City Strategy

[peef_the_okay]

In terms of how to plan cities in Civ 4, I have received advice that says the best thing to do is plan specialized cities. In other words, pick certain cities that focus on culture, others for research, and others for producing units.

I seem to have trouble doing this in practice. For example, I have a tendency to build a temple, a library, and a forge in every city. So I wind up with a bunch of well-rounded cities.

However, I am also having trouble with my midgame. My civs start out strong, but I level off and become mediocre. I am wondering if it has something to do with my city planning strategy. (Another possible problem is that I usually let the governors run everything...).

What is the best way to manage cities?

Another question: What effect would it have to emphasize production, research and culture in the same city? Would they cancel each other out? Or would it actually boost all three?

[Willem]

Originally posted by peef_the_okay
I seem to have trouble doing this in practice. For example, I have a tendency to build a temple, a library, and a forge in every city. So I wind up with a bunch of well-rounded cities.

There's nothing wrong with a Temple or Forge in every city, those are buildings that all cities can benefit from. Though Library is only going to be useful if you have some Commerce being generated. If the city is landlocked with no river or Cottages, don't bother. It's more important to consider the terrain than simply assigning duties to a city arbitrarily. You can have a city on a River with lots of Hills around it and still have it be worthwhile to build things like Markets and Libraries. Consider the location when you try to decide what to do with your cities.

I am wondering if it has something to do with my city planning strategy. (Another possible problem is that I usually let the governors run everything...).

Well that's probably your problem right there. Don't rely on the Governor for anything., it's quite stupid. In fact I think it's gotten worse with BtS IMO.

Another question: What effect would it have to emphasize production, research and culture in the same city? Would they cancel each other out? Or would it actually boost all three?

No, the Governor will basically just work the land like it would if they were all off. However, with all three checked it's going to be much less likely to assign Specialists on it's own, and will place any new citizens on the land instead.

[couerdelion]

Specialising cities is all about reducing unnecessary builds to a minimum so that they can specialise on producing the things that they are ideally suited to producing. Cities with high commerce will be good for science and gold while high production cities can produce units and wonders.

With this in mind, each city can then be considered to have two types of builds: selfish and unselfish. The selfish builds are those that serve purely the needs of the city while unselfish ones are those that increase the key outputs that the city is providing for the empire as a whole. They may be various shades of grey in all this but allow me to make the simple distinction.

So let us assume that a city is going to be a science/gold producer but is not a wholly city. Apart from short periods when it may be put to other uses, builds like libraries, markets etc would be considered as unselfish while barracks, walls, temples would be purely for the benefit of that city – at least in many cases.

For the production city (particularly a military one), builds like barracks, forge and units would be unselfish while libraries, aqueducts, colloseums, theatres, markets etc would tend to fall into the selfish category – only needing them for culture, health or for happiness.

Generally, the following builds are almost always unselfish – settlers, workers, missionaries, units (but not garrisons), courthouses

And the following are almost always selfish – theatres, colloseums, aqueduct, garrison units, walls.

So having decided, based on the terrain, which type of city you want each to be, you can go a long way to improving things by limiting selfish builds to the minimum.

As a general rule, that is

[DirtyMartini]

As a default for new cities -- I activate the city governor and the "maximize commerce" and "maximize production" buttons. In my experience, this makes for much better tile assignments than just assigning the governor with no buttons selected. While not perfect, it reduced micromanagement. I find it a good balance. For certains cities, I will manually assign tiles. I also start turning off the governor when I'm at/near happy caps so the city doesn't overgrow. I've read multiple places that people like all all three (food/commerce/production) selected, but I find this too food heavy for most cities -- the city ends up working farmed plains that are just there as part of an irrigation chain instead of mined hills. I haven't used the bottom row maximize buttons (culture, science and great people I think) very much.

As far as specializing cities goes here's my take. Capital will usually be a good all-arounder, so that's usually how I use it. The next city I found is usually a unit pump -- I'm looking for hills and food specials. Hills get mined, everything else gets farmed/pastured. This city gets granary, barracks, minimal culture to pop borders then just builds units. Heroic Epic goes there eventually. My third city is a commerce city. I'm looking for river grasslands, floodplains and metals. Calendar resources are nice too, but won't come into play until later. This city is maximized for commerce and will get lib, market, grocer, bank, etc. Probably also gets a forge at some point as well. Just make sure this city is growing and always working cottages/gold mines. After that -- pickings can be kind of slim. I just try to find sites with food resources or floodplains or river access. You really need at least one food special to make a city worth founding in the early going. These accessory cities can be specialized if the terrain is appropriate, but often they will be relatively well rounded. At some point I usually pick out a GP pump -- a high food spot where I can run lots of specialists. This is of secondary importance to me lately though, as my capital produces most of my GP via wonders.

You mentioned in your question having a city maximized culture. I don't see any real value in having a culture-maximizing city unless its contending with neighboring culture or you're going for a cultural victory. Otherwise, any city normal city really only needs enough culture to expand it's borders that first time. In terms of city specialization I tend to want a unit pump, a major commerce/science city, a second big production center (often the capital), and a GP farm. The rest of the cities just do what the terrain allows. I may also have a "money city" if a shrine ends up in a city without a lot of other commerce -- no need for lib/university/observatory -- just market, grocer, bank, wall street.

Hope that helps a little.

[The Priest]

While I have never been that focused on city specialisation, I have come to realise that it can give that extra boost you need.

The point as far as I am concerned is that with a reasonable tech rate, you are often reserachig techs which allow buildings at such a rate that your cities could easily just build the new buildings - library, temple, monastry, forge, market, grocer etc. I found I would do that, because whatever people might say about x being a production city or commerce, every one of these buildings would help every city - there is always a reason for building them.

However, if you do that you find that your army and number of workers at the end of the middle ages (when there are lots of buildings to add) is the same as it was at the beginning of the classical age, other people notice this and invade!

So at the least, you need to identify some cities which have little prospect of ever having a lot of commerce and don't bother building all these buildings in them and get them building units.

(Obviously you need to build barackes etc. there, and it can be worth only building stable in one and, later, dry dock in another, and they produce those units, the others produce land infantry units etc.)

But for me, I still run hot and cold about specialisation (e.g. a market does give happiness as well as gold etc.) but I have learnt you need some cities who don't bother with most buildings just to produce units.

[Supr49er]

To start, choose just one commerce city, one production city, and maybe one GP city. Build only what belongs in these cities. Don't be tempted to spam every building in every city.

[Willem]

Originally posted by DirtyMartini
I also start turning off the governor when I'm at/near happy caps so the city doesn't overgrow.

You do know that there's an option for the Governor to stop growth in those situations don't you? It can come in very handy. However if you're using the Slavery civic, it can be more advantageous to let it grow past the happy cap, then whip a building.

[snoopy369]

Stop growth is almost never a good thing. Adjust your tiles worked to maximize (shields + commerce), but if you're still growing at that point, why not? The unhappy people don't do any harm to the city, and eventually they wil become useful (or they won't, but they're still better than dumping that food into the creek...)

A city that's happy cap is 7, grows to size 15; then you suddenly get calendar and taoism, and are able to bring that happy cap up to 18. What's better, a size 7 city, or a size 15 city, at this point? All unhappy people are in Civ, are instant growth food repositories. Think of them as each just containing 40 or whatever food that it took to make them, and holding onto it until you need to grow (at the cost of -2 fpt of course).

The only time they hurt you is producing workers/settlers, and if you're doing this at a point where the difference is significant (pop-happycap) you should probably be slaving anyway...

[DirtyMartini]

Originally posted by Willem


You do know that there's an option for the Governor to stop growth in those situations don't you? It can come in very handy. However if you're using the Slavery civic, it can be more advantageous to let it grow past the happy cap, then whip a building.

Yeah, I usually click the stop growth button in those situations to get a starting point, then reassign the tiles manually from there. Usually I reassign them so that I'm still growing, but at a slower rate. When all is well, I usually try for a 3-5 food surplus. When I'm near, at, or over the happy cap, I may go for a 1 or 2 food surplus, or I may just continue to grow unchecked depending on the possibilities for additional happy in the near future, or whipping plans.

Snoopy -- I see what you're saying, but it only makes sense to keep growing if that population will be whipped or there are more sources of happy on the horizon, otherwise, that excess food would be better used to feed specialists than to grow more unhappy population. The specific time I'm most likely to halt growth is in the late game, when I've got most of the happy sources I'm going to get, so any additional population will never be useful. At that point, I may workshop over some farms or mine some windmilled hills.

[snoopy369]

If you are producing food, you might as well grow. There's no harm in it. If you are producing more food than you can use, then you need to workshop/mine/etc., or otherwise repurpose your workforce; otherwise you are producing less.

The stop growth button is interesting, but should never be used...

[DirtyMartini]

Originally posted by snoopy369
If you are producing food, you might as well grow. There's no harm in it. If you are producing more food than you can use, then you need to workshop/mine/etc., or otherwise repurpose your workforce; otherwise you are producing less.

The stop growth button is interesting, but should never be used...

Well, if you don't stop growth, as you continue to accumulate unhappy citizens, the governor is going to start reassigning tiles to feed the unhappys, avoiding starvation. That will lead to a loss of productivity.

I do see your point -- a little unhappy population is fine or even beneficial if you eventually will whip it or make it happy. I just think that feeding it in the meantime can sometimes be more costly than it's worth. Like I said -- I don't leave the stop growth button checked very often, I use it as a starting point, then reasssign as I see fit, usually with the goal of slow growth.

[Blake]

Originally posted by snoopy369
The only time they hurt you is producing workers/settlers

This isn't so.

While you are training a settler or worker the unhappy population don't eat anything.
Although you still lose food to ill-health, if applicable.

[peef_the_okay]

Thanks everyone...a wealth of ideas here. I can't wait to start implementing some of these things...

[panther553212]

Is there a way to turn the Automatic Governor off by default?

[joncnunn]

Disagree implantely post-Slavery. The angry citizen will eat 2 food a turn that could have been going to a specalist or building a settler/worker. Worse yet, the governor then tends to respond to this by either firing a specalist or two or reallocation workers away from a heavy hammer tiles in favor of more food. I don't like it so much I instantly reload the end of previous turn save. (And yes, in Civ III I did that as well if I accidently let a city grow into disorder.) Just remember to unclick the button when the happiness level is raized.

Originally posted by snoopy369
If you are producing food, you might as well grow. There's no harm in it. If you are producing more food than you can use, then you need to workshop/mine/etc., or otherwise repurpose your workforce; otherwise you are producing less.

The stop growth button is interesting, but should never be used...