Military City...

[KAuss]

Firstly, the games I play are on epic speed so everything is a LOT slower... I also play on noble atm...

So I was wondering what do people build in these military bases? A city dedicated to building units for the whole civ...

When I first start up, I generally find my 3 big cities trying to go for the culture win (almost impossible at 75K on a huge map)...

Then the 4th city will usually be one near some hills and a river side to get the hammers I need to make units quick...

Obviously I build a granary to start and I do it by chopping the trees around the outside if possible... From then on, barracks and start pumping out units...

However, after only a few units, it's time to start building those libraries for culture expansion and early research points... Gotta form a border to keep the pests out...

Usually, my problem starts here... Once a new building comes up, the next one is around the corner and the old one never gets built fast enough... So needless to say, between the library and the forge, theres probably only time to pump out like 2 or 3 units at most...

Then banks and such appear and are a must to keep the cash comming in to support the extra troops...

So I either build units, or build infrastructure... The other cities are busy building units while the main military base is under construction... Or busy building wonders... (to collect the culture)

So now I wonder, for those that play epic, how do you keep a steady stream of units pumping out without falling behind? I find it almost impossible even with 3 military base cities to keep up with the computer... Not to mention the damn barbarian rush is deliberate attempt to slow your early game expansion... Even on nobel you fight about 3 a turn for the whole time until you find iron...

Needless to say, I spend too much time researching and usually have tech lead all the way up to alphabet... Once trades start to happen it's a give or take thing with the computer trading amongst themselves... So a military is a must since I decline a few folks early on when they ask for tribute...

Sorry for the long post, but I'm sick of falling behind military wise...

 

[Rustypipe]

The best thing I can sugest is to specialise cities. For instance:

First city - Jack of all trades or production city. Use this for primarly research and production to get things rolling.

Second city - Production only - plop this city by a bunch of hills or a heavly forested area and chop down half the forest getting it setup and leave the other half to pump out serious miltary units after. A tick i like to do in these cities is chop down either the outter forest for quick hammers then leave the squares where i want forest to regrow later empty or unworked and the forest will grow back as long as there is a forest tile next to it in a few years . This works best with the outter forest becuase the city won't grow big enough to utalise this really untill later. Also this city primarly focuses on production buildings, military buildings and military units. If a tme comes where you have a break in war or have a sec to build research buildings do so, otherwise skip em. This will allow for your steady stream of units.

Third city - Commerce / Research - This city is a cottage masscure. Plop down maybe 1 farm for groth then everything else should be cottages and focus primarly on commerce and research here. This place builds a forge then nothing but reasearch buildings, markets, banks, ect.

Fourth City - Great Person making factory. This is your culture baby. Make this city a farm festivale for fast growth or over growth so you can put tons of GP specialist in here. Also if possibly pop it in the middle of a forest near a river to clear cut the forest to build all your improvements fast / culture wonders fast. Then watch the GP pop out of there like the baby boomer area.

After you have your main cities founded rotate through them as you see needed. If your doing okay financialy and Research wise focus more so on more miltary cities. It won't take long before every 3-7 turns you will have 3-5 new up to date units.

Hope this helps, if it doesn't you may just have to sacrafice some infastructure during war times, but thus is the way of CIV

 

[KAuss]

With that setup, what kind of a win are you going for?

Anywho, I just can't seem to find the balance between building a "work flow" buliding vs. keep pumping out units...

A factory is important late game, but it's 11 turns to build, and thats 1 1/2 Modern Armor...

Then a Forge is also needed for just about any city, but those things usually take 30 or so turns to build early game!!! Thats a heap of medival units...

Just wondering really how people take the breaks between unit pumping... Cause even with the culture slider pumped to 90% towards the end of the game, and each city pumping about 600 culture, I still lost to space race around 75 turns left... I only needed another 5 or so turns for 75K each!!!

The only problem is, my culture cities took too much time out pumping units when my military base was building forges and banks... The other cities woudl take 30 turns to build a bank vs the 11...

Epic is truely the sux when it comes to building up an army...

Not to mention I don't even have a navy in any of my games thus far =P

 

[walkerjks]

Anywho, I just can't seem to find the balance between building a "work flow" buliding vs. keep pumping out units...

Try using 2 cities for military, but only keep one producing military units at all times.

You will, of course, want to build forges and possibly health improving structures in your military city. And since you are going for a cultural win, you will want all the temples you can build (so you can build more cathedrals in your cultural cities). But rather than switch both cities to forges, or temples, or whatever at the same time, switch one city to constructing buildings, and have the other build units. Alternate as needed. In this way, you never really fall behind in military units for defense, but you still keep the cities up-to-date in the critical stuff.

 

[Speciou5]

Make sure you build the appropriate national wonders in your "military" city. Such as the National whatever that increases military production by 100%.

 

[Rustypipe]

If you are going for a culture win why are you focusing so much on miltary units ? you only really need to keep 1 pack of active guards to protect your lands and 1-2 units per city for defence.

When I try for a culture win I use the same build order but only have 1 or 2 miltary towns the rest are commerce / research and a 1-2 food booming towns to crank out GP.

Here is how I usally setup my empire.

My boarder towns will have 2 guards all the inner towns will only have 1. Other then that my only other miltary units are a small assulting pack as such. This example will be in midevil erra but use the corrisponding units as time / tech progresses. 2 Spearmen, 2 knights, 2 catapults, 2 archers. The catapults aren't even needed if you never plan on knocking back defences all though they are good for sacrafices becuase of the calateral damage. Anyhow with this pack of guys i just use my road network to defend my boarders and no one usally makes it past my boarders. Also since your going for a culture victory your research should be top notch from all your commerce which once you have the proper tech you can turn into culture. Also make sure you are building all the wonders you can that focus on culture in your 3 culture cities.

Also if you want a quick way to build forges save the forest around your cities and clear cut the suckers later on to help speed up foges. You can cut down 2 tree's in the time it takes to build a forge which is 80 hammers give or take some. Thats a huge boost to building thouse or save the tree's for the wonders which ever you like.

If you really want a build order / stragey let me know and I can type one out for you.

 

[Adderax]

My last game, my capital had the national wonder with +100% production to military, and then secondary since the city had a HUGE population growth potential, I added the Globe theater (no unhappy people). Needless to say, In the middle/classic eras I was churning out catapults and everything in 1 turn. In the modern era, moderns took 3 turns. This was my capital and my biggest center of military. I tried to get the Pentagon too but Rosy got it first, so I borrowed it....after demolishing Washington . I suppose you could put iron works instead of the theater to get max production. But not dealing with mad people in a city of size 23 and growing was very nice.

 

[Shaftoe]

It's already been touched on a bit here, but I'll give you my input.

If you're trying for a steady stream of units, you really can't rely on just 1 military city. You really need to have 2. In the early game, I have 1 city pumping out units and nothing else, while a second city is setup to take over. In the second city, I get my temple, granary, etc. built up and get it ready to go, all the while allowing the first military city to continue pumping out units. The only improvement built there initially is a barracks. You need to make sure to stunt the city's growth before it grows beyond the size you can handle without the proper improvements...

Once the second city is ready to go, you switch it to military units and start improving your first military city... Build up your granary, forge, aqueduct, temple and any other improvements you can get that would be useful. It's best to get this city ahead on improvements. Once it's good to go, start pumping out units and repeat the process of improving your second military city.

If you go this way, you get a nice back and forth. You'll still have a steady stream of units coming out while being able to build the proper improvements. You'll find that at many points you'll be able to have units pouring out of both cities when there are no improvements needing to be built.

As a side note, if you're going for a cultural victory you really shouldn't need so many units. Best to get 2-3 solid groups together and position them around your empire, and then the required defenders. Build your economy and get a steady stream of gold coming in and simply upgrade units rather than building new ones. This will allow you to keep your hammers focused on culture producing improvements rather than units. You don't need a dominant army to achieve a culture victory, simply a good one.

Unless you've got Khan parked next door to you... That's never good...

 

[KAuss]

In my last game I've had three cities pumping out units... On a huge map, you just have to have a stream of units... I lost by 5 turns towards the end... All culture cities were above 70K and one 76K...

I've had a war with everyone in the game except 2 civs... None of which was started by me, even the ones that have no purpose living on the other continent started war on me!!! There were actually 11 players including me...

The AI will not let you sit in with a stack if they know you're 8th on the power listing... Needless to say, that was exactly how I approached things... I had one very up to date stack in my border city, and crushed two civs even with power level being 8th...

Then I started gifting my resources to the 2nd and 3rd place civs to keep them happy and help me win the UN voting if possible...

Sadly, my early war with one of them (because the lack of army size) kept me away from winning the diplomacy voting...

There was a point where all my cities (started with 7) had to pump out units because the AI generally has one that is always friend with everyone EXCEPT you... Thats usually the punkass who'll start crap with you because they build up nothing but army and for some reason they still gain tech before alphabet...