Plant a tree or build a mine.

[ZoboZeWarrior]

The question is simple :
If a city vinicy is poor in square with production, is it better to plan a forest or contruct a mine ?

Z.

[JPF_civplayer]

What I do is wait until I get whatever advance it takes to build a hill, then I terraform a hill and then build a mine on it. That's later in the game of course.

[Gregurabi]

Depends on why the city is poor in production. Is it because you're in an area with lots of ocean and grasslands? In that case, boosting production isn't worthwhile -- instead, you should boost population and science. Build fisheries and advanced farms, and have your city work on science improvements (Academy, Publishing House, University). Then when your population is high enough, and your science improvements are in place, convert as many people as you can to scientist specialists.

Of course, you may have to help your science city along by rush-buying the improvements it needs, because its production will be so poor. But this is a very worthwhile use of your gold.

A few science centers like this one, in the mid-game (say, AD 1200), can easily double or triple your science output.

On the other hand, perhaps your city has access to trade goods (such as Elephant on plains, or Crabs/Pearls). In that case, you will want this city to focus on gold -- build marketplaces and banks, and find other cities with the same resources, to set up trade routes. Don't worry about production in this city -- let it be a commercial center.

One of the nice things about CTP is that you don't have to have good production in all your cities (because your military support and PW are done empire-wide, not per-city). Let your production centers build your military; let your science centers build people and science buildings; and let your commerce centers build gold buildings. Don't be afraid to rush-buy things you need in cities with poor production. That's what your gold is for!

[JPF_civplayer]

Ding! I do the exact same thing. This is especially important if you're using Wes's Med Mod 4. Playing on Diety with MM4 a 1 or 2 'science cities' are almost required to keep up with whoever is leading in science.