Maximizing city produciton- what am I doing wrong?

[Dis]

I just lost a noble level game right now . I've beaten noble before. And I just don't know what went wrong. The point of losing is to learn from your mistakes, but I still can't figure out what mistakes I made. I had a 639 point lead over the chinese, yet they beat me in the space race. I know points don't mean everything. But at the end, I was number 1 in manufactured goods as well. So how did they beat me to the space ship?

I manufactured all my parts before them. Except for the last few. It's like the last 20 to 30 turns they went into overdrive. And I don't think they were in a golden age.

In my previous game I noticed with my spies AI cities with a production of 128. How do they get that high? I've been unable to do so. My cities are usually aroune 70. What I don't get is we both have the same basic cities. We both have forges, factories, and coal plants. We both have similar tile improvements. What gives?

let me know if you guys want to see a save game or screen shots. I'm really upset at losing when I had such a big lead. I really want to know what I'm doing wrong.

[khearn]

Did they build the Space Elevator and thus have a bonus for SS construction?

[Dis]

nope I was building it. In fact, I finished building it the same turn they completed their spaceship.

I'm thinking the space elevator is worthless. I used my best production city (my capitol) to build it. That city would have been better served building parts. I may have won had that city been building parts.

[Saldrin]

They could have switched to State Property and built/had some workshops.

[Dis]

Here's a couple screenshots. I guess the production difference is not as pronounced as I thought. Not compared to my previous game (that was the one that had persian city with 128 production).

I guess I just fell behind in the tech lead. I guess that's why I lost. The ai can do some amazing research in this game. it's tough to keep up.

But it was my fault for not realizing how far behind in tech I was (is there some way to find this out). I researched dumb dead end techs like refrigeration when I should have been researching genetics for that last spaceship part. But I still would have been a few turns shy of winning. Oh well.

the first is my city (moscow), the second is of the chinese city that beat me.

[Dis]

here's the chinese city. I reloaded a game to get these shots. I should have been smarter and sent my spy in a long time ago. I really thought I had the tech lead on this guy. I thought there was no way he could get the ship up before me.

[James M]

+100% for Aluminium
+75% for Forge/Factory/power
+50% for Laboratory...

Or something like that. It adds up. I count 26 base production, but those modifiers bring it into the right ballpark (they may be inaccurate, I can't remember the precise rules on each one off the top of my head.)

Edit: You should be able to see the exact breakdown by hovering your mouse over the hammer count, or at least it works in your own cities. Oh, and I forgot to add in the engineers, so perhaps they don't have all the improvements.

[Blake]

Notice the chinese are on 70% commerce?

[Dis]

screen shot from my last game. I could have swore his produciton used to be at 128, but now it's only 105. Maybe he rearranged some workers.

This is what I want. I want over 100 production. This guy pretty much built his entire spaceship with just this one city. Inexplicably, he went to building a recycling center. He could finished by 2050 probably, but I was 1 turn away from a cultural victory at this point.

[Dis]

so what I'm asking. Workshops, good idea or no? I've been kind of undecided. Considering I didn't have the tech lead, perhaps I should have went with cottages.

The reason why I prefer workshops over cottages is because you can't buy things like spaceship parts. You need production to win. But as this game shows, you also need research to win.

I had been building workshops on non-irrigable grasslands and putting cottages on non-irrigable plains, but maybe I'll rethink that strategy.

[Blake]

Workshops are evil unless maybe you run State Property, then a river+workshops city might work, mainly because a state property watermill is better than a farm (all things considered).

[Jaybe]

Dis, were you benefiting from researching Future Tech?
Was there a reason Moscow had Science Specialists when you could have had MORE Engineer and Priest Specialists? Both yield extra hammers.

With more gold in the bank could you have sabotaged some project production with your spies?

I am still on my first game into the Modern Age, OTOH I have over 200 hours into that game.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Jaybe

With more gold in the bank could you have sabotaged some project production with your spies?

Or (if he had begun early enough) he could have sabotaged some tiles with mines for those cities producing SS-Parts (which is much cheaper than sabotaging production and probably have a much greater chance of success [as, according ton the manual this depends on the number of units stationed on the tile where the sabotage takes place; cities have more units stationed there than normal terrain tiles with mines ).
(or he could have even sabotaged the tile/s supplying the chinese with the aluminium for their SS-Parts, which would have slowed down their SS-Production by a great margin )

Both things which brought me the victory against the americans in the space race in one game. We both were building our last spaceship part and Washington seemed to be able to complete it 2-3 turns earlier, so I sent my spies to do some destructive work on american terrain and also ordered my workers to cut down some forestst on some hills in the surroundings of hyperborea (the city which built the last SS Part) and build mines there instead (giving me a double bonus, one from the mine/s and the second from the shield gained by chopping down of the forest/s) so that in the end I was able to complete my SS 3-4 turns before the americans.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Dis

But it was my fault for not realizing how far behind in tech I was (is there some way to find this out).

The foreign advisor will help you there.
Just choose "technologies" from the options at the bottom of the screen and you see which technologies the AI leaders will or won´t trade with you (which are all technologies you don´t have).
If you click onto the picture of another leader you can also see how backwards he is, as then everything is shown from the perspective of the selected leader (i.e. it shows which technologies you or and the other civilizations might trade to this leader )

[Quillan]

+100% for Aluminum
+50% for Factory
+50% for Power
+50% for Laboratory

with potential others like
+50% for Bureaucracy (in capital only)
Ironworks in that city
Forge