Tips on Micromanaging Cities?

[Roughly 6 Owls]

I'd love to see a guide written about this, but thats a lot of work to ask someone else to do, so maybe once I leech some knowledge off the forum, I'll write one. For now though, I have to get my newbie questions out of the way.

Reading through the Strategy Articles forum, (I know these shouldn't always be taken as gospel) I notice that Trickster7135 sorts cities (Presumably ignoring ICS filler cities) into 3 types. Gold, Production and Great Person production cities. He states that the first will have mostly trading posts and the last will have mostly farms, but doesn't mention terrain in them. (Outside of stating that Gold/Silver resources would be nice in Gold cities, and the GPfarms have fresh water for gardens, and probably early Civil Service food bonuses.)

So, is terrain a mostly trivial consideration in the placement of these cities? Would I take a food resource, say Wheat, over a luxury resource, say Cotton, in the GPfarms workable hexes?

He also states that production cities need the most consideration as far as terrain and placement. Could someone outline what a good production city should have? 5 hills? 6 hills? 8 forests? A river and some flatland for some food surplus tiles? On a similar note, on forested hills, are mines better than lumbermills?

After the actual settling, how should cities operate? When should my production cities stagnate? Should they stagnate at all? What pop. is optimal for a Specialist city?

 

[LordTC]

Most of the food in this game comes from city states so the real consideration is do you want:

(1) A GP Farm with trade posts
(2) A GP Farm with production

Pretty much even your production cities will build a library and work it until they produce one great scientist before largely focusing on just production (often to build the spaceship).

As far as production for military units goes, there is a lot of merit to buying them even though its somewhat inefficient. Namely you can get them in strategic locations, or barring a strategic location you can get them where all your bonuses apply, rather than just in the city that happens to have the hammers. Part of this is tradeposts are much better than mines, giving +4 gold +1 science instead of just +1 hammer, so even with units at around 6 gold per hammer, you're getting a lot of benefits for having only 2/3rds efficiency.. things like being able to combine across cities and being able to build in optimal locations or combine with gold from selling borders/luxuries are a very big deal.

 

[stormerne]

It very much depends both on your favorite strategies and what type of victory you're going for.

The current popularity of ICS-based strategies is testament to terrain not really mattering much in the placement of cities. This is especially true when you have a heavy reliance on MMF (magic maritime city state food). These cities stay small anyway.

One popular popular way of running cities, from the early middle game onward, is to grow gold in your empire in general (TP spam), build wonders in your cities but purchase builds and units.

If you need wonders of course, you need some . If you grow great people from specialist slots, you'll do great for Great Scientists but there's a general paucity of early Great Engineer slots to help with wonders. So you need to bootstrap by building wonders with GE points short-term to get more wonders long-term.

 

[Civsassin]

There are five ways to specialize your cities:
1. Science - lots of food tiles. Next to a mountain if possible to get an observatory.
2. Finance - Lots of food tiles
3. Production - A couple of food tiles + hills and forests
4. Great Person - Lots of food tiles
5. Military - A production type city + open terrain, good vantage point, limited access due to geographical boundries

At the higher levels, you want to focus these cities building priorities to optimize each city to its purpose.

 

[fed1943]

And always when possible rivers for gold and/or food.

 

[Rathelon]

I place my cities near as many resources as possible. As the city grows, I lock citizens on the improved resource tiles (as soon as food allows). Once all specials are being worked, I look at what the city is producing - hammers, gold, or science - and tell the governor to focus on the highest one. The AI governor is good at assigning specialists if you tell him to focus (he'll only assign libraries, univiersities, etc in a science city).

That's a simplified way to look at what I do, because there are always exceptions. And population is key, because high population will lead to higher output in any category. Dont ignore farms and rely on maritimes, because you are hamstringing your potential. Farm every river tile (especially hills), any plains tile, and any desert hill next to fresh water. I dont use mines much except on special resources, since lumbermills or trading posts wind up being better in the long run. A bald hill near a production city will get a mine, but that's usually the only time.

 

[alpaca]

I place my cities near as many resources as possible. As the city grows, I lock citizens on the improved resource tiles (as soon as food allows). Once all specials are being worked, I look at what the city is producing - hammers, gold, or science - and tell the governor to focus on the highest one. The AI governor is good at assigning specialists if you tell him to focus (he'll only assign libraries, univiersities, etc in a science city).

That's a simplified way to look at what I do, because there are always exceptions. And population is key, because high population will lead to higher output in any category. Dont ignore farms and rely on maritimes, because you are hamstringing your potential. Farm every river tile (especially hills), any plains tile, and any desert hill next to fresh water. I dont use mines much except on special resources, since lumbermills or trading posts wind up being better in the long run. A bald hill near a production city will get a mine, but that's usually the only time.

Don't follow this because it's simply not good for this version of the game. Rely on maritimes and use your cities for production. Don't go heavily into farms and trade posts. Build colosseums, libraries and universities in your cities and make them all into GP farms but select a few production cities that will work on getting necessary infrastructure to build spaceship parts and won't run scientists after producing one GS or so

 

[diz2]

There are five ways to specialize your cities:
1. Science - lots of food tiles. Next to a mountain if possible to get an observatory.
2. Finance - Lots of food tiles
3. Production - A couple of food tiles + hills and forests
4. Great Person - Lots of food tiles
5. Military - A production type city + open terrain, good vantage point, limited access due to geographical boundries

At the higher levels, you want to focus these cities building priorities to optimize each city to its purpose.

I think I really only do 2 kinds.

1) Production
2) Science/gold

A science/gold city will get only buildings in the science/gold lines (+ a monument and colliseum, probably). Pop is generally going to be limited to what it takes to fill the science specialist slots plus any additional high value tiles. When I want science, the people go into the specialist slots, when I want gold they come out and work trade posts.

Production cities are obvioulsy based around lots of hills/forests (or even sea resources) and usually get a few farms, granary, etc. because they struggle for pop growth. I might try to pop a wonder in a production city if it seems like a good idea, and they will make all the military as well.

I don't base the "production city" decision on there being a set number of hills or forests. I probably take my best 5 or 6 cities in that regard, with some consideration to minimizing the railroads needed to connect them. Generally, you know one when you see one. If you're not sure, build the science/gold buildings and decide later.

I am a little skeptical a "great person city" is worth the investment, but confess I have never tried to make one. I get a lot of Great Scientists as it is, and they seem to be the most useful.

Of course, it should go with out saying that I am not playing a cultural strategy.

 

[alpaca]

I think I really only do 2 kinds.

1) Production
2) Science/gold

A science/gold city will get only buildings in the science/gold lines (+ a monument and colliseum, probably). Pop is generally going to be limited to what it takes to fill the science specialist slots plus any additional high value tiles. When I want science, the people go into the specialist slots, when I want gold they come out and work trade posts.

Production cities are obvioulsy based around lots of hills/forests (or even sea resources) and usually get a few farms, granary, etc. because they struggle for pop growth. I might try to pop a wonder in a production city if it seems like a good idea, and they will make all the military as well.

I don't base the "production city" decision on there being a set number of hills or forests. I probably take my best 5 or 6 cities in that regard, with some consideration to minimizing the railroads needed to connect them. Generally, you know one when you see one. If you're not sure, build the science/gold buildings and decide later.

I am a little skeptical a "great person city" is worth the investment, but confess I have never tried to make one. I get a lot of Great Scientists as it is, and they seem to be the most useful.

Of course, it should go with out saying that I am not playing a cultural strategy.

Due to pools being split but cost increases combined for the different GP types, I would stay away from a GP mill like you built in Civ4. Except for maybe an odd Great Engineer to help build Apollo you don't want anything but Great Scientists, and letting a city get other specialists in a signifant measure will just increase the cost for your next GS. And if you don't get a GP for it, it's a complete waste of great person points.

This is, by the way, why I don't like the current implementation of Great Person mechanics. They should either have sticked to the Civ4 system of getting a random GP or go for a complete separation of the different GP types (I would prefer the latter but it would require nerfing Golden Ages from GP)

 

[cman2010]

I think I really only do 2 kinds.

1) Production
2) Science/gold

A science/gold city will get only buildings in the science/gold lines (+ a monument and colliseum, probably). Pop is generally going to be limited to what it takes to fill the science specialist slots plus any additional high value tiles. When I want science, the people go into the specialist slots, when I want gold they come out and work trade posts.

Production cities are obvioulsy based around lots of hills/forests (or even sea resources) and usually get a few farms, granary, etc. because they struggle for pop growth. I might try to pop a wonder in a production city if it seems like a good idea, and they will make all the military as well.

I don't base the "production city" decision on there being a set number of hills or forests. I probably take my best 5 or 6 cities in that regard, with some consideration to minimizing the railroads needed to connect them. Generally, you know one when you see one. If you're not sure, build the science/gold buildings and decide later.

I am a little skeptical a "great person city" is worth the investment, but confess I have never tried to make one. I get a lot of Great Scientists as it is, and they seem to be the most useful.
Of course, it should go with out saying that I am not playing a cultural strategy.

This is what im woundering in my last few games where I implimented a slight ics stratgy I found that I was able to get plenty of great scientist and they seem the most valuable to me, aside from a great enginer what is the point in a gp only city?

 

[biohazard72]

Don't follow this because it's simply not good for this version of the game. Rely on maritimes and use your cities for production. Don't go heavily into farms and trade posts. Build colosseums, libraries and universities in your cities and make them all into GP farms but select a few production cities that will work on getting necessary infrastructure to build spaceship parts and won't run scientists after producing one GS or so.

This is very correct, even if not going space - the tech advantage this play gives applies to all win conditions but culture.

To go further, build Markets and Banks to gold focus your cities as you approach your tech goal - usually Globalization, Nanotechnology, or Nuclear Fusion. Switch over the scientists for merchants if happiness requires it (Freedom), otherwise work trade posts. Use the extra commerce for buying Spaceship Factories/City States/Giant Death Robots.

A note on how I approach tile improvements:

1. Roads
2. Mines/Lumbermills
3. Riverside farms (post CS)
4. Trade posts

Trade routes should keep your economy afloat, so roads are key to build quickly. Production for building things, food for growth/specialists. Gold is the least useful early, as your economy should stay afloat without working TPs as you build vital infrastructure.

 

[diz2]

This is very correct, even if not going space - the tech advantage this play gives applies to all win conditions but culture.

To go further, build Markets and Banks to gold focus your cities as you approach your tech goal - usually Globalization, Nanotechnology, or Nuclear Fusion. Switch over the scientists for merchants if happiness requires it (Freedom), otherwise work trade posts.

This is more or less how I use what I described as my science/gold city.

The typical one of these cities will produce (in rough order) colliseum/library/monument/market/university/bank/stock exchange/wealth. Library amd colliseum might reverse in order if the happiness bank is good. Sometimes there's no point in stock exchange either as the end of game is near and they take 50+ turns to build. Maybe I also build a circus if it is available, or a good UB. The point is to keep building maintenance to a minimum, crank the science, maintain the ability to produce a lot of gold when the time comes.

Early in the game the focus tends to be all on science, so the specialist spots are filled. Late in the game when most of the desiered research is done, switch to max gold. Sometimes a little tweaking between science and gold in the middle - to pay maintenance during a military build-up for example.

These cities probably have 4 to 6 people. I like to work the real high value squares and will allow growth to do it. I usually mine every hill, put a lumber mill in every forrest, put a TP on the river tiles first, but eventually everywhere, except for maybe a farm or two as insurance. I tend to improve tiles that I know I will seldom use just because they give flexibility for needed food or hammers in a pinch and the worker is around without much important to do.

If I am ICSing a little less I might keep building the science line - observatories, public schools and research labs to get vertical science growth. (All the more reason for a few mines and mills.) With ICS there is no point to these advanced buildings. Given the multiple high science/low hammers cities I have going, the tech tree is finished before they will contribute much.

 

[Martin Alvito]

All cities are production cities early on. Specialist buildings require a lot of Hammers to bring online, and every city needs a Colosseum.

Once you have specialist buildings up, you want the cities that can tile share the most Mines and Lumber Mills to be the producers of expensive items such as Wonders and spaceship parts. Those cities should be grown as large as possible. The remaining specialist cities can be frozen at size 4 for maximum happiness, or cut off at 5-6 if you need them to work tiles to produce units.

Banks and Markets are poor choices for specialists, because you can beat their output (except under Secularism) by working a tile with a Trading Post. Doing that gets you Food and Hammers in addition to Gold, and you'd rather have those than GPP going towards Great Merchant production.

 

[diz2]

All cities are production cities early on. Specialist buildings require a lot of Hammers to bring online, and every city needs a Colosseum.

This is part of why I mine and mill the science/gold cities. They need to produce some hammers before they become effective. But, even then there is often 20 turns+ of waiting involved for a building due to pop cap and specialists, which went against my instincts at first.

Banks and Markets are poor choices for specialists, because you can beat their output (except under Secularism) by working a tile with a Trading Post. Doing that gets you Food and Hammers in addition to Gold, and you'd rather have those than GPP going towards Great Merchant production.

I build the market and bank because a) they have no maintenance and b) when you flip to gold production in TPs they multiply it (plus they multiply whatever other gold you get while in science mode, and there usually is some.) What's the other choice anyway? Wealth? I think the market definitely pays out v. wealth and the bank probably does easily. Stock Exchange, not so much. These cities don't have many hammers so don't get much from producing wealth. Sometimes I may run a specialist in them if I don't have a great tile (generally food is worthless) and I have a social policy that gets the 2 science and/or 1 production from a specialist. Not to get a great merchant because they are not in there long enough.

 

[Paeanblack]

There is also the Mint city. Sometimes you end up with a city that can reach two or three silver/gold tiles. It's usually well worth stealing those tiles from your other cities and building Colosseum/Mint/Market instead of Colosseum/Library/University. That one city will end up supporting the upkeep of two or three CS alliances.

Just watch out for the Mint/Circus/Monastery bug and be careful about the order in which you settle your cities.

 

[harry_flashman]

My least favourite thing about this game is the national wonders. I realise that theyve been implemented in this way to buff up small empires, but I miss picking out an uber science city or uber gold city and choosing where my wonders will go.

 

[Tabarnak]

If you play multiplayer you should focus on getting the most production cities possible.

You need to keep cash from other things than city-states because they don't help you much at defence and offence against the smart humans. That said, production cities rule in mp.

Micro need to be simple. All you need is 4 pop cities who work 2 food tiles and 2 hills tiles. Food tiles like wheat or deer are good. Work 2 tiles of 3f/1h if you can and 2 tiles of only hammers. You get a minimum of 8 hammers and it's enough to spawn units at a good rate. Pre-build them to save some money. I usually save at least 150 gold in a game by doing this. Use this money to upgrade early longsowrdmen or other powerful units.

But you don't want to go bankrupt. You may need one gold city who will keep growing at 7-8-9 pop and more and work gold tiles like trading post and calendar tiles. The capital is a nice city for this because he can have enough hammers to build some interesting buildings to boost gold and science while growing. He's the best to run 2 early scientists to keep science at a good rate.

In conclusion you need to micromanage even in multiplayer to get the little advantage that may decide if this game going to a victory or a big mess. You don't have much time between turns to do some micro but with good knowledge and speed you can do micro for each city in less than 20 sec per turn.

 

[Martin Alvito]

I build the market and bank because a) they have no maintenance and b) when you flip to gold production in TPs they multiply it (plus they multiply whatever other gold you get while in science mode, and there usually is some.)

Gold-focused cities should always have the buildings. It's just that the specialist slots are bad, unless you're running Secularism. As Paeanblack points out, Mints are amazing. I tend to go ahead and slap up the Library and Uni, then build the Mint and Market. You can have your cake and eat it too by putting the Mint city at the front of the GS queue via build order, then taking the specialists out once it does until it grows large enough to work the Silver/Gold and have the specialists.

 

[JanissaryRush]

This is, by the way, why I don't like the current implementation of Great Person mechanics. They should either have sticked to the Civ4 system of getting a random GP or go for a complete separation of the different GP types (I would prefer the latter but it would require nerfing Golden Ages from GP)

When I first heard the concept I thought it was complete separation.

They should adjust GP bonuses, so its not so lopsided. Like great scientists give X amount of research points, depending on what turn number he is built.

 

[diz2]

Gold-focused cities should always have the buildings. It's just that the specialist slots are bad, unless you're running Secularism. As Paeanblack points out, Mints are amazing. I tend to go ahead and slap up the Library and Uni, then build the Mint and Market. You can have your cake and eat it too by putting the Mint city at the front of the GS queue via build order, then taking the specialists out once it does until it grows large enough to work the Silver/Gold and have the specialists.

Yes, there are situational buildings like mints, seaports, harbors, circuses and UBs that I build too but didn't have on my basic core list (library/colliseum/monument/market/uni/bank) I do think a bank is a fairly marginal investment, but probably worth doing before setting the city to wealth.

Maybe where I differ from you is I don't really make gold-focused cities. I think of them as science/gold cities. Once they are up and running they mostly focus on science specialists until such time as gold is needed and then they switch to gold (through reallocation of citizens to TPs primarily) when science is done enough, or gold is temporarily needed.

If there is a really high value tile (e.g., a 4 gold tile) I will let the pop expand enough to work it in both science/gold modes.