Matching Resources to City Specializations

[thelibra]

Howdy there... I was looking for some advice about resource farms and specialized city strategies.

Some things, I'm slowly learning, are counter-intuitive.

For instance, I nestled my capital between two gold peaks, near good farmland, with even some cattle and wheat bonus. Gold = Science, Food = Population, Population = more food or gold... you get the drift. I figured the capital would be the best place to put science. Now, hundreds of years later, I see the investment might have been more wiseley spent in a different city.

That's just an example. I could also mention how, of all things, my "luxury resource/iron" manufacturing city somehow became the economic powerhouse with godlike production of hammers, despite having nothing more than an iron forge and a couple of modest 2-hammer peaks, and a lot of farmland, while my seaside workhorse intended town with the horses, cattle, marble and a few 3-hammer peaks did squat for production, despite growing to a respectable high-teen size.

Or my swamp-laden city with nothing but copper, wine, and a CRAPLOAD of really good farmland ended up becoming the most advanced center of culture.

I mean, it all worked out fine, and me and Gandhi are fighting it out for top dog mid-1700's, but everything I assumed about resource synergy and city specialization appears to be wrong, or at least, sideways.

Would anyone mind giving me some advice or guidance or links on matching up resources to what I'd like that city to specialize in? Or perhaps I'm not setting certain city-governance options up correctly... in any event, thanks ahead of time.

 

[thelibra]

I'm also unfortunately, quite lost on the synergy with worker improvements as well. The addition of windmills, watermills, workshops, etc... has completley thrown me for a loop, and I'm not sure which ones work best for what specialization of city.

 

[svv]

Your capital sure sounds like a good science city to me (so long as you were planning on keeping the commerce slider pointed mostly to science). Don't just rely on the gold: put down cottages, especially on squares next to rivers, flood plains, and grassland. Make sure you're building the science improvements. Run Bureaucracy when you can, to increase the commerce and hammers in your capital.

You really don't need or particularly want luxury resources (other than gold, silver and gems) in your main commerce city - just things that increase commerce, including the cottages you build yourself.

You might discover a "better" site for a commerce city later, but that's ok - you don't have to have chosen a perfect spot. There's a lot of advantage in getting it started early, especially if it's your capital.

As for your six-peak city, the problem there was probably not enough food to work all the peaks. Any city, to be a great city, has to have a lot of access to food. I've made my military/production city out of cities that have only two or three hammer specials - but they had food that let the city grow and even hire some engineer and priest (esp. if you have Angkor Wat) specialists.

 

[Canadian Bacon]

Also note that coastal cities often make good commerce cities (as long as there's not too much water) because of the much greater trade route income.

As far as worker improvements go, I'm not a big fan of the 'odd' ones (workshop, windmill, watermill). I usually stick to mines, farms, and cottages.

As for the OP, your capital sounds like a good commerce city, but as was said, cottages are key. The cattle and wheat (make sure it gets irrigation) should be able to support your mines and if most of the land is 'farmland' (grasslands, generally), build cottages instead.

 

[CivMonger]

I've taken to keeping 2 or 4 forests in some of my cities, largely for the health bonus, and largely because they get whipped down to the point where they don't really need max effect from those tiles. But when replaceable parts rolls around they get a lumbermill which comes in real handy to increase production

 

[Excl]

I wrote a beginner's guide to city specialization some time ago. I'm not sure how much of a help it will be, but it could be a start: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/city_specialization.php

 

[morchuflex]

I too find it very hard to properly specialize my cities. In fact, available resources, not planning, dictate what I make of them. And very often, when a new resource pops out, it changes your plans again.

The capital city will often be a Jack of all trades... Since it generally has the best location, you'll obviously make it your settler factory. But you'll also make it a military city at least in the early game, for obvious reasons. And if you build early wonders (Stonehenge comes to mind), it makes sense to make it your GP farm beacuse of these early Gpp.

It is also very difficult to decide which buildings are to be built and which aren't. For instance, forges should be avoided in science cities unless there is nothing else to build. But what if you have gold or silver? Doesn't the extra happy faces make it worth building everywhere? And so on. In fact, I very often end up having all my cities building everything. I know it's a bad habit, but it naturally tends to evolve that way.

 

[PMabey]

Workshops and watermills can be used to give production to cities with lots of grasslands and no hills or to maximize the production of your ironworks city. They are best combined with the state property civic, which adds 1 food to both improvements. (This is available with communism) I dont often build windmills but the extra commerce can be useful once you have discovered electricity.

 

[GoodGame]

Watermills are great for production cities.

Workshops aren't really terrific until State Property--I tend to avoid them except on the most sea-surrounded grassland cities (where any Hammer is vital)

Windmills are great for adjusting a production city high in hills so it can grow to work all its tiles. Windmills also help grow cities that will have lots of Specialists.

Cottages on Financial are great on river tiles and grass tiles, and ok on plains and hills (excepting for a few farms and windmills needed to grow the Finance city to it's full potential). And any money/science city will do well with as many cottages that it can work. At least one cottage per city is a good investment regardless, to help pay maintenance and unit costs.

Mines are really only vital to production cities, so probably no more than 1 or 2 are needed in other cities, and preferably only on the bonus resource sites.

Also consider your Trees as improvements. I only give preference to chopping the river trees and an occasional grassland hill that makes a good early mine.

I'm also unfortunately, quite lost on the synergy with worker improvements as well. The addition of windmills, watermills, workshops, etc... has completley thrown me for a loop, and I'm not sure which ones work best for what specialization of city.

 

[GoodGame]

Gold = Science, Food = Population, Population = more food or gold...

Really,

Gold = Science, more Units, Culture, more cities, and/or
more expensive perks from your Civics.

Food = more tiles worked per city, more Specialists/Great
People (which means Food= Anything u want)

Hammers = fast building state (get ur Science city up and
running faster) or fast units.



River Forests = waste of river gold / farmspace /watermill
Grassland Forests = waste of cottage space /
waste of food-friendly mines
Other Forests = Workshops that feed themselves,
and raise your local population cap.

Pre-calendar Wooded Luxuries = great Workshops,
but on river forests, see above.

Gold/etcc/Iron/Copper = always a great mine.

Pasturized Cow = Great balanced tile.

unboated Fish/Crab/Clam = early Lighthouse
boated = $$ farm.

Any other bonus resource is always potentially an interesting farm or "workshop" (while wooded), if the improving the resource would be overkill.

 

[thelibra]

Thanks for the advice all, here's what I've learned so far. Or at least, what I THINK I've learned. I could be way wrong on these.

1.) Read Excl's guide he listed above. It was an enormous help. And I gotta say, the part about how Commerce Points vs. Gold Points and Science Points REEEEEAALLY helped streamline my cities by an enormous amount. I had no idea there was a difference between gold and CP, and had no idea the application of bonuses to gold and sci didn't apply till after the slider conversion.

2.) If you're playing Financial, save your rivers spots for what you really need most. It seems to make more sense to place Cottages on the 2F grasslands that aren't fresh water areas first, rather than using up your valuable river spots for cottages immediately, since those dry 2F grasslands are useless for anything else till civil service, and the 2F means the cottag supports itself. That way you can use your river spots for farms or watermills, if you really need to, or if you're fine on food and hammers, you can still use those spots to build cottages later.

3.) Name your cities to match their specialization and location, especially if you like to get intoxicated while playing. That way when you're squinting at the screen of city, after city, after city, and still micromanaging your empire, this'll cut way down on your gameplay time. I usually use a combination of it's specialty (or major resource), the terrain it was founded on, and it's proximity to the ocean or river (if any). For example, Hammerhill Port, Ironhorse Rvr, Golden Sands, etc... That way you can still make pretty nice looking, if obvious, names for your cities. If you do multiplayer, you might want to develop a more obscure combination of words so your human foes can't read your economy like an open book.

4.) Decide what wonders you'll shoot for ahead of time. This is repeated over and over again in nearly every thread and guide. I'm big on Coastal cities, and play Financial, so Colossus usually is my first priority wonder.

5.) If you're going to have to chop down a forest to build a thingy like a farm or mine, it makes more sense to chop first, then build, rather than just click build. If I have understood the game correctly so far, it makes more sense to first use the production bonus in whatever you're building in the city, and then have the finish to the removal of the forest act as a reminder to check and see if the situation for that city hasn't changed in the last 3-5 turns before continuing to build whatever it was you wanted. This also helps figure out what's under the forest.

As for the workshops and mills... good to know about their usefulness and when... I've really only run into a couple of situations where they were wanted or needed in the past, but haven't had a chance to get far enough into my present game to try them with the knowledge presented to me in this thread.

Anyway, curious to hear errr...your thoughts on my thoughts...