Micro Managing Cities qtns

[Siv]

Hello and thank you all for the great advice and strategies. My gaming has improved greatly as a result.

Some things I have tried/Learned:

When a city has reached pop 12 and still a long time from sanitation, I will see how many excess food I am not using and mine/forest tiles until I have used up all the excess food and reached "zero growth".

This came back to bite me when I got railroad since alot of tiles were forested and would not recieve a bonuse from r/r.

Quick forestry question: Do you only recieve the 10 shield bonus once per tile or can you reforest the same square after a certain time has elasped?

Still am a little unsure about the benefit of specialized citizens such a the tax collector, science guy. I would rather have more money going into the treasury then losing a productive tile to a specialized citizen. When is a good time to use you special citizens to get extra science, tax, and or production? I have really only used entertaines for mood management.

Is there any guidance as to the ratio of squares that should be irrigated or mined to bal max growth to max production? I want to get away from the mine green water brown mode and get a better idea of city development.


Thanks for any ideas or comments.

 

[Megabyte]

Hi !

I have a sort of standard model i use in my games. This is only a VERY ROUGH standard model and it varies with nearly each city.My goal to reach is to have at last 24-sized cities and i play agricultural-trait nearly everytime.
On completely green tiles i build a inner ring of irrigation around the city and the rest will be mined( i never plant forest except in tundra).
On mixed green/plains i build irrigation on all green and so many of the plains will be irrigated as needed to reach 24 pop.The rest is mined.
On plains and on mixed plains/desert i usually only irrigate, because i will get prod out of engineers.
On Tundra i only plant forest.Also when the small 3 o 5 pop cities doesnt look worth the energy, often without desert your only chance for oil is tundra.
But dont glue yourself to any sort of formula 100% , every game is different.

Have Fun !!!

 

[Megabyte]

Hi again.
should have read your post more closely,sorry.
To the quick-forest-question: Yes you can put 10-20 workers on a tile and plant forest and chop it of and plant it and so on, but i have better use for my workers.
To the specialists : I never use the science-guy,cause i play 0% science-strat. The Entertainer is used as needed to prevent rioting.I only use the tax-guy when in anarchy to max gold. I make heavy use of the engineers when im in a gov like rep or dem , because all the faraway cities have max corruption and the production from the engineers isnt touched by corruption. When in communism i use policemen instead , cause even the faraway cities shouldnt have max corruption and then the policemen have a visible effect on BOTH prod and commerce.
To the 12 pop cities decades before sanitation.When finished with their buildings , i usually use these to prod settlers and then to use these settlers either to rush the growth of newly founded cities or to found new cities. Or they will build workers.
I hope that could help you !

Have fun !!!!

 

[MSTK]

You can't clear-forest the same forest twice. You have to plant a new forest there.

There is quite an efficient way to "reserve" citizens. That is by making workers. When you have a size-12 city, pump out workers. When you build a hospital there, re-join all those workers into your city. Voila! You now have how many citizens you would have had if you had had a hospital the entire time.

And for irrigate-mine ratio, go to the Strategy & Tips forums and download the "Irrigation Calculator".

 

[Siv]

Megabyte,

Thanks for the "rough model" - I will try it out, I just needed a nudge in the right direction. As to the specialists, thanks for the engineer tip. I have two size 12 desert/plains ciities that have alot of extra food doing nothing. I might as well use the engineer to increase production. Thanks for the tip. Just about all my cities are at pop 12 and I am about to get the steam engine, so I plan on poping out workers to speed up r/r infrastructure.
Many thanks for your ideas and suggestions.
Been playing for awhile, but just recently started to mm actions. Playing monarchy now and just walking all over the other civs.

 

[MikeH]

Quick forestry question: Do you only recieve the 10 shield bonus once per tile or can you reforest the same square after a certain time has elasped?

Still am a little unsure about the benefit of specialized citizens such a the tax collector, science guy. I would rather have more money going into the treasury then losing a productive tile to a specialized citizen. When is a good time to use you special citizens to get extra science, tax, and or production? I have really only used entertaines for mood management.

Both of those questions depend on which version you are playing. In Conquests you can chop and re-forest, but a further chop brings no benefit, in vanilla Civ 3 it does.


In Conquests, also, the scientist brings three extra beakers and the taxman two extra gold, so unless you are desperate for the money the scientist is more efficient. In vanilla Civ 3, IIRC, it was two each, so the taxman gives you the flexibility of what to spend it on.


Edit: whoops I forgot I was posting in the Conquests forum .

 

[Siv]

You can't clear-forest the same forest twice. You have to plant a new forest there.

MSTK,

Do you mean you cannot clear the same forest "TILE" twice. Instead clear one forest tile move to a different tile then forest/clear get the bonus then move and do the same to a different tile?

I like the idea of "reserve" citizens. This will only help to build the r/r infastructure and with hospitals come soon, I should be able "grow" my core cities quickly.

Thanks!!!

 

[Siv]

MikeH

Thanks for the enlightment about the science specialist. I will try it. Right now I am researching techs at every four turns Is it possible to get the discovery rate lower, say every three turns by maxing out the science specialist?

 

[MikeH]

No, if you're researching at 4 turns that's the fastest you can go, so in that case an extra scientist would be a waste.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

I am sorry to talk like this about an other poster ideas, but the "system" explained by megabyte is a very bad one.

If you want to do mining and irrigation good, then you should not use a system, but use your brains and think what is best for the city.

If you really want a system, irrigating plains and mining grassland is the best thing. If you want to grow faster, also irrigate the bonus grasslands that give you a shield production. also, for every hill you use, irrigate a grassland to make up for the 1 food tile.

The idea of this is that every tile produces 2 food and thus supports the citizen working the tile. Also try to have every tile provide at least one shield rather than having 1 with 2 shields and another with none. this is better if you get a golden age.

If you decide to think about what is best for your cities: in early game, 3-4 food surrplus is pretty nice for a city, but 2 is also "ok". try producing your s in cities that are specially made for that, those need 5 surplus (food bonus needed under despotism) and have a granary so they grow every 2 turns while your other towns can grow uninterupted. Obviously this is only possible if you have a food bonus nearby. Workers can also very well be created in such cities, but since it takes a while to get those cities running and you need the workers earlier, i usually make one in every city with its first city growth.

if you have more food bonus tiles than cities you would like to make such settler factories, just make them have 4 or 5 food surrplus and have a nice growth speed without granary.

Later in the game, when your city is beyond size 6, you want some more food surplus than 2, so then irrigate a few bonus grasslands to increase the surplus and maintain the growth.

 

[E-Raser]

Citys I can't grow beyond 12 I usally build a worker (or settler if still needed). (Because I dislike poprushing govs in general) They may be useful exspecially later on to improve railroads FAST! And anyway, nothing is more important than a good infrastructure imo. Or I let them join new cities to make 'em grow 11 faster. The key for me is to get the biggest population asap.

 

[Siv]

Have been popping workers and the r/r infastructure is going quickly. I am one tech away from sanitation and by the time I research sanitation, my r/r infastructure should be completed. POP goes the city! I have something like 50 foreign workers and about 30 locals. I plan on joining most of the locals to most my productive cities keeping a free foreign work force. Will most likely continue popping out workers from far away corrupted cities to rush growth to my more productive cities.

Now that my cities are about to get huge, I want to say thanks to the posters that added insights into land management. The 1 irr plain for 1 mine hill is common sense, but I was missing it. Thanks again.

 

[Megabyte]

Hi folks.

@WackenOpenair : i wrote that it was a VERY ROUGH MODEL , but thx for the critics,makes sense.I realize i still have to improve my mining/irrigating...
Where in the strategy/tips-forum can i find the " irrigation-calculator" mentioned somewhere earlier ? Would be very handy...

have fun !!