How do you handle cities that produce lots of food, little else?

[tobyr]

This is problem arose in a ToT game, but I think it is of general interest and CIV 2 gurus must know how best to handle it.

How do you manage a city site that produces tons of food but little else?

The best I've been able to do is what EVERYONE says is only a temporary fix and a sign of other problems, but it seems to work well in this case -- I turn cits into tax men and scientists. The city supports THEM with ease and they add considerably to its output.

My basic problem is that it is very hard to keep these cities from expanding rapidly. Even if you arrange the cits to get as little food as possible, the next WLTKD will kill you. Or an enemy may move onto a cit square, forcing the cit back to the high-producing food square.

(In ToT, in the undersea world, it is not unusual to have a site with only one or two squares that produce shields, but seevral squares that proces for foods.) Obviously you want to avoid these sites, but if you are careful to avoid them, you spend much too much time looking for better sites, and there are few better ones.

- toby robison


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toby robison
criticalpaths@mindspring.com

[Smash]

These are good cities to support settlers/engineers from later on.Early on,they can be great for spitting out settlers.Support that city's defenders from other cities to free up every shield possible.Large population cities can also be good science and trading cities later on so consider that.

btw..the gurus are on vacation
[This message has been edited by Smash (edited November 22, 1999).]

[DaveV]

Smash is right. A couple things he may have implied, but didn't say explicitly:

Consider rush-building settlers in this "high-food" city, if you have some spare change. You'll spend a lot of time growing if you wait to produce a settler with no help. Also, you can build a settler in another city with more shields and less food, and re-home it in the high-food city (then the high-food city will pay the support). Another (fairly expensive) option is food caravans. These can move one food from the high-food city to another city that needs it.

[War4ever]

A side bar to what both Smash and DaveV said would be to build another city close to the high food city especially if the new city is loaded with resources.... you can then support at least on if not two settlers from the new city(re home the settler) and probably build a defensive or offensive unit to protect as well...... remember that not ever city has to live forever.... some times i build cities where for strategic purposes even though i know that they will be useless later on.... temp cities are great if used properly

[geofelt]

Such a city is a prime candidate for King Richards crusade. Use food caravans from outside to build it.

[johnmcd]

I agree, churn out settlers. Planting forest is quite a quick way to boost production, once it is railroaded too you can get three shields out ot it, which isn't all bad. I would say that rather than King Richard's you might want to try for a Super Science City, using Newton's and Copernicus's. If there are few shields you must have at least some arrows.

[Hodad]

or (later in the game) terraform some squares to hills (try to guess some special resource sites) mine and railroad them. with two of them you'll produce a neat amount of shields.

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Alien Infiltrate

[tobyr]

I greatly appreciate the interesting responses I'm getting to this question.

I'd like to point out to the last few posters that, in Test of Time, the problems can be a little more interesting.

(1) you may NEVER be able to terraform (depends on your tribe, I think), so you have to plan where your cities are going even more carefully.

(2) You civ2 players are used to a terrain in which forests are pretty common. What is correspondingly common on the undersea map is ocean and seabed, neither of which produce any shields. In fact, on this map I doubt that any good terrain producing more than one shield clusters in groups as forests do.

- toby robison

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toby robison
criticalpaths@mindspring.com

[jpk]

Large cities yield lots of trade. Use the city to build caravans. If necessary, use incremental rush building.

Using the money from the caravans purchase happiness improvements or happiness wonders.

[tobyr]

JPK said "Large cities yield lots of trade. Use the city to build caravans...."

But a city with few shields and lots of food gets big too fast. You haven't been able to build some of the improvements that increase trade. It takes a long time to build aqueduct. It takes a long time to build its basic defenses.

I do like the idea of bringing military units from other cities (and NOT supporting them from the food city) to perhaps make your approach work.

-toby robison

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toby robison
criticalpaths@mindspring.com

[jpk]

tobyr, if a city producess few shields then you can buy them. Once you start building lots of caravans, money is not a problem.

Let's say your city produces 4 shields a turn. Normally it would take 13 turns to build a caravan. There is another, faster way. Build a caravan for one turn. Switch to and buy a warrior for 13 coins. Switch back to a caravan for the next turn. Switch back to a caravan for the next turn. Repeat this with a 20 shield, a 30 shield, and then a 40 shield unit. Then complete the carvan construction as without additional purchases. In 7 turns you will build a caravan for a total cost of 52 coins. If you deliver the caravan to an AI city on another continent and that city needs the particular commodity, you will normally get far more money in return. You will be pleased with the science bonus as well. If your city is generating caravans you will have the money to purchase aqueducts and sewers.

If your city has three trade routes you will be less likely to have disorder.

[GeorgeJones III]

I disagree with the King Richards Crusade comment, that would be a waste of a good wonder.. The settlers are a good idea, caravans and hills are even better ideas. You can also turn grassland into forsests by mining.

[War4ever]

my suggestion if there is no nearby city generating lots of shields is to bring in a couple of defenders from an additonal city and then throw up some walls and then churn o;ut a few caravans like JPK stated and then buy what ever improvement you need from that point on. I never used to think so but now i have alot of faith in caravans

[dbett]

How big are the citie?? I really don't see how a low production/high food city can be a problem. Settlers take two food off for each one built. If this city was really useless say 42 in size, with 12 production (Factory etc), then build around 10 settlers. This will knock it back to a 32 (full of Tax men, science) and a whole lot of settlers to support your nation with.

Further it can be used early on to get other cities close by, up to 8 in size. A very handy way to increase city size.

If its huge say 25 with 4 production then you'll have to rush build settlers, move them to other cities that either need growth (less than 8) or need a settler themselves.

Tax it completely, even with few trade squares, tax will start to add up.

If a city reaches five in size, you can remove all four units and make them tax men. Surely the city would be in negatives with food? This should be the case at any stage. A city of 8 that has three shield squares. Thats 4x3 food units = 12 food this only supports a city of size 6. I realise that those retarded AI units sometimes move onto your shield squares theres no really good solution to this

I have yet to start a game with the underwater ocean on, so I may be missing the point but I have never seen (in my whole 9 year Civ life) a huge city that is useless.

I shall try the underwater ocean world just sea for myslef.