think - without taking into account Forges, Factories etc. This renders the list pretty much useless. When I need to find the best city for a wonder, I need the total hammer-count as well as other stats.

So is it broken, or just bad? As it is, I have to manually toggle through my cites, taking notes on a friggin' piece of paper!

Depending on the map your playing, its rather easy to see the best production city directly from the main map. Just look at the icons to the left of the city religions, and if a hammer is there, then that is the city with the most production in your empire

 

[Willowmound]

I know. But when I have 25 cities and lots of projects going I need to know the second most productive city, the third most productive, the one with the best production to income ratio etc, etc. In short, I need complete and accurate statistics.

So I ask again: is it broken?

 

[triabita]

i noticed that too, very annoying!

Also from this screen i still haven't figured out a way to zoom in a city, clicking on the names simply does not do the trick...

 

[Willowmound]

Yeah, that annoys me too. It's like they forgot to finish the whole F1 screen.

 

[homegrown]

No, it's not broken.

I could be mistaken, but here's my take on it after looking at that screen a lot for my Dom Advisor mod. It shows the number of hammers from tiles and specialists. Added in is bonuses for forge, factory, power. Not added is bonuses for Ironworks (it's not working anyway), Wonder bonus for Industrious civs, Wonder bonus for having the resource, other bonuses (space elevator, laboratory for space ship parts etc).

Therefore, when you look at the screen, you are seeing it's "base production". This is the number you want to compare when looking for where to build as all cities are then compared evenly. IMHO, this is much better than seeing artificially inflated production numbers because some cities are recieving bonuses, while others are not.

Hope this helps.

 

[Willowmound]

OK. This is the thing: The number of hammers shown per city on the F1 screen is not the same as the number of hammers shown in the individual city screen. It may say 23 hammers in the F1 screen - in the city screen it may say 36. 23 is not the number I want to see when comparing build speeds!

 

[homegrown]

OK, I'll repeat this one more time. 23 is the number you want to see, because the 36 is artificial. It's based on bonuses that may or may not be present during the next build.

Just to point out continuity, the gold (commerce) column is the same. It shows "base" commerce, not actual gold produced, which is a totally different number. When you go to build banks and Wall Street, you want to build them in cities with the highest "base commerce", not the city producing the most actual gold. Two very different numbers. The same goes with base production and actual hammers being produced. Those are two very different numbers. And since all bonuses are on the "base" value, that's the value you really want to compare.

Remember your high school math... you can't compare apples to bananas.

 

[CokeHead]

OK, I'll repeat this one more time. 23 is the number you want to see, because the 36 is artificial. It's based on bonuses that may or may not be present during the next build.

Just to point out continuity, the gold (commerce) column is the same. It shows "base" commerce, not actual gold produced, which is a totally different number. When you go to build banks and Wall Street, you want to build them in cities with the highest "base commerce", not the city producing the most actual gold. Two very different numbers. The same goes with base production and actual hammers being produced. Those are two very different numbers. And since all bonuses are on the "base" value, that's the value you really want to compare.

Remember your high school math... you can't compare apples to bananas.

simple programming:

variable= base variable*1.5.

When a factory is produced it bascially is doing math like that for prouction. it stays there till the factory stays there. it is silly to still be showing be showing the base variable. though it still is useful if every city has a factory but when you are looking at domadv you want to know which one is producing more. for example take a two city civ. one city produces 10 other 15. now according to your reasoning after i build a factory in 10 hammer city the domadv will still show 10.

That is just wrong. in this case base prd is really "Artificial"

though i do use base prd and comm for selecting wonder sites but sometimes its more useful to know which city is really prodcuing the most output absolutely. base production is more of a potential for most output.

 

[Zhahz]

i noticed that too, very annoying!

Also from this screen i still haven't figured out a way to zoom in a city, clicking on the names simply does not do the trick...

If you play at higher than 1024x768 resolution you'll see the brief city interface at the bottom (same thing you see when you click city labels in map view) when you click on a city. I don't think you get the same option when you're at 1024 since I only noticed this after switching to 13xx reso (whatever it is).

Of course, this doesn't help you much if you want to play at 1024 (or have no choice) and I still haven't found a way to simply jump into a city from the list.

It also annoys me that the list does not retain its settings (as it did in Civ3). If I enter the city list and reverse sort by production I want it to stay that way til *I* change it to something else.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

simple programming:

variable= base variable*1.5.

When a factory is produced it bascially is doing math like that for prouction. it stays there till the factory stays there. it is silly to still be showing be showing the base variable. though it still is useful if every city has a factory but when you are looking at domadv you want to know which one is producing more. for example take a two city civ. one city produces 10 other 15. now according to your reasoning after i build a factory in 10 hammer city the domadv will still show 10.

That is just wrong. in this case base prd is really "Artificial"

though i do use base prd and comm for selecting wonder sites but sometimes its more useful to know which city is really prodcuing the most output absolutely. base production is more of a potential for most output.

Actually, what is probably needed is
1-Base Production
2-Generic Bonuses (summed up)

Because a city with base 10 and a Factory for +50% is NOT the same as a city that produces 15 base If you are considering any other bonus. (if you add on a 100% bonus, the base 10 will be at 25 and the Base 15 will be at 30)

 

[TLHeart]

The problem with putting all the bonuses affecting city production on the advisor screen is that all the bonuses do not work on every build. If I want the best city to build a certain item, then I need to be sure that city has the necessary infrastructure to build that item quickly. I like that the advisor screen shows BASE production. This game is a stratagy game, and not an RTS game where speed matters. We all have time to think and to plan.

 

[snepp]

it is silly to still be showing be showing the base variable. though it still is useful if every city has a factory but when you are looking at domadv you want to know which one is producing more. for example take a two city civ. one city produces 10 other 15. now according to your reasoning after i build a factory in 10 hammer city the domadv will still show 10.

That is just wrong. in this case base prd is really "Artificial"

Perhaps I'm not understanding your post entirely (some parts are literal, while others are hypothetical). Anyway, the domestic advisor does show the modified hammer output where forges/factories/power is concerned.

If I have a 10 hammer city, the advisor shows 10.
If I add a forge and factory, the advisor shows 15.
If I then add power, the advisor shows 20.

Krikkitone makes a good point, a 10 hammer city with a forge/factory is not the same as a 15 hammer city without, in regards to potential.

 

[Ranos]

If I am understanding what a couple of you are saying, then if my leader has the Industrious trait and I build a Forge in a city, instead of cutting the production required to build the Forge in half, it doubles the number of hammers produced per turn. Also, if I have a Marble resource and am building a wonder that gets a bonus from marble, my Hammers get doubled instead of the required production getting halved.

If I'm wrong, then what bonuses are you talking about?

 

[snepp]

If I am understanding what a couple of you are saying, then if my leader has the Industrious trait and I build a Forge in a city, instead of cutting the production required to build the Forge in half, it doubles the number of hammers produced per turn. Also, if I have a Marble resource and am building a wonder that gets a bonus from marble, my Hammers get doubled instead of the required production getting halved.

A bit off-topic, but yes, you're understanding correctly. The hammers required to produce a building remains static, while your city's hammers/turn is increased.

 

[Willowmound]

Remember your high school math... you can't compare apples to bananas.

Sorry, high school math all gone!

You can make your argument all you want, but as long as I want to finish the Eiffel Tower in as few turns as possible, I still have to go through all the city screens to find the best producer, 'cause the apparent best producer according to the F1 screen may well not be it.

 

[Thrag]

I think they show the base number because some production modifiers are associated with the thing being built and not the city. If you are building something that is double production with stone and it shows that bonus you may end up picking a city that is totally wrong for what you want to build.

Anyway, base production is usually a pretty good indicator, to get the absolute best city I can't imagine you'd have to look through more than the top few.

 

[Willowmound]

Since you can't access city screens directly from the F1 screen, in reality you end up looking through them all.

 

[Ranos]

Sorry, high school math all gone!

You can make your argument all you want, but as long as I want to finish the Eiffel Tower in as few turns as possible, I still have to go through all the city screens to find the best producer, 'cause the apparent best producer according to the F1 screen may well not be it.

I think you are misunderstanding what has been said. As others said, the city advisor screen shows the production of each city. Base production + city improvements (I'll call this improved production). The number in the individual city screens is the Base production + city improvements + modifiers (building a wonder that gets half production with marble or building a military unit when you have heroic epic).

In other words, the advisor screen shows the improved production while the city detail screen shows a modified production. The city advisor screen is the correct screen to look at.

 

[Willowmound]

So explain to me why it is that the city with the most hammers in the F1 screen is not the fastest producer.