Specialize or generalize?

[swmaniac]

Simple question, is it a better strategy to specialize or generalize your cities/tiles?
Assume that specialized cities would be designed such that they have a high output of something relevent for your strategy
for tech., for diplo. and for cultural.
Or useful in general
, , etc.
Or is it better to take more of a general direction and make cities medium producers of as much as possible?

Same thing for tiles.
Is it better to mine a hill for 0 and 4 , or farm for 2 and 2 ?
Is it better to build a trading post on grasslands for 2 and 2 , or a farm for 4 ?

 

[DaveMcW]

Yes.

 

[swmaniac]

Yes.

Both?

 

[Tabarnak]

I think it's better to specialize(all) if you want to finish a game at high levels(immortal-deity) or beat the game as fast as possible(finish date). If you don't have fun doing this, just play from what you feel.

You are right about gold--->diplo, etc.

Edit : I voted generalize tiles because i mostly play multiplayer.

 

[Smote]

specialize tiles is better with higher worker count(5+ workers). generalize is better with lower worker count (2-3 workers). Cities must be micromanaged for there to be any difference at all.

Cities should always be specialized. Otherwise they waste upkeep. IE build a forge in one city and build lots of ground military. Build a harbor in another city and build lots of boats. Build science and gold buildings in the capital, to synergize with monarchy, national college, and palace.

Generalizing cities usually means lack of forethought, which is bad.

 

[swmaniac]

specialize tiles is better with higher worker count(5+ workers). generalize is better with lower worker count (2-3 workers).

How many cities in that example empire?

 

[grandad1982]

I voted for all of them. Why?

Well. Some cities will be gear towards certain outcomes, i.e. max gold or production, and to achive tis you need to specialize your tiles. Other times a city maybe a good at a couple of things, i.e. it has lots of food so can be a good sci/gp farm but can also work a lot of no/low food production tiles if needed to, in this case generalised tiles work best!

In general I try to specialize though.

 

[Smote]

swmaniac, 2-4 cities

A lot of times for me, its 2 cities then 2 more, and I frequently get 5 workers for the first two before re-expanding, then giving 3-4 workers to the new cities. I usually play France (quick landed elite) and care a lot about growing my cities and production quickly, which allows this amount of workers to be proper, rather than over-saturated.

I do 1city NC -> 4 city if I want to tech fast, 2city late NC -> 4city for balance/safety, 4city -> very late NC for production fast, ~7-8ish city No NC for high aggression (goal is dom b4 anyone gets artillery, and preferably b4 anyone gets riflemen). This strategy will always be unhappy, but won't care because it isn't trying to grow

 

[Fluxx]

To be very honost there is no concrete answer for this.
In civ 4 I would have answered to you specialize first, but in Civ5 it is different.
This mostly stims off the fact that tile generation is much smaller then in Civ4, and that commerce does not generate science.
The fact that marketplaces generate commerce, and workshops generate hammers makes them valuable for each city.
Watermills + granaries are good for all cities, and stables + forges are worth building now even if you are not planning to build mounted units with them.

Use your general common sense is my best recommendation. There is no straight answer, and I personally prefer lately to build Watermills/Workshops/Stables in all my cities first, before I decide on the other buildings for the simple reason that they seriously trim the building time of all the sequential buildings.

 

[Carnage04]

To some extent the terrain, the nearby rival civs, and the difficulty level you are playing at will dictate for you what is best to do. If the terrain is all hills/plains and other low food tiles, you are going to have to build some farms on those hills or you won't be able to grow cities. If you are playing on Immortal or Deity difficulties, you absolutely have to specialize or you will have a very difficult time winning.

The opportunity cost is pretty obvious (would I be better using these hammers somewhere else) but the maintenance can be a Throw up a Barracks, Armory, Harbor, and Forge in a city that you really aren't going to be producing units with (and is connected via land trade route already) and you have 8 GPT going to waste (not to mention the hammers getting the buildings up!) 8GPT over a 300 or so turn game is 2400 gold! You can do quite a bit with that amount of money.

 

[lilnev]

You should specialize your cities for hammer production. The sad truth is that cities can't compete with Scholasticism and RAs for science; or with Cultural CSs for culture; or with resource sales, puppets and wars (selling captured cities) for gold. So use them for the only thing they're actually good at: producing units.

(Yes, you should build a Monastery when you have Wine, and a Market in a city with multiple luxuries, etc. But that's about as far as you should stray from your focus on hammers and happiness buildings. The exception is the capital, which can produce enough science to matter thanks to the NC and large pop, and actually wants a University, maybe even a Public School.)

 

[Civsassin]

specialization in CiV is an interesting animal. To take advantage of the National Wonders, you have to have the prerequisite building in each city you own prior to building it in your city of choice. With that in mind, I wind up with markets, libraries, monuments, colliseums, workshops, and universities in all of my cities. Even if I NC start, I will typically still build libraries, so I can get universities and Oxford University. I will typically focus my city's production, but true specialization like that of CiIV I haven't had much success with.

I often don't even build banks in many of my cities once I get a few puppets up and operating, since puppets are commonly set to gold focus.

Since I play on Immortal, I have to focus ALL of my cities on science production to keep up with the AI.

I will typically focus about three on strong production, although all of them get a cadre of production buildings.