Specialist Farms...
- Thread starter nolls
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Whether you populate them with scientists or tax collectors depends on what you need at the moment. Most of mine are usually filled with scientists until the last turn of research, at which time I flip as many of them as I can to tax collectors without losing a turn on the tech. OTOH, if I've just hit a key tech and need money for upgrades, I might just switch them all to tax collectors and shut down research for a few turns.
As to when you build them, just build them in highly-corrupt areas.
As to when you build them, just build them in highly-corrupt areas.
Jokeslayer
Dedicated
As a default, scientists are better than tax collectors because each scientist produces 3 beakers and tax men only produce two gold. Especially, if you have a lot of specialist farms, you can probably generate more gold by having a horde of scientists and then lowering the science slider than you can by having a mix of specialists.
Oooooooooo, thank you for your input Joke and Aabra.
I do have one more question though, is it necessary to switch a highly corrupt town to a specialist farm in the ancient age or should you wait until industrial or modern age? Also do you intentionally build these as opposed to making use of already corrupt cities?
I do have one more question though, is it necessary to switch a highly corrupt town to a specialist farm in the ancient age or should you wait until industrial or modern age? Also do you intentionally build these as opposed to making use of already corrupt cities?
MAS
Deity
I'm in despotism at the start of the game, but will switch out of that. I can't decide where specialist farms will be until I'm in my final government (usually republic)
Imagine ever expanding outward from your capital: the cities further away get more corruption as you continue to expand.
If you get to a point where cities are more than 50% corrupt (outside of despotism) then all cities in the area beyond that are good for specialist farms.
But do keep any possible palace jumps in mind, and the location of the FP. In short: you usually don't start building specialist farms until your core is set up.
Just keep expanding and fill that specialist-area ICS style (meaning: fit as many towns in the land as possible) those towns should build more settlers to make more specialist farms and workers to irrigate and road the tiles between the city centers. (by this time your core should be set to do other things than expansion, so your settler pump will no longer be a settler pump)
For now, all these towns will just contribute the unit support per city and the one uncorrupted commerce each. (and they contriute by building settlers and workers of coursee)
When all the land is settled and irrigated, you can stop building settlers (a bit earlier even) and start growing those cities. Grow them so they can support the maximum amount of specialist.
For a desert town this is just pop 1 so you can set them up right away. For a plains town this is also one, but you may want to grow them to size 6 in preparation for rails. for a grass town this is size 4. (with two specialist)
After rails, plains can support 3 specialist in a size 7 town, but without a river or lake its just 2. and grass can grow to size 5 with 3 specialist. Of course, food bonuses will allow even more, and it may sometimes be worth it to build an aquaduct. This may take 100 turns, but thats OK if you start at it early.
Imagine ever expanding outward from your capital: the cities further away get more corruption as you continue to expand.
If you get to a point where cities are more than 50% corrupt (outside of despotism) then all cities in the area beyond that are good for specialist farms.
But do keep any possible palace jumps in mind, and the location of the FP. In short: you usually don't start building specialist farms until your core is set up.
Just keep expanding and fill that specialist-area ICS style (meaning: fit as many towns in the land as possible) those towns should build more settlers to make more specialist farms and workers to irrigate and road the tiles between the city centers. (by this time your core should be set to do other things than expansion, so your settler pump will no longer be a settler pump)
For now, all these towns will just contribute the unit support per city and the one uncorrupted commerce each. (and they contriute by building settlers and workers of coursee)
When all the land is settled and irrigated, you can stop building settlers (a bit earlier even) and start growing those cities. Grow them so they can support the maximum amount of specialist.
For a desert town this is just pop 1 so you can set them up right away. For a plains town this is also one, but you may want to grow them to size 6 in preparation for rails. for a grass town this is size 4. (with two specialist)
After rails, plains can support 3 specialist in a size 7 town, but without a river or lake its just 2. and grass can grow to size 5 with 3 specialist. Of course, food bonuses will allow even more, and it may sometimes be worth it to build an aquaduct. This may take 100 turns, but thats OK if you start at it early.
That would depend on how fast you expand during the AA. Don't build them based on the era you're in. Build them according to the corruption level. If you're using CA2, you can look at the cities in the "Economy" tab to see what the corruption level of each city is. At some point, your cities will begin to be so corrupt that there's no point in city improvements anymore. That's when you start building specialist farms. If you're expanding so fast in the AA that you wind up with hopelessly corrupt cities, turn them into farms. If you're bumping into the AI before that point and have to fight a few wars, it may be the Medieval before you are ready to plant farms.
Both. Any horribly corrupt cities that I've decided to keep become specialist farms, after I've starved them down, of course. Then I shoehorn more specialist farms into that territory.
Have you read Bede's "The Role of the Specialist Citizen" in the War Academy?
Jokeslayer
Dedicated
I don't usually have any before the mid industrial age, but that's more because of my play style than anything else (I don't tend to expand to the point where I'm getting mass corruption before that point).
An example from my current game: I've just dogpiled the vikings, taking about 70-80 squares of territory, with only 5 cities in. Now I'm churning out settlers to dump in the gaps because the cities are all so corrupt I'm only getting 1 shield and 1 gold. I'll fill the land with CxC placing and make something of it. So it's a bit of both really. The more corrupt an area is, the more cities you should shove into it (also good for unit support).
Thank you for your input guys I really appreciate it 
.
I do have some questions irrelevant to this thread, but I started a new thread a couple days ago pertaining to the question im going to ask. See thread "First Game in a while..." if you would like to help me out more. Lol!
.I do have some questions irrelevant to this thread, but I started a new thread a couple days ago pertaining to the question im going to ask. See thread "First Game in a while..." if you would like to help me out more. Lol!
TheOverseer714
Overseer
Specialist farms really rock when you get Steam Power and can rail. Railings adds more food, so much that sometimes only 2 bonus food tiles support 6 citizens, 4 of them scientists. I have a system where I rename my specialist farms to help keep track of them and make the last turn on a tech easier to flip to taxmen. Here is a picture of a typical Industrial Age specialst farm area:
Here is the domestic advisor list of specialist farms:
I put ^^ in front of the name a specialist farm with more than 6 population, ^ in 6 or below.
I build settlers and workers first, artillery units, and eventually wealth in my farms. I use them in games where I hold alot of territory that is highly corrupt, you only need them where cities are hopelessly corrupt. My rule of thumb is if a city only gets one blue shield. Hope that helps you.
Spoiler :
Here is the domestic advisor list of specialist farms:
Spoiler :
I put ^^ in front of the name a specialist farm with more than 6 population, ^ in 6 or below.
I build settlers and workers first, artillery units, and eventually wealth in my farms. I use them in games where I hold alot of territory that is highly corrupt, you only need them where cities are hopelessly corrupt. My rule of thumb is if a city only gets one blue shield. Hope that helps you.
As many as the town will support. And no, that's about it. Overseer's screenshot shows a lot of large farms. I tend not to have that many, just because I don't build any aques in mine. That means that the only ones that exceed size 6 are already on fresh water. It also means that mine tend to be packed in a little tighter.
TheOverseer714
Overseer
Those large ones were either captured with aqueducts or on rivers, I usually build no infrastructure in farm areas. That same game there were ICS areas too, with mostly small farms. The mountains and desrts were a limiting factor. And to answer Theov, as many specialists as can be supported without starvation. Sometimes it's more others it's less. Desert towns might only have one, but former jungle towns(tropical fruit) can have 4 out of 6 citizens be specialists. I might have to get a picture from a different game to get a more typical setup.
I'm not knocking your farming, Overseer. I don't build any infrastructure in my farms, either, but if you capture a town with an aque, you can't sell the aque, anyway. Might as well put it to good use & grow that farm as large as you can. Here's a picture of some typical farms of mine:
It's a very busy landscape, but you can see that I've got them shoehorned in pretty tight. I still had a little work to get them "tuned" to avoid wasting too much food. They wound up being very productive, though.
Spoiler :
It's a very busy landscape, but you can see that I've got them shoehorned in pretty tight. I still had a little work to get them "tuned" to avoid wasting too much food. They wound up being very productive, though.
Spoiler :
D0NIMATRIX
Full of drivel
Here's a picture of some typical farms of mine:
Spoiler :
It's a very busy landscape, but you can see that I've got them shoehorned in pretty tight. I still had a little work to get them "tuned" to avoid wasting too much food. They wound up being very productive, though.
That must be a b**** to try to conquer!By that point, I owned my whole continent, so I wasn't in any real danger, although the Hittites did land a cavalry unit on my continent at one point . . . .
... and 2 tanks can defend the entire island.
Snarkhunter
Prince
D0NIMATRIX
Full of drivel
But in multiplayer that would be the most war-torn area ever in the event of a war.
That actually gives me an idea for a scenario...
timerover51
Deity
Thanks for an interesting discussion on a different style of play than I use. However, have you determined whether it is more efficient to build that many cities, each costing a settler to build verses building fewer and larger cities yielding the same number of specialists? I can see it in areas where you have conquered the cities and have very limited production. My own preference is to modify the game with most buildings giving some happy faces, so that even at a long distance, I can keep corruption down by WLTK days. I also make sure that there are plenty of luxuries around.
