Production Capacity in the Capitol

[mesavage]

I'm finding that production capacity in the Capitol is the single greatest factor in my game going well for the first 100 turns (at least). I'm playing on Emperor and Immortal difficulty, Standard Speed, and mostly Pangaea maps.
What's your experience with how important is it to have a high production capacity (horses, hills, etc.) in the Capitol? Are you always settling on a hill? What too little production to be successful?
Any help you experts can provide would be much appreciated!

 

[budweiser]

Food really is the most important, at least to start. But then you can buy food later, so then money becomes more important. Money makes the world go around.

 

[fmlizard2]

I've been carrying the torch around here for this topic. It can get a little lonely at times, since wide empires and Liberty are currently in vogue.

The short answer is that in the capital is super important, especially early. The biggest mistake that many make (I used to do it too) is thinking that you build a powerhouse through having lots of hills and building lots of mines from the get-go. Lots of hills are nice but not really required to have a good capital, so long as you work enough tiles.

You must build a base of early to get an optimal capital. Granary should be your 2nd build (as soon as you get pottery, your first tech) in most starts. If you have 3-4 deer/wheat/banana tiles, this becomes the most important building you will build in your game. +5-6 on turn 15 is HUGE. You don't have to improve the tile for the bonus.

Go all in on your first 50 turns. You are better off working 8 unimproved tiles than 4 improved ones (luxury benefits excluded). Hanging Gardens is your key wonder, which should come in somewhere in the 50-60 turn range. Fill up Tradition too, with focus on the building policies. Don't worry about burning legalism on a monument - the and growth can't wait. Nor can the awesome Monarchy policy, the best policy in the game for a super-capital builder.

After all this, you can run your capital in focus for the rest of the game and still grow a massive population capital. Wonders like PT, HS, ND, etc. should be doable in around 10 turns each and medieval level buildings like Market, Workshop, University, Temple are all 3-5 turn builds when they come available.

 

[chazzycat]

^good advice. Early on food trumps production. I would add that settling on a hill is a nice little boost. It's basically 1 free hammer per turn with very limited drawbacks (no mine on that hill).

 

[Karpyan]

Keep carrying the torch. I believe it's very viable (esp. up to and incl. Immortal), but depends on your civ, location and especially on your neighbours on Deity - if you're next to Oda and Alex (which seems to happen to me too often), growth has to make way for asap hammers and military. Next to Gandhi with the Aztecs on a good map and I can see it's a potential job done.

 

[basta]

I think a more versatile early strategy than food focus+HG beeline is rushbuying your capital's grainery with early gold and picking up a maritime CS with early luxuries.

As Karpyan says, at high levels you're going to need those hammers asap. I always max production in my cap as soon as I've got a food surplus and it stays that way for the next 80-90 turns as the cap basically cranks out my army and grabs crucial buildings and wonders while the other cities build infrastructure. Cap population suffers but early-to-mid game you're pretty much playing an occ.

 

[Fluffball]

^good advice. Early on food trumps production. I would add that settling on a hill is a nice little boost. It's basically 1 free hammer per turn with very limited drawbacks (no mine on that hill).

For the early part of the game your capital tends to be one of your main production cities and in that sense founding on a hill can be good but for the longer term the ability to build a windmill, especially since they now give production is much better due to your capital needing a little proping up to stay as viable production city. That hill could provide an extra 5 base hammers if it was mined and as you are allowed to build a windmill if you don't settle on it which can be a significant bonus later on whichever path you take with it, production, military, science.

For the first few turns that one extra hammer is a significant boost but for the majority of the game it can be a significant disadvantage which should never be ignored.

Like most decisions in this game though the choice you make is dependant on your situation in the specific game your playing.

 

[chazzycat]

For the early part of the game your capital tends to be one of your main production cities and in that sense founding on a hill can be good but for the longer term the ability to build a windmill, especially since they now give production is much better due to your capital needing a little proping up to stay as viable production city. That hill could provide an extra 5 base hammers if it was mined and as you are allowed to build a windmill if you don't settle on it which can be a significant bonus later on whichever path you take with it, production, military, science.

For the first few turns that one extra hammer is a significant boost but for the majority of the game it can be a significant disadvantage which should never be ignored.

Like most decisions in this game though the choice you make is dependent on your situation in the specific game your playing.

You definitely have a point, I did forget to mention the windmill. but my opinion is that the early bonus usually offsets the loss still. The first turns of the game are the most important...getting the scouts, workers, granary, etc. up ASAP add a ton of value over the long run. And I think you are overstating the value of the mine...it's only 3 base hammers, (4 with chem) and you need food to work it. If the city is otherwise desperate for production, it might make sense to build on flatland for the eventual mine and windmill. But that is somewhat rare in starting locations...for the most part, it's probably better to settle on a hill.

 

[mesavage]

First of all, thanks for the responses and solid ideas.

It seems to be effective to focus mostly on food until the cap is at 5 or so and always to be working the top food tiles to maximize the growth rate.

My question comes from several awful starts that were game killers for me - riverside grassland with two hills in range and lacking other production tiles like horses, stone, or iron (which I seems to get 1 in 10 times). The start looked ok and the city grew well but just didn't have what was necessary for production.

It seems that I need 8+ hammers available in the cap to have a good game (even though I don't concentrate on these tiles until the city has done some growing).

Does this observation resonate with you guys? I hoping to clarify what's basically needed in the cap to have a decent chance at the top few difficulties - this guides me in deciding where to settle - which is a skill I've yet to hone.

In persuit of rapid and sustainable growth in the cap I'm now regularly building or buying the grainary and shooting for the HG unless I'm playing the Incans and have Some nice mountain hill combos for terracing (terrain seems to often make the Incans a powerhouse in my experience - they can be very fun to play).

Again thanks for the responses and good observations.

 

[chazzycat]

If the starting land is that bad, you generally want to focus on expansion, either by settling or conquering some nicer land. A really strong capital sure helps, but is not really needed to be successful. If you have good food it will still be strong in science, so focus on that instead and make sure you have other cities that can pick up the slack for building units or wonders.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I've been carrying the torch around here for this topic. It can get a little lonely at times, since wide empires and Liberty are currently in vogue.

The short answer is that in the capital is super important, especially early. The biggest mistake that many make (I used to do it too) is thinking that you build a powerhouse through having lots of hills and building lots of mines from the get-go. Lots of hills are nice but not really required to have a good capital, so long as you work enough tiles.

You must build a base of early to get an optimal capital. Granary should be your 2nd build (as soon as you get pottery, your first tech) in most starts. If you have 3-4 deer/wheat/banana tiles, this becomes the most important building you will build in your game. +5-6 on turn 15 is HUGE. You don't have to improve the tile for the bonus.

Go all in on your first 50 turns. You are better off working 8 unimproved tiles than 4 improved ones (luxury benefits excluded). Hanging Gardens is your key wonder, which should come in somewhere in the 50-60 turn range. Fill up Tradition too, with focus on the building policies. Don't worry about burning legalism on a monument - the and growth can't wait. Nor can the awesome Monarchy policy, the best policy in the game for a super-capital builder.

After all this, you can run your capital in focus for the rest of the game and still grow a massive population capital. Wonders like PT, HS, ND, etc. should be doable in around 10 turns each and medieval level buildings like Market, Workshop, University, Temple are all 3-5 turn builds when they come available.

This is why the best balance to Liberty/Wide would be to switch Landed Elite and Legalism in the Policy Tree... +2 food in your capital on turn ~20 or so (tradition opener with a monument first)

 

[basta]

My question comes from several awful starts that were game killers for me... The start looked ok and the city grew well but just didn't have what was necessary for production.

It seems that I need 8+ hammers available in the cap to have a good game (even though I don't concentrate on these tiles until the city has done some growing).

Does this observation resonate with you guys? I hoping to clarify what's basically needed in the cap to have a decent chance at the top few difficulties - this guides me in deciding where to settle - which is a skill I've yet to hone.

In persuit of rapid and sustainable growth in the cap I'm now regularly building or buying the grainary and shooting for the HG unless I'm playing teh Incans...

For me, food is a means, not an end. I view it like happiness--you want as much as possible, but it's not the first priority. Unless it's a culture game, my over-riding concerns are science and production. Always, in tandem. Food is just there to stoke those, so I think I've built HG maybe once, ever, but GL countless times.

To put it in perspective: yes, you can beeline HG and get megafood in your cap, and that will fuel production and growth and therefore science, but at high levels my priorities are beakers and hammers, and I don't have time to go for HG to then convert that advantage later--I need it now, in a straight line, direct.

If you settle a good capital and run it right, you will be cranking out enough units and all the rest on production focus for 100+ turns without ever going to food focus. To me, food focus=epic fail. No matter when.

And you know a good spot when you see it--a river, some hills, good forest cover to chop early on, a good mix of luxuries and strats.

 

[Karpyan]

Kind of agree, but food focus is v. important. If you're happy. Switch between food focus and production focus as needed. In reality micro-manage all tiles - it's usually a hybrid. Depends on build. Food leads to production, so never an 'epic fail'. Pop=science as well.

 

[Fluffball]

In the food over production choice i tend to improve tiles to deal with both equally but swap and tweak citizens as necissary. If there is no great threat, i'm not building anything of great importance etc then i will move all my citizens to my improved food tiles. If i am building something more important i will shift citizens to more production tiles with the focus dependant on how urgently i want it built.

As a rule, when you aren't urgent to build something it is best to grow your city as fast as possible so that when you do want big production you have more citizens to work more production tiles or can more easily increase production and still have reasonable growth.

 

[joncnunn]

I would put the Water Mill as a more important building for the capital than the Granary; but most of the time your going to be discovering the tech for Granary before the tech for the Water Mill.

And there are times that working the production tiles is a faster past to growth.

If your currently building a Water Mill, Granary, or Light House [with sea resources], then the faster you get the structure up the faster the city can start growing.