Question about city specialization - commerce and production cities?

[Divaythsarmour]

I would like to know how important it is to adhere to the recommendations around what buildings to choose/avoid as related to commerce and production cities? And furthermore, when can you stray from those recommendations and why would you do so or not do so?

In Sisiutil's Strategy Guide for Beginners it recommends that you should avoid building factories, barracks and dry docks in commerce cities. And it recommends avoid building libraries, universities and observatiories in production cities.

It occured to me that this "avoid" is something that I've never done. I do prioritize building appropriate types of building for specific city types, i.e. libraries for commerce, forges for production cities etc. But I don't "avoid" anything. In fact I often build libraries in every city (for example) to increase my research early in the game. Perhaps I shouldn't.

I can understand (to some degree) why you would want to avoid building as Sisiutil recommends. One would obviously want to make the most efficient use of each city on each turn. But I figure that there must be many exceptions to this. For example, let's say you have a pure production city. And you've built your granary monument and barracks. And let's say you have lots of military units, so building more would actually harm your economy. Wouldn't you build a library? What would be the harm in it? Is the research from a library in a production city less valuable than the research from a library in a commerce city?

Also, let's say you're further into the game. You have another situation where you have plenty of military units. You've researched banking and have the option of building a bank in a production city. Should you avoid it and choose "research" or "wealth" in your building cue instead? If so, why?

 

[futurehermit]

and health buildings are generally a good idea in all cities.

however, most of the time you will want to adhere to specialization until the late game when there is not much else to build. also late game commerce cities with levees/US can pump out a lot of production and can benefit from the production buildings assuming you can manage the health issues.

in the early-to-mid game there are just too many build options and building the specialized ones first is the best way to go in almost all cases.

in a commerce city where you are working only food and cottage tiles the need for production buildings is obviously low and the need for science/commerce buildings is a lot higher. of course raising the and health limits to grow your city larger is often more powerful than adding a sci/comm building early on.

 

[xanadux]

Basically there should be a reason for each building. Building every building you can just because you can is a mistake.

A key early tech related to this is currency because you can build wealth. For a very low commerce production city, wealth is very strong.

I like to build forges in my commerce cities because it helps them build everything else quicker, and for the extra happy from mining resources. This is especially true for a very high food city that I am using the whip for production, as the forge bonus counts towards the whip. But as for direct building a forge in a low production commerce city, you will get the buildings you really need quicker without it. If you don't have mining happy resources, the forge is not nearly so useful, and should usually not be built. But if you have gold, silver, and gems, they should be a priority.

Libraries and Universities ... If your production city has just enough food to support its mines, you will do much better to build wealth to allow a higher science slider for your commerce cities. But you will want to build them if necessary for oxford. Also, if your production city is fortunate enough to have vast surplus food, a library can occassionally be a good play to run a couple scientists.

Probably more of a mistake than building the wrong buildings in a commerce city is working too many production squares to get the buildings built at the expense of commerce. Working the commerce squares and building the library slower will usually net more beakers in the long run (and definitely in the short run), and since the best production squares are usually food poor, working the commerce squares and eventually whipping the building will usually give more beakers in the end.

As for the later game bank question ... If you really need some for wall street go ahead. But you need to look at what you are going to get for that bank compared to just running wealth. If your science slider is high, you may get very little return. Suppose your science slider is at 80%, running beauracracy with oxford and an academy in your capital which has 80 base commerce (120 with beauracracy). You have a production city producing 40 hammers a turn that could build a bank in 8 turns. This production city, an inland city, has 15 commerce from trade routes and riverside farms. With the science slider at 80%, a bank only contributes 1 gold/turn (20% of 15 is 3, and in civ, 50% of 3 is 1). Now running wealth for those 8 turns gives you 320 gold. It would take 320 turns to break even. But also suppose you can raise the science slider to 90% now because of the extra gold. If the capital had a market and a grocer, that 12 commerce (10% from the slider change), would produce 18 gold. But now that it is going to science, with oxford, academy, library, and university, that is 200% ... producing 36 beakers. You are getting an extra 18 beakers+gold per turn in the capital alone. So now you aren't just getting 40 gold/turn from running wealth, you are getting 40 gold and 18 beakers. The game will be over before that bank pays for those 8 turns of running wealth. And you get the benefit immediately. Certainly 4-500 extra beakers over 8 turns is worth a lot more than 1 gpt.

When you are running an economy fueled by a cottaged oxford capital, wealth is far better than research for a production city. Your wealth is paying for running more science in your capital, and as shown above, you multiply the wealth from one city with beakers in another.

 

[slobberinbear]

The short answer: ask yourself if the building is really necessary. Many buildaholics simply build out of habit, even when a worker, settler, or military unit would make more sense. Don't skimp on units just so that you can build every building in every city.

 

[Divaythsarmour]

As for the later game bank question ... If you really need some for wall street go ahead. But you need to look at what you are going to get for that bank compared to just running wealth. If your science slider is high, you may get very little return. Suppose your science slider is at 80%, running beauracracy with oxford and an academy in your capital which has 80 base commerce (120 with beauracracy). You have a production city producing 40 hammers a turn that could build a bank in 8 turns. This production city, an inland city, has 15 commerce from trade routes and riverside farms. With the science slider at 80%, a bank only contributes 1 gold/turn (20% of 15 is 3, and in civ, 50% of 3 is 1). Now running wealth for those 8 turns gives you 320 gold. It would take 320 turns to break even. But also suppose you can raise the science slider to 90% now because of the extra gold. If the capital had a market and a grocer, that 12 commerce (10% from the slider change), would produce 18 gold. But now that it is going to science, with oxford, academy, library, and university, that is 200% ... producing 36 beakers. You are getting an extra 18 beakers+gold per turn in the capital alone. So now you aren't just getting 40 gold/turn from running wealth, you are getting 40 gold and 18 beakers. The game will be over before that bank pays for those 8 turns of running wealth. And you get the benefit immediately. Certainly 4-500 extra beakers over 8 turns is worth a lot more than 1 gpt.

Xanadu,
Thank You! I understand your answer. It's extremely helful to me.

 

[DaveMcW]

And let's say you have lots of military units, so building more would actually harm your economy.

If you ever get into this situation, it means you don't have enough commerce cities. The easiest way to solve this is use the military units to capture some cities.

 

[Tennyson]

A key early tech related to this is currency because you can build wealth. For a very low commerce production city, wealth is very strong.

Building wealth is a mistake. It is not multiplied by commerce buildings (since wealth is not commerce). If your wealth is used to upgrade a unit or rush a building, each gold is worth a third of a hammer. So you've managed to convert a full hammer into a third of a hammer. It's much better for your lax production cities to build siege units or new city defenders. Even building missionaries or spies is better than building wealth. Or turn the citizens from miners into specialists until you need to build something important.

 

[LlamaCat]

another thing to think about is the fact that to get certain National Wonders, you are required to build X number of buildings. Oxford University requires building universities (and universities can't be built until you build a library!), Globe Theater requires theaters, religious catedrals require X number of temples.

so if you only have X number of cities but you desperately need something like Oxford, that might be another strong reason to have certain buildings in every city.

 

[axident]

They are just guidelines not rules. You generally want to rotate out. For instance, say you have 3 production cities. At any time, 2 of them should be cranking units while the third builds a building. When that something is done, it starts making a unit while one of the other cities makes a building.

Thanks to trade routes, representation, a gold mine, or something else, prod cities often have a fair amount of commerce and/or beakers going on, so it's often worthwhile to build libraries there. Markets for +happiness too, plus grocer/supermarket to cope with unhealthiness and get the +1 food bonus from supermarkets.

Also I frequently have factories even in commerce cities, as it takes a lot of hammers to get Supermarkets and Airports and such. Late game commerce cities basically have everything short of Barracks and Drydocks.

Production cities:

Starting:
granary, barracks

Early:
granary, barracks, forge

Early-mid:
granary, barracks, forge, library, market, harbor

Mid:

granary, barracks, forge, library, market, harbor, grocer

Late-mid:

granary, barracks, forge, library, market, harbor, grocer, aqueduct, observatory

Lat:
granary, barracks, forge, library, market, harbor, grocer, aqueduct, observatory, university, supermarket, airport, factory, industrial park, and any health-boosters if necessary such as public transit and especially recyc center

Also add levees if available. Prod cities should also have temples/monasteries/cathedrals to get the +2 hammer bonus from AP. Comm cities can also benefit, if you have Spiral and/or Uni of Sank. Both benefit from Sistine and in fact I prefer putting prod cities at my borders as they can quickly generate lots of culture by converting hammers to monuments, libraries, and a wide array of religious buildings, freeing up my commerce cities to slowly build up. Plus, if a prod city gets attacked, it's easy to rebuild pillaged farms, but it's not fun trying to rebuild towns around a border commerce city that gets attacked/pillaged.

 

[Divaythsarmour]

Building wealth is a mistake. It is not multiplied by commerce buildings (since wealth is not commerce). If your wealth is used to upgrade a unit or rush a building, each gold is worth a third of a hammer. So you've managed to convert a full hammer into a third of a hammer.

I'm going to assume that you're right about that. That would obviously be a bad return. But what about the concept of using the hammers to produce wealth which is used to purchase more research vs. using the hammers to produce a bank?

 

[Tennyson]

Seconding factories; they are almost always a good idea.

 

[Tennyson]

I'm going to assume that you're right about that. That would obviously be a bad return. But what about the concept of using the hammers to produce wealth which is used to purchase more research vs. using the hammers to produce a bank?

Well, you can build research instead. I haven't run the numbers to see what each beaker costs if you purchase it from the AI, but I'd be surprised if it was 1:1. So building research is better than building wealth I suspect. But in that case I would just take two citizens off of mines and make them scientists - more, if possible. Turning them into spies is also handy, since you can't build espionage (oh, if only Communism allowed you to build Espionage) - and under representation you get research as well.

If I had a production-oriented city that wasn't building units or key buildings (walls, castles, barracks, stables, wonders, courthouses, etc) for more than one or two technologies, I would consider converting it to something besides production. Heck, if I don't need any more units, then it's time to go to war anyway, and start making replacements for those who fall in battle.

edit: Also, if you're not working the entire fat cross, consider cottaging a few of the tiles and switching from hammers to cottages if you want money. Eventually you'll make more money from those tiles than from converting hammers - and that gold is multiplied by your markets and banks. I just consider cottages as commerce mines and use them the way I would regular mines.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Well, you can build research instead. I haven't run the numbers to see what each beaker costs if you purchase it from the AI, but I'd be surprised if it was 1:1. So building research is better than building wealth I suspect.

Most folks who have looked into this reached the opposite conclusion, based on the notion that d[research]/d[commerce] is higher than d[wealth]/d[commerce] in most circumstances that come up in actual play, so building wealth and bumping up the research slider gives a higher return than building research directly.

 

[kjnoren]

Building wealth is a mistake. It is not multiplied by commerce buildings (since wealth is not commerce).

There are very few commerce-multiplying buildings. The palace is, but only under the bureaucracy civic. The harbor multiplies commerce, but only such commerce that comes from trade routes.

Banks, markets, grocers et c multiply gold, some of which come from specialists or special buildings (especially shrines) but usually from the research/wealth/culture slider, that divides commerce. The gold-generating properties of priests and shrines is also why gold-multiplying buildings are a good idea in holy cities.

 

[xanadux]

You shouldn't just disregard wealth as a mistake. There are times when it is the right play, though I admit that to be somewhat uncommon.

My answer may have seemed to be advocating using wealth, but it was just answering a question, and showing that even the inefficient wealth option is better than building a bank in some cities.

If you can use some military, that is obviously a better option, and usually you can use some more military. But sometimes you don't need military, don't need spies, workers, settlers, missionaries, or anything else you can build.

You could be in a completely safe military position, and be waiting for a key tech to build more advanced units. You might have just built a massive military force, and need to keep the economy afloat for a few turns until you lose 2/3 of them in an attack. Specialists or switching to commerce tiles is an option, but not always a better option.

You could have a city that is stagnating in food working all it's grasland hill mines, with no unworked tiles that allow more food, and no way to work more commerce squares allowing more commerce than just building wealth. This may not be common, but it does happen. Sometimes later in the game, my commerce cities run wealth because they have built every building they can, my 2 military cities are producing plenty at a unit a turn with level 4 upgrades, and I would rather bump the science slider up a bit and get another key tech a few turns earlier than build some crappy level 2 units.

Wealth is far from a default play, and most games I never use it, but it is not a mistake to run wealth.

Just for something to think about, it's also not a mistake to use citizen specialists (you know, the ones that only give you 1 hammer). My first ever emperor win, citizen specialists were absolutely vital to the victory at one point. Now that's something I've only done once, but very few things in this game are always a mistake.