Specialization is for Insects

Quite simple. City specialization, by definition, maximizes one aspect in order to maximize the multiplicative bonuses (of buildings etc) and to reduce the number of unrelated buildings.

If a player changes his capitol to a specialized city, either with or without Bureaucracy, and also uses a lot of tiles for hammer generation (with mines, etc), then that is not the best use of city specialization. In fact, this is closer to IAM's "non-specialized" strategy than a specialized strategy.
It's not really that simple. The cottage-spam bureaucracy capital is usually maximized for :commerce: output AFTER the Oxford is already built. Up until then, the capital should still have mines and a few workshops as well as having saved a couple forests specifically for chopping Oxford (bureau hammer bonus is applied to chops). Only after the Oxford is built should the couple workshops be overridden by cottages. Also, I would wait on replacing the mines until an Observatory is built.

That's too simplistic an answer. If a city ONLY needs 3-4 buildings and then it is going to be set to Build Research or Build Wealth, then all that other stuff is not going to give return on the investment.
I didn't see where he said the city would be set to build research or wealth. Also, I'm pretty sure he was just saying that all his cities get those buildings... not ONLY those buildings, but they all get those buildings. I agree it seems closer to IAM's non-spec (given the religious buildings). However, I'm pretty sure most players put a granary and forge in all their cities (most get courthouses, too). Chops/whips/hammer investment make those 3 buildings pretty easy to get. To get a return on these buildings, all one needs to do is grow pop and whip pop. After that, the specialization can commence. With a forge, all you need to do is put workshops/mines down wherever possible. Then the "build" wealth for this city makes a lot of sense. Granary helps city to grow into those mines/workshops quickly while the forge adds to the city's output and the courthouse reduces :gold: lost to maintenance.
 
I was reminded of this thread after I finished watching the latest immortal walkthru vid on youtube. Empire wide cash rush build-up of units was to me an idea incompatible to how i sort of "Specialize" each city in my regular games. Now that I've tried and fully appreciated the ctrl-click buy-all units after massive build up of wealth, I've now moved up to immortal. No game lost thus far, and i play on standard play now settings epic.
 
I was reminded of this thread after I finished watching the latest immortal walkthru vid on youtube. Empire wide cash rush build-up of units was to me an idea incompatible to how i sort of "Specialize" each city in my regular games.

It's not incompatible. It just provides a more noticeable boost to non-specialized civs.
A few turns at 0% slider values will give you the :gold: needed to rush buy units in either specialized or non-specialized empires. Either way, gold rushing is viable.
 
It's not incompatible. It just provides a more noticeable boost to non-specialized civs.
A few turns at 0% slider values will give you the :gold: needed to rush buy units in either specialized or non-specialized empires. Either way, gold rushing is viable.

I mix up my terms. The term specialization, at least in this thread, has not been clearly defined. the way i understood it, cities are individually tailored to do one specific job where they are most suited to by maximizing surrounding tiles, resources and multiplier buildings. This was how I play my games before. Usually ctrl-clicking city bar empire wide rush buying was not optimal because my science, great people cities don't have enough hammers to hold off the price tag for each unit. Despite the fact that these cities contribute substantial coins in the build up of wealth.

With a non-specialized empire, I can direct all my cities with minimal but identical infra for research, commerce and production. Again, the way i attack my games now is awhole lot different from before and the postive results i achieve are unreal. Like I said i've moved up a level and I win a century earlier than games on lower levels with specialized empires.
 
It's not really that simple. The cottage-spam bureaucracy capital is usually maximized for :commerce: output AFTER the Oxford is already built. Up until then, the capital should still have mines and a few workshops as well as having saved a couple forests specifically for chopping Oxford (bureau hammer bonus is applied to chops). Only after the Oxford is built should the couple workshops be overridden by cottages. Also, I would wait on replacing the mines until an Observatory is built.
Yes, clearly that's the way to do it. But the alternative is to put Oxford in a city with NO hills and max cottages.

So, put it in your capitol with less commerce income but Bureau +50%, or elsewhere with more raw commerce income AND you can run Vassalage or Free Speech.

I didn't see where he said the city would be set to build research or wealth.
He didn't. I said that.

Also, I'm pretty sure he was just saying that all his cities get those buildings... not ONLY those buildings, but they all get those buildings.
I must not have been clear... I'm talking about the specialized case, not the non-specialized case.

This is the specialized case, and specifically the Oxford :science: specialized city.

ABigCivFan said that, even in his Oxford city, he makes a bunch of other stuff such as "AP buildings". I would suggest that those are unnecessary builds in a truly specialized empire. Worst case you need a temple for happiness, but there are a zillion other sources for happiness.

I agree it seems closer to IAM's non-spec (given the religious buildings). However, I'm pretty sure most players put a granary and forge in all their cities (most get courthouses, too). Chops/whips/hammer investment make those 3 buildings pretty easy to get. To get a return on these buildings, all one needs to do is grow pop and whip pop.
Granary has a pretty high return on investment. Of the whole list, I would agree it's the most easy to justify including it on specialized cities. Forge, courthouse etc become harder to justify.

Your statements that they are "easy to get" does not really have bearing. Ease, speed, or other facility of production does not mean it's a good idea.

It's purely a cost:benefit decision. The choice is spend X resources (whether those resources are chop, whip, or whatever) to get Y benefit, compared to spending W resources to get Z benefit (which could include, for example, having a Library some # of turns earlier than you would otherwise because you're chopping a Forge first, and also has to include the option to Build Research/Wealth for some # of turns).
 
With a non-specialized empire, I can direct all my cities with minimal but identical infra for research, commerce and production. Again, the way i attack my games now is awhole lot different from before and the postive results i achieve are unreal. Like I said i've moved up a level and I win a century earlier than games on lower levels with specialized empires.

Without a doubt, the non-specialized empire strategy can do some things that specialized can't. You can create a standard "build order" queue to load up on each and every city. You can Ctrl- and Alt- click to do some really powerful empire-wide actions. You can churn out units really quickly when you research a key military tech. And so on.

That still doesn't mean it's better than the specialized city strategy. There are equally powerful benefits there. Such as having a powerful military city capable of churning out 1 unit / turn each with > 20 starting XP. Such as having a powerful Oxford city which generates 500 :science: per turn. Such as having a powerful Wall Street city which provides enough money to fund all your expenses for your whole empire, enabling you to run at 100% science.
 
Now I'm really confused. Does non-specialization preclude one from building oxford, ironworks, wall street and other national wonders? If so, I guess I've been playng a specialized strat all along. But I had to build these national wonders somewhere, usually where it makes most sense. So building any of these wonders mean specialization? or building them on certain cities and not elsewhere make it specialization?

I suppose strictly speaking one could build national wonders anywhere in a non-specialized empire but that flies in the face of the fact of having a capital where if one switches to bureaucracy, the benefits are clearly substantial. So national wonders go there where it makes most sense. Or again, is specialization just a disingenuous term for sensible play?
 
I mix up my terms. The term specialization, at least in this thread, has not been clearly defined. the way i understood it, cities are individually tailored to do one specific job where they are most suited to by maximizing surrounding tiles, resources and multiplier buildings. This was how I play my games before. Usually ctrl-clicking city bar empire wide rush buying was not optimal because my science, great people cities don't have enough hammers to hold off the price tag for each unit. Despite the fact that these cities contribute substantial coins in the build up of wealth.

With a non-specialized empire, I can direct all my cities with minimal but identical infra for research, commerce and production. Again, the way i attack my games now is awhole lot different from before and the postive results i achieve are unreal. Like I said i've moved up a level and I win a century earlier than games on lower levels with specialized empires.
Sorry, but this argument is simply stupid ( no ofense to the poster, just for the argument ). Basically you're saying that a non-specialized empire acts better under global controls, like mass $rush than a more diferentiated empire ... and so what? That comes with the definition, you know... and worse, it iseems that you're implying that a GPP farm can't $rush with the same efficiency than a any other city, that, as I suppose you know, is simply false ( as long as you have the cash, that is )
 
Sorry, but this argument is simply stupid ( no ofense to the poster, just for the argument ). Basically you're saying that a non-specialized empire acts better under global controls, like mass $rush than a more diferentiated empire ... and so what? That comes with the definition, you know... and worse, it iseems that you're implying that a GPP farm can't $rush with the same efficiency than a any other city, that, as I suppose you know, is simply false ( as long as you have the cash, that is )

I am not merely implying that GPP farms can't rush buy with the same efficiency because that's exactly what I am saying at least judging from the way I play.

The global controls may come off as one shallow argument to you but the fact that I can zoom out for a whole view of my empire, manage it with high level of control just by accessing the city bars, assigning empire-wide orders are things not just for convenience but are part of a strat that helps me win easy. I don't have to check each city, manage my tiles, build exclusive and different infra for each city, rebuild my BFC, assign specific great person points, etc. I don't need to label cities with cute names like hammer/military or academy/oxford city.

Really I am not saying that global controls work differently with either non-/specialized strats because as you say, that's just stupid. As if mouse clicks and hotkeys mean a world of difference to any strategy in a turn-based game like civ.
 
Now I'm really confused. Does non-specialization preclude one from building oxford, ironworks, wall street and other national wonders? If so, I guess I've been playng a specialized strat all along. But I had to build these national wonders somewhere, usually where it makes most sense. So building any of these wonders mean specialization? or building them on certain cities and not elsewhere make it specialization?

I suppose strictly speaking one could build national wonders anywhere in a non-specialized empire but that flies in the face of the fact of having a capital where if one switches to bureaucracy, the benefits are clearly substantial. So national wonders go there where it makes most sense. Or again, is specialization just a disingenuous term for sensible play?

In my mind a non-specialization doesn't preclude wonders but it definitely changes the dynamics for them. The cost:benefit calcuation is different. In some cases, the cost:benefit may be worsened to the point where it is advisable to never build them, yes.
 
I am not merely implying that GPP farms can't rush buy with the same efficiency because that's exactly what I am saying at least judging from the way I play.
Then you are saying nonsense. The 3 :gold: / 1 :hammers: is city independent. OFC that the ammount of hammers you need to rush will discount the already banked ones and , as I suppose by your speech, you are smart enough to let pass the first turn to a avoid the 50% penalty for rush in the 1st turn ... Those two combined make that you need to spend more $ to rush in the cities that banked less hammers in the units during the 1st turn of build, but only because you have more hammers to $rush. GPP farms ( and pure cottage cities with little towns and no levee/dike ) are very hammer poor most of the times, so I guess that is from where you got that idea.

The rest of your post... well, you are saying that you can think better in a global view and that , for you ,does not bode well with specializing cities. Ok, for you then, not specializing might help, but that is only because of your limitations: a lot of players ( i can include myself there ) can understand what a city is specialized for just by a look on what tiles the city working ( and that is extremly easy if you turn on the tile output overlay combined with the resource overlay ) and for those, not specializing does not help and most likely will even hinder the efforts to make a decent game.
 
That's too simplistic an answer. If a city ONLY needs 3-4 buildings and then it is going to be set to Build Research or Build Wealth, then all that other stuff is not going to give return on the investment.

As I said, I think you're closer to IAM's non-specialized strategy than to the specialized strategy. You're really talking about a hybrid.

Seems to me your idea of "specializing" a city is to build a Granary, library and then leave it building wealth all game!? lol
 
Way huge argument thread, couldn't read it all to find out if anyone suggested this:

The Law of Comparative Advantage

With that said, there is a balance to be achieved between specialization and redundancy.
 
The global controls may come off as one shallow argument to you but the fact that I can zoom out for a whole view of my empire, manage it with high level of control just by accessing the city bars, assigning empire-wide orders are things not just for convenience but are part of a strat that helps me win easy. I don't have to check each city, manage my tiles, build exclusive and different infra for each city, rebuild my BFC, assign specific great person points, etc. I don't need to label cities with cute names like hammer/military or academy/oxford city.

You should try pressing F1 sometime, it gives you way more info (and better organized) than the globe view. Considerably better with BUG, even better still with BULL.
 
Seems to me your idea of "specializing" a city is to build a Granary, library and then leave it building wealth all game!? lol
:science: cities: Library, University, Observatory. Others are based upon cost:benefit decision.

You laugh but you have it right. The base concept of city specialization is to get out of the habit which so many of us have, which is to build everything in all cities. If we can't take a serious look at the return provided by a building, and compare to the cost (and opportunity cost), then we're not specializing... we're just blindly making stuff.
 
:science: cities: Library, University, Observatory. Others are based upon cost:benefit decision.

So you dont build Granary or Any hammer boosting buildings in your :science: city? :eek:
So when you fight a war and slider goes to 0, this city will contribute nothing??

Hammers are extremely important to EVERY city, you build the hammer buildings early, so that when better city improvements (university,observatory, lab) become available, you can get them build faster. And during war, your :science: cities can at least build spies and contribute to your empire.

When the games are tight, there is nothing wrong with having lib/uni/obs And mkt/groc/bank in you top commerce city because they significantly boost both the :science: and :commerce: output of that city when slider is in the middle.

And when you only have the luxury to build 6 cities, you need hammers in every city so you can unlock those powerful national wonders.

Specialize but be flexible, build things that you NEED. there is nothing wrong to build Markets/Grocery in your large production cities to raise happy/health cap so they can become even more powerful. After all, they can get those things build quickly anyway.

Edit: A small suggestion for you: build AP buildings in your ":science:" cities. They cost 150 :hammers: on normal speed, but with a forge/Oranized religion, they give 6 :hammers:/turn for builds or 5:hammers: on everything else. You get your investment back very quickly. And then you can leave that city building wealth..
 
So you dont build Granary or Any hammer boosting buildings in your :science: city? :eek:
Why would the city need :hammers: if it doesn't need to make anything the rest of the game?

And, I said Granary is probably the most advantageous. If only because it lets the city grow in size slightly faster (and thus work more tiles faster). But, if happiness goes up 1 at a time and the city can keep pace, even a Granary isn't necessary.

So when you fight a war and slider goes to 0, this city will contribute nothing??
If fighting a war requires slamming the :science: slider to 0, doesn't that indicate a lack of preparedness on the part of the player?

Or, that the player doesn't have enough :gold: specialized cities (which itself indicates a lack of preparedness).

(In any event, a cottage :science: specialized city will always contribute base :commerce:, so it will never be literally "nothing". And, a specialist :science: specialized city will always contribute the same base :science:, regardless of the :science: slider.)

Hammers are extremely important to EVERY city, you build the hammer buildings early, so that when better city improvements (university,observatory, lab) become available, you can get them build faster.
What's wrong with chopping, whipping, or cash production? There's nothing faster than any of those. In fact, they're quite a bit faster than working mines, so your implication is exactly wrong.

And during war, your :science: cities can at least build spies and contribute to your empire.
Why in the world build units in a city with no :hammers:? We can crank them out in a :hammers: specialized city with no problem at all.

The only time I can think this would be useful is, again, if the player was unprepared and needed the production queue capacity.

Production queue capacity is the ONE big disadvantage of city specializations. We don't want to churn out units in :science: cities... we want to make them in :hammers: cities, and especially in cities with Heroic Epic etc.

But that's inherent in the strategy. If you don't like that limitation, then play with the non-specialized strategy, or play with a hybrid (with Forges and mines in :science: specialized cities).

When the games are tight, there is nothing wrong with having lib/uni/obs And mkt/groc/bank in you top commerce city because they significantly boost both the :science: and :commerce: output of that city when slider is in the middle.
You're assuming the empire is a CE. When, in fact, it's much easier to do city specialization with a SE for the precise reason you mention.

City specialization can be done with a CE, but what ends up happening in my experience is that any :gold: specialized cities tend to the GP farm or secondary farms. i.e., the empire tends to be a a bunch of :science: cities, a bunch of :hammers: cities, and one :gold: city (the GP farm).

And when you only have the luxury to build 6 cities, you need hammers in every city so you can unlock those powerful national wonders.
You're probably talking about just Wall Street and Oxford. We can chop/whip/cash buy those.

Forests are the best option... after all, what else is needed to be chopped there? The City only needs 3-4 buildings if it can skip a Forge, AP buildings, and the rest of the non-essential stuff.

Specialize but be flexible, build things that you NEED. there is nothing wrong to build Markets/Grocery in your large production cities to raise happy/health cap so they can become even more powerful. After all, they can get those things build quickly anyway.
I don't have a problem with that. After all, the opportunity cost to crank out a market in a :hammers: city is extremely low. See above where I mentioned a cost:benefit decision before making a building.

But regardless there's also nothing wrong with using the culture slider to solve all happy problems, or simply conquering more resources.
 
Edit: A small suggestion for you: build AP buildings in your ":science:" cities. They cost 150 :hammers: on normal speed
140, by my count

but with a forge/Oranized religion, they give 6 :hammers:/turn for builds or 5:hammers: on everything else. You get your investment back very quickly. And then you can leave that city building wealth..

So, now I need a Forge to make AP buildings? That's three buildings that don't contribute to the city specialization (:science:). So now we're talking a total of 260 :hammers:. Building :science: or :gold: will take 84 turns just to break even, plus that's 84 turns I wasn't making :science: or :gold: which requires another ~20 turns. In addition, we paid from chop or whip to make those 260 :hammers:. Yes, the alternative is to spend the same chop/whip on Lib/Univ/Obs plus maybe Oxford, but the alternative is your suggestion which is to spend 75-100 turns building Oxford the long way (at 6 :hammers: per turn plus a mine or two). Which is a lost +100% :science: which could be as much as 14,000 :science:, plus we're working mines instead of cottages or specialists so that's as much as another 2,000 :science: per mine worked.

Are you still sure it's a good idea? Don't you at least want to do the math and prove it to yourself?
 
Why would the city need :hammers: if it doesn't need to make anything the rest of the game?

I thought you want your :science: city to build wealth, with AP buildings, 4 base hammer = 4 more gold/turn, is it that hard to understand this math? 140/4=35 turns you make your investment back (without a forge). And you dont think I whip my cities? do you know that Forge makes whipping/chopping 25% more efficient? and with added base hammer, you will be able to whip faster and with fewer pop. Base hammer only enhance whatever you are Already doing to build things.

But, if happiness goes up 1 at a time and the city can keep pace, even a Granary isn't necessary.

lol. How about build a granary and build warriors and run HR so your cities can get to size 20 100 turns faster? (warning no exact math here but hope you get the idea)
 
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=352705, here's the link to TMIT's writeup of the latest civ video walkthru. Although he says specialization exists in the strat, it is but a token attempt to at least rice gpp and maximize hammers. nothing more. He won in that game. And a win is a win. Noone should be made to justify or defend a legit victory no matter the manner in which it is achieved.

@r_rolo1, again, i am not saying that the game mechanics change once a player opts for a non-specialized empire. the conversion remains the same. the difference lies in the way the player arrives at the results. when stcokpiling ICBMs, my GPP farms usually cannot keep up with production since the way I set it up before makes them hammer inutile but great at producing great people. Even after 5-10 turns, with the ability to produce only 10 hammers every turn, I still have to pay a hefty amnt. Whereas, the way i set up my cities now, the costs are almost uniform and the produciton is incomparably quicker. tell me a hundred icbms in 20 turns is not an edge now.

I like the way I play now. Before, I keep note of each city, babysitting them until they reach their full potential. I can tell at a moments glance which city is which and I build accordingly. But now, I treat almost every city equal, with some form of specialization especially generating enough great people to bulb or ga. Again, I win on a consistent basis on a higher level with better results.
 
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