Production cities

[solvero]

I am playing on noble and have a great problem with creating production cities.
I am getting better with creating wealth and science cities as well as GP farms, but I can't find a way to create a production city. Usually my capital ends up being with the highest production even if I cottage spam it.
My problem is that I always want the city to have enough food to grow to size 20, which means I always try to settle next to rivers so I will be able to create farms, but near rivers there are no production resources. I can't settle near the production resources because than I can't manage the city's food, the city doesn't grow and I end up with a bad city.

My question is- how do you create a good production city, how much food does it needs and to what size to you let it grow before biology?

 

[madscientist]

I am playing on noble and have a great problem with creating production cities.
I am getting better with creating wealth and science cities as well as GP farms, but I can't find a way to create a production city. Usually my capital ends up being with the highest production even if I cottage spam it.
My problem is that I always want the city to have enough food to grow to size 20, which means I always try to settle next to rivers so I will be able to create farms, but near rivers there are no production resources. I can't settle near the production resources because than I can't manage the city's food, the city doesn't grow and I end up with a bad city.

My question is- how do you create a good production city, how much food does it needs and to what size to you let it grow before biology?

A good production city does NOT have to reach size 20 population. Most of mine don't get that far.

Best thing to do is to post a screen shot of a settled capital with the surrounding terrain where you can found a city and ask for advice.

 

[Zanttu]

My problem is that I always want the city to have enough food to grow to size 20, which means I always try to settle next to rivers so I will be able to create farms, but near rivers there are no production resources. I can't settle near the production resources because than I can't manage the city's food, the city doesn't grow and I end up with a bad city.

Food is important, but not too important lol.

My question is- how do you create a good production city, how much food does it needs and to what size to you let it grow before biology?

That's easy - you need to grow the city to size where it can work all its production recources (mines, workshops and strategic recourses). Simple as that. A flat grassland site can also be good for production: just spam workshops. =P

 

[xanadux]

Early game, good production means mines, so you want a site with plenty of hills and enough food to work them. Grassland hills are better than plains hills because they require half the food to support. Suppose you have 6 suprlus food ... you can support 3 plains mines for 12 hammers, or 6 grassland mines for 18 hammers.

If necessary, you can farm grasslands for extra food to work the mines.

Usually, you should be able to find decent production sites with enough food ... 5 or more hills and a food resource or 2. What map types do you use? Different settings can make production easier or harder to get.

Later in the game, almost any city with a lot of land can be made into a good production city with a combination of mines, workshops, watermills, lumbermills, and farms. Once you get to Chemistry, which isn't all that long if you beeline it, your workshops are just like mined hills on the same terrain type. Run State Property and you get +1 food.

 

[solvero]

I play very standard maps- standard size continents, temperate and medium sea level on noble.
I don't have an example right now- but this happens in all of my games.
So what you say is you just need enough food just to work all production tiles? and what improvements do you build on other tiles? and how do you get enough food if the city has no food resources and has no river tiles?

 

[SenhorDaGuerra]

its nice to have 1 or 2 food resources, like rice or corn. a river is always good in any city, not only production cities.

the most powerful production cities ive ever created were late game monsters where i used VoiceofUnreasons (sorry dont have the link) tactic of workshopping grassland tiles (some with river some without) and running state property. this leads to mega production monsters. i managed to get up to 450hammers/turn once, but thats dwarfed by some of the ridiculous screenies ive seen on here.

so bare in mind that you might want to run a specialist city early game (say GE's) on a grassland river sight and farm pretty much everything, and slowly transition it from mid to late game from farms to workshops as the workshop bonuses become available. for this state property is you bestest friend for the +1 food bonus to workshops.

early game production cities like a everyone said u want hills and food. these cities normally become late game military cities and for me rarely grow beyond size 15 or so. and max production is about enough to bash out a tank in a turn or 2. these early production cities dont stand a chance of generating as many hammers as the monsters that you can create with workshopped grassland rivers in late game.

Finally, dont forget the hammers multipliers. build forges, factories, coal/hydro/nuke plants (tho nuke plants are very risky) etc etc, and even run some engineer specialists. you'd be very surprised at what you can do with say 50 base hammers. I certainly was!!

hope that was helpful and clear.

happy gaming!

 

[NedRise]

Just to underline what others have said:

I used to get into the habit of seeing "grassland tile next to river" = farm it.
Now, after reading the various posts, if I'm building a production city, I see the same tile = workshop
To get production cities early on research metal casting earlier for the forges.
Also don't forget that a river in a city is awesome because you can build levees later on which give you +1 for every river tile
Of course you'll always have to balance food/health to keep it growing.

 

[xanadux]

Even a size 6 or 7 city can be a useful early game production city. This may be the problem ... requiring enough food for a size 20 city.

Say a city has only a fish resource and 6 grassland hills. At max production, it stagnates at size 7 with a lighthouse. But it has 19 base hammers, 23 with a forge. 23 hammers is pretty decent production pre-chemistry (when workshops start surpassing base forests).

It is rare to not have any sites you can get good production from. It has happened to me before, but very rare, usually when stuck in a big flat jungle. Remember that not all cities are going to be highly productive size 20 juggernauts. Sometimes cities that will never even pay for themselves directly or ever produce much are still good cities to found because they secure a resource or block off territory.

If you can find a site with the ability to produce around 20 hammers with early game techs, it's usually worth it, even if the city will never get any better. If nothing else, it can eventually build wealth for you. When production is desperately needed, even cities with only 10 or 12 hammer potential can be a good idea.

 

[athelious]

If I don't have a good early production spot which I would define as hills with either 2 food resources or floodplains or at least a river then I will sometimes make two early production "hill" cities. Population may only be 5 in these two cities. These two small cities can create/maintain a reasonable army on their own. Barracks + courthouse then all military (with maybe a wonder or two thrown in). These will be the only cities I build barracks and units in (unless in a bad war). Specializing really helps me with my build one more building addiction/problem, as I can then build one more building in my commerce cities.

Note: I am not a warmonger, sometimes I'll take out one or two of my neighbors but rarely don't go for space in the end. Warmongers probably need more production. This strat does give me enough units to prevent the AI from attacking me often and if they do I have it covered.

I usually leave an open food resource (many times ends up being seafood) to build my mid/late game production city or cities. This gets built after guilds for the +1 hammer on workshops (I am usually running caste system as well for an additional +1 hammer) also by this time my economy can handle another noncommerce city. Although arguably not the wisest decision (as Guilds comes quite a bit after Sailing) but many times I will build the Moai Statues in this city as well (this is primarily due to me habitually forgetting to build the Moai statues earlier). This city ends up greatly outproducing my capital (especially after chemistry), while the early production city or cities do not usually.

If I had built two early production cities many times one of these gets the national park. Probably for the simple reason that I never needed to chop trees down because production was so good in this city and population low.

Now to the part of the game I don't look forward to by any means, as it is most like work, but necessary all the same. At the beginning of the game after I have "cleared the black". I put the grid on the map and start using "Alt S" to plan out my city placement. Takes time and patience (sometimes ten minutes if you start arguing with yourself..oh wait did I say that aloud?...I meant deliberating with yourself), but I have found it is well worth it in the long run.

 

[Spaced out]

I play very standard maps- standard size continents, temperate and medium sea level on noble.
I don't have an example right now- but this happens in all of my games.
So what you say is you just need enough food just to work all production tiles? and what improvements do you build on other tiles? and how do you get enough food if the city has no food resources and has no river tiles?

City placement: Avoid/minimize # coast tiles or lakes. Maximize grassland hills and grasslands. Food or hammer resources are nice but not "must" haves. It is rare for me to found a city that has no food around it. Rivers are a bonus for levee and freshwater health. Plains are so-so.

To start build mines and grassland farms till you can't anymore, early plains are junk. Work the farms to grow first, you should chop a granary. When you get to the happy cap stop working farms, focus on mines then farms to keep from starving.

Everything that isn't a farm or mine gets to be a workshop (or forest). After chemistry chop the forests and replace with workshops. Sometimes if you don't have lots of extra food leave forests in pairs of 2 to get healthy bonus.

With a production city you're either growing fast or not growing at all. So rush grow when your caps increase then stop when you reach them. Its easy enough at that point to open the city screen and move citizens around to see what gives you the most and stagnant growth.

If you are working all your farms your done growing. Until biology/state property/corporation food bonuses. The -food from un-healthy citizens is just lost hammers, so keep healthiness up.

As far as production cities go engineers will only hold you back. They are basicly -2 food + 2 hammer improvements. Even a forest that is -0 food + 1 hammer is better.

Grassland hill mines and grassland workshops are more efficient than their plains counterparts. Floodplains are even better and make great workshops.

Note: Mines can spawn resources throughout the game. Corn won't magically appear next your city. So settle near corn over iron.

I hope that was clear enough.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Early game best case? 2 food resources near hills at least 3 hills... Forests are a bonus, and be selective when chopping them.

(With the right combination of terrain, a forest can help long term production more than the 20 or 30 extra you get for chopping it down, and since it's a production city, you won't need the one-time 20 boost very often.)

 

[futurehermit]

for an early game production city you want food specials + grassland farms and production specialst (e.g., horses, marble) + mined hills. you obviously need enough of the former to work as many of the latter as possible.

for a later game production city, workshops, watermills, and lumbermills can come into play. one of my best production cities ever had 1 food special + 19 grassland workshops under state property and was size 21-22.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

So what you say is you just need enough food just to work all production tiles? and what improvements do you build on other tiles? and how do you get enough food if the city has no food resources and has no river tiles?

Well, the answer to the last question is that you don't found cities where there isn't enough food.

It sounds like you are too focused on growth. It's very viable for your production city to run smaller, even a lot smaller, that the other cities in your empire. (Note: cities dedicated to generating Wonders will have slightly different rules than cities dedicated to military. I'm thinking primarily of the latter).

Consider a city with irrigated wheat, three grassland hills, and a plains hill. It's no world beater, but it's a perfectly satisfactory military pump. You don't need it to be bigger - law of diminishing returns. Eventually you'll need more production capacity, but it isn't particularly urgent.

Also note that if it is a military pump, it's got a much lower happy/health cap than the rest of your empire (in the early going) because it isn't investing in infrastructure.

Later in the game, when you've got a few mega cities available, perhaps you focus one of those on commerce, and this berg swaps in all the mines for windmills, and becomes a generic dog pulling the sled.

In other words, the city starts out as a "good" city, because it does an important job well for that era, and later becomes a non-descript city when somebody else takes over the job.

A similar example is a coastal city that overlaps one of your commercial mega cities. In the early going, your coastal city works the overlapped cottages, to help them mature faster. But eventually, the mega city (which has the better multipliers, thanks to that national wonders, etc), takes over the management of those tiles, and the coastal towns work the waves/run specialists/etc.