Is This a Draft City?

[Deriem]

From my point of view, this looks like it could be a great city for drafting. 3 seafood means 15 food/turn at size three. Of course, that's after I build the lighthouse. What I want to know is (before I waste my globe theatre), with a granary, would this city let me draft once at size 4, and then grow back instantly for another draft? I've never used Nationhood at all before, so if I'm missing something on Draft mechanics, please let me know.

If just using the seafood won't work, would chain-irrigating to the corn help at all?

I was amazed at that city when I captured it. 3 seafood, corn, cows and iron? Woaaaaah... I guess the computer likes to give itself nice starts, not that it helped

 

[InvisibleStalke]

You can't draft until size six. To me this is a great GP farm - lots of food and good production for wonders or to get the buildings to run specialists. I would consider putting Globe there to allow it to grow really big, but if you want a draft city choose something less good - this is too good a city site to waste on drafting.

 

[UncleJJ]

Seems like it will make a great drafting city to me. If you want to draft 1 rifleman every turn then this is the sort of site that is needed. To draft a rifleman you need a pop of 6 and at least 10% of your culture in the city. Building a theatre and Globe Theatre could help with meeting the second cultural requirement in a captured city. The high food and many mines to work should mean getting the Globe and other infrastructure should not take too long to install.

If you assume you will draft at size 6 then it takes 15 food to regrow from 5 to 6 and you'll need to work the 3 seafood (each +3 food with lighthouse) the cows (+1) and the corn (+ 4 when irrigated). With the 2 from the city tile, that totals +16 food per turn, if my arithmetic is right. So you'd be able to draft a rifleman every turn at that rate and later on an infantryman every 2 turns.

So if you want to try out drafting for the first time then this is an ideal city. But remember you can draft 1 troop in any of 3 cities each turn, so this city will only be giving 1/3 rd of the riflemen you can produce. Your other cities will suffer the -3 for drafting for 10 turns, but you can spread it around and draft a few extra. A barracks gives +2 happiness under Nationhood and I recommend getting a state religion and running Theocracy. That will give you draftees with 2 exp and a head start.

Have fun, drafting is amazingly powerful when done correctly. I find a good wartime civics set up is Police State, Nationhood, Slavery, Any, Theocracy although you might have to use Hereditary Rule until researching Police State.

 

[Belisar]

The city is a great hybrid site.
6 excellent ressources, hills, riverside tiles, it is itself on a river (leeve), coastal... Even if all tiles are worked it can support several specialists.
I can think of several ways I would use this site, depending on my needs, but staying at size 6 for drafting would really be a waste.

 

[UncleJJ]

The city is a great hybrid site.
6 excellent ressources, hills, riverside tiles, it is itself on a river (leeve), coastal... Even if all tiles are worked it can support several specialists.
I can think of several ways I would use this site, depending on my needs, but staying at size 6 for drafting would really be a waste.

You are right to say this site could be developed in several ways, but the original question was about drafting here. The OP wanted to know how to develop this site as a drafting city, something he's not done before. I do not think it is a waste of this site to develop it for intensive drafting, that depends on the OP's gameplan.

Assuming he is planning to embark on a vigorous military campaign with rifles and later infantry, then this city would be an excellent place for the Globe Theatre and for drafting. The city has 3 seafood, corn, cows and iron and he should try to always work those 6 excellent tiles, and that means drafting at size 7, but that is a small price to pay. It means he'll draft on about 90% of turns. The other tiles are fairly weak (plains hills, forests, grassland and coastal) and drafting is so much more efficient than normal production (a drafted rifleman effectively costs 37 hammers instead of 110), that drafting at size 7 (still produces 10 base hammers) will easily out-produce any other form of production for war.

Given the exceptional food supply once drafting is no longer needed the city will regrow to a large size taking only 1 or 2 turns per pop. That will allow several specialists to be run (say a combination of spies and scientists) and with Representation it would produce plenty of beakers and EPs. The city can rapidly transition between war and peaceful activities.

 

[oyzar]

you need to irrigate the corn by building a farm NW of the city to get full effect out of it. And it is an amazing globe city.

 

[pawelo]

Fully agree with oyzar. Globe for sure, then draft.
Be sure to farm everything around once you have Globe, if you wish to heavy draft from here. I would even consider putting windmills over mines on the hills for this purpose.

 

[6K Man]

I tend to use cities that are good for food and food only for the Globe Theatre and related drafting/whipping. Typically an island tile with 3+ seafood resources - if its only resource is food, it'll never produce anything but units.

 

[oyzar]

How do you build the globe in such cities? it is awfully expencive.

 

[Rayder]

Naa, you got iron, cow and two decent mine resources within the citysquare. wouldn't take so long to built the globe if you set your mind on it. But all in all, it's a GP farm...

 

[6K Man]

How do you build the globe in such cities? it is awfully expencive.

If I have a GE from, say, Physics, I'll use that. Of course, if there are any land tiles in the FC, I'll workshop them. And if I can't get the GT, I'll whip anyway. It's not like the city is going to be good for anything else.

 

[Morgrad]

If you've never used drafting - start - and that's a great city to start it in.....

30 turns = 30 macemen + as many trebs as the rest of your cities can build in 30 turns? Continent = yours.

Later it's 30 riflemen.

If it's a UU like samorai or redcoats, all the better. Drafting is obnoxiously powerful. Just make sure to settle at least one GG there (with your barracks), so your 1/2 xp draftsmen get a promotion out of the gate.

Although I agree that that city is awfully nice to keep it at pop5 with a draft-fest - if you have another contender for a draft city I'd use that one instead - but if not, this one is beautiful.

 

[Deriem]

Thanks for the response, everyone. I followed UncleJJ's advice especially. I had one more Civ on the continent, and with intensive drafting among all my cities, I was able to take Asoka down with no problems. The other continent, however, was heavily geared for war so I decided to play it safe. I switched to Rep (was running Police State for the war. I mean, the city came with the mids. How sweet is that?) and grew the city to about 20, running buckets of specialists. Sad thing is, I had already set up a decent GP farm, and a major science city, so Kyoto basically played second-string to both of them.

Bad thing is, I think I may get too draft happy in the future. Because of it I got my earliest space win, and my highest personal score on any map other than Duel Maybe I'll get another city that's a little less good for everything else and make it a pure draft horse. One can only hope!

By the way, I can't really remember how I built the GT... I do remember that it didn't take long though. I may have popped a GEngineer, or used a whip with normal . EDIT: I built the GT by chopping the forests down to irrigate the corn, along with normal hammahs.

 

[popejubal]

...And don't forget that you can whip as well as draft. Whipping is not quite as efficient as drafting, but it's a lot more flexible since you can get whatever you want.

You can even whip and draft in the same turn (just draft first if the whip would take you below 6 population).

 

[Phrederick]

How do you build the globe in such cities? it is awfully expencive.

Whip overflows. Run HR, and leave the units you whip in the city to combat the unhappiness. Every third turn whip a unit that gives the maximum overflow (make sure to take into account forge bonus), then put the overflow into the Globe, then put a couple hammers into a unit on the third turn. Do that for a while and then the happiness is taken care of with the Globe and you have an army to go make war with.

 

[Airefuego]

Brilliant city location.

Another option would have been GP farm (build National Epic) ... and then ...

... seeing as you have good production tiles, you don't need to chop the forests... You could save them until late game and whack in National Park as your other National Wonder - five MORE free specialists...!

National Park GP farms are lots of fun although I guess going until late game with only one NW in your capital is not perfect...