First time poster - City mgmt questions

[KeiserSose]

Hi. I'm very new to the game with Civ IV beign the first version I've ever played. I've been reading this forum for a week or so and have learned a lot, and have read the manual a couple times as suggested.

I'd appreciate some info and tips on city management. The "governor" function I guess is what I'm having trouble with.

When do you ever turn off city growth. When do you use emphasize great person, reserach, wealth, etc.

I'm playing the second (edit) easiest level. Can win a points game usually. Not good at Conquest game or culture game.

Additionally seems some cities take forever to build things, while others others can complete a unit in 3-4 turns. Does emphasize production impact this?

Final question on city (thisis an esay and probably dumb one). Initial location of a city. The blue circles make no sense to me. I've read that you want to build a city next to water (espcially if it is a river that connects another city) but the 'Blue circles" don't suggest that...do you want the "city" on certain types of tiles (Hammer/coin/bread) or does that just impact the improvements you might add to that tile later?

Thanks in advance.

[Hauptman]

The Blue circle is where the computer would place it. As far as the human placement (always next to water etc..) thats personal preferance, like trying to get naval units, or resources without roads, harbors, etc.

some cities lack hammers. thus they take along time to build anything. So yes emphasize production will effect that, but it can only use whats available... a city surrounded by water and grassland is not going to have many hammers to use.

[KeiserSose]

Ok makes sense. So basically any tile that is shaded with my civ's color will provide those aspects to my city. As it expands I get more hammers or whatever. When it says a cottage will produce +1 coin, that means in addition to whatever the tile is already contributing?

Thanks for the answer.

[Hauptman]

yes +1 coin when you first build it... They do however grow over time. Late game they produce 7 coin per turn.

[Crossfire]

There are two considerations. First, you only gain the food/commerce/hammers from those tiles that are being 'worked' by one of the city's population. In the city view, these tiles are indicated by a white circle. Second, the city can only ever 'work' the tiles in the fat cross that is shown after a city expands it cultural borders the first time. Any further expansion of your borders allows you to gather those special items within, but you don't actually gain any food/commerce/hammers by doing so. For instance, if you build a pasture on cows, if the cows are in the pen then they are being 'worked' and you are gaining any extra resources that building the pasture provided. If the cows are outside the pen, then all you are gaining is a health bonus for having cows, but the actual hammers and food are not being used.

I know that this confused the heck out of me when I started, so if this was all already obvious then please ignore this post.

[Just_Matt]

City basics - Special Resources

For special resources (sheep, corn, gems, etc.) I'll add that you need to do two things.

First, you have to build the advancement. This could be a pasture, a farm, or a mine (following the examples above).

You also need to connect it to your city. This is either by buiding a road or getting lucky and having your special resource connected to your via a waterway (river or ocean). Ok, I'll add in railroad, but that's just an advanced road.

If you work the tile you get the bonus (health, happy, money).

Once connected you can use them yourself (horses = mounted army, coal = ironclads) or trade them away.


You might also drop down a level or two. It's easier to see the long term effects of your changes if you aren't facing waves of armies.

Specials rock if you use them right. I almost won't build a city unless it has access to at least one special. My exceptions are end-game when I'm trying to prevent someone from building inside my world and when I'm trying to connect an outlying area back to my main area.

[KeiserSose]

crossfire this is exactly what is confusing me. Thanks.

Still a litt le confused...so if an unworked tile says one hammer, one coin and one bread, you ONLY get that if you add SOMETHING to it (a farm, cottege or mine)? And when you add that then you get the one coin, one bread and one hammer PLUS what your improvement added.

For example if a tile says one of each and you add a farm (it says farm provides +1 bread). Then you are getting 2 breads, one hammer, and one coin for that tile. Is that correct?

And those only impact that ONE city?

[Arrian]

The way they tell it, Soze's some kinda butcher. Crazy, ****ed up psycho butcher...

Ahem. Anyway...

Your example of 1food/1hammer/1commerce is a plains tile on a river. If you allocate a citizen to that tile, you will get 1f/1h/1c. If you build a farm on that tile and allocate a citizen to it, you will get 2f/1h/1c. If you build a cottage, you will get 1f/1h/2c (3c if you're playing a financial civ) and if you keep working it, the cottage will slowly grow into a hamlet/village/town.

It will only impact that one city. If, however, you place a farm on a tile with wheat, corn or rice and connect it via road to your trade network, all cities connected to the network will receive a +1 health benifit (+2 in cities with a granary). Only the city actually working the farm gets the added food, but all the cities get the added health and can thus grow bigger w/o getting that green sickly face.

-Arrian

p.s. you're doing well on the second-hardest level w/o knowing stuff like this? Wow. I suck.

[KeiserSose]

Heckuva typo. >I'm on the second EASIEST level. HA. I have not even tried anything higher than this!

"If you allocate a citizen to that tile, you will get 1f/1h/1c."

What does that mean? How do you allocate citizens to tiles?

I was under the impression you should build updates on every tile. I'm in a game now as Hayuna Capet b/c he seems to give me the most troble when I'm facing him. I'm putting cottages on every free tile hoping for future money. Does this only matter if my guy is "financial"?

Lik eI said this is the first Civ version I've ever played. Never really played any of the other games in this genre before. It's fun being kinda clueless for a bit and this level is approriate for me, but I know I can't compete at all with the limited understanding I have of everything.

I appreciate all the help!

[Huskerfan]

Farms on plains tiles
Cottages on grasslands/flood plains
Mines on plains hills
Windmills on grassland hills

[billones]

Originally posted by KeiserSose
Heckuva typo. >I'm on the second EASIEST level. HA. I have not even tried anything higher than this!

"If you allocate a citizen to that tile, you will get 1f/1h/1c."

What does that mean? How do you allocate citizens to tiles?

Each city has a certain population. It starts as 1, and can grow over the course of the game.

Each population point contributes to the production of the city. In the city detail screen, you'll see some of your areas circled (most won't be). Your city itself will always be circled. You get X additional circles, one per population point. You can move the circles around by clicking on the areas you want worked. Clicking on a circle makes it go away, and will add one figure on the far right of the screen. (Those are specialists... another thread )

[Arrian]

There are no hard & fast rules as to which improvements to put on which terrain. In general:

Mine hills, unless the city is low on food. If low on food, build windmills (this requires Machinery, which is a fair ways into the tech tree).

Flat land (plains, grassland, floodplains) can be either farmed or get cottages*. If you have lots of hills to mine & work, then build farms so you can work the hills. Each citizen eats 2 food. Mined hills produce little or no food, depending on if they are grass hills (1 food) or plains/desert hills (0 food). Thus, in order to work the hills, you need to get a bunch of food elsewhere. Ergo, farms. You may get this out of one or two bonus food resources (wheat, etc), though, and then you can make cottages too.

Financial civs get +1 commerce on any tile already producing at least 2 commerce. A tile on a river will produce 1 commerce unimproved (except forest). Putting a cottage on it adds 1, so now it's two. So, if you're financial, you get the +1 bonus for a total of 3. Right off the bat. Thus, cottages on river tiles are powerful in the early game for FIN civs.

Beware of over-cottaging. It will leave you short on production. The AI builds a TON of cottages, which makes it pretty good at research, but bad at building stuff. And, as nice as research is, you DO need to build stuff. Balance is your friend.

As you play more and more, aim to specialize your cities. Check out the threads here for tips, especially the "Devil's Workshop" threads and also look at the Apolyton University forum. People have played full games and given detailed reports on what they did, complete with screenshots. The better reports are almost like looking over someone's shoulder as they play... check it out.

-Arrian

* - the exception is when resources appear on this terrain. Metals like copper & iron can show up on flat land, and thus that tile gets a mine. Cows/Sheep/Pigs & Horses all get pastures.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Huskerfan
Farms on plains tiles
Cottages on grasslands/flood plains
Mines on plains hills
Windmills on grassland hills

Watermills on all flatland tiles along a river.

Farm grasslands, flood plains or tiles you need to chain inland tiles.

Mines on hills unless you need food.

I love workshops, BTW.

[Willem]

Re: First time poster - City mgmt questions

Originally posted by KeiserSose
I'd appreciate some info and tips on city management. The "governor" function I guess is what I'm having trouble with.

Forget the governor function and do it yourself. You're alot smarter than it is, so you'll end up getting better results and have a much more efficient city. The governor is just plain stupid.

[Willem]

Originally posted by KeiserSose
Still a litt le confused...so if an unworked tile says one hammer, one coin and one bread, you ONLY get that if you add SOMETHING to it (a farm, cottege or mine)? And when you add that then you get the one coin, one bread and one hammer PLUS what your improvement added.

No, you only get those if there's someone inside the city actually working on the tile. In the city view you'll see white circles on some tiles. This tells you that they are being worked.

And some improvements on the tile will increase the amount of hammers, coins and food that you see. A mine on a Hill will add one more Hammer, a Farm on flatland will add an extra food, and Cottages will add a coin on whatever terrain it is built on. However Cottages if they're worked will grow into Hamlets, which grow into Villages, which grow into Towns. And each time they grow, you get more gold from them.

The exception to these rules is special resources, like Wheat or Copper or Gems. As well as giving you Hammers, Food and Gold, they have other effects on your empire. Wheat makes your people healthy, Copper lets you build certain units, and Gems will make your citizens happy. You still get those effects even if they're not in a city radius, as long as they're connected by road, river or coastline, and they have the proper improvement built on them. Which can only be built if the resource is within your cultural borders.