Which city type is the most vital. Also, which NWs are optional vs. mandatory?

[tdy99]

In my games I usually end up over-dependent on my initial (capital) city as it's always the best location. I have trouble deciding whether or not to try to turn it into a GP farm, a production city or a financial city. It usually ends up serving as at least 2 of those.

Which type of city is the most important to have? I usually find myself debating whether or not to build the national epic in the capital, since it generally is the city that I have built a few wonders in and thus have some GP points coming in. I almost always end up building Oxford in the capital.

 

[Ataxerxes]

In my games I usually end up over-dependent on my initial (capital) city as it's always the best location. I have trouble deciding whether or not to try to turn it into a GP farm, a production city or a financial city. It usually ends up serving as at least 2 of those.

Which type of city is the most important to have? I usually find myself debating whether or not to build the national epic in the capital, since it generally is the city that I have built a few wonders in and thus have some GP points coming in. I almost always end up building Oxford in the capital.

The capital usually isn't a GP farm. Due to Bureaucracy bonuses, the capital usually does best as a science or production city. Although the capital would make a decent GP farm, it's usually better as one of the two others.

 

[theskibum]

As to your question of which NWs are mandatory vs which are optional

The mandatories:
National Epic - place this in a food heavy city and run tons of specialists under Caste System. Great for producing GPeople which become more important the higher level you go. Great synergy with Globe Theatre

Globe Theatre - Great synergy with Nation Epic, no unhappiness in a city that will have problems, means you can run more specialists and increase your GPP output.

Heroic Epic - Faster military unit production. I like this in a city that I believe will be my best city for fast military production. Good synergy with West Point.

West Point - If the game goes this late. I usually build this in my HE or Ironworks city. Extra nice in a coastal city if you need a lot of naval support since in naval engagements promotions really help.

Ironworks - This goes in second best city, preferably with access to coastal and land based health resources (granary and harbor)

Forbidden Palace - if your empire gets big enough, you will want this, period.

Oxford - a must, goes in the city that will have the most base along with all science multiplier buildings.

Wall Street - A must, goes in the city with second highest base and all gold multiplier buildings. Sometimes I will put this in the same city as Oxford, but only if I absolutely have to due to no other rich cities. Good to put this in a shrined city if you have one.

Optionals
Moai Statues If I build it, I put this in a coastal city that has a lot of water and very little land tiles. It can turn that city into a half way decent naval yard. Decent synergy with Ironworks and possibly Westpoint. Situational to the map.

Hermitage I usually don't build this unless I have a neighbor like Zara and need some major cultural pressure to keep good tiles, or if going for a culture victory. One decent use of this, is coupled with a few culture buildings, it can sometimes help you extend your borders right to an enemy's city(s) allowing you to quickly conquer them on the turn you declare. Synergizes well with the Mandir, Academy Cathedral, etc building type.

Mt. Rushmore - Comes late, so I don't often build it. If you know you will be in prolonged modern war, it is really nice to stave off war weariness.

National Park - I have never built this. The power of chopping trees is just too great. If you can leave your GP city well forrested, it can synergize nicely with National Epic or possibly with Globe Theatre.

Red Cross - I build this if the game gets this far and I know I will war. A free medic 1 promo to all units built there is fine and if you build it where you build troops, you have lots of and it is done quick. Good synergy with Heroic Epic, West Point (could get troops to Medic 3 easily) and Ironworks.

 

[Ataxerxes]

If you have a holy city for a well spread religion (I hope you captured it) Wall Street goes great there. This will be your gold city that will also be for your corporate headquarters if you're not going to use State Property. I usually run a fairly high science slider so a lot of the gold will come from corporate headquarters and any shrines.

 

[theskibum]

Something just came to my mind as I re-read my above post. Concering Oxford and Wall Street placement. Typically reasearch seems to be king by the time Oxford is available, hence why I place Oxford in the city that will have the highest base and Wall Street in second highest. The thought occured to me, however, that I often end up settling a fair number of great scientists (3-6 depending on the game conditions) after 1-turn bulbing is over with. Would it make more sense to switch the cities those two wonders are in, so WS is in the highest ?

My logic is that with the settled GS's in the Oxford city might make up the commerce defecit unless that gap is enormous. Additionally, depending on the game having something like 8 more base may allow me to run with 10% more science slider after that goes through all the multipliers, meaning much more output in general.

Unless presented with a very challenging map, I can usually get 2 cities that have incredibly high base , say 14+ cottages worth. The difference between those two cities might be 2 or 3 cottages. What is everyone's thoughts on this?

 

[uat2d]

Oxford in the highest commerce city, Wall Street in the most profitable shrine (and later where I'll found my corporations).

 

[CaF]

Which type of city is the most important to have?

I find that without one decent commerce city the tech pace is just horrible. Some city with decent cottages and bureau bonus just makes a ton of difference.

Concerning National Wonders the only must have is the National Epic to get your 2-4 great people out in the first Golden Age. It makes sense to put it into the Capital since it often is the biggest city. It might not be the best long term, but size matters here. That usually decides the Lib race and allows for some civic switches. At this point it depends on the map script what else you need. On standard maps with 1 continent you are set for the win if you have horses and iron.

On maps with more continents you want Oxford in the strongest commerce city, Ironworks in a strong hammer city, Heroic Epic in a captured city with many settled general and possibly Globe Theatre if you are into drafting. You can add Wall Street to a captured shrined city.
The other national wonders are very situational and mainly good for fail golding or wondering what they might be good for.

 

[theskibum]

The other national wonders are very situational and mainly good for fail golding or wondering what they might be good for.

How do you get fail gold for national wonders? You can't fail to build them as far as I know.

 

[gorf37]

In terms of city types:

You can win with hybrid Cities, it's just not optimal (and you'll have a hard time winning at higher levels without specializing). There's a difference too, between cities founded or captured before 1AD, and cities captured later: before 1AD, multiplier buildings have more time to pay off. I'll typically found commerce cities, hammer cities, and GP farm cities at a 2:2:1 rate. Of course, it's all land dependent. Sometimes there's just no good cottage land for commerce cities, and you're forced to float your economy on a higher # of GP farms, along with some Fin/Collosus coast powered hybrid cities.

Later in the game multiplier buildings won't usually make you win faster than simply builiding wealth/beakers, so I would typically build only granery/forge/courthouse/factory/barracks(unless going space), and make every city a hammer city.

In terms of national wonders:

Musts: National Epic, Heroic Epic, Oxford, Iron Works

Probably, but wasteful if you don't have the right empire/city for them: Forbidden Palace, Wall St., Moai, Globe Theatre

Situational at best: West Point, Hermitage (good for fail gold), National Park, Red Cross

 

[(Pro)Peanut_P]

TO get fail gold from a NW you start production of NW ( i usually do it with moai ) then cancel the production before completion, buikd it in another city>fail gold

 

[The-Hawk]

IMHO, no NW is even close to mandatory. Depends on victory condition, map and level you are playing. For certain situations, some of the NW's become pretty important if you want a fast finish. But in other situations that same wonder is a waste. Some examples of situations where you most likely will build specific NWs:

For space victory, Oxford, Ironworks and NE. Moia in the right city. Maybe Wall Street, but often not (no need to waste the hammers on all the required banks if you are not having trouble maintaining your science rate).

For culture victory, Hermitage and NE.

For domination at higher levels, FP and HE are most likely worth the hammers (for conqest, maybe not FP). If you are in a situation where you can't get to all the AI's quickly, other NWs start to come into play. E.g. a huge map, a map with distant continents, or if an AI becomes a tech beast). In these cases, the game may last long enough to get payback on other NWs, e.g. the science NW's (Oxford, NE), Moia, Rushmore, even Ironworks might be useful.

For dom/conquest at lower levels, do not waste hammers on any NW.

For milking score, you might build Wall Street to counter the maintenance cost of sushi or cereal.

NWs I almost never build include West Point, Red Cross, Globe, National Park.

 

[Utenlok]

I agree about situational. I always laugh when i read people freakin about gettin up oxford when they never tech past cavalry.

But if the game is gonna go on longer, oxford might be the most important building in the game.

Hermitage is awesome for cultural games, but I will probably never build it in 90% of non cultural games.

 

[sydhe]

Hermitage goes in my #3 cultural city, assuming I don't have urgent need for something else there. In that case it goes into #4 cultural city which will eventually be #3 since it has Hermitage and a cathedral or two.

 

[OneLeggedRhino]

I'd say Heroic Epic is probably the most useful, since you always want more troops, but none of them are really necessary. I'm winning a Deity game right now (link in my sig) where I don't have any cities dedicated to anything, and where my HE city barely did anything because of culture problems. Doesn't matter. If you have a bunch of good generic cities, you'll do fine.

By the way, I find that the commerce city doesn't come online until around Liberalism. So, if you like Representative specialists, you don't actually need a commerce city. Vranasm and I did a 1AD comparison in the Gandhi game in my sig.

 

[Utenlok]

I think it is hard for many people to assign merchants instead of scientists. It works on the same principle as deciding to build research or science. Sometimes picking the merchants instead lets you raise that slider and get more science overall. Or if you dont have a good commerce city you can just run some merchants to pay the bills. (and a great merchant pays a lot of bills)