Maximising Production (question, not guide)

[IslandFox]

In my most recent game (finally finished it today after months of playing it, even if I only did win by score. It's still a win, right? >.>), my cities had absoloutely pitiful production. I thought they were doing OK at around 15-20 shields per turn, and I had ONE city that did signficantly more, and that was at about 95 shields if I remember correctly.

What was it that made this mammoth difference in production? I thought this uber-city was an anomalie until I started reading here about how all cities should be able to produce mech inf. in one turn- that was amazing for a guy who's used to waiting 8-12 turns for each unit.

One thing I did notice, was the difference a while of peace made. I spent the majority of the game at war, conquering and invading my neighbours (it was the biggest map size with the most availible civs, so there was alot to conquer and invade), and the majority of my cities were either "homeland cities" which cranked out units at a pitiful 8-12 turns each unit (but I had so many I always had a good flow of troops regardless, at least 7 to 10 built per turn), and then I had "conquered cities" which I just set to wealth and let to ferment. I became immensely and obscenely rich this way, but this slack approach to production won't hold up in higher difficulty levels I'm sure. Anyway, after taking a 50 turn break from war in the very end of the game, I built up a whole bunch of city improvements, and my production (and culture) skyrocketed. I had lots of cities at nearly 30 shields per turn, which was alot for me.

Regardless of this improvement, it still measures no where when compared to the 90-100 that seems to be the norm here. What am I doing wrong? I think my misuse of mines and irrigation might have been part of it, and I should've spent more time at peace building up my empire, but what basic strategies are there to maximise production in a city?

Thanks for any help.

 

[Turner]

Upload a save, we can tell you exactly why one city was 90+ and the others were around 20.

 

[IslandFox]

Whats a site I can upload it to?

 

[Turner]

Do a Ctrl-S in game, and just attach it when you post.

 

[Fried Egg]

Make sure that all the grassland and hill tiles being worked are mined.

Get a factory in a city to massively increase it's production.

On top of that put one of the four plants (Coal, Hydro, Solar or Nuclear).

On top of that put a Manufactering plant.

That should give you a production powerhouse.

 

[Raio]

Hi @IslandFox

Concerning city production there are so many points to consider, like gov. type, city buildings, mining / irrigation balance, kind of civilization, city distribution in map, and so one...

Basically in my games, I use a few "good practize rules":
- Made micromanagement, which means I always control all my workers.
- Irrigate "brow tiles" and minning "green tiles" in the first 3 eras, and then in the final era, for citys only with "green tiles" and with no "sea tiles" irrigate 4 or 5 "green tiles". With this, you maximize production in the beggining and maximize growing at the end.
- Play in Republic, as soon as possible, even in war times (difficult but possible). This means you need to discover it and prepare citys for it.
- The number of workers depends on the kind of civ (industrial means less workers) and the terrain type (hell of jungle means a huge nember of workers). Basically, my goal is have all city tiles fitted when discovering Steam Power, in order to star building the railroad network (target never achived...).
- Also important is the corruption.
- The great/small wonders that can jump individual city production.
- The production city improvements are also importants, like factorys, hydro or other plants, etc...

There are many other points that directly influence city production. These are only a few and the more importants in my point of view. maybe the "civ masters" can help you better than me...

Regards:
@Raio

 

[tao]

- Irrigate "brow tiles" and minning "green tiles" in the first 3 eras, and then in the final era, for citys only with "green tiles" and with no "sea tiles" irrigate 4 or 5 "green tiles". With this, you maximize production in the beggining and maximize growing at the end.

This will ensure mediocre performance. Immediately irrigate food bonus tiles. Once out of despotism use irrigation to maximize for growth while maintaining decent production until you hit pop 6/12 or the happiness limit allowed by available luxuries. Then convert irrigation to mines for production.

 

[PrinceOfLeigh]

Just a quick question while on the "Production" theme, when you've got a city crippled by Corruption and you're using Engineers to build things. Does a factory improve the Engineers output? I doubt it but I thought I'd ask as I haven't been brave enough to build one and destroy one in a city.

 

[Turner]

No, it doesn't.

However, in this case a policeman would help, when the city has a factory, hydro/solar/coal/nuke plant, manufacturing plant, and possibly Offshore Platform, or Iron Works. These all stack, and the policeman reduces corruption/waste, so you'll probably see a bigger boost in using POs instead of CEs. Plus, POs shield 'bonus' is useable when building a unit, whereas the CE's isn't.

 

[Ivan the Kulak]

Also, having an ongoing We Love The King day in corrupt cities can really help with production. You may see a city go from 1 shield to several shields if you can make it celebrate. It can be worth it to rush partially completed marketplaces in such cities if you have a lot of luxuries. Carefully manage growth in such cities and they will actually contribute culture, research and money with tax collectors, scientists and such.

 

[val]

Also, having an ongoing We Love The King day in corrupt cities can really help with production. You may see a city go from 1 shield to several shields if you can make it celebrate. It can be worth it to rush partially completed marketplaces in such cities if you have a lot of luxuries. Carefully manage growth in such cities and they will actually contribute culture, research and money with tax collectors, scientists and such.

How you make an We Love the King celebration?

 

[thetrooper]

How you make an We Love the King celebration?

Minimum population 6. No unhappy citizens and at least equal amounts of happy and content citizens (IIRC).

 

[thetrooper]

Oh and a city can't be starving.

 

[Mirc]

Make sure that all the grassland and hill tiles being worked are mined.

I didn't know t's good to mine grasslands, except when they have Cattle.

 

[Turner]

Minimum population 6. No unhappy citizens and at least equal amounts of happy and content citizens (IIRC).

And specialists count as a content person.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

I didn't know t's good to mine grasslands, except when they have Cattle.

When you are still in despotism - sometime at the beginning of the game - and you have cattle, you should irrigate it. It is one of the few tiles that can give you <2 food. And the rest, or most of it, is to be mined.

 

[Turner]

Keep in mind the way the despotism/anarchy penalty works: Any tile producing more than two of food, commerce, or shields, will produce one less. So that means that a despotic GA would work, but it would be wasted if you have two or less shields/commerce. With cattle being a bonus resource, you'd get the normal bonus, minus one.

 

[rysingsun]

Let us start by pointing out that no improvement or unit is worth building in the typical domination/conquest game if it cannot pay for itself in shields/gold before the end of the game. "Paying for itself" can take the form of conquered cities as well as increased productivity within the city.

This is one reason I find manufacturing and solar plants to be pointless in almost all my games. By the time they come along there simply are not enough turns left in the game to justify the expense of building them.

To have a "typical" productivity of 100spt you will either need mobilization (very iffy) a golden age (very temporary) or size 21 megacities (glittery but poor practice). as for manufacturing plants ive never had a game last long enough for me to actually build one.

Building such improvements as to increase production is not ideal strategy in all games anyway. When there is valuable land to be taken it is often better to just build units and to increase production and gold by way of the cities that are acquired. Other times it is better to build infrastructure.

Almost certainly the best bang for the buck if you want to increase productivity is to build lots and lots of workers. When you have lots of them you can afford to have them work in ways you wouldnt if you had "just enough" of them. Typically once in republic i have my workers do a lot of roading and irrigating but fairly sparse mining. And yes that includes irrigating of grassland. It makes the cities grow to size 12 very rapidly. Once a city approaches size 12 AND i have enough workers that this large city isnt being used to produce workers anymore then i will convert the excess food to shields by mining the previously irrigated tiles. When steam power comes along i rail everything up. This causes food surpluses again and so i get to convert yet more irrigation into mines. This should be good for about 30spt for low corruption cities. now add a factory (built in 8 turns) and hoover dam and it jumps to 60.

Productivity can be increased many ways. For example a person might build a factory, then a coal plant, then a hydro plant because he hates pollution, then a solar plant for the same reason, then a manufacturing plant for production, then a mass transit to reduce pollution, then a courthouse and police station for corruption and dont forget all those culture thingies to try to help get a WLTK day to reduce corruption and finally a hospital and ... no wait .. finally an offshore platform and what do you know? - production is now super high. Too bad you had to spend the entire game building all this stuff and you never got to actually build units.

 

[Padma]

OTOH, I don't usually *need* that many units, so I can build all the goodies by way of infrastructure that I want.

I rarely go for Domination/Conquest.