GP City: Better to have wonder production if it scarifies population?

[thejuicygoober]

Would the perfect GP city be entirely farmed food tiles or would the perfect GP city include a healthy set of mined hill tiles (like six) for the express purpose of completing wonders to gain their free great people? Would the advantages of gaining wonder's free great people offset the disadvantages of a smaller max population? I appreciate anyone's comments! Thanks!

[Quillan]

I'd have to say the perfect GP city would probably be farmed flood plains. You want lots of food, so you can have lots of population, so you can run lots of specialists. Or perhaps if you don't want to pollute the mix, you need about 12 population so you can run 4 of one type of specialist. In the latter case, you need enough food so that 8 worked tiles supports the entire city, and can have production for the rest.

[Thedrin]

Would the advantages of gaining wonder's free great people offset the disadvantages of a smaller max population? I appreciate anyone's comments!

In general, no but it depends on the wonder. A specialist city produces more great people from having a higher surplus population and more great people points per specialist than per wonder. Most wonders also have empire wide effects so the non great person advantages of the wonder will usually be felt in the specialist city anyway. The effects of running specialists are only felt in the specialist city.

[fed1943]

GP City needs mostly population, so food.

And better save the production of said cities for health, happy and

multipliers of the specialists'output.

Best regards,

[couerdelion]

You're likely to want a little production anyway to build National Epic in the city. Also, you will either need to build the specialist buildings or will have to adopt Caste System. So all of this takes time and a little production. Probably the quickest way to get most of this infrastructure in place will be to use the whip.

One wonder that does fit well in with a GP farm is the Great Library. This is one of the few world wonders that only affect the city in which it is built but it brings with it 8GPP. If you know early your GP farm and have some limited production there, it may make sense to use this production in the early stages for the GLibrary and then convert this gradually over time to food for supporting specialists – one good example here would be a grassland-forest rich site with food resources where the trees can be chopped for the wonder/specialist buildings and then farmed.

[Diadem]

Food is most important, but I agree that some production is necessary for building wonders. Wonders can generate a significant amount of GPP points if you have enough of them.

[Rancidlunchmeat]

It depends on your goal. Do you want the most GP possible and as quickly as possible? Or do you want specific GP?

If you want X number of GS to lightbulb, academy, or join as SS.. then you probably don't want to be building stonehenge, the oracle, pyramids, etc.. in your GPP Farm. Which means you don't need the extra production in that city to build many wonders, so you'll want to go the population route and assign specialists.

If you just want a bunch of GP of no specific kind, then it's probably better to have a mix of extra food for a handful of specialists and production sites to build whichever wonder that you want to grab for it's inherent civ-wide benefits.

So it depends on your goal. If you want specific GPP, there's no need for the extra production because you won't be building that many wonders in that city anyway.