what to do with the nonproducers

[MPatton]

you know those cities that make 1 shield and 1 commerce?

[MPatton]

I basically actually do a little of everything except the last one. I basically try to achieve WLtKD and while I do that I forest clear forest clear. until I get a temple and an aqueduct then I just switch em to wealth and if they start producing and get the corruption under control then they are regular cities. I guess another option would be to send antiquated units and either A disband or B garrisson them there.

[Worthingtons]

Well the forest trick no longer works, but what you can do is,. if you are need of making things there you can disband useless troops there, In my empires i dont to have these cities anyway unless they're sitting on a resource of some kind....

[Arrian]

It totally depends. Even with huge empires I can usually get just about any city up from total corruption (95%). I look at it like a late-game challenge to get my empire as efficient as I can.

So I pump money into far-flung cities, buying courthouses, marketplaces, aqueducts, policestations, factories, etc. You might be surprised at how much you can get out of those cities if you put in enough work (gold). It's not technically "worth it" in the sense that you will not recoup the money you spend, so it something to do while playing out a game you're clearly going to win.

-Arrian

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

I would have to agree with Arrian. A little socialism, just like in the real world, can work wonders. Sink a little money in and that city will at least produce defensive units for newly conquered cities later.

Of course, if you're assured of victory and you don't want to waste the time defending or micromanaging said city... BURN, BABY, BURN!

(I mean, of course, raze the city)

Also... as many workers as possible! Why not?

[Nor Me]

If you have the luxuries for WLKD, wait for them to grow to size 6 and see what happens. Since it's always worth buying luxuries if you can, there are few strategic choices with this. Unless you have to rush a temple to do that, that is.

Very early on, I would try to build warriors and pop-rush settlers. For example, playing AU207 I got an advanced tribe close to the capital of the 3rd closest civ on a huge map. Minsk built 2 warriors, pop-rushed 19 shields on a spearman, immeadiately switched to a settler and was given to another civ when that was completed. This caused the 2 warriors and the settler to teleport to Moscow where they were actually useful. That's reasonable for 31 turns in a distant city.

Mid-game, I would make them a worker factory. They only need 1 square with 2 food to produce a worker every 10 turns. Even when you have enough workers to improve all the worked tiles and the military roads are all in place, you can still add workers to productive cities still under 6/12/20 pop.

Later I'd use whatever means necessary to get an adueduct, marketplace and even granaries and happiness improvements to draft as many conscripts as possible out of them. If there are no suicide missions available and you don't want to pay the upkeep, you're going to get at least 20 shields from disbanding them. Disbanding multiple conscripts railroaded in from hopeless cities for marketplaces, courthouses, etc. in recoverably corrupt cities can pay off.

[Aeson]

Irrigation and Specialists.

[epics]

yeah, wealth and specialists
...or I just might build an ISBM. Only 600 turns !!!, it would be ready... hmmmm... when I reach to Alpha Centauri

[badams52]

Originally posted by Aeson
Irrigation and Specialists.

the only way to go

[Dominae]

Aeson and badams beat me to it:

Irrigation, Specialists, maybe Aqueducts if you've got the cash to spare.


Dominae

[nationalist]

I do the Arrian thing, disband units in them to create Courthouses, Police Stations, etc.

[Catt]

Aeson, badams52, and Dominae beat me to it -- irrigation and specialists. I will rush a culture-building if I want the border expansion (and thus live with the 1 gpt upkeep for the building).

But I found this a good bit of advice:

Originally posted by Nor Me
If you have the luxuries for WLKD, wait for them to grow to size 6 and see what happens. Since it's always worth buying luxuries if you can, there are few strategic choices with this.

WLTKD operates as a courthouse or police station with respect to shields (waste, instead of corruption), and waiting for some turns to see if WLTKD actually improves the situation can save the rush-cost of rushing a courthouse and the micromanagement headache of subsequently selling the courthouse if it is ineffective (or the gpt upkeep if it is ineffectual but you don't go to the trouble of scrapping your newly-purchased improvement).

A rudimentary understanding of the detailed corruption formula - or extended play experience - will eventually guide you to the answer to the question "Will a couthouse make this city worthwhile as a producer?"

Catt

[badams52]

Another thing you can do is use the corruption caltulator to see if the city in question is at that 95% or not:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=1149665#post1149665

And Alexman, the resident corruption guru's original post about corruption can be found here:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=46801

[Tattila the Hun]

Well, I usually take some conscripts from "red" (population) cities and use them to rush courthouses...

[vulture]

Aeson, badams52, Dominae and Catt beat me to it Irrigate, use the extra food to support specialists (tax or science), and I tend to set the cities to wealth (sometimes rushing a temple in them). You can get a lot of cash (or science) from this.