Specialization & Cottage-spam questions

[Corporal Kindel]

Ok, I got a few Civ IV strategy related questions. I’ve played about 15/20 Civ IV games now and won maybe 4 or 5 of them (but the last two I won). Many I lost because of darn barbarians . I find that I usually (now) can do well in the early game, but in the mid to late game my lead-score starts to slowly fall in relation to the AIs. I’m not exactly sure why. I think it’s because I’m not specializing my cities properly. I don’t exactly have a clear cut idea of how I should approach my city development in this period. I’ve read other threads where someone talked about specializing cities (i.e production stuff [forges, barracks] in production cities, commerce stuff [libraries, markets, banks, temples] in commerce cities, and farm stuff [granaries + farms] in GP farm cities). This seems to make sense to me. The only problem is that there is too much overlap with “needed” buildings. What I mean is: you’re going to need courthouses in a lot of cities otherwise your maintenance costs rise excessively. You’re going to need some amount of cultural centers, even if you’re going for a military victory [to expand your borders & prevent cities from flipping] in many cities (temples & theaters). And mostly, it’s been my experience, you need to improve your production .. cities with 11/12 shields (as in cottage spam flood plain cities without hills) simply can’t produce buildings fast enough & you can’t take advantage of the huge commerce generation as a result.

So, it just seems to me that there’s so much overlap that one can’t but avoid building many buildings in many different cities (defeating the purpose of specialization). A forge is a good example. Without a forge, some cities just can’t build fast enough. In fact, I’ve had cottage spam & farm cities in which half my production came from GP priests settling in the production-weak spam-city just to boost production!! That kind of defeats the purpose of GP farms imo. So what buildings are good players building (prioritizing) in order to do a successful specialization in the three city types (GP, commerce-spam, and production)? It just seems like there is too much building overlap needed in order to specialize cities adequately.

I don’t know, maybe I’m not settling in the best possible locations. Generally I try to choose sites with two or more special things (wheat, cows, iron, gold, etc). Usually I can do this with 70/80% (loose estimation) of my cities if my settlers are willing to travel some distance. The problem with this approach is that it drives up the maintenance costs in early-mid to late-mid game excessively ( resulting in weak financial state, which drives down my science slider, and as a result the AI starts to pass me in total score as well as sciences ). I tend to feel that it’s pretty important to build 5 or 6 cities quickly & get them running otherwise the AI starts taking all the good city sites around you (not to mention building wonders). It’s like you need to use them or loose them. So, how does one minimize these maintenance costs & still be able to build a fair amount of cities? Staying within a short distance of the capital isn’t an option, because there’s usually not that many special resources within a short distance of the capital to support 4 or 5 cities .. not to mention that you’re cutting your arm off in the long run in doing that.

Another question I have is about the cottage-spam thing. The problem with it, as I see it, is that it only tends to work in certain city sites ( sites along flood plains or with a few clams, fish, wheat, etc in its radius). Good flood sites along the cost, generally, don’t have good production (they lack hills, maybe just have a couple of woods) resulting in too low production (11 or 12 shields simply doesn’t cut it in the long run). And the inland sites that are good for production (plenty of mines/forests etc) usually need a lot of farms to support all the guys working in the mines (otherwise your city size never gets past 4 or 5). So, I don’t see how one can completely specialize in tile/city development (flood plains usually lack production, and high production sites usually lack enough farms). When one is talking about cottage-spam, how may cottages are we talking about in a good cottage-spam site? (I’m assuming like 50% to 70% cottages in [of] the “fat cross” tiles). And also, how do you boost production in these good cottage-spam sites without chopping half your trees within a 20 tile radius? (it’s a problem not having enough production to take advantage of the high commerce generated in these good spam type sites).

Lastly, the games that I’ve won have generally been by rifleman (one game I actually got infantry, marines and destroyers), cultural victories. Two of the games I won (one by 2032 the other by 1988), I had not gone past rifling & railroad (ramming the culture slider up to 100%). At some point in these games, I was able to be on 100% culture and still have a good positive cash flow. The only problem is, I don’t know exactly how I did it (it was purely by luck). I think it might have been that I had a lot of markets, banks, grocers, etc.. but I don’t really know for sure. So, what are the top income-generating buildings/civics (or anything else) that one needs to insure a positive cash flow with the slider set to 100% science or culture? I figure if I can get to this point earlier in my games it’ll be a great boon (I don’t think I’ve fully exploited the merchant thing, I’ve usually been on close-borders to prevent the AI from moving behind me & settling cities where I don’t want them to). I’m assuming that I need all these buildings (or whatever) in my top commerce-generating cities; the smaller later-built cities don’t seem to matter as much.

There’s still a few thing I need to learn about this game .. like I’m not exactly sure which civics I should be striving for at which times in the game (though I have a much better idea which sciences I need to be researching first now).

 

[Beamup]

And mostly, it’s been my experience, you need to improve your production .. cities with 11/12 shields (as in cottage spam flood plain cities without hills) simply can’t produce buildings fast enough & you can’t take advantage of the huge commerce generation as a result.

Right here is the source of many of your difficulties. You're too focused on building things with hammers. There are much better ways, specifically Slavery. Or Universal Suffrage later on.

So, how does one minimize these maintenance costs & still be able to build a fair amount of cities?

Get your cottages up quickly and expand as far as the treasury will bear. Then once you've rebuilt your economy, repeat the procedure. That's about all you can do until it comes time to conquer the AI's territory.

Another question I have is about the cottage-spam thing. The problem with it, as I see it, is that it only tends to work in certain city sites ( sites along flood plains or with a few clams, fish, wheat, etc in its radius).

10-12 cottages is actually a pretty good commerce city. 5-7 is decent. It sounds like you're expecting too much out of them - you're not going to be getting 15+ unless you're VERY lucky. Such a city is going to be your very best commerce producer, most likely.

So, what are the top income-generating buildings/civics (or anything else) that one needs to insure a positive cash flow with the slider set to 100% science or culture?

SHRINES. Pretty much the only way to run an economy on 0% tax is to make good use of shrine income. Merchant specialists also help, but not enough.

 

[DaveMcW]

You don't need any buildings at all in cottage spammed cities until you get Universal Suffrage. Then you can build as much as you want.

If you have 100% science it means you don't have enough cottage spam cities. Your science rate will drop as you build more cities but your overall beakers will go up once they can support themselves.

 

[Sisiutil]

It sounds like before you get to city specialization you may need to work on city placement.

Food is the most important consideration for a city. Food provides growth and it ensures that you can support the citizens required to work the other tiles, especially production-heavy ones. So if you're going to build a city to take advantage of a production resource or tile (iron, copper, hills), make sure you have good food production within the same fat cross (floodplains and/or grassland, a source of fresh water, and ideally, a food resource).

The inverse is also true, though to a lesser extent. If you have a potential city site with an abundance of food-heavy tiles, try to include at least a couple of hills, or forests, or resource tiles in the fat cross for production. Remember also that a workshop on a grassland tile can provide the same production as a grassland hill mine for most of the game, so if you need to boost production in a GP farm surrounded by grassland, that's a good way to do it.

 

[Elledge]

You have a button that converts 1 food to 2 production whenever you're in slavery, once you have a granary. Use it often!

 

[Pantastic]

(flood plains usually lack production, and high production sites usually lack enough farms).

Like everyone else is saying, you're obviously not using the whip enough; once you learn how effective whipping is, you'll never think of a high food city as a low production city again.

Beyond that, you're taking some of the specialization stuff too literally. "cottage spam" doesn't literally mean 'put a cottage on every space', just that you build a lot of cottages. You're going to want a granary, courthouse, maybe forge and theater or monastary in pretty much every town, but that's pretty quick to whip out. The biggest benefit of specialization comes from things like dedicating 1-2 cities to mostly military units, leaving your commerce cities free to build buildings, not from trying to avoid building anything but +x% science buildings in a science city.

 

[Naastriil]

I pretty much the same problem the Corporal has. Cottages don’t same to work out that much. The only way I make money for 100% research is going for cash cows. Wonders that I now that the AI is building. Capturing cities and selling Tech's. If I have a shire and If my religion is dominant the shire alone helps with the aid of the university of sangalor.

 

[Beamup]

100% research isn't something to be actively sought. It's the overall size of your economy that counts - researching at 80% out of a base of 500 is far superior to researching at 100% out of a base of 200.

It looks nice, but that's all. Instead of explicitly trying for 100% research, you should simply have your research as high as you can afford, and produce as much commerce as you can.

 

[Pantastic]

The only way I make money for 100% research is going for cash cows.

Why do you care about 100% research?

 

[Naastriil]

To not to became a backward civilization and to win the game. I never build a lot of units just enough for me to pass by and conquer a few civ’s on the way

 

[Corporal Kindel]

Right here is the source of many of your difficulties. You're too focused on building things with hammers. There are much better ways, specifically Slavery. Or Universal Suffrage later on.


Get your cottages up quickly and expand as far as the treasury will bear. Then once you've rebuilt your economy, repeat the procedure. That's about all you can do until it comes time to conquer the AI's territory.


10-12 cottages is actually a pretty good commerce city. 5-7 is decent. It sounds like you're expecting too much out of them - you're not going to be getting 15+ unless you're VERY lucky. Such a city is going to be your very best commerce producer, most likely.


SHRINES. Pretty much the only way to run an economy on 0% tax is to make good use of shrine income. Merchant specialists also help, but not enough.

Yep, you were right, I was too focused on hammers. I totally forgot about the slavery-trade-production-for-population thing (I vaguely remember that was available in Civ III). The last game I made a point of using the slavery thing (after getting some granaries) to cash in some population for production, and it worked extremely well. I had my best score yet so far.

I’ve noticed that cottages can significantly increase your research early in the game if used correctly. I think the key is the correct choosing of your early sciences (something like BW-The Wheel-Pottery) in order to maximize your early cottage output (I’ve decided it’s pretty essential to get that BW chop thing going early, otherwise you’ll be behind the curve).

Right, it seems cottages and shrines were the key to winning my last game. I missed out on the three early religions, but I was able to get three of the later religions (Confucian, Islam, Christian). I noticed in that game too, that the open-borders thing has a major impact on both your economy and your relations with bordering Ais (I only had to fight one war).

It sounds like before you get to city specialization you may need to work on city placement.

Food is the most important consideration for a city. Food provides growth and it ensures that you can support the citizens required to work the other tiles, especially production-heavy ones. So if you're going to build a city to take advantage of a production resource or tile (iron, copper, hills), make sure you have good food production within the same fat cross (floodplains and/or grassland, a source of fresh water, and ideally, a food resource).

The inverse is also true, though to a lesser extent. If you have a potential city site with an abundance of food-heavy tiles, try to include at least a couple of hills, or forests, or resource tiles in the fat cross for production. Remember also that a workshop on a grassland tile can provide the same production as a grassland hill mine for most of the game, so if you need to boost production in a GP farm surrounded by grassland, that's a good way to do it.

This is another very important thing. Deciding exactly where to place your first few cities is critical imo. Once you have five or six, the later cities don’t seem to matter as much. But, those first three or four are very important to be placed strategically. I try to maximize food, production, and have special resources, but usually some or the other are missing. A lot of time there seems to be great resources (gold) in hills out in the desert, so it’s almost pointless to build a city when you have 5 or 6 desert tiles, because that totally stifles your growth. Also, it seems that many times I have to choose between two or more resources and a good flood plain tile (for example). I still haven’t 100% figured out what the best choices are in these situations, but I think I’m getting better at it.

Right, I made a point of building a workshop this past game (which I never used before) and that worked out well for me in one of my cities. I also, later in the game, created windmills over several mine Location when the city size was starting to become red due to lack of food, that worked out good as well.

I’ve noticed that the AI don’t necessarily have the same misgiving about building cities in tundra/ice, and they’ll typically try to go out of their way to squeeze cities in your borderlands & little slivers of land between you cultural-borders (which is irritating), but I’ve been able to gain anywhere from 2 to 4 cities from cultural-flip in my winning games, so that’s helped a lot in that regard.

Like everyone else is saying, you're obviously not using the whip enough; once you learn how effective whipping is, you'll never think of a high food city as a low production city again.

Beyond that, you're taking some of the specialization stuff too literally. "cottage spam" doesn't literally mean 'put a cottage on every space', just that you build a lot of cottages. You're going to want a granary, courthouse, maybe forge and theater or monastary in pretty much every town, but that's pretty quick to whip out. The biggest benefit of specialization comes from things like dedicating 1-2 cities to mostly military units, leaving your commerce cities free to build buildings, not from trying to avoid building anything but +x% science buildings in a science city.

Right, whipping helps a lot as I’ve learned now. The specialization thing is a little more difficult, usually I don’t want to dedicate any cities to military, but it’s something that just needs to be done. In the past game that I won well, I had two strong production cities (both with wonders, forges, etc) and they kind of switched off building military & other stuff. Also I’ve noticed that when cities (any cities) have gotten a halfway decent production level, it doesn’t take much to build a macemen, musketeer, riflemen, etc (maybe just 4 to 6 turns), and sometimes they can add their own military to their city to get up to a good 3-5 units per city level.

It seems to me that the most important city decisions take place in early to mid game. Usually, by mid game I can tell if I’m going to win the game or not. It’s just the decisions related to those first 3 to 5 cities ( where to build them, what to build in them, what sciences to research at what times [which dictates what’s available to build in the city], etc ) are the most crucial decisions in the game, and those decisions will determine if you win or loose.

 

[Elrohir]

To not to became a backward civilization and to win the game. I never build a lot of units just enough for me to pass by and conquer a few civ’s on the way

But to do that you don't need to have the slider at 100% all the time. Just think about it: 75% of 1000 commerce is 750 beakers, and better than 100% of 500 beakers. If you focus more on simply generating more commerce, that's usually enough, and the percentage of commerce you can devote to research while staying in the green (Or black) will go up on it's own.

Don't worry about the science slider dropping significantly, especially in the early game. Build a lot of cottages, spread the religion that you have the shrine of (And if you don't have a holy city, capture one or hurry to a tech that will give you a religion) and just keep at it. You'll gradually become better at it.

 

[Pantastic]

Right, whipping helps a lot as I’ve learned now. The specialization thing is a little more difficult, usually I don’t want to dedicate any cities to military, but it’s something that just needs to be done. In the past game that I won well, I had two strong production cities (both with wonders, forges, etc) and they kind of switched off building military & other stuff.

Yes, absolutely make one production city a military city. You might need units from other cities in an emergency, but letting just one city pump them out makes things a lot easier. It's especially good in WL since you can attach warlords in just one place for veteran units.

Also, remember that you don't neccesarily have to use the 'standard' cities; normally a military city would be one with a lot of hills and food to run them, where you build HE and later WP and a GP farm is a high food city where you run a lot of specialists and have NE + GT for a high pop. But you can do variants; often my highest production city will build NE and most of my GPPs will come from wonders (especially nice to do with your capital running beurocracy). You can get some scary military production by combining HE and GT in a high food city and just whipping away.

If I have 2 production cities, especially as an industrius civ, I'll dedicate one to wonders + NE and one to military, usually either picking the capital for wonders or moving my capital to the wonder city.

 

[Pantastic]

To not to became a backward civilization and to win the game.

So what does that have to do with running at 100% science? How fast you research techs is determined by how many beakers you make, not by how high your science slider is set. A tiny empire running 100% science is often going to be advancing slower than a large empire running at 60-80%. Generally if my science slider is above 60% and I'm making money, I take it as a sign that it's time to annex some more land.

 

[Naastriil]

But to do that you don't need to have the slider at 100% all the time. Just think about it: 75% of 1000 commerce is 750 beakers, and better than 100% of 500 beakers. If you focus more on simply generating more commerce, that's usually enough, and the percentage of commerce you can devote to research while staying in the green (Or black) will go up on it's own.

Don't worry about the science slider dropping significantly, especially in the early game. Build a lot of cottages, spread the religion that you have the shrine of (And if you don't have a holy city, capture one or hurry to a tech that will give you a religion) and just keep at it. You'll gradually become better at it.

Hey Dude Thanks for the Tip.

I think my problem and most of people who are complaining about is we are trying to play CIV 4 as we played CIV 3 or 2 where that was the only way. But with cottages and improved specialist it is a whole diffrent ball game.

Expansion and building money making building generate more than science producing buildings. I tried %80 science and won my first Price game with space victory and built all wonders in the world with 2 major faiths.

 

[Cort Haus]

I think my problem and most of people who are complaining about is we are trying to play CIV 4 as we played CIV 3 or 2 where that was the only way. But with cottages and improved specialist it is a whole diffrent ball game.

This is very true. In Civ 3 we just spammed roads everywhere and commerce was 'for free'. Now we have to sacrifice something for commerce, and also sacrifice something for specialists and GPs.

 

[Corporal Kindel]

Yes, absolutely make one production city a military city. You might need units from other cities in an emergency, but letting just one city pump them out makes things a lot easier. It's especially good in WL since you can attach warlords in just one place for veteran units.

Also, remember that you don't neccesarily have to use the 'standard' cities; normally a military city would be one with a lot of hills and food to run them, where you build HE and later WP and a GP farm is a high food city where you run a lot of specialists and have NE + GT for a high pop. But you can do variants; often my highest production city will build NE and most of my GPPs will come from wonders (especially nice to do with your capital running beurocracy). You can get some scary military production by combining HE and GT in a high food city and just whipping away.

If I have 2 production cities, especially as an industrius civ, I'll dedicate one to wonders + NE and one to military, usually either picking the capital for wonders or moving my capital to the wonder city.

The current game I’ve been playing I’ve made a serious effort to specialize my cities. I turned my capital into a GP farm, since I chopped down so many trees at the beginning of the game to pump out workers & settlers early (I got lucky and had two hills, one with gold, so my production was not totally negligible later in the game, plus I “whipped” a lot of early stuff like library, forge, barracks, etc). It seemed to work very well. I was somehow able to build the Parthenon (without an AI building it first) in this city & later on the National Epic. So, I was able to churn out 113 GP points at some point in the game with a philosophical leader [Elizabeth] on Pacifism (I was able to support 4 specialists and still be in the green). I recently got Biology, so the added food from my farms enabled two more specialists. I’m about to go through and “re-work” a couple of tiles (one mine will become a windmill, and I think I had one town, which I’m debating turning into a farm). The extra GP points were incredible, and I’ve been able to churn out GP like hot potatoes. I was able to build two or three wonders with GPE, several Academies with GPS, and several GP priests (founded three religions & three shrines) & artists.

I don’t think, though, that it’s realistic to be able to support more than 7 or 8 specialists in a city, even with biology & all farm tiles in the “fat cross”, assuming only two hills, woods, or workshop tiles (to get some minimal production), unless there’s something I’m unaware of? It also seems quite difficult to me to “choose” which specialists are running. There’s only a certain amount of specialists in each type that can be made of any one type (that the game allows), again unless there’s something I’m unaware of? If anyone is able to churn out significantly more than 120 to 150 GP points in a city, I’d like to know how they’re doing it?

As far as the military specialization, I was able to do pretty much just like you suggested. My 2nd city was a production center ( many hills, woods, three flood plains, a few plains & grasslands ). I built a couple of wonders & other things, but mainly It’s been churning out military with a barracks. Probably 80% of all my military units were produced in this one city. The only problem is, getting the Heroic Epic (one unit with four promotions) is not that easy. My first barbarian warrior was sent out as a scout, and was able to get three promotions ( two woodsman & one combat ). As I was making his way back home, he was attack by a barbarian warrior (though I was able to fortify behind a river) and somehow got killed, which really pissed me off .

I haven’t quite figured out the odds thing in Civ IV yet. I know about the right-click drag thing, but many times I’ve attacked when the odds were well in my favor and still lost (even lost attacking catapults with swordsman). I’ve generally been able to do best defending. So, I think the best method of attacking in Civ IV is to defend, then when your opponent is exhausted, attack ( a.k.a. Russian strategy at Kursk ). Hence, I tend to fortify a lot of guys on forested hills, woods, hills, behind rivers, etc (definitely strategic Locations). Sometimes the AI does very stupid things; One game Tokugawa attacked me via Naval Invasion with swordsman & catapults when I had redcoats & canons. I decided to use the AI strategy, and sent destroyers to blow up his fishing boats (I passed on the full-invasion option .. too many resources and time better devoted to building other things).

I haven’t gone for a military victory yet (the one game I decided to attack, I got slaughtered). I’m still trying to better understand the basic specifics of specialization, spamming, and city-site choosing down (since this is the “heart” of the game & imo decides if you win or loose), though I’m definitely getting better at it.

 

[Naastriil]

I haven’t quite figured out the odds thing in Civ IV yet.

Same I lost battles with 99.99% on winning and won battles with 5%. But one thing I have understood is, if your 1 unit can attack and other unit the computer rolls all the dices before the turn and it is fixed. I had super hero generals die on turn on the same until but win on the next turn. When I skiped the turn and attacked later.

So I save a lot.

 

[yavoon]

Same I lost battles with 99.99% on winning and won battles with 5%. But one thing I have understood is, if your 1 unit can attack and other unit the computer rolls all the dices before the turn and it is fixed. I had super hero generals die on turn on the same until but win on the next turn. When I skiped the turn and attacked later.

So I save a lot.

its called cheating the RNG.

 

[Naastriil]

I am pretty new to this forum and I do not know what all the shortenings stand for. Like the RNG?

I just play single player and sometimes some scenarios.