How to have more productive cities?

[Richard I]

My capital is great. Grows fast, takes 2-3 turns to train troops, all is well. Found a new city in the best spot I can find, bring builders from my capital and get every tile improve. Still takes 40+ turns for a spearman or hypasist. I can’t get anything done in my new cities even after purchasing tiles with bonus resources. Is this normal?

[Buldor]

Having every tile improved doesn't do anything if there isn't a pop to work that tile.

40 turns for a spearman? Are you on marathon speed?

What bonus resources? All they do is give you tiles with specific higher yields. It is often more optimal to harvest them than exploit (build their improvement) them.

[ayrtep]

You can open the city and count where the production is coming from in the two cities. Probably working farms rather than mines in the second city.

You can manually move production from farms to mines, or select the prefer production button in the city screen.

[Phoenix]

A couple tips to grow a new city fast:
- Start a trade route from the new city to a city of YOURS with high food / prod
- If the location has low production, prioritize making an industrial zone (keep in mind that you want aquaduct / dam adjecancy)
- Some locations near some wonders might cause weird pop allocation on the tiles (eg. fountain of youth +4science +4faith), make sure your first pop is in a good food tile
- Make sure you have at LEAST a small farm cluster. 3 farms adjacent at the LEAST, me and my friend usually aim for a diamond pattern for them (4 farms).

Also, keep in mind buying tiles does nothing if you don't have the pop to work the tiles (ofc you can buy tiles for strategic purposes, to block off areas against enemies).
A new city with 1 pop can only work 1 tile, so upgrading 5 tiles does absolutely nothing for that city untill you have 5 pop to actually work them :)

[plaguepenguin]

Your capital city has the palace, which gives bonus yields. In most cases, the system plops your initial units, your settler and warrior, down in a location next to high yield tiles. New cities you found can't have the palace advantage, so you have to choose their sites carefully for being adjacent, or at least nearby, to at least a few high yield tiles.

The difference between average yield tiles and high yield tiles is not great in absolute terms, just a point or two. However, for new, low-pop, cities, it's the marginal relative difference that is important. You know this already, because you sent a builder from an established city to get better tile yields for the new city. Here's an overexplanation of how to think that principle through methodically

If your new city has production at only 4, then a single tile with one more production makes it 5, and that's a 25% increase. Do that on two tiles and you're up to 6 production, a 50% increase.

Food yields are even more basic, because accumulating excess food is the way to increase your pop, which lets you work more tiles. High food yields let you snowball into higher production and higher food.

But, food is more problematic than production because each population point in your city eats 2 food every turn. The city center is a freebie, in the sense that it works the tile it's on, but doesn't eat any food because it doesn't take one of your citizens to work it. It's good to have a 2 food plus 2 production tile to settle on, in order to maximize the freebie effect. Beyond that freebie, a tile with only 2 food doesn't help you grow faster. A tile with less than 2 has to be compensated by also working some other tile that yields more than 2 food, or you are eating into the city center freebie. Eat all the way through that and your city stops growing, and even loses pop if you go further and exceed the margin created by the freebie.

i always play with tile yields displayed, because these considerations of yields are vital in the early game for planning where to put new cities, then working the exact right tiles in these cities that you need to grow the city, vs finish production sooner

If I had to guess what the problem is with your low production new city, it's that you settled some place without good food yield tiles, or without tiles that yield both food and production, so your growth stalled. The city never took off in the snowball you need it to develop. You sometimes settle a city just for access to a luxury or strategic resource, without regard for it ever being much use for anything else. That's fine, but for second and third cities that you want to become generally useful, you need to choose sites carefully for at least a few high yield tiles nearby, in a mix (or better yet, a combo) of production and food.

[Maya-Neko]

The most important thing here is to get as many cities as early as possible in a fresh start. Snowballing is extremely strong in this game, so normally all cities you've found within the first 100 turns will often outpace most of the cities that come after that. Obviously it doesn't necessarily need to be your own cities, so conquering other civs or city states is a viable option as well (and sometimes even a city founded late in the game can get strong with the right surroundings, but that are more exceptions)

On top of that, population is key for already existing cities, since the more you have, the more tiles you can work on early on and later on you'll get more bonusses from districts, which all usually have some income calculations based on the population of a city. That said you might want to stick to the food focus early on, until you reach the housing cap, at which point focusing on production starts to get better. Obviously try to focus most on upgrading housing early on, especially if you've a strong starting location with tons of growth potential. Founding cities near rivers or lakes is very strong, but if that's not possible, try to build preserves, dams and/or aqueducts.

As for the case, that you've a place, which can't grow pops on its own early on it's a good option to use trade routes towards your own cities. That might get you less money for now, but the higher food- and production income will help the city grow bigger. That's especially important for cities, who only start with 2 housing early on, so don't send your traders away, if you know, that you'll soon get a city, which really needs help that way.

[Richard I]

I appreciate the detailed answers everyone. I didn’t even take into account housing and population honestly. I was just building and focusing completely on production

[Ghiron]

The key is having high quality tiles to work close to your city center when founding a new city. It's not just about having luxuries, you need good tiles to work so the city can grow and snowball.

1. Always settle on freshwater plains(hills) whenever possible.
2. You want at least 2 food, 2 production tiles (in the same tile so 4 yield total) next to the city center to help grow and build faster
3. Don't be afraid to chop tiles with a builder. If it's a lower yield tile, and you're not working the tile, chop it instead of improving. I usually chop every rainforest that doesn't have a resource on it.