Prioritise food above all else

[*Satis]

The hardest thing I've yet tried to do in Civ IV is to build up a resource powerhouse. No longer can you plonk a city down spot next to a mountain range and expect it to grow into Detroit. Your most productive cities are likely to be those built on floodplains, surrounded by grassland with a river, a couple of Hills and (most importantly) some bonus resources in the area.

In my experience, every city should be geared up to produce copious amounts of food. This food can be used to feed specialists, to make up for the labourers working down the mines, to grow. It can also be put towards the production of settlers and workers, so at the very beginning of the game a food-heavy but resource-light city can be the most important part of your empire, churning out all the workers and settlers you need.

Even towards the end of the game, it's unlikely that many of your cities will be working more than half the terrain available to them. The new Specialists system sees to that - these guys are essential for generating Great People, and a good deal of your production, commerce, culture and research are going to be coming from them. Each one needs feeding - so how many specialists will you be able to support with four people working the land? With seven? With ten? If your city can't produce a big food surplus, it's never going to be more than a way of securing a tiny scrap of the map.

So, some tips:

*Plan your cities. What will this one be for? Will it be an industrial powerhouse to crank out units? Is this going to be your naval headquarters? How about a cultural powerhouse (Remember you need three of these to get a Culture Victory)? Or a commercial megacentre? In each case, you'll need a big food surplus coming from a few tiles in order to assign enough specialists, work those mines and build cottages on the valuable flatlands.

*So, do not build a city unless you can see a big enough food surplus there. Take into account that the city tile itself will produce 2 food in all weathers. This allows for one specialist, or lets you work 1 hilly plains mine or 2 hilly grassland mines.

*Consider special resources. Know what they will produce when exploited. Remember that whales will vanish late in the game.

*Consider when a city will be able to reach its full potential. If a river doesn't run through it, you're not going to be building farms until you discover Civil Service. If you're not going to have researched Hunting, Fishing, Calendar, Civil Service, Animal Husbandry (and to a lesser extent, Pottery, Mining, Machinery and Optics) when this city needs them, how well will it manage without?

*Mid-game onwards, remember that Biology improves food output by 1. This can be desperately important as it will increase the population you are able to support.

*Don't be in a rush to over-develop your terrain. You can't plant forests any more, and they give an important health boost late in the game, so keep them around unless you really need the terrain underneath.

*Settle along rivers early on. Civil Service might be a long time coming, especially if you find yourself in trouble with an aggressive neighbour and have to push for Iron Working, Metal Casting, Optics and other important, expensive military techs.

What do you think? Am I right about the importance of food, or is there something that I've missed here?

 

[walkerjks]

Just consider the tradeoff. By irrigating, you get the food, but you lose significant commerce (and later 1 shield) that a cottage would produce. So as I see it, there are two things to consider -

1) Is the commerce (used for culture or science or cash) and single shield more useful than what the specialist produces? This largely depends on your goals, but in general, it looks like the specialists get a slight nod here.
2) Will my city be able to properly support the high population? If you can't get the happiness and health bonuses high enough, maintaining the smaller population makes more sense.

 

[Dragoul]

food is very important indeed i think. But i wouldnt specialize all my cities in producing food. Earlie in the game i cannot provide healthyness for that manny people and i do need some production in order to defend myself against barbs/other civs.

i havent played the game enough to give a clear answer but i agree to what you say. Allthough i plan on grabbing the most resources instead of getting the most food.

edit: and indeed as wlakerjks says you economy will suffer from producing lots of food

btw, what is leaders do you play satis

 

[oopsy poopsy]

I think I've seen it said a bunch that city specialization is the way to go and so far I think I agree. If you can get 1 or 2 cities maxed out on food so that they can work as many tiles as possibly for more hammers and specialists, then they become the industrial centers for units/wonders etc... Then having at least another couple cities with lots of base 2 food squares that you can put cottages on so that they keep growing and using the cottages so that they start really raking in the commerce later. The commerce cities need to have the commerce/science improvements and the industrial cities need the forges/factories going. Obviously, the specifics of each city will be different so there's no general strategy, but I like farms in places that I will be able to generate a lot of shields so I can up my production and also if there are surplus citizens for specialists and GL points and using cottages to drive research and upgrading in the cities with decent but not overly productive terrain.

 

[cAPS lOCK]

I usually run into health or happiness problems before I've utilized all the good squares. Also, specialists have a hard time competing with any decent square with an upgraded town. But it could be that I undervalue specialists, particularly after representation.

 

[Dr. Feh]

Couple things:

Your most productive cities are likely to be those built on floodplains, surrounded by grassland with a river, a couple of Hills and (most importantly) some bonus resources in the area.

Just be careful with those floodplains. Unless you have some forest around to counteract or are Expansive, you can reach the unhealthiness limits real quick.

*Consider when a city will be able to reach its full potential. If a river doesn't run through it, you're not going to be building farms until you discover Civil Service.

Worse than that, Civil Service only allows you to 'chain' farms, and they have to be farms that were irrigated by lakes and rivers (not the farms you can found regardless on resources like rice). And certain terrain just can't ever be farmed, like hills. If you're cut off from water sources by terrain, you're screwed even with Civil Service. You have to wait until Biology... something the Civilopedia fails to mention.

*Mid-game onwards, remember that Biology improves food output by 1. This can be desperately important as it will increase the population you are able to support.

Keep in mind though this is a +1 with irrigation. Again, if you're cut off from fresh water, Biology will at last at least let you build some farms, but they'll never ever be the super-farms Biology provides. With one exception: farms built around special resources get the bonus.

Again, this is something that the Civilopedia doesn't really make clear, but it can become a seriously nasty surprise if you were banking on being able to really get food production going later in the game. Unless you can trace out a line of eligible flatlands to chain farms from fresh water sources, that city is better off specializing in something else than specialists.

 

[Dorkus]

I usually run into health or happiness problems before I've utilized all the good squares. Also, specialists have a hard time competing with any decent square with an upgraded town. But it could be that I undervalue specialists, particularly after representation.

Representation gives ALL specialists +3 science (equivalent to +3 gold). There's a wonder that gives all priests +1 production. You're not going to find too many squares that beat that.

Does anyone know of other upgrades to specialist output?

 

[Pinstar]

I agree that food is the most dynamic of all the resources. Also remember that in the early game, a city that grows like a weed quickly into unhealthyness levels can make use of slavery to whip out some buildings and keep the city size in check at the same time.

Also bear in mind: Food and production seem to be at odds with eachother. If a tile is high in one, it normally lacks or only has 1 of the other.

Because your city produced 2 food on the tile it is founded on, no matter what... founding your city on a desert tile that is in the middle of some otherwise good tiles is smart.This is because that it is one more tile you make productive that you wouldn't have otherwise.

 

[Speciou5]

I too agree that food is a very useful and probably should be prioritized. But I don't believe that it should be focused entirely on. A hilled city that focuses on shields, with a few tiles of farm (because food is still good), and production National Wonders worked extremely well for me. And mid-late game, a city with a majority of towns and research buildings/national wonders also works well.

Also, another bonus of settling on rivers is that you will get an auto trade route (without roads) if another city is along that river.

 

[Dairuka]

I find that Happiness is more of a problem than unhealthiness.

However; you can still bring out the whip on those cities. Personally; if I were you, I'd do the following in Emperor - Immortal difficulties. This only works in cities that start on flood plains however because they grow so damn fast.

#1. Found an easy religion for free culture points. If you don't start with Mysticism, don't bother. Skip this.
#2. Learn Bronze Working.
#3. Population Rush a Worker - Settler while doing #4.
#4. Learn Animal Husbandry - Writing.
#5. {A 6+ pop} Population Rush a Library in main city. {Usually 2-3 pop cost}
#6. Learn Priesthood - Secondary/Tritary cities begin work on Library
#7. Begin work on The Oracle
#8. Learn The Wheel - Pottery
#9. Cut down forests/pop rush The Oracle
#10. Use the free tech given from The Oracle on Metal Casting - Pop Rush remaining Libraries.
#11. Cut down forests/pop rush Forges in every city, starting with your main city first.
#12. Laugh as you take a huge lead in research and production - pumping out workers in main city for other cities.
#13. By now barbarians should be a problem. Use the production to pump up a huge army.
#14. Forcefully take land from your neighbours, since you only have 3 cities and they probably had 5 by now.

 

[walkerjks]

Also remember that cottages take time to develop, but farms don't. So it may make sense to start a city with plenty of cottages and then as it gets to a larger size electively switch over certain tiles to farms to get the specialist benefits. It's much harder to start with farms and decide late in the game that you really want cottages.

 

[Pinstar]

There is one case in which I'd be willing to give up food potential for commerce: Flood plain squares. I always build cottages on flood plains (maybe 1 farm for chaining later on with civil service) because your cities will work those tiles anyway, and I find that I can have fully formed towns rather quickly, which means some nice commerce.

The best city location, in my opinion, is a city on/near a floodplain with hills around it. You get food from the plains, hammers from the hills, plus commerce from every tile along the river itself.