Production monsters

[SenhorDaGuerra]

easy all,

Regarding production cities, i am fairly good at making a decent military city, pumping out tanks in 1-2 turns on epic speed. i usually have a combination of IW, HE and westpoint.

My main thinking behind improving the value of hammers is to change to state property and change my farms to workshops, though i havent had a chance to test this out. I am fairly reluctant to change terrain improvements because of laziness and lack of understanding of the game. so my micromanagement skills arent very good. I play on prince difficulty. would this assumption on terrain improvement be a good one? or am i missing the point?

any help would be greatful!

ps, i have read the article by VoiceofUnreason about the production megacity, but that is working from late game back. ideally id like to work from ancient era forward!! thanks again.

 

[Deepflow]

Well if you just changed farms to state property workshops you would end up with -1 food per tile you did that on (-2 after biology). State property only negates the -1 that workshops get, it isn't actually a bonus on top of what the tile already provides.

Workshops and farms together is what i normally do, state property allows you to have fewer farms and more workshops and still work all the tiles, so you have more hammers.

To get a great production city in the ancient era onwards I think you normally need hills as workshops aren't available right away and don't really take off until they get the bonuses from advanced techs.

I think (not sure) that flatland is optimum for a production city in the late game though.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

You shouldn't be averse to changing the tile improvements in a production city - the only cost there is the worker turns involved (contrast this against ripping down towns in a commerce city).

In other words, building "extra" farms so that you can grow quickly, then replacing them later is a totally reasonable thing to do. (If you find yourself doing this regularly, it may be a sign that you need to move up a level - ideally, you should always feel like you are late late late, preferably without actually being late).

But a pure military city generally doesn't need to grow very much between the point where it is working all of its mines, and the later stages of the game when State property comes into play. New tiles that add only one hammer per turn aren't all that critical to your long term results.

Because production bonuses tend to come in blocks of 25%, you'll pay a bit more attention to opportunities to fill out a block of four hammers (it's a lot more important to go from 23 base hammers per turn to 24 than it is to go from 22 base hammers per turn to 23).

(This also leads to weird micromanagement tricks, where you work a grassland farm for 2x turns, then a plains mine for x turns, netting you 4x base hammers that all take advantage of the 25% forge bonus).

 

[SenhorDaGuerra]

cool, i'm gonna try this when i get home from work. see what happens. im finally starting to get to grips with the more intricate game mechanics, and winning on prince nicely these days!!!

thanks for ur help!

 

[bardolph]

easy all,

Regarding production cities, i am fairly good at making a decent military city, pumping out tanks in 1-2 turns on epic speed. i usually have a combination of IW, HE and westpoint.

My main thinking behind improving the value of hammers is to change to state property and change my farms to workshops, though i havent had a chance to test this out. I am fairly reluctant to change terrain improvements because of laziness and lack of understanding of the game. so my micromanagement skills arent very good. I play on prince difficulty. would this assumption on terrain improvement be a good one? or am i missing the point?

any help would be greatful!

ps, i have read the article by VoiceofUnreason about the production megacity, but that is working from late game back. ideally id like to work from ancient era forward!! thanks again.

You can't actually have all 3 of Ironworks, Heroic Epic, and West Point in the same city, since you are limited to only 2 National Wonders per city.

Usually, it's best to combine Heroic Epic and West Point, and use Ironworks for your secondary production city. I often combine Ironworks with the Red Cross, but Hermitage is also good, if you plan to build many wonders and go for Cultural victory.

When it comes to changing tile improvements, you should definitely consider it if it will yield more hammers for your production city. This will depend greatly on the current size of your city, and the number of tiles it is currently working. There's no point in adding hammers if you don't have enough farms to feed your population, for example. However, if you have a food surplus and your city is automatically assigning spies, scientists, and merchants, then perhaps you can workshop/watermill over a farm or two to get higher production. Workshops are pretty good once you hit Guilds, but can be real powerhouses once you get Chemistry, Caste System, and State Property.