towns vs farms

[CoZe]

ok here's an easy one. In my current game I'm quite good on cash, I'm running %100 science, and I still get +45 every turn since I have founded all three religions on my continent, and all shrines are located on a single city. And this city doesn't have the wall street yet.

But I'm seriously lagging behind in science eventhough I push all scientist specialists (this is an emperor game btw). So I now ask, should I destroy my towns and build some farms to run more scientists ? will this bring more science or should I stick to towns ?

 

[Desert-Fox]

Specialist economy works well with farms, not towns. Each dude eats 2 food but cottages do not make it. I guess your cities are very small if you use scientists. Also with emperor I think you have to trade, trade, trade... conquer, conquer, conquer...

 

[Nestorius]

Stick to towns if you already have them. Build more of them, too.

 

[Priah]

Im assuming that your empire is extremly small (100 percent research slider, suggests you have a compact military and relatively light civic costs). Im also assuming that your 3 shrine city is your capitol, tho it doesn't matter. Regardless, in a situation where you have a really small empire, you should almost always run beuracracy. And bureaucracy requires a cottage city (the +50 percent bonus does not apply to scientists).

 

[CoZe]

yes, my empire is small, I like to stay tight and push science. I was ahead of everyone till modern age, but they caught up, and since they're bigger, I can't cope with them really ... Most of the game I was only 4 cities. The shrine city is not the capitol, its my second city. As you might imagine, I got awesome culture, and I'm pushing my neighbors with free speech in hopes to flip some cities (though seems unlikely for now). I squeezed 4 more cities to the empty space inside my cultural borders to be able to build the national wonders.

now, Bureaucracy sounds cool, but I really like the %100 culture of free speech. Hmm really at a loss here. Actually now I counted I have only 6 towns (in all my cities). rest is fams and lumbermills. I have a compact military, but it's adequate to keep mongers away (monty is here) but he hasn't been able to DoW on me and got vassalised by zara yaqob so my continent kind of feels safe now. I wonder if I can steal a space race from here but seems difficult ...

 

[Molybdeus]

Four cities is simply not enough to keep up with everyone. You will usually need at least eight to ten.

 

[Supr49er]

Four cities is simply not enough to keep up with everyone. You will usually need at least eight to ten.

But you don't have to build that many. Build four and capture the rest.

 

[Polobo]

What kind of victory are you attempting?
What is the map size?

Also, the culture from free speech is nice but definitely a blunt-force instrument. Normally not all of your cities need the culture boost and those that do have the Hermitage, Broadcast Towers, and Cathedrals to work with in addition to culture producers. You can even run artists if you really need to secure some tiles.

6 towns total is pretty weak if you are in free religion instead of bureaucracy.

You may want to consider a specialist driven culture victory since most likely your capital and shrine cities already have a high total culture. Focus on building the multiplier buildings (and stick to free religion once they are up, and caste system) and then run artists under representation.

 

[joncnunn]

Also if you decide to go for cultural victory, and get GP allowing cultural corps, found them in Wall Street and spread to your top 3 cultural cities.

 

[MrBrown]

If you have a method of generating wealth directly (instead of commerce), then it's probably better to run cottages instead of specialists. This is because you can then turn 100% of that commerce to science, while the wealth generated pays for your upkeep. It's not that hard to run a 10+ city empire (depending on the map size and all) while still keeping the slider at 100%.

The best way to do this is to have one city that generates the wealth, and cottage the rest (+any production capability you need for your army). Shrines are obviously one method to generate wealth; so are great merchants and prophets (settle them in your wealth city).

 

[Mik1984]

yes, my empire is small, I like to stay tight and push science. I was ahead of everyone till modern age, but they caught up, and since they're bigger, I can't cope with them really ... Most of the game I was only 4 cities. The shrine city is not the capitol, its my second city. As you might imagine, I got awesome culture, and I'm pushing my neighbors with free speech in hopes to flip some cities (though seems unlikely for now). I squeezed 4 more cities to the empty space inside my cultural borders to be able to build the national wonders.

now, Bureaucracy sounds cool, but I really like the %100 culture of free speech. Hmm really at a loss here. Actually now I counted I have only 6 towns (in all my cities). rest is fams and lumbermills. I have a compact military, but it's adequate to keep mongers away (monty is here) but he hasn't been able to DoW on me and got vassalised by zara yaqob so my continent kind of feels safe now. I wonder if I can steal a space race from here but seems difficult ...

You forgot to kick @ss. Go and do some conquest.

 

[CoZe]

yes, I should have done that. I should have taken on the weak siting bull before he capitalised to zara yaqob. now it seems too late ...

OTOH, I'm back in the tech race thanks to wars on my and other continent, and a 48 turn golden age. Actually I even stole broadway and pentagon from zara yaqob by some czrefully planned spy actions to his cities (ok I had to reload and target his wonder building cities).

I built some farms, and my cities are 20'ish now thanks to biology and it seems I can compete with the AI.