Last night I played a small pangaea map on prince and normal speed. I rolled the dice and got Ramses. My initial city had pig and wheat, as well as two small lakes surrounded by grassland. So I thought, hey a good food city, and I'm industrious, I'll focus on a SE. So i focused on wonder whoring, getting Pyramids, Parthenon, Oracle, and a bunch of other early game wonders in the city. Got caste system, set representation, and was ahead of the others in tech.

However, by mid game my score was middle of the pack. My biggest city was my capitol with a size of 13. I look at Isabella's cities, and Madrid is size 21. She has a shitty arctic city that is the same city as my capitol city. I have all these beautiful irrigated grasslands that I couldn't use because I maxed out health and happiness with 13 population. And perhaps most astonishing was I was last in the stats for food.

In my own territory I had silk, wine, gold and gems for happiness, and cows, wheat, pigs, clams and fish for health. I built all the health/happiness generating buildings in my cap. Still, couldn't break 13. Happiness wasn't the problem, it was health.

So, as health being the limiting factor in the game and generally unhealthiness not being as severe unhappiness, should I have just let my cities keep growing? My relations with other civs wasn't great, and I never did any resource trading. How important is it to trade resources?

City sizing is probably the worst part of my game. I looked in that city size challenge thread and balked at how people could be consistently getting 20+ city sizes. Besides not having the expansive trait, what am I doing wrong?!

Im sure the experts will come by with more and better advice but a couple things I thought of reading your post.

1. Caste System is great, its my new favorite civic. But if you're running a bunch of specialists, it can really slow down your growth. It might help you to run a specialist or two less then norm for a couple turns until your population rises...or add a gm super specialist, because they add food the city you stick them in.

2. Sometimes its good to keep forests. Besides the hammer value, they also give +.5 health. If you chopped them then obviously its too late, but for your next game try to keep a couple around, at least until you have some health improvements

3. The buildings that add health, some of them only add health if you have the right resource. So it might be worth trading for other resources if you dont have whatever matches up with a granery or grocer

4. Hanging gardens adds +1 health to all cities, and its fairly doable because not everyone has mathematics and it doesnt have a huge hammer cost.

You have to have a wide variety of resources. It's almost essential to trade. The only alternative is massive conquest. Incidentally those "shitty" arctic starting locations frequently have 5 or 6 food resources so they can often make good cities, so Madrid isn't a good comparison.

You know, I always forget about the forest health bonus. I usually end up chopping them to build the wonders. I will definitely keep a few around next time.

I lost out on Hanging Gardens, but I didn't aim for it unfortunately. I should have specifically gone for it, since I've built it before and I've seen the benefit, not the mention industrious should be able to get whatever wonder they want most of the time, provided the stone or marble is available.

I will definitely focus on trading. But I have a question about that, is it better to make friends with a distant civ in a different climate, since they are more likely to have resources I don't have and vice versa? I can see the benefit of having nearby friends, but a lot of the time they don't have too many resources that I don't have.

Curtadams, you misinterpreted my post, Madrid was not an arctic start, she built that arctic city much later and it was still able to grow to the size of my biggest city. Granted, she is expansive and as you noted there are food resources available there.

I lost out on Hanging Gardens, but I didn't aim for it unfortunately. I should have specifically gone for it, since I've built it before and I've seen the benefit, not the mention industrious should be able to get whatever wonder they want most of the time, provided the stone or marble is available.

I will definitely focus on trading. But I have a question about that, is it better to make friends with a distant civ in a different climate, since they are more likely to have resources I don't have and vice versa? I can see the benefit of having nearby friends, but a lot of the time they don't have too many resources that I don't have.


Another bonus on the hanging gardens is that it gives ge points, which are hard to come by until factories (oy!).

About the different climate thing...Ive actually never thought about that before. Usually I take all the friends I can have, and when Im first meeting everyone, I havent seen much of the map. Once you've met everyone, the diplomacy screen can show you what resources other civs will and wont trade...so you can base who you friend with on that. Or conquer someone and demand that resource as a vassal.

Another thing about forests...if you're chopping them for early wonders you're getting about 15-20 hammers, 30 with mathematics. If you keep them around you'll make 30 hammers in 15 turns, plus later on you can build lumbermills for an extra hammer. Imagine adding up all those hammers per turn...its alot more then that 15-30 when you chop it. So its a much much better hammer investment to keep forests around...but often to me the health alone is worth it, especially with flood plain cities (my favorite). I rather whip my city for the wonder, even if its a heavy whip.

The exception to that is if the wonder you are trying to build will actually INCREASE hammer production...something like ankor wat if you have a lot of priest specialists, or pyramids and us if you are running a ce...or even hanging gardens since that extra food means extra production or whipping. You have to weigh the short-term positives of chopping forests to the long term positives (or negatives like poorer health).

I though Madrid was the Spanish founding city. Founding arctic cities generally get fantastic resources but otherwise arctic cities are pretty poor, as you say.

I though Madrid was the Spanish founding city. Founding arctic cities generally get fantastic resources but otherwise arctic cities are pretty poor, as you say.

Really? I always try and avoild arctic cities - where are these resources coming from...? :confused:

'Cake

Really? I always try and avoild arctic cities - where are these resources coming from...?

deer, fur, etc.

Another bonus on the hanging gardens is that it gives ge points, which are hard to come by until factories (oy!).

Don't the pyramids provide GE points?

Don't the pyramids provide GE points?

Great Wall gives 1. Pyramids, hanging gardens, hagia sophia give 2. But ge points ARE hard to come by because you can only run one ge specialist with forge...and thats it. Caste system doesnt let you run ge. Iron works does but often you wont build that in the same city as NE, so it could take awhile to farm out a ge.

good answers already...
Did you look for fresh water when you settled?
Did you build granaries everywhere?
Did you build grocers/harbors where you could?
Did you expand towards good health resources?

A very simple but efficient trick is to to trade for corn/rice/wheat (the one(s) you don't have) for pigs or cows or sheep (the one you have) because you get 2 health for grains with a granary, while you only get 1 health for meat until much later.

For more infos on health and happiness, check my sig.

Agreed. Settle on fresh water. Settle toward/trade for health resources. Save a pair of forests in BFC if necessary. Aqueducts, granaries, etc. Hanging gardens if possible (as has been mentioned, target same city as great wall/pyramids). Avoid forges in non-production cities if health is an issue.

Agreed.

hey what happens? You agree with me on a regular basis!
There must be something wrong ;)

I agree with people when they make good sense :p (plus I really am an agreeable person by nature :) )