Tips on City Specialization

[Skallagrimson]

So my stab:

Commerce: These cities are trying to maximize commerce through trade routes, cottages and calender resources. Production is often low. Growth can also be low since no farms.

One city should be the target Science City. This city will get library, University, etc with its hammers. It will prolly also get an Academy and maybe settled great Scientist. It will get Oxford as a national wonder. DONT waste hammers here building a barracks, drydock etc.

The next kind of Commerce city will be a Gold City. This city will plan on getting Wall Steet, market, Grocer, and Bank. Holy Shrined Cities and Corporate HQ's are good gold cities.

Non-specialized Commerce Cities. These cities priorities depend on where your science slider is going to be for most of the game. A small compact empire with low city maintence will have a high science slider and should emphasize beaker mulitipliers (library, univer, observatory) will a huge sprawling empire where the slider is at 10-20% would likely recieve a larger benefit from markets and grocers.

Commerce cities are often developed with one or two farms for early food surplus and then the rest is typically cottaged. Windmills are ok in hills here as you usually cant afford too many food deficit tiles.

World wonders are not usually done in high commerce cities due to low hammers.

Anyone wanna take a stab at different kind of Production Cities (Military, Navy, Spaceship, Workshop etc) and Specialist cities?

I take a more hybridized approach to buildings due to the 8 copies of many different ones required to build basic national wonders.

Building by building:

Library: gets your border-pop without having to build a monument; required for university; 8 universities required for Oxford; can flip scientists with excess food. BUILD EVERYWHERE.

Granary: health, growth. Any questions? Build everywhere.

Barracks: in the event of a national emergency all cities much pull their military weight. We prefer commerce cities not to have to do so, but sometimes Monty won't give us a choice in the matter. Build everywhere.

Aquaduct: health, growth. Build everywhere.

Forge: 8 needed for Iron Works. Build everywhere EXCEPT particularly low-hammers commerce cities on floodplains. But if you're at 8 cites build there too and just gag on the pollution.

Colosseum: happy cap. Build where needed if not in HR.

Monasteries: culture, science. Build in commerce cities only.

Temples: happy cap. Build where needed if not in HR.

Cathedral-types (stupa, academy, etc.): culture at high hammer cost. Build only at very strategic points in a cultural war zones.

Marketplace: Required for banks. 8 banks required for Wall Street. Build in the top 8 gold earners.

Grocer: gold, health from some resources. Build where the health is needed, and in gold farms.

Bank: 8 needed for WS. Build in top 8 gold earners.

University: 8 needed for OU. Build in top 8 beaker earners.

Observatory: needed for laboratory. Science boost. If going for space race, build everywhere. Otherwise, limit to science cities.

Airport: +3XP for air units. Build in air unit pumps (the less productive of production cities).

Broadcast tower: +50% culture, happies from hits, cha trait. Build along borders if you miss Eiffel; or where happies needed (if you have the hits or are charismatic).

Bunker: -50% damage from air units. TBH, I never build this anywhere.

Castle: +1 culture, +25% EP, +1 TR, -25% pre-cannon bombard damage. Build along borders and in Scotland Yard city.

Coal plant: power. Build wherever you build a factory.

Courthouse: +2 EP, -50% city maintenance, can flip spy. Build everywhere except cap-type cities (cap, forbidden p, versailles)

Customs house: +100% commerce from overseas foreign t/r. Build in all coastal cities if you have those t/r to maximize.

Drydock: Ships +4 XP, ships build 50% faster. Build in all high-prod coastal cities (especially Moai and I usually pick a high-prod coastal city for HE and WP so that my navy can be 1337).

Factory: +25% hammers (+50% w/power). Build in prod cities.

Harbor: +50% t/r yield, health from seafood. All coastals, obviously.

Hospital: health. Build where needed (which is usually about 2/3 of the cities in the late game).

Hydro plant: power. Replace coal plants with these where and when you can.

Industrial Park: flip engineers. I usually only build this in my National Forest due to the +2 base unhealth and +1 unhealth each from coal and oil.

Intelligence Agency: +8 EP, +50% EP, flip 2 spies. Build everywhere. Yesterday.

Jail: -25% WW. Build everywhere for warmongering games.

Laboratory: +25% beakers, +50% SS production. For space strategies, build everywhere. Otherwise, science cities only.

Levee: +1 hammer on all river tiles. Build where you can.

Lighthouse: build in all coastal cities.

Monument: build only if you haven't researched writing yet.

Public Transportation: health. Build where needed.

Recycling center: health. Build where needed.

Scotland yard: build where you settled your first spy.

Security bureau: +50% espionage protection, +8 EP. Build everywhere.

Stable: +2XP for horses. Pick one unit pump to be a cav pump and build it there.

Supermarket: +1 food, health from meats. Build where needed.

Theatre: culture. Happies from cha, dye. Build on borders and where needed.

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If you're like me, you might prefer to just make hot key queues of the basic builds (one for prod, one for commerce, including coastal buildings which will just not be included when called up inland). Add the others manually where needed (e.g., border culture buildings, etc.)

 

[cripp7]

I still build a courthouse in the capital about mid-game, capital still has maintenance

 

[Skallagrimson]

I'll admit that I do too as soon as the anti-building purists look the other way.

 

[Joshua368]

Once the capital's maitenance starts to reach around 5 gold or so I'll usually plop a courthouse down.

Also kind of silly you say to build aqueducts everywhere. You certainly don't need them if your city's health is signifigantly higher than its happy cap. Most of my cities don't get them until after coal plants, simply because health isn't an issue.

And finally I'm pretty sure you do not need marketplaces to build banks. I certainly don't bother building eight of them... and feel free to build the oxford libraries/universities and wall street banks in your production cities too, not just your highest science/gold cities. They tend to finish them faster, and you want those powerful national wonders as soon as possible!

 

[slobberinbear]

Once the capital's maitenance starts to reach around 5 gold or so I'll usually plop a courthouse down.

Also kind of silly you say to build aqueducts everywhere. You certainly don't need them if your city's health is signifigantly higher than its happy cap. Most of my cities don't get them until after coal plants, simply because health isn't an issue.

And finally I'm pretty sure you do not need marketplaces to build banks. I certainly don't bother building eight of them... and feel free to build the oxford libraries/universities and wall street banks in your production cities too, not just your highest science/gold cities. They tend to finish them faster, and you want those powerful national wonders as soon as possible!

re: courthouses, I do the same.

re: aqueducts, I think Skallag likes to really abuse Hereditary Rule, in which case the food and health caps matter more than happiness, and aqueducts are necessary.

re: markets, I only build them in my commerce and great person cities, unless I need them for their happiness boost. I find they are one of the more expensive early buildings and take forever for a commerce city to churn out. Better to chop or whip them.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Markets and grocers are to be considered and health buildings respectively and not much else unless you're running the slider low.

Granary is the only building that I'd put in every city no matter what.

I don't put libraries in production cities until much closer to oxford.

Conceivably if you had the right AIs in the game you could just go gold the entire time and buy techs. The hardest thing about running on commerce is that you have two sets of buildings affecting the slider. That the gold ones are attached to /health boosts and therefore more expensive (and other than currency on an awkward tech path) compounds this. Commerce cities ultimately benefit from both and that's pretty annoying.

 

[Nials]

I already knew the basics of city specialization and can tell what a city would be good at once founded, but I always have trouble actually picking the city spots in the first place.

Dotting individual high-yield tiles is certainly a good approach that I might try in my next game.

 

[StrategeryBush]

What do you look for in a GP farm? Obvioulsy food in abundance, but what other features are important?

How much production does it need?

I tend to put the GP farm in a place where other types would not work well, but that usually winds up with a city that has too little production to really build the neccessary buildings.

 

[StrategeryBush]

In addition. When a site, or area, has multiple possible uses which specialzed city types get priority? As per above, my GP farm tends to be pretty low on the totem pole.

 

[QuixotesGhost]

Commerce cities can be plunked pretty much anywhere there's a lot of grassland (coastal preferably tho, for trade routes). Good GP farm and production sites are much harder to come across so they get priority.

 

[Nials]

It also depends on what your empire needs the most at the time and what victory condition you're aiming for. Generally though, I find that good production cities are the hardest to come by. GP farms typically don't require a lot of good tiles - you just want a bunch of high food tiles to work and hopefully you can snag a few hills as well to build the National Epic and other specialist slot buildings. In the early game, the goal is typically to produce as much food as possible by working the least tiles possible - that is, you want high food production for each population point. This enables you to run a lot of specialists sooner. That's the approach I tend to use, anyway.

 

[Single Malt]

Just a few notes on Skallagrimson's list. If you are Charismatic leader, a monument should go everywhere, especially pre HR. Also remember that a monastery is the cheapest culture building available early. In a city that has culture issues with a border the +2 for the amount of hammers can be a tile saver. That's more efficient than any early culture producer, as a library is more expensive. Library is better long term, but for an important, quick, culture battle the monastery wins out.

 

[futurehermit]

In addition. When a site, or area, has multiple possible uses which specialzed city types get priority? As per above, my GP farm tends to be pretty low on the totem pole.

As has been stated, you specialize based on what you need. If you don't have a gp farm or strong production site (future IW or HE city, for e.g.), then you can go for that. I usually focus on thinking about national wonder cities a lot. The rest usually fall into commerce cities or weak production cities if they cannot support enough cottages.

 

[StrategeryBush]

It also depends on what your empire needs the most at the time and what victory condition you're aiming for. Generally though, I find that good production cities are the hardest to come by. GP farms typically don't require a lot of good tiles - you just want a bunch of high food tiles to work and hopefully you can snag a few hills as well to build the National Epic and other specialist slot buildings. In the early game, the goal is typically to produce as much food as possible by working the least tiles possible - that is, you want high food production for each population point. This enables you to run a lot of specialists sooner. That's the approach I tend to use, anyway.

If you have a site that provides 2 irrigated farms, a banana, a cow, 2 sugar and two hills, even I can see that that is a great person farm. In less than optimal circumstances, how little production can you get away with? For that matter, does your best food city just become your GP farm by default, assuming that your options are limited?

I understand that "it depends" is the answer to every question about this game; that is why the game is endlessly replayable. It would be nice to know, for any given question, WHAT it depends on. For example, I am often confronted with a choice between concentrating several quality tiles in a single great city, which leaves some land on the fringes underutilized, or having two lesser cities which better utilize the available land, but which leaves two more average cities. I am getting the notion from the above that, in broad general terms, one might go for the mega-city if it was to be a GP farm or your IW city, but for commerce cities, one would consider going the two city route.

 

[futurehermit]

Focus on great cities as much as possible. How to determine the "as much as possible" takes practice/experience. Having one great IW site can be much, much better than having an average IW site and an average commerce site.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Once the capital's maitenance starts to reach around 5 gold or so I'll usually plop a courthouse down.

Also kind of silly you say to build aqueducts everywhere. You certainly don't need them if your city's health is signifigantly higher than its happy cap. Most of my cities don't get them until after coal plants, simply because health isn't an issue.

I guess I just grow faster than you. Do you build a lot of cities without a major food resource?

And finally I'm pretty sure you do not need marketplaces to build banks. I certainly don't bother building eight of them...

My bad on market being needed for a bank. I think that might have been a Vanilla rule back in the day (or maybe even some weird Civ2 holdover I haven't purged from my brain yet). Their role outside of commerce cities is simply to bump up happy cap, which can sometimes be a better fit for an "extra prod" city during those wars where I don't really need more units.

I don't know about you, but I do ensure I build 8 banks. I like having a Wall Street, don't you?

and feel free to build the oxford libraries/universities and wall street banks in your production cities too, not just your highest science/gold cities. They tend to finish them faster, and you want those powerful national wonders as soon as possible!

Let's hope you also mean Wall Street, especially if you have corporations and/or shrines to add to the economy at maximum benefit.

 

[Joshua368]

I guess I just grow faster than you. Do you build a lot of cities without a major food resource?

I try to avoid that when possible. Most of my cities hang around 14 - 16 for most of the game and then balloon past 20 with biology and corps. Health resources tend to be more abundant than happy plus there's fresh water and forests. Personally I usually prefer grocers to aqueducts as they often give 3 or 4 with cash on the side, but even then only once health becomes a problem which doesn't always happen in most cities.

Granted I will admit that I rarely abuse hereditary rule for maximum happiness (just a little here and there to help with whipping) because I don't like the idea of getting my empire "trapped" in it. That may effect things.

I don't know about you, but I do ensure I build 8 banks. I like having a Wall Street, don't you?

Let's hope you also mean Wall Street, especially if you have corporations and/or shrines to add to the economy at maximum benefit.

Err, I mentioned wall street in the same sentence you quoted. In the other quote I was refering to marketplaces which are a building I don't build too many of.

 

[Ibian]

HR doesnt "trap" anything, its just an easy way to keep growing and it ensures that your troops have at least some use even during peace.

Look at it this way. If you will never have enough happy to switch out of HR, you need it anyway so why wait until much later in the game?

 

[Ibian]

HR doesnt "trap" anything, its just an easy way to keep growing and it ensures that your troops have at least some use even during peace.

Look at it this way. If you will never have enough happy to switch out of HR, you need it anyway so why wait until much later in the game?

 

[QuixotesGhost]

I agree with Joshua, it's easy to fall into the trap of over-relying on Hereditary Rule and being unable to switch out of it once the late game civics roll around. Don't get me wrong, HR is a great blunt-force happiness solution, but you should be constantly looking for ways to reduce your reliance on it so you can switch out of it painlessly.

I often consider HR-abuse to be my happiness solution of last resort. I'd prefer to rely on drama (culture slider is a wash against HR when you consider unit maintenance and is a lot cheaper hammer-wise), or even better on swapping around calendar resources.