What is a good city?

[Cosack]

I am currently playing on Monarch and I win about 60% of the time usually domination but a few cultural victories. However, only a few of my victories are impressive and I think I need to manage my economy better. Most of the stragety articles that I have read mention specialized cities, but few mention what one should expect from these cities. How many beakers from a science city, gold from a commerce city, and hammers from a production city are considered to be adequate?( early, mid, and late game)

 

[JackOfClubs]

That is a tough question to answer in the abstract. I think a good production city should be able to produce your top military unit in 1-2 turns. So, say, 20-30 in the classical age (for Axemen and Horse Archers) with the potential to produce at least 100-150 by the end of the game.

Science cities are harder. The problem isn't so much as how many you need in any given city but how much total you can generate across your civ. You want to be researching at an average of about 5-6 turns per tech. This thread gives a good analysis of the numbers involved in each era. (Note that he starts out with a rate of 10 turns/tech but later updates that to 5. Also note that he is talking about a Specialist Economy which you didn't ask about and he has since changed his mind about some of his conclusions. But the raw numbers are still useful.) So by the Classical era you want to be prouducing at least 60-70 across your empire. If you have 3-4 science cities, that comes out to 15-20 in each city. In the industrial age the average cost of techs is about 2400 so, if you have 5-6 science cities you will want about 75-100 per city. The modern age is about twice that (if your game lasts that long).

Note in addition to having several science cities, you should have one Super Science City that puts out about 2-3 times as many as the normal ones. This is often the GP farm in my games, but I suppose it need not be. This city will get the great library, the academy (built by an early Great Scientist) and, eventually, Oxford University.

I have nothing particular to say about commerce cities. Generally "as much gold as possible" seems to be my rule of thumb. Obviously you want these guys to pay for a good chunk of your maintenance and have some left over for upgrading/rushing units and other nice things. I generally have one city dedicated to commerce in addition to the capital (which benefits from Bureaucracy) but I have never given much thought to how much is enough.

Edit: I just realized that futurehermit's analysis doesn't give raw numbers for Renaissance through Modern periods. I must have crunched those numbers myself. Here is the breakdown by era:

Classical: 315 average /tech
Medieval: 733 average /tech
Renaissance: 1528 average /tech
Industrial: 2367 average /tech
Modern: 4186 average /tech

Note that these are averages and the high and low techs in each age can be quite deviant. So one may take 12 turns whereas another will take 2 or 3.

 

[Jerrymander]

Having 5/6/7+ cities producing 75+ science in the Industrial Age is not that hard.
Just run a few science specialists, have a University and Library. (Academy, too)

 

[Lord Chambers]

I think a good production city should be able to produce your top military unit in 1-2 turns. So, say, 20-30 in the classical age.

I think that 20 hammers to per turn in the classical era would be your best production city, and that other cities will be unlikely to reach such heights. "Good" as I define it, would be 10-15. That is, 10-15 hammers per turn is enough production for me to consider it a production city in my head and not a horsehockey commerce city.

Which if you think about, highlights the arbitrary boundaries many posters make between types of cities. Would a city with less than 10 hammers per turn not be a production center? It also reveals why most analysis and strategy advice lacks quantifying the numbers. Your land is going to determine how many hammers you can get out of a city. Your job as leader is just to pick good city cites and build the appropriate buildings to make production cities more effective at production and commerce cities more productive at commerce. If a food-poor city plot can only work enough hills to get 7 shields per turns, and the surrounding desert and plains don't provide any opportunity to develop commercially, then you have a production city that'll only produce 7 shields. It doesn't mean you've done anything wrong, it means you have horsehockey land. Not meeting JackofClubs 20-30 standard doesn't mean you aren't developing ideally.

Still, I understand the desire to see how your cities stack up against others. I would encourage you to play a shadow game to Sisitul or Aelf's games to maybe get some sense of how much you're getting out of the land as other players are.

You want to be researching at an average of about 5-6 turns per tech.

The number of turns it takes to produce something is relative to the speed of the game you play on.

 

[itsnotmeee]

In the late game, having a military city producing base hammers of 35-40 is best. with a HE, you can pump out any unit in 1-2 turns.

Take a look at my save game below and check out Machu Picchu. Probably not the best, but i can pump out units easily from that city. The only problem is the map. It streches out horizontally to the east. So, it will take me a long time to reach my target. My Ironwork city(Tinochtitlan) isn't bad either once there's enough citizens to work those hammer tiles. This is the power of Specialist Eco. Not the best SE game, but I just want to point out, like other people already said it, it is very flexible between research and productions. More food=more production, especially after Biology and if you run State Property, you can run a decent number of scientists along with those workshops.

There's also a thread about top production city(science, commerce, or hammer). There's a guy who posted a screenshot of his top hammer city(forgot who he was) and he also mentioned about having, I think base hammers of 36 or 46(im not sure which one), plus other multipliers and you can pump out Modern Armors one per turn.

 

[itsnotmeee]

Sorry for the double post, but i found the thread I mentioned in the above post, so I just wanted to post it here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=172130

Take a look! and you can see his top science and commerce cities as well.

According to his post, it has to be your capital with Bureaucracy civic and other buildings in order to build a Modern Armor one per turn.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

A football field is worth 43 base hammers in the modern era, 63 with State Property, so I think your threshold ought to be in that range somewhere.

I think that 20 hammers to per turn in the classical era would be your best production city, and that other cities will be unlikely to reach such heights. "Good" as I define it, would be 10-15.

In early days... a city with grassland pigs, two grassland hills, two plains hills. That's 15 base hammers at population 5. That seems pretty unremarkable. Another resource, some more population, and suddenly 20 isn't so far away.

Then again, adding slavery to the mix can distort the picture considerably.

 

[JackOfClubs]

I think that 20 hammers to per turn in the classical era would be your best production city, and that other cities will be unlikely to reach such heights. "Good" as I define it, would be 10-15. That is, 10-15 hammers per turn is enough production for me to consider it a production city in my head and not a horsehockey commerce city.

I guess we mean different things by "good". I understood the question to be what should one aim/plan/hope for. My point is that you need to have some cities capable of pumping out your best unit at a rapid pace in order to keep up with the needs of warfare and defense. Yes, other cities that fall below this standard can still be considered production cities, but one should seek out cities that are optimal before settling on second rate land.

Which if you think about, highlights the arbitrary boundaries many posters make between types of cities. Would a city with less than 10 hammers per turn not be a production center? It also reveals why most analysis and strategy advice lacks quantifying the numbers. Your land is going to determine how many hammers you can get out of a city. Your job as leader is just to pick good city cites and build the appropriate buildings to make production cities more effective at production and commerce cities more productive at commerce. If a food-poor city plot can only work enough hills to get 7 shields per turns, and the surrounding desert and plains don't provide any opportunity to develop commercially, then you have a production city that'll only produce 7 shields. It doesn't mean you've done anything wrong, it means you have horsehockey land. Not meeting JackofClubs 20-30 standard doesn't mean you aren't developing ideally.

True. If you start with really lousy land, it isn't your fault, but you will probably lose unless you take matters in hand to correct the problem. I wasn't passing judgment on people's playing style, just indicating what you need to look for to improve your game. There is almost always good land to be found, even if you need to capture it from someone else. If the whole map is lousy, you probably planned that from the begining and the numbers I quote need to be adjusted accordingly.

The number of turns it takes to produce something is relative to the speed of the game you play on.

Good clarification. I assume Normal Speed/Standard Map in all of the above calculations.

In early days... a city with grassland pigs, two grassland hills, two plains hills. That's 15 base hammers at population 5. That seems pretty unremarkable. Another resource, some more population, and suddenly 20 isn't so far away.

Precisely. Add a forge and that 15 becomes 18 or 19. The numbers I am suggesting are not base values but net after all improvements, civics, leader traits and buildings are taken into acount.