More production please!

[david1806]

Hi all

I need to build a Courthouse in a city that have an unhappy populace - probably because it was a city-state that I took over!

Anyhow, it needs 21 turns, and I seem to remember that I could use a caravan to send more produce into the city? Or anything that can get more produce..... I have tried to find out, but I am not having much luck, so I thought I would try you wonderful people....!!

[EDIT: Just made 'Production' default for the city, and it has jumped from 19 to 10 turns, though gone from 5 to 8 turns for a new citizen, but I can live with that!!]

Thanks in advance...........David

PS Something I have just noticed - why do some of the caravan arrow-trails have thin lines, and others have really fat lines...???

Also, why do some cities give me Great Merchant Points - I can't work out what it is that is creating them. I thought it was having a market, but no, because I have a city with a market and that is not creating GMPs......any idea?

 

[david1806]

Er, thanks all!! Lol!! Not to worry, all sorted now..... I'm surprised - there is normally a helpful reply really quickly.

 

[mbbcam]

@david1806

Only a handful of people write replies to questions on this part of the forum these days, myself being one of them. I'm no expert on Civ 5, so if I don't know, or have some doubts, there is not much point in writing. But I will try to amplify on some of the things you mention.

As you seem to have discovered, manually setting the citizens to work certain tiles can make dramatic changes. It is worth experimenting with this, as changing even a single citizen can be a help. The top players seem to do manual allocation of citizens as a matter of course -- it gives you more control. Naturally, this can also extend to which tiles you improve at any time, and even in some cases (hills next to rivers, which could be a mine or a farm) which sort of improvement you make. If a city already has a lot of production, making a farm instead of a mine might be a better choice, depending on what you are intending to do. Sometimes you have to compensate for deficits in a city by constructing buildings that you would not normally make. (I rarely make stables, but I might do it in a city that has plenty of horses and no hills -- though I doubt that I would normally want to settle such a location.) I believe the F2 key brings up the list of cities, so you can see at a glance which of them has food, which has production, etc. (Bearing in mind that the list shows the *present* situation for each city, which can be altered by reallocating citizens.)

I'm not sure what you mean regarding the trade routes. If you place the pointer over a caravan or cargo ship, the representation of its route changes to make it more distinct. Perhaps that is what you mean.

If I understand things correctly, great person points are earned by placing a citizen in a specialist slot in a market, university, or the like. It is not enough to construct the building or have it in the city. This is another case in which manually allocating citizens is preferable to letting the program do it. I think there is something of a consensus that Great Scientists are more important than Great Merchants (with some exceptions, naturally) and it is important to be aware that when one of them spawns, the counter for the other is set back, meaning you will get them later. This is one reason why players tend not to set specialists to work slots in markets, as they prefer a good supply of Great Scientists. But people vary in what they do.

You might want to consider installing the Enhanced User Interface mod (look in the Modding section of the forum). It provides a lot of extra information, which can make play easier. Some people don't like it, but I find it difficult to play without it now. YMMV.

 

[david1806]

Hi mbbcam...well, firstly, many thanks for a thorough answer.....and I am glad you mention the fact there is not much traffic on this section of the site - I was beginning to wonder, normally I get loads of replies, but maybe not here!

And modding? Never even thought of checking out mods for Civ V. Is it straightforward (I have never modded a game in my life)? And would you recommend any standard mods that all Civ V players should have?

The actual city in question got it's courthouse eventually, and by the time I wiped out all the other cities off the continent, I had so much money I could just buy a courthouse each time. Though I am thinking of maybe razing cities in future, and having a settler standing-by to just build a new city....any thoughts mc?

Thanks again mbbcam, much appreciated.

 

[mbbcam]

Personally, I only use mods that improve the User Interface in some way (though I have used others in the past). The range of mods is huge. Some are easy to install and use, some are a pain. Some work very well, others seem to be riddled with bugs. The Creation and Customisation or Modding forums will tell you all you need to know. If you are using Steam, the Workshop section has loads of mods to which you can subscribe with the click of a button. The Enhanced User Interface (EUI) needs to be installed manually, but I find it very useful. If you look at some videos on youtube, you will find good players using it.

If you like warmongering, I suggest you read consentient's Domination guide

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/domination-on-immortal-deity-a-noobs-guide.547630/

and watch some of the videos he links to. Generally, you will only build three cities of your own, and capture or raze the others. You only keep a city if it is a really good one, with unique luxes, or if it is really useful in strategic terms (it may provided a base from which to attack others).

 

[claudiupb]

Actually the EUI is not even a 'proper' mod, in fact the game considers it a DLC not even a mod. It will adjust only the interface of the game, there is no new information but it's easier to follow. For example instead of having the Culture Per Turn counter and then having to enter the Social Policy menu and calculate how much culture you need for the next policy you simply have a +N meaning you will get the next social policy in N turns. If you want more info you hover over that value, and find out the Culture per Turn.
It can be downloaded from here https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/enhanced-user-interface.512263/ and the page explains how to install it (it's a matter of unzipping some files and copying them).

 

[david1806]

Brilliant - thanks all, I will give it a look....

 

[aafritz17]

Two additional things things that may be of help:

As you found, you can have a city's "Governor" focus the citizens on production (or food, or faith, or whatever you choose). But, even better, you can put each citizen where YOU want it, if you don't mind micro-managing a little bit. For instance, if you're building a Wonder that others are probably building too, you may want to get production as high as possible (higher than the Governor would set it) at the expense of a few turns of zero (or even negative) food.

Also, to move production via trade routes, the origin city needs to have a Workshop.

 

[hr_oskar]

Just one more thing to add:

Generally speaking, it's rarely a good idea to conquer a city state. It's also generally not a good idea to annex a city with low production, for exactly the reasons you have encountered: it starts out being a drain on your empire and needs a lot of investment to start contributing. Better to never conquer it in the first place or otherwise leave it as a puppet.

-- This is my advice from a power-gaming point of view. If you do it for the sake of fun / roleplaying / storybuilding, that's a different matter of course.

 

[david1806]

oskar - you got it spot on regarding 'the sake of fun / roleplaying / storybuilding' - absolutely!! I love the feeling of taking over a continent, maybe leaving a city-state or two....

 

[hr_oskar]

Yeah I don't want to accidentally bash on somebody's strategy when it was for RP, which is perfectly valid. Personally I try to keep a clear view of what's optimal in any game I play and then either stick to that or consciously deviate from it when I want to go for more fun / RP.