Specializing the non specific

[atreas]

In one of my latest games I had the following city position (don't be mistaken by the country flag and city name - this city was the "war reason" between me (Indians) and Persians and a few axes persuaded them to leave it to me).



Now, this city can become whatever you want. Some options:

1. Commerce city: Banana, Rice, and Cow gives the food, Ivory gives some commerce and hammers (to add to those from Cow), and eventually all others become cottages (even including the 3 of the 4 ivory tiles).

2. GP farm: plenty of food to do whatever you want.

3. Production city: with 4 hills around and plenty of food, you can make miracles starting with the 3+2+2+2+2+1=12 hammers.

Still, the point in specialization is to avoid building redundant things - like forges in a cottage city. But here there is nothing that can be called redundant - any building in this city would give you significant profit because this city has EVERYTHING in big quantities. If you are going to build everything, then "specializing" is nothing more that "improving" - no profit from avoiding building, for example, a Forge or Library+University.

So, how would you deal with this situation?

 

[Tomb.]

I would ask myself which kind of city i need now. Then make it this kind.

Do you have a GP Farm? running Low on money? need troops for the next war?

//Tomb.

 

[atreas]

I would ask myself which kind of city i need now. Then make it this kind.

Do you have a GP Farm? running Low on money? need troops for the next war?

//Tomb.

For the moment you can do nothing - the city has just recovered from capture, has no culture, and you haven't Iron Working to clear the jungle (not to mention Calendar for the Banana plantation).

But the question was strategical, not tactical - and refers to a kind of "non existence" of specialization in such a city. Specifically, I want to know opinions about what kind of building can I ommit with profit in SUCH a city.

 

[voek]

I would mix it till the time comes to make it a huge commercial city. The loads of river tiles just ask for it. You can use it as production in it's early days when you have need for it, but i think it would be a commerce for sure.

 

[Andrei_V]

Cottages everywhere, hills included.

 

[atreas]

Cottages everywhere, hills included.

This is definitely bad idea. Even if you plan to make it a "full cottages city" (that was my idea too), it is MUCH better to build first cottages in all the grassland and mines on the hills. Since the city will take a while to grow to a point where it will use all the tiles, and health will definitely be an issue, these hills are THE LAST tiles to be worked (so, the creation of the cottages can be delayed); but in the meantime you never know - maybe you will discover something useful in the mines (I happened to discover 2 coppers!). This small "technical mistake" is very common.

But you still didn't say which building you will not create in the city in question.

 

[Boppo]

I personally do not skip building any particular buildings in Cities. What I will do is priortize them differently based on the cities needs. I would prioritize Research buildings, then Financial buildings and lastly Production. Depending upon the surrounding area and opponents I might throw prioritizing Culture in there as #1.

 

[TCGTRF]

Other than being in the jungle and the down-time that that entails, this is as sweet a spot as I've seen.

I would seriously consider using this city either as the chief science city (building Great Library, Academy and Oxford and using the money to put out beakers by the hundreds,) or going for food on those lovely river plains tiles, using the mined hills to build wonders and making it a Great Person farm to remember.

This is such a great spot that you could literally use it for anything. How do you intend on winning the game? If you adapt it to that end, it should considerably speed you on your way.

Tom

 

[Andrei_V]

This is definitely bad idea.

Never mind, I was just kidding. Of course, you need some mines, not only for discovering copper/ iron etc, but to build some city improvements.

But you still didn't say which building you will not create in the city in question.

Barracks.
Forge is in question - whether you need additional happiness from gold/ silver/ gems.
Factory/ Power Plant. Then you probably won't need Recycling Center either.

 

[Wreck]

the point in specialization is to avoid building redundant things - like forges in a cottage city.

That's a bad example, because forges are often necessary as a happiness building. A clearer example would be "like factories in a cottage city".

But here there is nothing that can be called redundant - any building in this city would give you significant profit because this city has EVERYTHING in big quantities. If you are going to build everything, then "specializing" is nothing more that "improving" - no profit from avoiding building, for example, a Forge or Library+University.

So, how would you deal with this situation?

Isn't the answer clear? Not all cities should be specialized, and this particular city is one of them. I'd build everything.

 

[opensilo]

I think the use of this city could change over the course of the game. Very early, I'd use it for commerce. Once you can clear the jungle, I'd use it as a hybrid to build its infrastructure pop out troops if you are near someone who has desirable city sites . Mid-game and later, assuming you have another production city or two, I actually would make it fully commerce. Until you have the happiness, I'd keep the mines around so as to be able to switch back to war production. Given this, I'd skip late-game production enhancements like the factory.

Had you been philosophical, I would have recommended a GP farm starting after ironworking. If you like/want/need great people, this is probably the place to do it even if you're not philosophical, but unless you run caste system, it'll be late game before you can have the specialist-allowing buildings (hmm--and the happiness resources) to run the 8 or 9 specialists this city can support. I'm assuming you're playing at a high enough level that you won't be building many wonders. At low levels and if you don't care about GP type, build wonders here after ironworking and let the GPs flow

 

[MamboJoel]

I wouldn't make a GP farm out of it. Flood plains are better suited for such spcialization. This clearly is optimized for a commerce city that will have a good production output.
So this city will be able to switch from prod to commerce when needed. The river is excellent here.
So : cottages along the river first. Only one camp on one elephant (if you don't have some yet from another city). Cottage the banana if you allready have some, rice and cow are enough to grow the city.
You were right fighting for it.

 

[bluedevil99]

This is definitely bad idea. Even if you plan to make it a "full cottages city" (that was my idea too), it is MUCH better to build first cottages in all the grassland and mines on the hills. Since the city will take a while to grow to a point where it will use all the tiles, and health will definitely be an issue, these hills are THE LAST tiles to be worked (so, the creation of the cottages can be delayed); but in the meantime you never know - maybe you will discover something useful in the mines (I happened to discover 2 coppers!). This small "technical mistake" is very common.

But you still didn't say which building you will not create in the city in question.

This is a REALLY good point and it's a mistake I made consistently until very recently. "City specialization" does not mean that a particular city should be nothing but cottages/mines/farms from day one. I don't even think the hills necessarily need to be the last tiles to be worked--building mines on hills early can help the city produce a library, granary, etc. to maximize growth and reap maximum benefit when it becomes a commerce center later.

Edit: Wodan makes a terrific point below. I'm not good enough yet on Monarch (much less Emperor) to get pyramids consistently so that angle didn't even occur to me.

 

[Wodan]

Yeah but even that's not always true. Especially if you have Pyramids. If you do, then you're much better off going ahead and putting cottages on those grass hills.

See... you have so much food that you don't really want to work a non-river grassland cottage. You'd much rather have a grass hill cottage. The only difference there is that one food is changed to one hammer. Again: you have food coming out your butt and you're going to max city growth all too soon.

With Pyramids and cottage spamming, you're switching from Representation to Univ Suffrage way early. So, all too soon you have Towns with an extra hammer, and production is not a problem at all.

And, to boot, by having extra commerce (instead of extra production with a Mine), you have tons of cash. Remember you're running Univ Suffrage... Let your builds get a few turns into production and then pay cash to complete.

Wodan

 

[opensilo]

Wodan,

Wouldn't you just want to work the food resources until you got up to max happy pop? Then switch to all grassland cottages except two grassland hill cottages (to use the food that the city center provides). This halts growth until you get more happiness. Then you don't have "too much food" and you've maximized cottage working.

 

[Crighton]

Man thats a sweet spot, definitely worth fighting for. My advice would depend on what you need in your empire, what don't you have currently? then see if doing that will fit the bill for your long term plans

 

[DaveMcW]

Definitely the GP farm, unless you have another city with even more food bonuses.

1. Improve the 3 food bonuses and run some specialists for early GPs.
2. Mine the hills, and build a library and the National Epic.
3. Farm grassland until you hit the health limit.
4. Get Biology and farm everything else.

 

[Wodan]

Wodan,

Wouldn't you just want to work the food resources until you got up to max happy pop? Then switch to all grassland cottages except two grassland hill cottages (to use the food that the city center provides). This halts growth until you get more happiness. Then you don't have "too much food" and you've maximized cottage working.

Depends of course on what the happy pop limit is.

Personally, I'd take full advantage of the river and my first choice would be to work all 10 river tiles. Most likely the city will be able to support a few more peeps than that.

So, the question is where do the 11th-15th citizens go?

Let's assume there's enough happy to support all 15. Compare
A) 1 Banana (which by the way is a river tile) + 4 Hills w/towns
to
B) (I only count 3 unmodified grasslands available) 3 grassland towns + 2 hills w/mines.

Let's see... (A) gives 21 commerce + 8 hammers. (B) gives 15 commerce + 8 hammers.

Someone can check my math, but it seems a pretty obvious choice to me.

Wodan

 

[atreas]

Depends of course on what the happy pop limit is.

Personally, I'd take full advantage of the river and my first choice would be to work all 10 river tiles. Most likely the city will be able to support a few more peeps than that.

So, the question is where do the 11th-15th citizens go?

Let's assume there's enough happy to support all 15. Compare
A) 1 Banana (which by the way is a river tile) + 4 Hills w/towns
to
B) (I only count 3 unmodified grasslands available) 3 grassland towns + 2 hills w/mines.

Let's see... (A) gives 21 commerce + 8 hammers. (B) gives 15 commerce + 8 hammers.

Someone can check my math, but it seems a pretty obvious choice to me.

Wodan

I think that you simplify things too much. For example (to note just one thing that can be debated) by working ALL THE TIME on the banana tile you get extra food earlier, and so eventually you happen to work EARLIER on many of these cottages (turning them into town) than with your strategy on starting first on the grassland river. You also ignore another effect: by using the extra food for pop-rushing you also gain earlier the effects from buildings like libraries, etc. So it is not clear the way to go - but definitely if you go for cottages, in the end they will not be mines around. Don't make the maths only for the end - count also the intermediate steps.

You also misinterpreted another thing (or probably I wasn't clear enough). When I said "mine the hills" I didn't also mean "necessarily work on these tiles". Mining was just a temporary way to "try for a luck" - in some cases I have found Gems, Silver, or Gold in such cities and this is WAY better than wait for Towns (you get the cash immediately). But even working on a mined tile for some turns could have some advantage, in case that it would speed up a critical improvement without the need of pop-rush (i.e., you can see the mined tile as the equivalent of the citizen that you would otherwise lose) - clearly, it is difficult (at least for me) to count precisely the balance.

 

[rddc05]

When I said "mine the hills" I didn't also mean "necessarily work on these tiles". Mining was just a temporary way to "try for a luck" - in some cases I have found Gems, Silver, or Gold in such cities and this is WAY better than wait for Towns (you get the cash immediately).

I'm pretty sure that the random resource pop only checks the worked tiles. I read a thread about it somewhere around here.