nifty city, captured capital, so much food

[Cer]

I captured Saladin's capital and for a while I was kind of confused about what to do with it. I was short on workers and the city didn't have a huge amount of production, and I wanted a bunch of buildings in a hurry. Thank goodness for slavery, although unfortunately whipping more than once every ten turns can get to be a problem. War weariness is also a significant factor here, as I am trying to conquer the Aztecs.

I am Qin of the Chinese so I have the financial bonus; I built colossus for another bonus, and built the lighthouse in Mecca. This city grows almost too fast!

What would your strategy be with this city? A couple of workers can be here soon, which is another plus. I'm thinking I will whip off as many people as I can, soon, on the university. currently whipping would give a for 21 turns if it were available.

 

[KMadCandy]

i love freshwater lake cities with lighthouses first thing i noticed is that it's a holy city. if you can get a great prophet somewhere (easier said than done, i know), a Shrine will let you run 3 priests. that can help you with production there and you certainly have the food to support them. it's not a factory, but it comes a lot earlier in the game and with no health issues. and it looks like the money wouldn't hurt in your case either.

good luck with the aztecs!

 

[Big Boss Man]

Holy Cow ! My Strat would be developing that city into wall street ... or at least a lesser variant ! Good Luck

 

[Airefuego]

Nice city!!

Another idea - you could make it a gold producing specialist-running city, rather than a science city.

It's less infrastructure-heavy than science: you only really need a grocer now (maybe a harbor) and your health will be great and your happiness too depending upon which resources you have hooked up.

You can work a lot of those rich commerce sea and lakes, plus run up to 4 merchants with all that extra food. Get some other cities to spam buddhist missionaries and once you get the shrine up, this place will rake in gold.

 

[Cer]

I played a couple turns and chopped 3 forests, got my university, and grew the city to the point of unhappiness. I just can't resist taking all the commerce I can get, even though it comes with crazy amounts of food. Which is why I didn't whip 5 or so citizens for the university: several turns of making some great commerce would be lost.

I'm going for an early domination victory, so I don't think I will get to Wall street.

I may run merchants, even though I might not get any great people out of this city. On the other hand, I'm thinking the wisest course of action may be to mine+workshop up my land and go all out military here while still working the lake tiles.

I'm at the point in the game where I may tell all my cities to drop what they're doing and build units because if I do it should be a quick win.

 

[LuckyAC]

Maoi Statues + Wall Street

 

[KMadCandy]

*giggle* i'm really indecisive about where to put national wonders but even i usually have maoi statues built somewhere by 1220 AD

 

[mrwhite89]

On the other hand, I'm thinking the wisest course of action may be to mine+workshop up my land and go all out military here while still working the lake tiles.

I'm at the point in the game where I may tell all my cities to drop what they're doing and build units because if I do it should be a quick win.

If you're right about being able to win quickly, then by all means get whatever production you can out of the city to spawn some units - it's not really an issue about what to do with the city. On the other hand, if you're wrong and the game may stretch out a little more, then you have a major commerce city, my friend.

Run as many merchants as you can, while occasionally whipping for any commerce-increasing buildings you don't already have. Oh, and definitely build Wall Street there!

 

[Airefuego]

I can't tell in the screenshot, but is that also some spices in the forest to the south?? MORE COMMERCE!!!

 

[Cer]

yeah, that was spices.

I got my plantation up and I'm working it now.

There are no moai statues because this is vanilla civ4.

I threw my civ into total military production, chopped the forests, and put up a couple workshops. Kept working the water tiles.

I played my first few games of civ4 avoiding slavery so I'm still figuring out how to use it well. I think this city is a bit of a case study on what to do with slavery. Earlier on it was a question of what order to do lighthouse, granary, market, forge. (Luckily I never had to build workboats for this city). I was really lucky to get a bunch of happiness resources that double with market and forge, so I could whip a building with 3 smileyfaces and get only one frownyface from the whip. later, this became impossible in this city because I used up the best buildings.

The city still grows fast, but I slowed it down by getting some workshops running on those former grassland-forests. The Aztec war is over (the aztecs are stuck on a 2-square island that I'm not going to go after) and I am now at 1380 AD and a lot of war weariness from fighting the mongols. I managed to get down to 10 turns of while the city was growing. I let some unhappy people grow (and waste my food, oh well) and then whipped them off for a colosseum. All the while I got to keep working nearly all of the water tiles.

Most of the time people discourage growing a city to have a few unhappy people and then whipping off the unhappy people, as well as whipping a city down from population 17 or so (which I did) and whipping 4 population at a time rather than 2. but I realized that doing all of those things can be good when the city produces so much food, and the city's tiles are pretty good in terms of shields or commerce.

While I would like to work every tile, I can't so it makes sense to work the water tiles the most and pour that excess food into unhappy people who will be killed off by slavery.

Wow, no wonder they tell me i'm doing some cruel oppression!

 

[Cer]

Regarding the holy city/shrine thing...

this game put me in the same position as many games where I control a holy city but I have priorities that keep me from making it a shrine city. I kept nostatereligion/paganism going for a long time to avoid the "you have fallen under the sway of a heathen religion" thing. Since everybody else was jewish I didn't adopt buddhism. And it would have been expensive to build a bunch of buddhist missionaries to make my shrine worthwhile.

 

[Airefuego]

Yes, spamming missionaries does take effort and resources, and if you are full-on warring, it's not a priority. Also farming a Great Prophet can take some effort. So your chosen route was a good one.

But note, you CAN get shrine income from a holy city without running a state religion. The shrine gets one gold from every city with that religion, it doesn't need to be anyone's state religion. If you are running a peaceful building game, it's awesome, you build a few monasteries in your science cities (+10% beakers) and then use them to spam missionaries wildly to every city you can reach on the map (open borders please!) With bank+grocer+marketplace you make a bucket of cash

 

[carl corey]

First of all, I see that you're in Mercantilism, as you already work 12 tiles but still have an Engineer specialist. It will go away when you switch out of this, so you'll have: a 3 hammers mine-able hill, an Engineer specialist slot, two Scientist slots, two Merchant slots, make that four if you build a Grocer. You could build a temple for one happiness and one Priest slot. That's a total of 9 zero-food slots. There's another plains hill that is currently worked by another city, you could get that one used here too for more production.

Anyway, in your screenshot you have an excess of 10 food, that's good enough to work 5 zero-food tiles/specialists, so you don't have that much food anyway.

Except for building a mine over the forest hill I wouldn't have chopped anything. You'll want the additional health if you keep growing. You can easily work forests when needed then switch to water tiles after that.

As for what you can do with it, since you say a shrine is unfeasible, how about Globe Theatre? That would allow you to grow to any size depending just on health. Max the hammers when you build it then switch to high food/high commerce tiles to grow.

May I ask why you don't have Drama yet? How do you handle War Weariness?! With Drama, Theatres and Colosseums that would be +5 happiness/20% culture slider.

Also why are you running 100% gold?

 

[DarkFyre99]

holy city + high food captured capital = Wall Street

You've already got a market and a bank, so all it needs is a grocer and Wall Street. Given the huge amount of food there, it looks like you could run seven merchant specialists and still work all the tiles in the city's BFC. That's a grand total of 63/turn from specialists alone.

Build the Mahabodhi with a Great Prophet, and you could add in another 3/turn for each Buddhist city, which would allow you to run a good sized Empire with just the gold output from that city.

And if you have to lower your science slider, the commerce generated gold would be multiplied as well.

edit: saw the thing about the shrine not being worthwhile... but it would still make an excellent Wall-Street city.

 

[carl corey]

With only mines and no farms and with plantation over the spices (+1 food) he'd be at +6 food with the whole fat cross worked, that's 3 specialists. Remember the Engineer he's running now is from Mercantilism, not a 'real' population point. He could spread irrigation for 4 farms and build 2 windmills instead of mines (no use building 3, he'd be left with an odd food excess) for a total of +12 food pre-biology (6 specialists) or +16 food post biology (8 specialists), but I'm not sure it would be worth losing the health bonus from the four grassland forests as you'd have to supply the city with lots of health just to grow; if you don't you'll have to spend 3 food per specialist instead, which kind of defeats the point of building farms in the first place.

 

[Cer]

May I ask why you don't have Drama yet? How do you handle War Weariness?!

You may certainly ask. I delayed drama (still don't have it 200years after the screenshot) because with the exception of Mecca, my cities didn't have WW problems. I kept them under their happy caps, and early-game war weariness isn't too bad. Now that I'm in a war against the Mongols for my domination win, I'm thinking getting drama and theaters and pushing the culture slider up to ~20% is a good idea.

I guess the lack of Drama tech explains why I don't have Globe Theater.

Also why are you running 100% gold?

I had decided to run 100%gold at the time of the screenshot while building my first two universities, since I had just researched education and had just built some nice banks. After getting the universities, I ran the science slider at 100%.

Mecca in this game would make a beautiful globe theater spot if there were enough time left in the game, thanks for the suggestion.

I was reluctant to run specialists there because I had built a zillion wonders in the capital and i was/am running 6 or 7 specialists in the capital with national epic. Chance gave me lots of great priests and I settled them.

I haven't really experimented much about how useful specialists can be when you ignore the usefulness of great people points. This is also the first game where I built a city to go all-out after great people, which now seems to be the obvious way to go once you find a good spot to put National Epic. I'm a noob when it comes to using specialists, so I also saw firsthand how worthwhile great people can be in the pre-literature part of the game, and gave myself a reminder as to how much literature can help your civ if you get great library+national epic in one good city as well as getting heroic epic.

 

[carl corey]

You may certainly ask. I delayed drama (still don't have it 200years after the screenshot) because with the exception of Mecca, my cities didn't have WW problems. I kept them under their happy caps, and early-game war weariness isn't too bad. Now that I'm in a war against the Mongols for my domination win, I'm thinking pushing the culture slider up is a good idea.

I guess the lack of Drama tech explains why I don't have Globe Theater.

Got it and yeah, raising the slider for one city would be a waste. I also didn't have Drama in my last game (first on Emperor) because I didn't go to war after the initial rush for quite a while and had better things to do. Also, I had no definite candidate for a Globe Theatre. I'm not sure if this city can't be helped in other ways, but you'd have to bring in more than 1 happiness/population point due to war weariness, so the Globe is one way to beat this.

I had decided to run 100%gold at the time of the screenshot while building my first two universities, since I had just researched education and had just built some nice banks. After getting the universities, I ran the science slider at 100%.

Ok, I thought you were upgrading units or something but since you were only then researching Gunpowder I was puzzled about the units you'd upgrade.

Mecca in this game would make a beautiful globe theater spot if there were enough time left in the game, thanks for the suggestion.

Heh, if you're closing in on Domination I agree that it's not necessary anymore. I just think that an early Globe city can become a real powerhouse. (Yeah, I know, I said I didn't get one in my game. So sue me! )

I was reluctant to run specialists there because I had built a zillion wonders in the capital and i was/am running 6 or 7 specialists in the capital with national epic. Chance gave me lots of great priests and I settled them.

I haven't really experimented much about how useful specialists can be when you ignore the usefulness of great people points. This is also the first game where I built a city to go all-out after great people, which now seems to be the obvious way to go once you find a good spot to put National Epic.

If your capital is really that much of a great person powerhouse through both wonders and specialists you'll probably not going to have a lot of benefits from running specialists here too. I find it useful to have more than one great person farms when wonders and specialists are in different cities, or if I'm going full Specialist Economy when I sometimes micromanage to get more than one city to generate a great person at specific times. Or if the Globe Theatre city and the National Epic one are different ones, and both with really high food and low production. Mecca here wouldn't qualify as such since it has 4 hills, one plains tile and 4 forest that can be lumbermilled.

 

[KMadCandy]

And it would have been expensive to build a bunch of buddhist missionaries to make my shrine worthwhile.

yeah i'm not disagreeing that it wasn't worth it in this case. i had only mentioned it as a partial solution to...

I captured Saladin's capital and for a while I was kind of confused about what to do with it. I was short on workers and the city didn't have a huge amount of production, and I wanted a bunch of buildings in a hurry. Thank goodness for slavery, although unfortunately whipping more than once every ten turns can get to be a problem.

of course it doesn't get you production "in a hurry", you have to get the great prophet, but once you have the shrine then you can run 3 priests, and they can turn your extra food into hammers on the turns you can't whip, far earlier than you can get a factory. i was just throwing it out there as a benefit of the shrine that people often don't think about, they just think about the gold. but sounds like you did great with the city

 

[DarkFyre99]

With only mines and no farms and with plantation over the spices (+1 food) he'd be at +6 food with the whole fat cross worked, that's 3 specialists. Remember the Engineer he's running now is from Mercantilism, not a 'real' population point. He could spread irrigation for 4 farms and build 2 windmills instead of mines (no use building 3, he'd be left with an odd food excess) for a total of +12 food pre-biology (6 specialists) or +16 food post biology (8 specialists), but I'm not sure it would be worth losing the health bonus from the four grassland forests as you'd have to supply the city with lots of health just to grow; if you don't you'll have to spend 3 food per specialist instead, which kind of defeats the point of building farms in the first place.

By my count, he has +8 food, without building a single farm. He does have two seafood resources plus the large freshwater lake and lighthouse combo. That includes working both plains hills. That's four specialists right off the bat, without building a single farm. That's more than enough merchant slots pre-Wall Street.

Edit: Oops... I missed two more plains hills. One is being worked by another city, and the other looks like gold. So he can only run two specialists without farms. Of course, he still doesn't need to run those mines when not building anything. Especialy the one shared hill. One plains hill mine = one merchant. With +12 food coming from the sea or the lake, that's six specialists, four hills plus two specialists, or any combination thereof. Without building a single farm.​

After Wall Street is built, he take citizens out of the mines and run two more merchants. That's six. After all, once he's built Wall Street, he doesn't need as much production anymore.

Building the Statue of Liberty or running Mercantilism would give you the seventh. Having both and putting windmills on the hills could allow you to work all tiles, run seven specialists, and still work the BFC without building a single farm. He is playing Vanilla, so Mercantilism is a bit more appealing, especially since he's gunning for a domination victory.

Two settled Great Merchants could also provide the food necessary for the 7th merchant... and has great synnergy with Wall Street.

 

[DarkFyre99]

I was reluctant to run specialists there because I had built a zillion wonders in the capital and i was/am running 6 or 7 specialists in the capital with national epic. Chance gave me lots of great priests and I settled them.

I haven't really experimented much about how useful specialists can be when you ignore the usefulness of great people points. This is also the first game where I built a city to go all-out after great people, which now seems to be the obvious way to go once you find a good spot to put National Epic. I'm a noob when it comes to using specialists, so I also saw firsthand how worthwhile great people can be in the pre-literature part of the game, and gave myself a reminder as to how much literature can help your civ if you get great library+national epic in one good city as well as getting heroic epic.

Merchants are, IMO, the best specialists in the game. The object of the economy is, after all, to produce as much science as possible, while arill producing enough gold to pay your bills.

You can pay the builds with commerce, of course, but unless you build markets, grocers, and banks in each commerce producing city, some of your commerce is going to go to waste. And each turn a citizen works a mine instead of a cottage is even more commerce lost.

A city dedicated to producing gold, via merchants, doesn't waste any commerce. It also doesn't need any libraries, universities, observatories, or laboratories either, so you don't need to work mines, alowing you to run more merchants.

And the best thing about merchant specialists is that they produce Great Merchants... who can settled back into your main gold city to produce more gold, as well as extra food to run more merchants! Or you can send them to a far off city on a trade mission to get a ton of gold.