Which to build first: Hospital or Factory?

[Bleser]

I have played NUMEROUS games of CivIII over that past three years or so, and I have always pondered which is "better" to do first.

If you build a Factory, then your production goes way up, making it easier to build the Hospital, but it does increase pollution a lot faster, and my workers are usually too busy building my new railroad to clean up pollution.

If you build a Hosptial, City defence goes up by ~50% as soon as it gets to a size 13, and the shield/gold value keeps increasing gradually until you run out of land, but the build time of the Factory goes down faster as the city grows.

I ask this since I usually get Industrialization and Sanitation at the same time.

So which do you do first and why?

 

[marioh]

I usually end up with Industrialization first, so factories for me.
I rarely research Medicine since I'm typically making a bee-line for Scientific Method and Electronics for TOE and Hoover Dam. I usually end up trading for Medicine when the AI finally researches it.

 

[Dogmeat]

I build Hospital first because you make more money in those valuable turns as:

1. Hospital cost less maintenance.
2. You get more laboring citizens so your commerce will increase

And your city will grow faster. Growth is important.

 

[Rameau's Nephew]

I vote Hospital, since I almost always get Sanitation before Industrialization. My Industrial-age research priorities are Steam Engine (to find my coal), then Medicine -> Sanitation. I'll detour for Nationalism only if I fear an imminent invasion.

In a game with evenly-matched civs, the first one to get hospitals in their core cities can jump into the population lead, and often stay there. That dramatically increases your effectiveness at everything, not just shield production.

 

[Dogmeat]

Originally posted by Rameau's Nephew
I vote Hospital, since I almost always get Sanitation before Industrialization. My Industrial-age research priorities are Steam Engine (to find my coal), then Medicine -> Sanitation. I'll detour for Nationalism only if I fear an imminent invasion.

In a game with evenly-matched civs, the first one to get hospitals in their core cities can jump into the population lead, and often stay there. That dramatically increases your effectiveness at everything, not just shield production.

Yeah, racing to sanitation is a good thing to do as the AI prioritize industrialization, nationalism, communism and fascism.

 

[HiroHito]

In my case factories, cuz I'm evil and love to pop rush hehe.

 

[Commander Bello]

I go for the factories. They often make the difference between a 1 turn/unit production or not.
Hospitals take some time to be built and then some time to built the next pop as well. So, it makes more sense to built workers from the size12 cities to finalize the railroad network instead of rushing for the hospitals. Furthermore, hospitals are a dead-end tech... so they have less priority for me.

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

Factories first, I beeline to Industrialization, for the Universal Suffrage. Plus with the factories I can build the hospital quicker with extra sheild production. Just my style of play. Metropolises get a lot a pollution really quick as every citizen over 12 increases the chance of pollution appearing by 1%.

 

[Mano3]

I voted factory since they are vital to fast production, but many of the hospital posts have me re-thinking.....

 

[Justus II]

I used to be in the "race for hospitals" category, but have seen the light and now usually go for Industrialization/Factories first. The factories are a more dramatic increase, at 50%, and can really help both with defenses or when you do build the hospitals. Factories also really help to get prebuilds for ToE and Hoovers going strong. Also, even if I have a number of size-12 cities, they have a limited # of new, good tiles that they could work, as my workers are still busy railroading existing tiles, but if I wait, they can improve tiles for the 13th-14th-15th citizen to work.

I sometimes wait for the AI to get Medicine, especially if there are scientific civs that could get it for free, but almost always research sanitation myself, as they postpone it too long.

 

[CDR Warren]

As in everything else in CIV, it depends, but in my opinion getting the factories ASAP will usually be the stronger move, both because the research is more efficient, as Commander Bello, CIVPhil, and marioh point out, and because the added production allows greater efficiency and flexibility whether you are building or warring. Population growth will come in time, but without a strong industrial base you risk being left behind especially on higher levels.

 

[iron0037]

I usually build hospitals and factories back to back and want to minimize the number of turns this takes. Building the factory first will typically be faster. The only way it won't is if you can expect a more than 50% production increase from your city going from population 12 to 13-14. That isn't very likely.

Yes, by not building the hospital, you sacrifice some commerce, and food overproduction goes to waste. But building workers on your capped cities before starting factory work like Commander Bello says helps with the second problem, and I for one would rather have more production than more commerce.

Of course there's still the whole production loss due to roundoff errors when building things. And if you're meticulous, you might find that going hospital->factory takes no less time than going factory->hospital. But things could just as easily swing the other way and save you tons of time going factory->hospital. I'm too lazy to work this out for every single city, and instead just opt for the more dependable factory first approach.

 

[gen.dragolen]

Bleser,

Like any strategist would tell you, 'It depends'

I would look at what the city's strengths are and then decide if it is worth waiting to build the factory, or just toss in a hospital and let the pop build up.

Like Iron0037 put it: you need to do some estimating before deciding. I look at the terrain and at production to see if there is any point to building a hospital.

In many cases, I have cities that will never make size 12 but have decent production so in goes the factory. Other cities have lousy production so in goes the hospital to make it a cash cow or worker/settler factory. Others have potential on both, so I will prebuild and/or rush the factory and then build the hospital.

It just depends...


D.

 

[Svar]

After Steam Power, I usually research Electricity, Scientific Method, Replaceable Parts, and Industrialization. Sanitation usually waits until I have railroaded my core area so I can quickly clean up the pollution. Sometimes with luck I will have built Hoover Dam before the first factory is built and hospitals go up very fast.

I use the Theory of Evolution 2 free techs for Atomic Theory and Electronics and can build Hoover Dam in 1 turn with a SGL.

 

[marioh]

Originally posted by Svar
After Steam Power, I usually research Electricity, Scientific Method, Replaceable Parts, and Industrialization. Sanitation usually waits until I have railroaded my core area so I can quickly clean up the pollution. Sometimes with luck I will have built Hoover Dam before the first factory is built and hospitals go up very fast.

I use the Theory of Evolution 2 free techs for Atomic Theory and Electronics and can build Hoover Dam in 1 turn with a SGL.

I used to do the same thing, but since I've been recently able to get a slight tech lead once I get to that point, now I use TOE to get Atomic Theory and Industrialization, and then research Electronics. Since you're already ahead of the AI in terms of the race to Electronics (and it's wonder, Hoover Dam), it's almost a waste to get it for free when you can get Industrialization instead. You should still end up beating the AI to electronics and still should be able to get Hoover Dam easily.

 

[Roi du Culture]

In my opinion, the descision is purely based on the game conditions. If I have potential for alot of populace growth, hospitable first. If I have a lot of shields in a city but no excess food, than factory.

 

[Moonsinger]

I'm usually building hospital first and I rarely build any factory (may a couple factories for those Wonder building cities). I don't usually build a lot of units from scratch either (to avoid paying massive upkeep). If I need to go to war, I would simply pay cash up front to instantly raise my armforce. Since it takes money to make money, having a lot of money in the bank can't never go wrong. Basically, the one who has the most money usually has the power to control the destiny of the world in this game. Just like in the real world, it's easy to make new friend if we are rich. It's tough to make new friend if we are poor.

 

[Dogmeat]

Originally posted by Moonsinger
Just like in the real world, it's easy to make new friend if we are rich. It's tough to make new friend if we are poor.

You don't need friends if you used those money on factories and military units in the first place

 

[al_thor]

Definitely factory. Hospital goes up quicker, Police station quicker, Commercial Docks, etc, etc. Especially if you have Hoover (which only helps AFTER factory).

 

[Oddible]

Also, adding a factory before a hospital just allows more citizens in each city that will get pissed that I'm at war all the time.

Recently had a game where everyone was horribly upset. They weren't working, they were all entertaining themselves all the time. My cities production was pathetic. My answer? Draft one from each city. It was amazing. Drafting 1 citizen from each city raised the production of every city like crazy. There is some odd balance between number of citizens and war weariness. I must have been 1 citizen on the wrong side of that threshold. By removing 1 citizen, everything turned around and my production resumed.

Basically, its really a matter of where I'm at in the game, but in most cases I'll take the factory first (of course that is also in part because I don't usually research sanitation before industrialization).