Tips on Micromanaging Cities?

[Paeanblack]

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.

Hmm, If every specialist generated 1 beaker/gold/culture/hammer per era, that sounds like it would work out nicely. That maxes out at 6 in the Modern era. Having the GP tile improvement generate 2 per era would make them reasonably enticing. You could then bump up the cost of the end-game wonders, projects, and spaceship parts by a decent amount. A few +12 hammer Manufactories in a city would crank out a Stasis Chamber pretty quickly.

The GS still needs a whack with the nerfbat. A 10-turn cooldown timer (like the artist) would curtail many of the worst abuses.

 

[alpaca]

Hmm, If every specialist generated 1 beaker/gold/culture/hammer per era, that sounds like it would work out nicely. That maxes out at 6 in the Modern era. Having the GP tile improvement generate 2 per era would make them reasonably enticing. You could then bump up the cost of the end-game wonders, projects, and spaceship parts by a decent amount. A few +12 hammer Manufactories in a city would crank out a Stasis Chamber pretty quickly.

The GS still needs a whack with the nerfbat. A 10-turn cooldown timer (like the artist) would curtail many of the worst abuses.

6 hammer engineers? I wouldn't have expected such a proposition from you. Tsk.

I would spread some bonuses around in the tech and SP trees rather than make eras even more discontinous, too.

 

[Paeanblack]

6 hammer engineers? I wouldn't have expected such a proposition from you. Tsk.

You really think 1 hammer per era is too much? I was being serious. It makes having infrastructure much more valuable and better represents the urbanization of the 20th century.


Yeah, the Era jumps are a little discontinuous. There are a few ways to deal with that. A few more crosslinks in the tech tree would help. You could even go so far as to make the Era change happen when ALL of the previous techs have been researched, instead of researching one tech in the new era. If your Civilization knows about Dynamite, but doesn't know about Pottery, what Era should you be in?

 

[biohazard72]

Just stepped in to defend merchant specialists a bit - while not better than TP grassland, they are specialists, so if you are running Freedom they provide half unhappiness. If you run hardcore specialist economy (like me), at some point your cities will grow to points where you need specialists to avoid being very unhappy. This situation, combined with a lack of need for science specialists late game after you reach a tech goal (Diplo or Space win), is a situation where merchant specialists are useful. Highly useful even - if you plan ahead and stock many cities with merchants in Markets and Banks, your GPT will skyrocket, allowing a huge loan to be taken out to buy out city-states or buy Spaceship Factories.

 

[alpaca]

You really think 1 hammer per era is too much? I was being serious. It makes having infrastructure much more valuable and better represents the urbanization of the 20th century.


Yeah, the Era jumps are a little discontinuous. There are a few ways to deal with that. A few more crosslinks in the tech tree would help. You could even go so far as to make the Era change happen when ALL of the previous techs have been researched, instead of researching one tech in the new era. If your Civilization knows about Dynamite, but doesn't know about Pottery, what Era should you be in?

6 production is the equivalent of two hill mines, plus you get valuable Great Engineer points. And that is even if you don't have Civil Society and Freedom where the specialist also produces one food and 0.5 happiness. Not to mention 6 hammers are way better than 6 gold or even 6 science in the late game.

 

[LordTC]

What are the most productive cities in the world right now.. how many of them is it because they have quality hill mines? I think its pretty safe to say engineering specialists should outperform working a hill in the modern era.

 

[alpaca]

What are the most productive cities in the world right now.. how many of them is it because they have quality hill mines? I think its pretty safe to say engineering specialists should outperform working a hill in the modern era.

Don't pull a realism argument about this because there's no way to win one. I could just as well argue getting production out of a hill but not out of grassland doesn't make sense at all. What is production, after all? The ability of your people to produce something. In the real world, this is primarily determined by how many people you have and how many other people your farmers can feed. So a hill shouldn't have any production at all, no matter the era. Forests, yes, hills no. Unless there's a special resource maybe.

Now, if we move on to gameplay arguments, it's very interesting to have certain city locations that are better suited for a production city and selecting the best is fun. If you make engineers twice as powerful as hills, you can simply turn every city into a production powerhouse without even breaking a sweat (just build the first building that provides a slot and get the avalanche rolling). That's why I don't like it.

 

[Paeanblack]

Now, if we move on to gameplay arguments, it's very interesting to have certain city locations that are better suited for a production city and selecting the best is fun. If you make engineers twice as powerful as hills, you can simply turn every city into a production powerhouse without even breaking a sweat (just build the first building that provides a slot and get the avalanche rolling). That's why I don't like it.

Ok, I see the city site selection argument. Civ 5 really does need something to make city placement matter.

What about instead of providing hammer/gold/culture/beakers directly, each Specialist provided a 5%/10%/15%/20%/25%/30% boost to that city's output, depending on era?

 

[alpaca]

Ok, I see the city site selection argument. Civ 5 really does need something to make city placement matter.

What about instead of providing hammer/gold/culture/beakers directly, each Specialist provided a 5%/10%/15%/20%/25%/30% boost to that city's output, depending on era?

Interesting idea, I'm not sure how it would work out to be honest. I don't mind having Engineers boosting production weak city sites a bit, 2 production are actually ok. Maybe they could do both? 2 hammers + 5% production (the percentage could be fixed because base yields grow anyways). This would not automatically turn a grassland city into something that generates a ton of hammers but would help a bit with the +2, and be awesome for production-heavy cities.

Something similar could be done for the other specialists. I really like this as it would give specialists two applications: They are good to make the city stronger if it lacks something (primarily production or culture) and they are useful for cities that focus on a particular yield type already.

 

[fed1943]

Curious thing.
This is a site for players, right? But becomes looking as a site for games makers.

 

[TheNoodle]

It is because many good players also make mods, so game play is very interesting. We never know wich of these ideas may end up in the next version of mega mod, playwith me or even in the next patch . Personnally, I prefer higher ressource yields, and I find it ridiculous that libraries do not increase the science output of academies (the tile improvement you get with a great scientist) . Eventually a mod or a patch will fix that. I can always not ICS if i like, even if I think it's very powerful... Normand

 

[Rathelon]

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

How would you know? Have you tried it? Relying on maritimes for your food is not the best, or only, strategy.

Farms are free. Why spend money keeping maritimes friendly/ally to support your citizens, when you can support them yourself for free? I'd rather use my gold to puchase buildings or units instead of paying off a city state.

Population is key for every city, whether you want science, gold, or production. The more citizens you have, the more tiles you work. And having your own farms producing extra food lets you work the production tiles that cant support themselves, as well as specialists. If you happen to get maritimes, that's just a bonus.

 

[Paeanblack]

How would you know? Have you tried it?

 

[Martin Alvito]

Why spend money keeping maritimes friendly/ally to support your citizens, when you can support them yourself for free?

Time is also a resource. It's inefficient to spend Worker turns building Farms, and it's inefficient to grow via Farms so you can work Mines. Finally, working Farms is Happiness inefficient, and Happiness is the primary early game constraint on growth.

 

[TheNoodle]

All tiles you work are not created equal and city tiles are by far the best ones, 2F2H1G + many SP bonuses, so having many cities (ICS) allow the maximum if these tiles to be worked. It helps if you think of a city as THE BEST POSSIBLE terrain improvement. And since many social policies and maritime city-states give bonuses per city, well the optimal way seems to have many small cities. You can always let one grow bigger for specific puposes...

 

[Rathelon]

Time is also a resource. It's inefficient to spend Worker turns building Farms, and it's inefficient to grow via Farms so you can work Mines. Finally, working Farms is Happiness inefficient, and Happiness is the primary early game constraint on growth.

With the Pyramids and the Liberty social policy, it takes 3 turns to build a farm. How much gold are you going to earn in the early game in 3 turns to pay a CS?

Growing with farms vs growing with maritime food is the same thing. Food is food, no matter where it comes from.

Farms dont create unhappiness, population does. Whether your population grows with your own food, or maritime food, it is going to create unhappiness.

 

[Paeanblack]

Farms are free.

Farms are not free. There is the opportunity cost of not working a mine or a tradepost. There is an even bigger opportunity cost in growing your cities. The happiness needed to support more population could be used more efficiently by supporting a new city instead.

 

[alpaca]

How would you know? Have you tried it? Relying on maritimes for your food is not the best, or only, strategy.

Farms are free. Why spend money keeping maritimes friendly/ally to support your citizens, when you can support them yourself for free? I'd rather use my gold to puchase buildings or units instead of paying off a city state.

Population is key for every city, whether you want science, gold, or production. The more citizens you have, the more tiles you work. And having your own farms producing extra food lets you work the production tiles that cant support themselves, as well as specialists. If you happen to get maritimes, that's just a bonus.

In fact, I even played a game with city states disabled to compare. While getting city state allies is not the only strategy toward getting food that works, it sure is the best. Look at it like this: If you work a farm, you get 2 food for it. If you work a trade post, you get 2 gold for it (assuming both are on grassland and the farms already fertilized/near a river). So working a farm in every city costs you two gold per city per turn. A maritime CS ally provides (in the current patch) +2 food per turn for every city, equivalent to what you get for your farm. But it only costs about 15 gold per turn at the worst to keep happy, so if you have more than 8 cities you make a profit out of it.

In addition to this, maritime allies provide more food in your capital and a free luxury resource.

 

[Martin Alvito]

With the Pyramids and the Liberty social policy, it takes 3 turns to build a farm. How much gold are you going to earn in the early game in 3 turns to pay a CS?

You could have been improving luxuries, building mines or constructing roads during those three turns. If you're on a difficulty where you can consistently build the Pyramids, pretty much any strategy is sustainable. Move up a couple of difficulty levels, and you will get punished for inefficiently building Farms.

Growing with farms vs growing with maritime food is the same thing. Food is food, no matter where it comes from.

Food that is generated by working a tile is less efficient than food that is gifted by a Maritime, because you have to spend Happiness to get the food. That's a killer in the early game, when Happiness is the primary constraint on your empire.

Farms dont create unhappiness, population does. Whether your population grows with your own food, or maritime food, it is going to create unhappiness.

Yes, but if you're working tiles to generate food, you need more citizens to generate the same level of Hammer/Gold output as a player using Maritimes. Therefore, food generated by working tiles is Happiness inefficient.

 

[alpaca]

You could have been improving luxuries, building mines or constructing roads during those three turns. If you're on a difficulty where you can consistently build the Pyramids, pretty much any strategy is sustainable. Move up a couple of difficulty levels, and you will get punished for inefficiently building Farms.

Not that it's impossible to win Deity without maritimes, I gave it a test game without city states at one point with Nappy and it worked. Was certainly harder, but interesting to have to start building Granaries and such (I had a Plains start).