Managing your economny

[Gungalley]

Hi, im totally confused here. I'm new to civ. How do you manage your economy? I just build farms next to rivers, cottages in grass, wndmills in hills and sometimes they work, sometimes they do. And why do some people concentrate on science in some cities? Isn't science the added research of ALL cities?

 

[petey]

In terms of the concentrations in cities, there are a lot of buildings, such as libraries and observatories, that give bonuses to science in a city. That means, the more science you have in a city, the more bonuses that are available to it.

You can have two cities building both science and units and get decent tech advancement, or you can have one city focused on building units and another focused on building science and get the same numbr of units, yet jump ahead in the tech race due to all the accumulated bonuses in your science city.

It's not that you won't get everything if you have two different cities doing the same thing, it's just that you'll get it faster if you pick a city to specialize.

 

[Gungalley]

But won't you produce more units in the same amount of time if you set more cities to produce units? Especially when you need them urgently? UNless, you set mutliple cities to specialise in unit production. But then what about cities you conquer?

And forges, are they useful in all cities? Science and production?

 

[Heroes]

But won't you produce more units in the same amount of time if you set more cities to produce units? Especially when you need them urgently? UNless, you set mutliple cities to specialise in unit production. But then what about cities you conquer?

And forges, are they useful in all cities? Science and production?

Forge and factory are of extremely high priority, because they make any other production faster.

 

[bonscott]

I pretty much build things like libraries and observatories everywhere.

BUT where you specialize in my mind is the wonders. So find your best science city and concentrate your science wonders there (if you want to build science wonders that is). Most likely this will be your capital city or whatever city has the most commerce.

And also specialize cities to generate certain types of great people so concentrate buildings/wonders that generate certain types in certain cities. Like I have one city that generates just great scientists, another great merchants and another is about 33% each of a profit, artist or engineer. I plan to get once specialzed to artists but I haven't gotten there yet.

 

[Gungalley]

Waiiit a minute. I'm confused again. What does science do? I thoguht science is used for research? That means its the summation of all your science stats in every city you have in your civilisation right?

 

[siff]

yes, that's right.

 

[Gungalley]

So why specialise science at all? And the only difference between specialising military units and specialising building buildings is hte barracks, which itself is a building.

So should I build science buildings everywhere? Have 2 cities specialise in building, 1 for units 1 for buildings and have 1 city specialise in commerce with cottages built everywhere for that city?

 

[siff]

specialising is ok, sometimes good, it should depend on the terrain your cities i.e. what they specialise in. I myself try to fit all my cities with basic things, library, barracks, granary, aqueduct, temple, coliseum, factory, grocer, market, theatre, walls and banks if I'm going to war, wars are expensive!

After that I start thinking about specialisation in terms of buildings and wonders.

 

[bonscott]

Specializing really comes into play with Wonders. You start stacking all those +50 and +100 % you really start cranking out more science vs if you spread the wonders around. Specializing to me has nothing to do with "normal' buildings like libraries and such. Build them everywhere, it doesn't cost you to have them there and every extra beaker helps. But specialize your cities when it comes to wonders and specialists, this is where it comes into play more.

 

[Raize]

His first question I'm still trying to figure out also...

Do farms producing food make enough specialists so that cottages get outdone? The AI always seems to want to build farms and windmills... I'm at a loss for why unless there is some advantage to it.

(I usually play Financial civs...)

 

[walkerjks]

His first question I'm still trying to figure out also...

Do farms producing food make enough specialists so that cottages get outdone? The AI always seems to want to build farms and windmills... I'm at a loss for why unless there is some advantage to it.

(I usually play Financial civs...)

A town will give you +8 commerce as a financial civ. So that is +8 science or +8 culture before taking multipliers into consideration.

A farm will give you half a specialist (pre-biology) or a full specialist (post-biologist). Even a full specialist won't give you +8. So cottages are better than specialists for pure culture or science or money production.

However, the great people produced by specialists tip the balance in favor of specialists if you need the goodies they produce. An academy will give a city a permament +50% science boost. An great work of art is an instant 4000 culture. So the specialists can be a better bet, particularly before the cost of great people becomes too high.

 

[Gufnork]

The reason to have a specialized science city is because you can only build Oxford university in one city. I try and get as much science as possible in all cities, but one city should sacrifice other things in order to get more beakers. It's also the first city to receive an Academy from a great scientist.

 

[caseywills]

Regarding specialization...
This is really just about choosing which of your cities is going to be the BEST at a given task, and then upgrading that city accordingly. A city next to 2 gold mines and a river is a lot more capable of generating science output, so you want to build EVERY science upgrade in that city, and build it there first.
Other cities may eventually get libraries and laboratories but they will get them when it is convenient (no war), rather than as soon as the upgrade is available.

Say you want to build a few libraries. The first city you build one in, is the city on the river with the gold mines. Other cities will be building units to protect you, or barracks, or settlers or workers.

Regarding specialists (Engineers, Artists, Scientists, Priests), you can get a better output from these people than from a cottage, but it requires a set of circumstances. Say you have 70% set to science and you are in a republic with all the relevant techs and civics to give you 7 coins on a town. A town will only put ~5 gold into science (70% of 7 is ~5), whereas a Scientist will put in 6. If you +100% science that will result in a whopping 2 coin difference.
However the town would give you some extra coin for money and food( and perhaps trade), whereas the scientist would give you Super People Points.
So it is a tradeoff. Basically what you want to do is pick a city to develop super people--preferably one that has alot of food to offset the loss of food, and also one that has good science/production/culture multiples.

 

[MSTK]

I think the OP undervalues the power of science. Science is the most integral part of the game. Everything else is caused by what you do in science. If you are ahead in science, you will have better units, options, and a head-start on the important wonders (and the spaceship). Free Great People are also granted by science. Getting a technology before any other civilization is an enourmous advantage.

Even if you are not ahead, it is of dire importance to keep at least marginally on par with the other civilizations. How are you going to defend against those Macemen coming at you if you only have archers?