Walk me through a quick start on Prince... and the art of city Specialization

[Eddogegr3]

I have just read all the articles within the War Academy and I understand this subject much better... I still have a few questions...

Note: I play on large maps 8+ Civs usually, Epic, Memhed II or Julius.

1) It seems the best thing to do is worker, chop 2nd worker, chop settler. So grow with two cities quickly then put out a third and fourth by 2000 BC. Maybe another 2 or 3 by 0 AD. Good or bad plan?

2) My next question is specializing cities. I understand the principles. I just struggle on the balance of when to put farms in Commerce or Production cities.

3) Also, what is the best way to avoid unhealthy cities, especially when you have lots of Flood plains?

4) I just discovered shopping, but I started to realize I chop too much. When and what should you chop? Workers Settlers and Wonders?
What kind of forests would you NOT want to chop?

5) What do you build in cities that are your commerce cities when there is no building to build (Library, Bank, etc). Units?

6) What is the point having separate Science and Money cities? Can't they just be both? You just put say both a Bank and University?

ANY Feedback would be awesome.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

I have just read all the articles within the War Academy and I understand this subject much better... I still have a few questions...

Note: I play on large maps 8+ Civs usually, Epic, Memhed II or Julius.

1) It seems the best thing to do is worker, chop 2nd worker, chop settler. So grow with two cities quickly then put out a third and fourth by 2000 BC. Maybe another 2 or 3 by 0 AD. Good or bad plan?

2) My next question is specializing cities. I understand the principles. I just struggle on the balance of when to put farms in Commerce or Production cities.

3) Also, what is the best way to avoid unhealthy cities, especially when you have lots of Flood plains?

4) I just discovered chopping, but I started to realize I chop too much. When and what should you chop? Workers Settlers and Wonders?
What kind of forests would you NOT want to chop?

ANY Feedback would be awesome.

I play monarch, but I'll try!

1. That works well.

2. Generally farm goes first for me. If your workers are not done with high food tiles, you don't want to build a mine or cottage that is going to just sit there unworked.

3. The best way? No clue. You can trade for health resources. If you have two health resources of one type, you can trade one of them for a different resource for more health. Unhealthy is not the end of the world, just more expensive in food. Unhappy pop costs 2 food and produces nothing (a loss until it is whipped in the slavery civic), an unhealthy pop costs 3 food but they will still work (a less severe problem).

4. I don't chop as much as I really should, so I'm not a good source for optimum chopping (I will keep an even number of forests for the health bonus so I can have one or two extra population while I'm in Hereditary Rule, almost certainly not worth the cost, but I have fun maximizing city size with selective forest chopping.)

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I have just read all the articles within the War Academy and I understand this subject much better... I still have a few questions...

Note: I play on large maps 8+ Civs usually, Epic, Memhed II or Julius.

1) It seems the best thing to do is worker, chop 2nd worker, chop settler. So grow with two cities quickly then put out a third and fourth by 2000 BC. Maybe another 2 or 3 by 0 AD. Good or bad plan?

2) My next question is specializing cities. I understand the principles. I just struggle on the balance of when to put farms in Commerce or Production cities.

3) Also, what is the best way to avoid unhealthy cities, especially when you have lots of Flood plains?

4) I just discovered shopping, but I started to realize I chop too much. When and what should you chop? Workers Settlers and Wonders?
What kind of forests would you NOT want to chop?

5) What do you build in cities that are your commerce cities when there is no building to build (Library, Bank, etc). Units?

6) What is the point having separate Science and Money cities? Can't they just be both? You just put say both a Bank and University?

ANY Feedback would be awesome.

I do get tired of high difficulty on occasion. Here's something you can try:

1. Start a game.
2. Go to strategy and tips.
3. Post the 4000 BC start of that game and the opening screenshot
4. Invite players to play along with you, or just play along yourself and post screenshots looking for feedback.

If all that is too much effort, just go into the game series such as "noble's club", "lonely hearts club", "monarch students", "immortal university", etc and look at walkthroughs people place.

Note: due to my boredom and play speed, I am kind of known for shadowing the vast majority of games, so you might get a walkthrough out of me . For lower difficulties I prefer harder starts though .

 

[QuixotesGhost]

1) It seems the best thing to do is worker, chop 2nd worker, chop settler. So grow with two cities quickly then put out a third and fourth by 2000 BC. Maybe another 2 or 3 by 0 AD. Good or bad plan?

As always, it depends. If you have a lot of specials in your fat cross, it's preferable to improve them and build something that allows your capital to grow (warrior, stongehenge, fishing boat, ect) instead of trying to build your settler at size 1. Plus, sometimes early chopping isn't the right move - what if you have a floodplains start? You need to conserve those forests for precious, precious health. You also need to tech bronzeworking - what if you pick up multiple herds in your capitol? Might be better to tech Animal Husbandry first. And so on and so forth.

2) My next question is specializing cities. I understand the principles. I just struggle on the balance of when to put farms in Commerce or Production cities.

[Edit]
I had something stupid complex before. The simple answer is, enough farms to work the tiles you want to work.
[/Edit]

3) Also, what is the best way to avoid unhealthy cities, especially when you have lots of Flood plains?

Avoid clearcutting if possible, leave 2 or 4 forests if the city has enough food to grow large.

Pay attention to what resources get bonuses from what buildings. If you have a lot of harbors, then you want to trade AIs for seafood, if you have grocers then you might want wine or sugar instead. Always try to trade for grains (corn, rice, wheat) if possible, they get a bonus from the granary which every city should have. Avoid trading for livestock; they don't get their bonus until supermarkets.

4) I just discovered shopping, but I started to realize I chop too much. When and what should you chop? Workers Settlers and Wonders?
What kind of forests would you NOT want to chop?

Floodplains. Forests around floodplains are a precious, precious resource and should only be chopped if you have a very good reason to do so. Otherwise I try to leave at least two (sometimes four) around every city which has enough food to grow large.

5) What do you build in cities that are your commerce cities when there is no building to build (Library, Bank, etc). Units?

Lots of options, you can build more workers, build wealth, build exploring units, take citizens off of mines and run specialists, missionaries, spies, start a colony in a distant land, or yeah even build military.

Also, if you are finding you are running out of stuff to build, you might want to consider running Pacifism instead of Organized Religion.

6) What is the point having separate Science and Money cities? Can't they just be both? You just put say both a Bank and University?

Generally separate science and money cities generally only apply to specialist economies. A city that runs a lot of merchant specialists is a gold city and prioritizes markets/grocers/banks. A city that runs a lot of science specialists is a science city and prioritizes Libraries/Universities/Observatories. A science city would much prefer to pull citizens off of mines to become specialists than waste hammers on a bank.

Cities in cottage economies produce a mixture of both gold and science so benefit from both buildings.

 

[Ian Kognitow]

1) I typically allow my capital to produce warriors until it grows to size three before going worker>worker>settler>wonders. Since neither of your preferred leaders are industrious, you'll likely want to try to set up a rush with Julius (barracks, military after 2nd or 3rd city) or get Mehmed REXing and well into all his cheap infrastructure. In any case, it still may be useful to try to chop out stonehenge for border expansion and/or Oracle for CoL slingshot to found a religion, particularly if you have access to stone or marble. Stonehenge/Oracle will also generate G Prophets, which can come to sustain your economy via settled GP or Confucian Shrine if you get the CoL slingshot.

2) Your leaders aren't philosophical so unless you have lots of food resources around you should likely go for cottage economy. I don't quite see the farm/hammer dilemma. Mines/windmills for hills; farms/cottages for grassland/plains. Again, since you're likely not going to be going for specialist economy, caste system can be neglected and workshops will be fairly useless at least until Guilds. And since farms/workshops don't need to grow like cottages, you can sort them out situationally, as needed.

3) I haven't found unhealthiness a big problem on Prince, and you really shouldn't have difficulties with Mehmed's expansionist bonus. In any case, just try to secure resources that bring health bonuses and maybe whip out some aqueducts if you're really in a bind. If you have access to stone, maybe try to make a move for Hanging Gardens.

4) I chop liberally and it's quite rare that any of, say, my first half dozen cities end up having any forest left. Again, your hills should be getting mined/milled and the rest cottaged or perhaps farmed. Also, Mehmed/Julius tend toward military strategies, so if you don't have your own good health resources at hand, getting some through conquest should only provide further motivation to go campaigning.

5) If you're moving along well enough that building options are limited, you're also likely teching fast enough (or, I guess, hopelessly losing) that it shouldn't be a big problem. Otherwise, building wealth is never really bad. You can build spies. Possibly religious buildings if you have wonders like Sistine Chapel/Uni of Sankore/Spiral Minaret/or Apostolic Palace. And unless running pacifism, sure, a few extra military shouldn't hurt.

6) Yeah, all of my good commerce cities should end up with all science and gold multiplying buildings. I suppose the main thing is just to kind of split up what should be your two best cities--one getting Oxford Uni and the other getting Wall Street. That should also determine building priorities for those cities and specialist assignments. For instance, if you're settling great people--Scientists and Spies go to Oxford city; Prophets/Merchants/and Artists to Wall Street. And if you have a Shrine, obviously, that should get Wall Street and prioritize Gold multiplying buildings. For other cities just prioritize based on need. Remember that based on resources, markets can also bring in additional happiness and grocers additional health.