Help with specialising cities

[Nugog]

Can anyone offer some advice/theories for specialising cities?

I have attempted this many times and always seem to mess it up. I understand the basics of the game (I think ) but cannot seem to get this right.

Some ideas on not just the theory, but maybe map setups/opposing civs etc would be helpful.

[johnmcd]

In my opinion, the only thing that is a certainty about a specialist city is that it needs at least two food resources to really be a powerhouse.

[Mr Justice]

well specialization is more of an art than a science (ie there is no definative answer).

im in work so no access to civ here, so u'll have to bear with just descriptions, unless someone else will weigh in with their images.

basically i take city specialization in the following steps

1. city identification/placement
happens in the early game pre AD times anyway.

2. worker tile improvements
improve and work the tiles as soon as possible

for commerce cities
build loads of cottages (on grassland, plains, river tiles,
grassland hills,
windmill plains hills.
following specials are very good aswell
spices, gems , gold, silver (not sure of the others)
1 or 2 farms for speedy growth (unless u got a food special like corn wheat ect).

for production
mine hills, watermill river tiles, lumberjack forests (i dont cut forrests in my production city (unless there on hills),
workshop plains and grassland.
farms are also important for production cities as most of the improved production tiles dont produce enuf food, so every 3rd tile should be farm (this is terain dependant lots of grassland forrests and you wont need so many farms, all plains hills and every 2 tile will need to be a farm)

for Great people.
farms, thats all nothing else.

note i dont specialize my capital untill industrial age, before then its generally both commerce and production.

specialization is (imo) civ neutral, doesnt matter what civ u are you will set up your cities one way or another to specialize.

also bear in mind that there are degrees to which you specialize you cities. certainly you need 1 commerce city and one production city. they should be maxed, eg last game i had my commerce city with 2 farms, 1 mine and 13 cottages and a production city with 4 mines, 4 lumberjacked forrests, a watermil 2 workshops and some farms (not all squares worked). however i had about 3/4 cities who where commerce cities but not wholly and solely (max 6 cottages and 5 water tiles),
and had some production as well.
citis which are totally specialized are useless for any other purpose, where this is a problem is for your commerce city becuase it needs lots of infrastructure to be good at commerce, but it should have no production, hence catch 22, my answer to this is to start off all cities with ge3neric stuff, some prod, some commerce, and as i get into the medivel times i will slowly rework already improved tiles to change the improvement into something more approriate.
(messed up posting so editied to correct it)

[guermantes]

regarding tile improvements and available resources for the city to be specialized, are we talking about only what is inside the fat cross?

[Mr Justice]

yes only inside the fat cross.

[couerdelion]

There is some discussion on specialising cities in Vel's Strategy Document (top thread). But since the document is based more on the Ancient Age, it doesn't go into a great deal of detail.

If I get time I'll try to write something up - and hopefully someone will save me the trouble by getting there first

[fed1943]

The advice of Mr Justice is very good,indeed.

Just more one important thing: first,make up your mind and know the food you will need and decide about the sources (from and when).

Best regards,

[Ming]

citis which are totally specialized are useless for any other purpose, where this is a problem is for your commerce city becuase it needs lots of infrastructure to be good at commerce, but it should have no production, hence catch 22

Not a problem... early in the game you just crack the whip, and later in the game you just buy it

[Nugog]

All right - thanks for that, I'll try again.

Any suggestions for civics and specialists combos?

[fed1943]

Representation - always good.

Pacifism - the best, if you want and can be based on GP; dangerous. When in doubt, run away.

Best regards,

[Mr Justice]

Not a problem... early in the game you just crack the whip, and later in the game you just buy it

yes true, but a quailified true,
i think twice when i whip my commerce city becuase of lost turns working cottages, im mmore than happy to do it early in the game, but once a few decent building are in it (library/market/grocer/acadmay) i dont like whipping cause of lost revenue/beakers whatever.
its a real judgement call tbh, i never went down to the level of calculating how many commerce would be lost by whipping vs how many end beakers/gold beniffit becuase of building done quicker.

specialists are not that important.
but for productions use engineers only (or priest with anger wat wonder)

for commerce, i dont recommend unless u got the free pop and all sqrs worked. a fully grown cottage is far more benificial than a specialist. shud only be a factor in these cities late game.

civics, again i choose these for different reasons and per say have no bearing on specialization.

remember specializatrion is not an end in of itself, its merely a differnet method of arranging your cities, as such it has low bearing on stratgic questions such as which civic u have. i say choose ur civis based on differnt criteria (ie at war/ low happiness / troop buildup / infrasturture buildup or what ever).

if your not sure of the civics and how they benifit you then i say go play a spitual civ and try em all out. they can suprise in how they benifit/dont benifit.

[Jaybe]

To maximize utility, care should be taken as to where to put your national wonders, particularly Wall Street & Oxford University.

If you have a religious shrine, obviously Wall Street (along with market, grocer & bank) should go there to maximize the multiplying factors (+200% is tripling your gold)! Primary specialists are obviously merchants. Heavy cottage use is NOT indicated if you are putting the bulk (80-100%) of your slider on science. Once your gold multipliers are in place, you can build Wealth if you want. Great prophets or great merchants can be imbedded into this city for 5-6 gold each (apply multipliers).

Your heaviest commerce city wants to have as many science multipliers in it as possible. If my capital has ample food sources (bonus terrain and/or flood plains), I may (in my capital):
Run the Bureaucracy civic and keep it to the end of the game;
Prioritize an Academy, library, university, Oxford University & laboratory;
Cottage the flood plains;
Build Globe Theater as my 2nd national wonder, maintain substantial food surplus to maximize growth (keeping an eye on health limitations), apply most specialists as scientists;
If I am not comfortable in the tech advance competition, build Research.

If the capital is not suited for high commerce, apply to another city instead and take advantage of Free Speech when available. National Epic also goes well with Globe Theater, but can go anywhere that has the food surplus to support all those specialists.

A city with sufficient food to work a bunch of hills is obviously great to emphasize production in. Too many potential military-oriented national wonder candidates, so it will be good to have more than one such city: Heroic Epic, West Point, Ironworks, Red Cross.

It is NOT required that cities be totally specialized! Unlike the AI, I would rarely have a city that is totally towns, and I have only a few cities that are totally production. A size-13 city often has plenty of tiles extra to improve with alternate emphasis -- e.g., extra irrigation & workshop combinations as an alternate to cottages/towns in case you need extra production.

Is it okay to have Oxford & Wall Street in the same city? Definitely, though remember they would be the ONLY national wonders you have there!

Rambling on ...
Specialists:
In the early game a city with some extra food and a scientist or two can apply a big jump in your research, in addition to giving you a great scientist to build an Academy. Short of cash? Rush that temple for a priest and a great prophet to build that Shrine or apply him to the city for +5 gold (multiplied by those financial improvements).

But eventually (late game) getting a Great Person is not going to be important because it's going to take such a long time coming.

The preceding ramble is primarily based on Noble difficulty games, marathon length. While I believe they apply to other parameters, caveat emptor.

[Nugog]

Thank you all.

Now if only RL wasn't getting in the way I could actually try these ideas out

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by Jaybe
If you have a religious shrine, obviously Wall Street (along with market, grocer & bank) should go there to maximize the multiplying factors (+200% is tripling your gold)! Primary specialists are obviously merchants. Heavy cottage use is NOT indicated if you are putting the bulk (80-100%) of your slider on science. Once your gold multipliers are in place, you can build Wealth if you want. Great prophets or great merchants can be imbedded into this city for 5-6 gold each (apply multipliers).

Your capital is usually your science city because of the impact of Bureaucracy. If it is also has your religion's shrine, cottages remain highly beneficial. Of course choosing your national wonders becomes more difficult.

If your shrine is not in your capital, it can be benficial to build the shrine city as a secondary science city, with lots of cottages. At 80% or 90% science, there will be some gold coming from the cottages that will benefit from the financial multipliers.(Similarly, if you are running at less than 100% science, financial multipliers are beneficial in your science city.) Presumably, the alternative to cottages in your shrine city is to build farms which can then be used to support non-science specialists.

RJM

[Arrian]

I typically stick the National Epic and Oxford in my capital, with Wall Street going in my religious shrine city (sometimes I'm able to get more than one religion founded in that one, non-capital city, which is beautiful).

The Heroic Epic + West Point is another combo I try to set up.

Taking specialization to a bit of an extreme, in certain games I've managed to place wonders such that I have "pure" GP-generation sites. For instance, in the game I was playing last night, I had a city with the Great Lighthouse and Colossus that will also end up being my Wall Street city (2 shrines*) - great merchants. I had a city with Stonehenge, the Oracle, Ankor Wat and Chitzen Itza (currently building the Spiral Minaret) - great prophets. I had a city with Notre Dame and the Taj Mahal - great artists.

The only mixed city (at least, from wonders) was Beijing, with the Pyramids (Eng), Great Library (Sci), Hagia Sophia (Eng), National Epic (Art).

Yeah, I have a wonder-building problem. I know.

-Arrian