city maintenance questions

I've read on these boards that the second city can be settled near the capital and have no maintenance initially. I think the city generates 1 but costs 1 in maintenance if inside a certain number of tiles from the capital. Settling farther away costs additional gold which forces lowering of the science slider. What are the rules that determine this maintenance?


Maintenance grows during the game based on what appears to be the age of the city. Does the city size also affect the maintenance cost? Many games on these boards show large well developed cities as an important facet in the middle game. If city size is a consideration in the total maintenance, does it present a problem that requires monitoring city growth beyond health/happy cap concerns?


I've noticed in the end of game movieviewer that the AI's regularly settles so that there is no culture gap between the 2nd city and the capital. I rarely follow this pattern. Should I be settling sooner in a closer spot? If the AI constantly settles in this pattern is it something I can take advantage of in some way (aside from blocking cities)?

I rarely have the luxury of considering maintenance costs when settling my second city. Usually I am grabbing a crucial resource like horses or iron. If I can settle closer to my capitol then I will, but things like food and other resources take a much higher precedence.

As for the AI, I've seen the computer settle anywhere there is a resource. That could be all over the map.

I agree with AZ that my second city usually goes near copper or horses.

To answer your question about city maintenance costs, I don't think the size of the cities affects this. I was under the impression that city maintenance costs are affected by number of cities and distance from the palace. This is what controls horizontal expansion.

Vertical expansion is controlled by health and happyness.

Here is an article in the war academy. There's alot of stuff:

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/city_upkeep.php

I know you posted in Rusten's thread but one thing that hit home for me was that REXing isn't always the best solution. I keep hearing on these boards that rexing is the way to go. Rusten mentioned that 15 pop points over 3 cities is better than 12 pop points over 5 cities, and I think city maintenance costs are the reason for this.

EDIT: Actually, I don't know anymore. I think actual city size does impact maintenance costs. My mistake.

I know you posted in Rusten's thread but one thing that hit home for me was that REXing isn't always the best solution.

Click to expand...

I've been mentioning that for years, but you just can't argue with Monarch players...

EDIT: Actually, I don't know anymore. I think actual city size does impact maintenance costs. My mistake.

Click to expand...

Yes, that can increase civic costs, but is far cheaper than the former... And you USUALLY make up for it with the higher return on the extra tiles/specialists/trades.

Rusten's statement triggered a follow-up question but I had so many and forgot this one.

I don't doubt Rusten, he makes the game look easy. But the two concepts seem slightly contradictory.


Growth is good, but poor horizontal expansion can cost you the game. In the end I suspect it is a map read and I'm just not skilled in that yet.



Which map features prefer aggressive horizontal expansion and which features prefer city growth?


Obviously, the healthy/happy caps and the diplomatic situation become a factor. My last games have been rather commerce poor and without really thinking it through I opted for aggressive expansion. In hindsight I'd say that high commerce starts favor rapid expansion and poor commerce starts are better handled with slower expansion with larger cities. Am I wrong in this assessment? Are there other factors that I'm missing?


Thanks,

Mantic0re said:

Rusten's statement triggered a follow-up question but I had so many and forgot this one.

I don't doubt Rusten, he makes the game look easy. But the two concepts seem slightly contradictory.


Growth is good, but poor horizontal expansion can cost you the game. In the end I suspect it is a map read and I'm just not skilled in that yet.



Which map features prefer aggressive horizontal expansion and which features prefer city growth?


Obviously, the healthy/happy caps and the diplomatic situation become a factor. My last games have been rather commerce poor and without really thinking it through I opted for aggressive expansion. In hindsight I'd say that high commerce starts favor rapid expansion and poor commerce starts are better handled with slower expansion with larger cities. Am I wrong in this assessment? Are there other factors that I'm missing?


Thanks,

Click to expand...

You are right it is map specific. Check TheMeInTeam's YouTube video with Sulieman. In that one, he cottage-spammed his way to like 20 cities. He had like 2 or 3 gold mines which helped, but he essentially Rexxed, fuelled by cottages. And also, he built very little infrastructure as well.

yanner39 said:

Rusten mentioned that 15 pop points over 3 cities is better than 12 pop points over 5 cities, and I think city maintenance costs are the reason for this.

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If those 5 cities all have 1 food resource, I'll take 5 cities at any time.

My games are USUALLY opposite of the Land is Power silliness...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=401541

Kossin & RRR are with me on that one so.... if they had trust in me...

I admit, when you have only 2 cities and the others are sitting with 6 and have expanded right up and onto your continent trying to squeeze against your capital it gets a little worrisome at times. But I have a knack for busting-out when the time is right...

Make sure not to confuse the terms REX ( Rapid early Xpansion ) and ICS ( Infinate City Sprawl )

Duckweed said:

If those 5 cities all have 1 food resource, I'll take 5 cities at any time.

Click to expand...

Don't roll your eye at me young man!

I think he meant that in those 5 cities, one or 2 are marginal ie getting cities out for the sake of getting them. If one of those cities has a plains cows only as food, I would settle them.

@ OP

I'm not 100% sure... but I think that city size (pop), total number of cities, as well as distance to the capital are the key factors. Population cost is largely offset because you're either working more tiles or running more specs. The number of your total cities, raises the maintenance costs of all of your cities. The distance appears to be the biggest factor in determining the cost of maintaining an individual city.

yanner39 said:

Don't roll your eye at me young man!

I think he meant that in those 5 cities, one or 2 are marginal ie getting cities out for the sake of getting them. If one of those cities has a plains cows only as food, I would settle them.

Click to expand...

Yes. It was just a number taken out of nowhere to illustrate a point. If you can have 5 good cities then by all means settle the cities. If they all have a (good) food resource they will grow immediately and thus give population points.

Maintenance costs are calculated as follows (Curious cat's war academy article was written before the code was released, and while very interesting at the time, it is now outdated). I remove the rounding effects (every step is rounded down to the nearest 1/100 gold)

Number of cities maintenance (per city):
min(Popfactor * mapsizefactor * difficultyfactor * numcities, maxnocitymaintenance)

Here popfactor depends on the population of the city and equals
Popfactor = (pop+17)/18

numcities is the combined number of cities you and your vassals own (this is the only way in which vassals increase your maintenance).

mapsizefactor depends on the mapsize and is given as
Duel/Tiny/Small/Standard/Large/Huge = .45/.4/.35/.3/.25/.2

difficultyfactor depends on difficulty and is given as
Settler/Chieftain/Warlord/Noble/Prince/Monarch/Emperor/Immortal/Deity = .4/.5/.6/.7/.8/.85/.9/.95/1

Of course, when settling your second city, this part of maintenance is fixed (and the amount will usually be less than 1 gold total for both cities combined). The distance maintenance per city is given by

25 * distancefactor * popfactor * mapsizefactor * difficultyfactor

Here the factors, even those with the same name, are different from the ones in number of city-maintenance.

distancefactor = distance/maxplotdistance,
here distances are calculated to the nearest government center (palace/forbidden palace/Versailles) according to the "Civ-metric" (diagonal counts as 1.5, thus if the
distance in the x- and y-direction are l and s respectively (for long and short), the distance is l+s/2). maxplotdistance is the largest distance between any two spots on the map.

popfactor = (pop+7)/10

mapsizefactor:
Duel/Tiny/Small/Standard/Large/Huge = .5/.6/.7/.8/.9/1

difficultyfactor:
Settler/Chieftain/Warlord/Noble/Prince/Monarch/Emperor/Immortal/Deity = .45/.55/.65/.75/.85/.9/.95/1/1

The combined cost of all cities is then added, rounded down to integer gold, added to some other costs (e.g. civic and unit maintenance), and multiplied by the inflation.

In the beginning of the game inflation is negligible (it will always be rounded down to 0), civic cost is independent of this (the only interaction is in the rounding of the amount of inflation). Thus we can now calculate how far away you can settle to have costs less than 1 (resulting in no maintenance whatsoever), or less than 2 (resulting in the maintenance being offset by the 1 free commerce in the new city).

Example: Noble difficulty, standard cylindrical Pangaea map, capital size 4.
The numberofcities maintenance for both cities together equals:
((5+2*17)/18) * .3*.7 = .45
Now a normal Pangaea map is 64x40, so the maximal cylindrical distance is 32x40, which is according to "civ-metric" 40+32/2=56. Thus distance maintenance for the new city becomes
25 * distance /56 * ((7+1)/10) * .8*.75 = distance * .214
So as long as distance is at most 2, you don't have to pay any maintenance; so that's not going to work. But for distances at most 7 you pay 1 total maintenance.

On lower difficulty levels, or larger maps (which increases maxplotdistance more than mapsizefactor), you can get 0 maintenance for your second city in some circumstances. On higher difficulty settings civic maintenance can start becoming positive for your second city which makes total costs rise up to 2 gold upon founding your second city.

@ celebithil

very interesting and informative, thank you...

celebithil=silvermoon?

anyway thanks for the great info!