Need to improve my game (going to Noble)

[MrCynical]

As a side issue, what do you guys think of the strategy of having certain specialized cities, as well as more generalized cities?

A civ should always have at least some specialised cities to take maximum advantage of the national wonders. You want:

A great person farm (national epic, the globe theatre?)
A military production city (West point, Heroic Epic)
A gold production city (wall street, religious shrine)
A general production city (ironworks)
A science production city (Oxford, top priority for an academy)

if the capital is very strong, some of these like the ironworks and Oxford may end up in the same city, but specialisation is generally far better than generalised cities.

 

[Solo4114]

I recognize that, what I'm asking is once you've got, say, five to seven specialized cities, to my way of thinking it makes sense to produce generalist cities assuming the terrain supports it.

 

[Dizzy75]

If I have 5-7 core specialized cities (incl. at least two production), I almost always make the new ones commerce cities. Unless I take a large enemy city, or happen to find an ideal production spot (lots of hills, hammer resource + food resource - farm & mine the crap out of those). Usually by that time it's too late for me to take the time to build up anything else (like a GP farm).

Commerce is just hugely important for me in mid-game. Kremlin -> Universal Suffrage -> 0% research for a few turns, then rush everything I need over the next several turns. Usually that means banks, market/grocer, then barracks + units (if going for domination) or 9 temples somewhere + cathedrals in three core cities (if going for cultural).

 

[ownedbyakorat]

One thing to watch out for is being so concerned with specializing according to a template that you leave really good national wonders unbuilt for a such a long period of time that building them in a less-than-ideal but available to produce city would actually yield more in the long run.