My (few) cities have all the same buildings!

[CBPE]

I'm playing on Monarch level (usally I win on Prince, usually by Space Victory) but I've almost always the same problems.

1) I have few cities (compared with the AI's ones). In the start, I often decide that is better to continue to grow my cities then "to waste" several turns to build settlers: "It takes only 2 turns to add 1 pop, so I can work the cottaged river tile, maybe it's better wait...." but then "It takes only 3 turns to add 1 pop, so I can work the mined hill, maybe it's better wait..." ... and so on and on...

The result, it's that after a bit, I'm boxed by the cultural borders of the opponents that are "crazy REXing".... I'm not enthusiastic to place a settler in the opposite side of the continent, and I found often something better (or maybe worse) to do.

So I remain blocked with 4, maybe 5 cities, often all well placed and developed, but in short supply of expance (sometimes, I've the big pop but the lower territory).

2) "First: I have to grow... so I need a granary"....
"Oh, this is a costal city, of course I need I lighthouse".....
"Mmmmhhh.... Alphabet, well, I'll need 6 Universities for Oxford, so I'd better to start to build 6 Libraries"....
"OK, Metal Casting, I build a Forge in this city, so I'll be able to build quickly the next buildings, oh maybe also in this city, oh also in this one, and in this one"....

Ok, for me it's clear the concept of the specialization, (I start to think what kind every city has to be since from the DOT mapping) but....

"This is a production city, I've not reached yet the happy cap but I have -3 unhealty.... I can have healty bonus from the grocer! Build it!"

"This is the science city, but I've reached the happy cap... mmmm.... I've luxury resources, so build a forge!"

At the end, pratically, all my cities have:
granary
lighthouse/harbour (if coastal)
courthouse
library
forge
barracks
stable
aqueduct
grocer
market
.......

3) Often I prefer to build a building that consolidate my economy and allow me to grow than to build military units. I often have a good/strong economy (often I'm the tech leader or the second) but I'm in the lower rank of military... I usually have enough units to protect my cities but not enough to expand by war (let's see point 1)

Are there few but definite criteri to estabilish what to build and, above all, WHAT NOT?!?

 

[Taube]

In my opinion, there is nothing inherently wrong if your major cities end up with the "granary... market" list of buildings. Provided you're not bypassing something more important to immediately correct a -2 health. For instance I almost never build aquaducts until factories have created unhealth in my production cities.

On the other hand, you're missing out on a major part of the game if you're not attacking neighbors or aggressively REXing early on. Many players use a Warrior->Worker->Warrior->Settler (chopped) type of early build plan. Try to force yourself to build or capture ~six cities by 0 AD and 12 by 1000 AD (not a rule of thumb but a potential goal to help you break out of a 5-city rut).

Lastly, you can use F1 to sort your cities, shift click to highlight the top production cities for instance and then click on build factory to add factories to just those cities.

Good luck.

 

[CBPE]

Try to force yourself to build or capture ~six cities by 0 AD and 12 by 1000 AD (not a rule of thumb but a potential goal to help you break out of a 5-city rut).

Yes! I need this sort of general rules! Good point to start for this aspect, thank you

 

[Silence101]

I think Taube may have touched on this a bit, but when I think of city specialization, I think of it more as "city prioritization"... meaning that I'll probably end up building a granery everywhere. I may end up building a barracks in a Commerce city, but I'll always build research / commerce related buildings first. I may end up building a bank in a production city, but it will come when I'm comfortable with my military. (As a side note, I'm rarely comfortable with my military, and I've noticed that my production cities reflect it - I'll rarely end up building research / commerce related buildings in these types of cities until toward the end of the game, or if I just need to build extra to meet the minimum for say... the Oxford University or something.)

With that said, I don't think having 4 - 5 cities settled is that bad, but I usually play with 18 Civ's, too. How many other Civ's do you have in the game and what map size do you play? If I can settle six myself - which is usually my goal, I can focus my future expansion efforts through warfare.

Despite being reluctant to build settlers, you still seem to be getting prime locations. Are you also reluctant to build workers? Even though they may stunt short term growth, settlers and workers more than make up for it in the long run, so I wouldn't be so caught up on that, but honestly, it doesn't sound to me like you're doing that bad anyway.

 

[xanadux]

Don't build a library in a production city until you get education. It will still get the library done before your commerce cities finish their universities.

If your science slider is high, skip the markets until you really need the happiness. Unless industrious, forges are so expensive that non-production cities should usually delay them quite a while unless you have 2 or 3 mining happy resources.

Try skipping all buildings in your capital until you have 3 or 4 settlers and workers built.

Waiting too long to expand actually makes your builldaholism worse because you have less resources and therefore reach happy and health caps earlier and will want markets and grocers and aqueducts earlier.

 

[Gnarfflinger]

Make sure the city can benefit from the building before committing hte hammers to do so. Also, don't neglect your hard point defence (read archery units) in cities and key points. Have an eye to kicking someone's teeth in at all times, and militarize while this goes on. Maybe having a third to half your cities building military at a minimum...

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

"First: I have to grow... so I need a granary"....
"Oh, this is a costal city, of course I need I lighthouse".....
"Mmmmhhh.... Alphabet, well, I'll need 6 Universities for Oxford, so I'd better to start to build 6 Libraries"....
"OK, Metal Casting, I build a Forge in this city, so I'll be able to build quickly the next buildings, oh maybe also in this city, oh also in this one, and in this one"....

Ok, for me it's clear the concept of the specialization, (I start to think what kind every city has to be since from the DOT mapping) but....

"This is a production city, I've not reached yet the happy cap but I have -3 unhealty.... I can have healty bonus from the grocer! Build it!"

"This is the science city, but I've reached the happy cap... mmmm.... I've luxury resources, so build a forge!"

At the end, pratically, all my cities have:
granary
lighthouse/harbour (if coastal)
courthouse
library
forge
barracks
stable
aqueduct
grocer
market
.......

Building everything everywhere usually means that either (a) you have too much production (and instead should be working more cottages/hiring more specialists) or (b) you are squandering military opportunities.

Part of the point to specialization is being able to make do with less, and in particular recognizing which bits are optional, and which are necessary.

Consider the math of an aqueduct in your military city, for example. The only benefit you are getting is the +2 health, which (assuming you are health limited) translates to 2F/turn, which is roughly equivalent to 2 hammers per turn.

So it takes an aqueduct about 50 turns to pay off.

Oops, wait, that's not right - because the military city has a barracks (at least). A barracks is essentially a free promotion, which can be though of as some percentage improvement in the unit. So a 40 hammer investment in military would normally give you a 45 hammer return (picking a number at random). So the opportunity cost of the aqueduct is perhaps 110 hammers, and requires 55 turns to pay off.

Oops, wait, that's not right - because hammers now are worth more than hammers later. You might be able to earn another 10% on your investment while the cost of the aqueduct is being amortized, raising the true opportunity cost to 120 hammers, which take 60 turns to pay off.

Which isn't to say that military cities never grow (though as a rule they probably grow more slowly than your commerce cities), but that you pick your spots.


So looking at your list of buildings, I would expect:
Granary: probably much later than you think. Your initial military city is at first concerned with buildings and units, and there's a decent chance that it will have grown to its working size before you have the liberty to construct the granary. You'll want it before the next growth phase, but immediately before the next growth phase is soon enough.

Lighthouse: which water tiles are you working? If you have a food resources, this makes sense, but otherwise not so much. Even with the Moai Statues, the payoff for working a water tile ain't so hot (especially if working those tiles requires an additional investment to keep those citizens happy and healthy).

Harbor: sure, if you are health capped. But again, military cities are (generally) smaller than your commerce cities, so the payoff on trade routes is a bit below "average".

Courthouse: maybe. One reasonable approximation is that 1 hammer equals three gold (approximately), you'll have to look to see how quickly it will pay for itself.

Library: um, no. I'm sympathetic - there's some commerce in the city (you can't help it), and if you are a builder at heart you are probably running the science slider high, but no.

Forge: this one, probably, but you may want to think about the timing. If your yield is 20 hammers per turn, then the forge takes 6 turns to build and 60 turns to pay for itself (less than that if it pushes you past the health cap, more if you can grow into the happy). The forge is multiplying the hammers in front of the barracks, so you can reasonably justify that it has paid for itself in 50 turns. And once it has paid for itself, the profit is much higher than for the aqueduct.

Barracks: yes of course. But to toss in the math - if we assume that a barracks improves a unit by 20%, then we need to invest 300 more hammers in units in the city before the barracks has paid itself off ( 300 * 120% == 360; ignoring interest). 360 hammers is, roughly speaking, a library, a granary, three monasteries, and change back.

Stable: The math here is similar to that of a barracks, except not as good (fewer XP), and specific to mounted units. In addition, hammers invested in the stable are not hammers multiplied by the barracks, so the opportunity cost is a little bit higher than the advertised 60 hammers. Also note that for the Ger, the math is very different (because of the extra XP, the fact that you'll be investing more hammers in keshiks anyway).

Grocer/Market: you aren't going to be running merchants, and the gold is mostly going to be vigorish (depending on where your sliders are set), so the payoff has to come from the increase in population.

You can do a similar analysis for other city specializations. As a rule, you don't have to be terribly precise. As a rule, your cities should feel like you are almost not keeping up.

One case where you should see a myriad of buildings is that case where a city changes roles over the course of the game. New York was a satisfactory solution to providing your defense during the Ancient Era, but now as 1000AD approaches and you have more land to work with, using Seattle in that role makes more sense, and New York should cottage up (providing military production on demand - siege units most likely).

 

[CBPE]

Thank you all for your advices.

It seems that the "trick" is to go for buildings only when they are strictly necessary and, in the others cases, use the hammers for units or settlers (at least in the early game).

If you want, take a look at the save of my current game.

I choose Ragnar (AGG+FIN) to force me to go to war without have to worry so much of the economy, playing on earth standard map, normal speed.

But I haven't did it!!! (except versus Hammurabi but only to accomplish Monty, which is a good partner. But we are so distant that no one unit died...).

As you see, I founded only 3 cities in the continent, and then I expanded peacefully over the sea, but at this time, I have the ridiculous number of six cities (at about 1100 AD, the last just founded), all coastal.

Wonders: I built the Oracle, the Colossus (of course) and GL in the capital that is the science city. I think that these choices were all right. Now I'm building AP 'cause Buddism is very spread and I'm afraid of a possibile Diplomatic victory.

So, I forced me to go to war... I'm oriented vs Fredrick, wich is weak and close. I started a golden age (3 turns yet), in the cities I stopped growth and focus on military production. The stack I'm preparing for, is 1 NW form Uppsala.
I'd raze the first german city and then place a settler near the horses (i don't have them yet) and keep Berlin (capture it by an amphibious attack of my berserkers has to be funny! ).

So the question is: I don't think I'll able to win this game, but what strategy I've to pursuit to practise to avoid the mistakes I usually do?

I.e.: I'm strongly tempted to colonize the "new world", but I want refuse it, and using this game as an excercise...

 

[Gooblah]

You seem to be avoiding war at all costs- a peaceful builder mentality.

I did that in my first few games, where I would declare phony wars, capture a city, and then be stupid and gift the city to an AI. Something like that. quite painful, really. So, a couple guidelines:

Have 2 Axes for every city the closest AI has, then add 3. (i.e, Tokugawa has 3 cities, so build 3 x 2 + 3 aces, so 9). Then declare war once you have this amount.

Make Bronze Working a top priority (first tech if you're playing a Civ with Mining). Then chop a Settler to build a city near copper. If there isn't any copper in sight, get some more techs until Iron Working is under 20 turns, then research that.

Make the nearest AI the weakest. Don't trade, no OBs, nothing. This'll make it an easy target for you.

Check the Power Graph regularly. Make sure you are above the closest AIs.

If all of these conditions are met, declare War, capture their cities, and usually hold them if they're in a good position. Just because they're there doesn't mean you should keep them. That mentality should be put down, and only allowed (sometimes) after Code of Laws.

My 2 cents, hope it helps.

 

[Cer]

In my opinion, there is nothing inherently wrong if your major cities end up with the "granary... market" list of buildings. Provided you're not bypassing something more important to immediately correct a -2 health. For instance I almost never build aquaducts until factories have created unhealth in my production cities.

For me the "granary...market" list of buildings might be just: granary.

Slavery+granary=good things. Whip your granary, too. After that the larger cities will eventually get markets, but it's amazing what you can do by refusing to build libraries/etc, building military before barracks in some weaker captured cities to keep the expansion going, avoiding forges in weaker cities.

Builder-itis sufferers could try a game where you give yourself the following limitations as a challenge:
-until 1200 AD, two cities are allowed as many commerce buildings as desired; no other commerce-boost buildings. These may build a forge if the forge will boost happiness.
-until 1200 AD, two cities are allowed military/production boost buildings. these may build a market if needed for happiness. Aside from these, no barracks/forge/etc allowed.
-these cities may build happiness/health buildings when needed, other cities may not
-no courthouses allowed in cities with less than 10 maintenance cost
-until 1200 AD, you may build only 2 world wonders.
-until 1200 AD, you may build only 5 settlers
-1 out of every 4 national wonders in the game must be avoided forever; try to balance out national wonders of different eras
-relatively weak cities are supposed to grow fast and whip themselves down to being happy when unhappiness shows up.

the following things will make the limitations easier to follow
-always build military units except if maintenance costs rise above 90% on the slider (then build wealth). about 1 in 5 units can be an archer/longbow/crossbow/pikeman/spearman. The rest must be good city-killers such as catapults/axes/swords/maces/knights.
-try to pillage for lots of gold when taking over enemy territory, but don't let it get it the way of taking cities (more gold!). Mounted units are better pillagers so build tons of knights when available.
-get bronze working early, use slavery, chop some forests early.
-prioritize civics and techs that will keep your economy afloat, such as currency, literature, civil service.
-prioritize using special resource tiles that produce plenty of commerce: gold, dye, etc. Also prioritize riverside tiles over equal non-riverside tiles.
-build few or 0 cottages in cities with no library/market/etc
-be a financial and/or philosophical leader, (both is easier) and get some settled great people in cities with the best boosts, i.e. great scientists+great library in an academy-city and great engineers in heroic epic city.