Need some City advice

[Horgh]

I have been playing CIV for about 6 months now and have had a great time. I have learned much from the threads and strategy guides on these forums. I hope to get some help with my city development in this thread and to then try to edit it to some kind of guide/example to help others.

I do well on Noble, but still feel like my city building is pretty random. I think that I find some good places to build but then don't develop my cities better than a mediocre level. I understand the ideas about specializing cities for production or commerce or GP, but I just don't know which city to use to which purpose.

I have included my first 4 cities from my current game. So, if you have some advice to offer on one of the cities, please feel free to let me know. I am sure there is not one right way to do it, but any discussion will be informative.
I have also attached the save if someone really wants to dig in.

Thanks for any comments/advice

City 1 - Rome

City 2 - Antium

City 3 - Cumae

City 4 - Neapolis (captured)

 

[Galileo44]

OK, Cumae and Neapolis appear pretty good. But the other two are bad. You are working 9! unimproved flatland tiles between those two cities. That means that if you had cottaged those tiles and they were villages by now you would be producing a raw 27 commerce more(36 if printing press). Combine that with say, a library and university in each city and running the bureaucracy civic with an acamedy in the capital, and you have 97.5 Beakers going to waste! Getting those cottages out will really help your research. Also, given that you have a cash surplus, you should research at a deficit unless you are saving for unit upgrades.

 

[dragomaster]

I agree with Galileo, Rome need cottages and the buildings he told you about. Antium in the outher hand shold becoum s slow militaty producing city. lots of farms and work as many workshops as possible, together with the mines you got it will becoum a decent production city.

do you have repacable parts yet? if so build lumbermills on the forests in Neapolis and make that one a pruduction city aswell

farm the unworked squares in Cumae. after farmed work those two instead of two ocean squares. when the city grows next time you will be able to stagnate it by working the last unworked mine. if you are lucky it will give you 21 hammers per turn and more if you build a drydock and produce ships.

Edit: I just checked your save, it seams you chooped a greate deal of forests in Rome. That explain the unimproved squares. You are running free religon. are you planing to switch to a religon after you built the univeristy of sankore? are you aware of the benefits sankore gives you if you do so?

just a thing about chooping, try to choop the forests so the building become one turn from finnieshed. ie. if the building costs you 300 Hammers and you got 200 hammers in forests. build the first 100 hammers the traditional way then choop every single forest you got, that meakes it less of a risk in loosing the forests if somone els build the wonder before you.
that happend to me when i chooped fore the pyramides. somone built it before me and all my forests became wasted.

 

[yorkie]

This is just an initial impression, Rome would make a great super science city. Start farming like crazy, build National Epic and a forum, switch civics to Caste System, Pacifism and Representation if available and employ as many science specialists as possible while still allowing growth. With National Epic, Forum and Pacifism you'll be earning Great People points at 225%, Caste System allows unlimited scientists and Represtation adds 3 per specialist.

You already have an academy just add the other science buildings when they become available.

 

[Lao Tzu]

Never work unimproved tiles.

 

[cabert]

some thoughts : coastal cities are good, but the water tiles are somehow worthless :crazyeyes:.
In fact you don't want to work them, you want to work good land tiles.

None of your cities are any good in terms of specialization.
Rome and Antium are good hybrid cities (antium would be better 1 tile NE IMHO), rome should tend more towards cottages (work them!) and antium could tend more towards unit building (HE!, mines and farms) if it was 1 NE.
Cumae is a mediocre production city, where you certainly don't want to work sea tiles! famr and workshop the land (the mines are good). With the seafood tile + mines you could be churning praetorians early and strong.
In the late game (where you are now) it's just a mediocre city : too many sea tiles.

Neapolis is also a soso production city, with commerce tiles you shouldn't use:crazyeyes:
Or a soso commerce city with mines you shouldn't use?
It's not a very good city anyway with all this tundra. In the early game it can be a powerfull unit building city, with 1 food resource and famrables and mines. In the late game, it's a mediocre hybrid city.

 

[JimT]

Agree mainly with the above.

Rome - I would build a forge early, even in a commerce city it speeds up whipping and building while also providing happiness. Coastal tiles are poor without financial/colossus. You could be working a riverside cottage for the same 2F 2C and it will grow much better. Also I would always work a cottage on grassland rather than 1 on plain unless i want to halt production
Antium - Same point about cottages. I would cottage those farms as soon as you have got your first war over. For now they help you build units but i would make this a commerce city and move production elsewhere once I get chance.
Cumae - I wouldn't build a city here it doesn't add much to your empire. As a commerce city it is poor (see above). As a production city it doesn't have that much potential. For the latter I would build it one south (I think you planted it on a grassland hill). You would lose one plain hill but gain another, but you would open up a grassland hill rather than a desert. I would also whip extra pop rather than work coastal non-food sites (as they don't help production).
Neapolis - I would have built it one south. When your borders expand it will grab the resources anyway. As a production site I wouldn't particularily want to work them, just own them. 1 South means more grassland to farm and an extra mine i think.

The above reads quite harshly. I don't mean to offend. The map hasn't given you that much to work with, too much plains in my opinion. I would have been tempted to build two cities then axe rush my neighbour for better terrain.

Hope I've helped rather than annoyed

 

[Skallagrimson]

One of the questions was about city type selection for each terrain type where you build a city... I think. Anyway, my 2 cents is:

1. The key to it all in EVERY city is the availability of a food resource or at least the ability to irrigate. If you lack food, you'll never work your big iron mines in the mountains to grind out space ships or modern armor; if you lack food, you'll never work your cottages and make them grow into towns; if you lack food, you'll never get specialists and GPs. My own personal rule is that if there isn't at least SOME extra food source, like fish or cows, etc., I won't build there. I may take such a city later on, just to take it, but having that extra drag on city maintenance over a few hammers that'll never catch up to what it needs to be, to produce what you want it to produce, is particularly damaging early in the game. One exception would be to get a VERY RARE resource like stone or aluminum.

2. Once you've determined a site has food nearby, and you've either gone with the blue-circle suggestion by the game on where to lay the foundation, or decided a different location will meet your long-term strategy needs better, then right in turn one of building the city, ask yourself: Production, Commerce, or GP? My method is:

a) Mining resource in a hill, plus at least three other hills-plains squares: obviously production!

b) 4+ hills that can be mined, consider production, but can also work as commerce (using windmills on the hills to supplement the coins in the valleys.

c) < 4 hills that can be mined, consider commerce, although late in the game even a flatland layout can be "productionized" by irrigating just enough farms to work up a number of workshop squares. In the early game workshops are inefficient, but later on can be a reasonably good hammer source--not as good as hills, but if your empire's totally flat, beggers can't be choosers.

d) Zero hills, mostly grassland, STRONGLY consider commerce. Workshop up just enough squares so that you won't have to rely on slave-whips just to get your buildings built, but for the most part it's cottage spam all the way.

e) Zero hills, mostly grassland, and 2 or more food resources: STRONGLY consider GP. Spam the farms, build only what you want to have specialists for (libraries, blacksmiths, etc.). Sometimes one or two hills here are helpful just to allow building what you wanna build without too much whipping.

Other factors that play into it:

--locations closer in toward the capitol should lean more toward the commerce decision. Not as much income loss due to distance.

--along tight borders AVOID putting commerce cities for three reasons:

1) If they attack, all those towns you fostered growth for will be quickly plundered to nothing unless you have a garrison of 10+ pikemen ready to span out and cut down all the knights who'll flood in. And 10+ pikes per city gets expensive, thus defeating the purpose of having a commerce city in the first place.

2) To prevent cultural encroachment you'll need to produce all the various religious buildings: stupas, mandirs, academies, etc., and those take a LOT of hammers. If you're city's commerce you'll never get down to the real business of universities, observatories, and banks.

3) Borders are where the wars begin, and where you'll need to apply military force. If your military production city is way back in the rear areas you'll lose the power of rapid response when you get invaded. If your unit-producing cities are close to where the action is, less time lost in transit, more time spent kicking A/I butt. Plus any plundering of production improvements are quickly rebuilt: a mine, watermill, or workshop doesn't take umpteen turns to get back to their pre-war state.

In many games I've had such small starting locations that really the only city I could afford to be "commerce" was the capitol city ITSELF. All the rest were on tight borders with city-spamming neighbors. At first, anyway. After the production geared up, the engine of conquest got started up, and then the viral city-spreaders got the due punishment for having taken that land that was "rightfully ours". This brings up an issue for later in the game: when to transform a production city into commerce, and vice-versa. As borders change, your needs for what city to be what, will too.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Specifically on the cities above:

Rome: What I'd do here is irrigate a farm adjacent to the wheat square, so that when civil service comes into play you'll get the extra food bonus for it being "irrigated". At that point you will have a surplus of 10 food once all squares are worked, translating to 5 specialists. This can go either commerce or GP, but since it's the capitol I'd favor commerce here. Cottages, cottages, COTTAGES, baby. And get them put there like yesterday since you're working unimproved terrain all over the place (as stated by other posters, this should be avoided as much as possible by having a lot of workers out in the field!)

Antium: IF that one was built to grab horses there (hard to tell from the screenshot), then I'd just class it as one of those resource-grab cities. Since the resource is hammer type, go for production even if it won't be mega-mega-productive. Farms and workshops, and don't bother with that town. You don't have enough food here to "go commercial" anyway.

Cumae: Definitely production, but you'll have to try to find a way to irrigate a farm or two up nearby so that it can work all its dry dusty plains-hills. Production cities on a coast are good locations for the Heroic Epic and West Point, so that both land AND naval units produced will get the bonus.

Neapolis: I'd normally say production if it were for the fur squares. A lot of those coins go to waste if you don't gear it to commerce, but then, you also have a boatload of hammers, so, the tie-breaker should be WHERE it is. Is there an enemy nearby? It's got a bit of maintenance to it, so it's probably farther from the capitol than the others. If it's a border town, go prod (farms, mines, a workshop here and there where needed to even out the food numbers), and otherwise, go commerce (windmills, towns, just enough farms to feed 'em up).

Disclaimer:
This advice and $6 will get you mocha latte.

 

[Horgh]

I would like to thank everyone for the replies. They provided quite a bit of insight on how to improve my cities in this game and future sessions

Here are a few comments based on your comments:

*The city placement was mediocre because I think I was worried about squeezing in cities rather than making the best cities from what I had. I have to get the idea of fewer quality cities is better than a larger number of mediocre cities. This is something that will get better with more experience.
*Cumae was found to get the iron ASAP for praets since I had Germany encroaching on me and no copper for axemen. There may have been a better spot for long-term, but what I did worked great for the beginning of the game. So I do need to get myself some better production cities because Cumae has hit a plateau.
*Cash is being stockpiled for upgrades. I am making macemen now to fill in the ranks, and hope to turn all my CR3 praets to grens/rifles later on.
*Rome was on autopilot for 99% of the game. It was my best producer and cranked out many of my units (military/workers/settlers). I chopped all the trees recently to help build Sankore and to force myself to finally do something to maximize Rome.

Once again, I appreciate all the comments. I will try and post a few more cities and a map later this week. I hope that more criticism will be forthcoming (constructive criticism anyway)

 

[cabert]

^^cumae isn't too bad.
It just needs some farms = chain irrigation, and to stop working water tiles.

 

[JimT]

In hindsight Cabert is right. Cumae is ok and I would have/should have settled it (although on the desert hill I think). You have a surplus of six food (seafood and city tile) which can work the iron (food neutral) and three mines. Irrigation would help as well. Grapping Iron IS the right thing to do and must have helped a lot. In the mid-late game it ain't great but does have the advantage of being a rare reasonable production/coastal site. A possible contender for ironworks and red cross later.

If anyone deserves micromanagement its your capital's citizens. So it may of been best to do what you did but focus on this. I wouldn't RESERVE riverside forests for chopping Uni of Sankor. Probably farm in the early game to work production tiles and boost settlers/workers or whip units. When I had enough Prats/production sites I would shift to cottages. I didn't open your save so don't know if this was the right thing per se. If you kept it as a production site in the longterm Rome may be a very good production site through Watermills and Lumbermills (if without chopping) or Workkshops.

 

[dragomaster]

One of the questions was about city type selection for each terrain type where you build a city... I think. Anyway, my 2 cents is:

1. The key to it all in EVERY city is the availability of a food resource or at least the ability to irrigate. If you lack food, you'll never work your big iron mines in the mountains to grind out space ships or modern armor; if you lack food, you'll never work your cottages and make them grow into towns; if you lack food, you'll never get specialists and GPs. My own personal rule is that if there isn't at least SOME extra food source, like fish or cows, etc., I won't build there. I may take such a city later on, just to take it, but having that extra drag on city maintenance over a few hammers that'll never catch up to what it needs to be, to produce what you want it to produce, is particularly damaging early in the game. One exception would be to get a VERY RARE resource like stone or aluminum.

2. Once you've determined a site has food nearby, and you've either gone with the blue-circle suggestion by the game on where to lay the foundation, or decided a different location will meet your long-term strategy needs better, then right in turn one of building the city, ask yourself: Production, Commerce, or GP? My method is:

a) Mining resource in a hill, plus at least three other hills-plains squares: obviously production!

b) 4+ hills that can be mined, consider production, but can also work as commerce (using windmills on the hills to supplement the coins in the valleys.

c) < 4 hills that can be mined, consider commerce, although late in the game even a flatland layout can be "productionized" by irrigating just enough farms to work up a number of workshop squares. In the early game workshops are inefficient, but later on can be a reasonably good hammer source--not as good as hills, but if your empire's totally flat, beggers can't be choosers.

d) Zero hills, mostly grassland, STRONGLY consider commerce. Workshop up just enough squares so that you won't have to rely on slave-whips just to get your buildings built, but for the most part it's cottage spam all the way.

e) Zero hills, mostly grassland, and 2 or more food resources: STRONGLY consider GP. Spam the farms, build only what you want to have specialists for (libraries, blacksmiths, etc.). Sometimes one or two hills here are helpful just to allow building what you wanna build without too much whipping.

Horgh, as i said before i checket you save and there is some point's Skallagrimson sad about food that you must take in to account. there is several citys you've built that shold have ben built one or two titles from the site you choosed to gain food. citys without food is most ofen a bad site . food to me is someting that gain you a minimum of 4 surplus in one title (irrigatet flodbank, grasland cow, plain sheep, not irrigated rice and wheet). there is sucumstances to build on outher spots. i.e. if there is an oasis, plain cow and gold in the fat cros, after peasture the cow you will gain 3+3+(city)2. that gain you to work the gold mine and still have surplus 2 in food. i most often build those kind of citys early to take advantage of the gold mine for reserch.

if there is a site without food near and alot of flat grasland and a river. it can be settled. irrigate two grasland is 3+3 witch make some pace in growth, then cottage spam the rest of the grasland; this can still be a good science city. efter the city if full growth (working all titles) you can switch the farms to cottages for even more monney. the city will be growing slowly but before the game ends you will be happy you built it.

I hope you understand. we have all ben in your situation not knowing to take advatage off the game, we all learn new stuff witch make us better players. I hope i healped you.

pece!

 

[Skallagrimson]

I wouldn't chop riverside forests for chopping Uni of Sankor.

That reminds me of chopping strategy which I forgot to go into: in the middle phase of the game (prior to the ability to build hospitals, supermarkets, and recycling centers, but after that initial phase where cities are small) health becomes a very big issue, and most especially an issue where you plan to build Ironworks. It's not extremely efficient to leave fallow tree squares to gain a lot of health points, but I've found that cities NOT built on a fresh water tile needs at least one pair of trees just to be able to grow, and for the Ironworks city, make sure it's both on fresh water AND has either 2 or 4 forests left unchopped.

Where to chop, where not to chop:

1. If it's 2 squares away from the city and NOT on a river tile, strongly consider not chopping it.

2. If it's adjacent to the city or on a river tile, strongly consider chopping it.

Adjacent to the city means that you are leaving a prime location for an attacking army to set up a siege camp, where counterattacks against it will be very costly (+50% defense bonus for terrain). Especially for coastal cities late in the game where a stack o' doom can simply SHOW UP out of nowhere, or border cities near an aggressive AI, it's flirting with disaster to leave them a forest tile to exploit. It's not as urgen to clear 'em all out when it's away from enemy areas or a marine landing force can't get to it right away from the transports.

On a river tile means that the 1/2 health point is what you get for costing you a river tile coin (no bonus on rivers for forested tiles). Sometimes your need for health (esp. Ironworks city) outweights your need for that coin, leaving you no choice, but if you have other options for where to leave a forest as-is (2 away from the city), choose the other one.

Sometimes I get strict and enforce a civ-wide policy of all cities having 2 forests and Ironworks city having 4, and in some games I decide that since I built Hanging Gardens all is healthy enough without 'em, and sometimes I decide that there's so much war and slave-whipping to deal with WW anyway, the health question is moot, so chop-chop away and just fix the health issues later in the late-game wave of health buildings you can build to fix it all up.

$.02 dispensed, receipt available on request.

 

[dragomaster]

if i have to chose I whood choop riverside forests first as thes forests take away the free gold coin. When wee speak about wonders there are some wonders that always make benefits and some that make benefits under serten sircumstances. the wonder he is building goes under serten. it's a greate wonder if he's running a religon but awfull under free religon. if he goes for a cultural victory, every wonders is greate to build so it's like ushual, planing is everyting.

 

[Horgh]

Here are 4 more cities to discuss. They were all captured from Germany, so placement was not mychoice (Thebes was Egyptian but captured by Germany and then me). There is quite a bit of overlap in the 3 German cities, so that is difficult for me since I rarely (if ever) overlap my own. Definitely need some advice for those.

Thanks again for all the comments/advice

Map to show overlaps:

 

[dragomaster]

Berlin have two strong posibilitys. Production or comerce, production capabilaty is a greate if yoy realy need it outherwice Comerce witch is what I posibly whod make this one when it have alot off river titles.

It have food, two corn and one sheep witch make you able to run alot off workshops if you chose production and when biology is reseched this city will have even food. just make shore to run the farms needed to run the workshops if you chose production.

Comerce is werry strong, you already have acadamy witch is a greate building for science and its a shame not using it. if comerce, build cottages on all flat squares build all monney and science imrovments possible. when all buildings are built, let the workers build cottages on the grasland hills aswhell.
ps. work the corn resorces and change back to slavery for whipping gallore. lots of food, lots of whipping.

Frankfurt will never be a good science city so my advice is to build a drydock when posible, improve workshops on all flat titles, build one windmill instead of one mine. this will make you able to work all titles and produce ships in a nice pace.

Thebes have the same posabilatys as Berlin, just read the above.

Hamburg is a good city, ok its overlapping but leaving the food and grassland titles alone becous of overlaping is a bad choise. as you see, you don't have a single farm besides the corn and is stagnated. this a sign of you being able to cottege all titles and work them. you can build 12 cottages = 12 * 5g = 60 gold before buildings as makets and banks is built = good science posibilites.

if you see spaces like this anywhere inside your boarders its a good choise settle there. with or without food those citys will in the end pay for themself

if there is a site without food near and alot of flat grasland and a river. it can be settled. irrigate two grasland is 3+3 witch make some pace in growth, then cottage spam the rest of the grasland; this can still be a good science city. efter the city if full growth (working all titles) you can switch the farms to cottages for even more monney. the city will be growing slowly but before the game ends you will be happy you built it.

Example picture. This city now have one food resorce (flood plain); after biology +5 food, pre biology +4 food. keep in mind it's some kinde of food poor. what i want to explain is what a powerfull reserch city this is and if i never had built it those bakers whod never have came to my pocket and with or without food those citys is good to build. just make the farms needed to make some pace in growth.

 

[Skallagrimson]

I agree with Drago that Berlin could go either way. It's got the hammers to go production, the river and grass to go commerce, so the flexibility will help you to meet whatever needs your empire has. When I can't decide my knee-jerk default is usually to go commerce right away, and if later I find I lack hammers to grind out armies or wonders, and the slider's at or close to 100&#37;, I'll take a flex-city like this and convert it to production.

I wouldn't worry too much about overlap. I'd rather have two cities grabbing excellent resources that are close together, than two cities fully spaced without overlap, but have to culture-extend to grab a resource without working it, especially the quick-coin sources for early in the game like furs and wine. A resource like that when improved is like an instant town, and maximizes worker effort so they can go build iron or copper mines or chop rather than have to focus too much on cottages early on.

Hamburg's obviously commerce, IMO. It has a shrine--I'd spam missionaries and spread christianity to build up the coins-per-turn for it as soon as possible, which will be a good supplement to Thebes, which has a higher-influence shrine. 2+ shrines will have you sitting on top of a healthy treasury even with the slider at 100%, after the missionaries have done their work.

I also concur with Drago on Frankfurt: this looks like a good naval shipyard to me, and there's enough food to workshop it all up except for that one farm in the bottom-left (if I counted up the food correctly), and still have 2 food for an engineer specialist.

Thebes is an interesting dilemma because with all those hills it suggests production, and yet it has that Kashi Vishvanath bringing in 20 final gold which would be supplemented even more if the city was commerce-oriented. Whichever city has your best shrine should get Wall Street, and that city should be max commerce. Towns on grass-hills if possible. Windmills on plains-hills if needed for food or if there aren't mining resources (iron, etc.) The Forbidden Palace is there which is yet another argument to go commerce, as distance-penalties will be minimum here.

 

[Killroyan]

What I can't fathom is that Berlin is not working those 2 6food tiles. I would propably watermill all the undevelopped tiles to get a real production powerhouse going with even good commerce (you can get 6 water mills easily). The city has a happy limit of 34 and health limit of 18 and is only size 15. Let it grow like mad. Civ is almost all about working the tiles that bring the biggest benefits with food being the most important if you ask me.

 

[JimT]

Cottage Berlin (but work the 6F farms - see Killroyan)
Cottage Hamburg
Production seems best for Thebes (particularily as coastal). Build a lighthouse for an extra 2 food (clam and lake)
Frankfurt ain't brilliant but could be reasonable production - it might need Berlin's northernmost mine though.

Overall very good conquests