How Big Are Your Cities? City Size- Population Scaling

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iOnlySignIn

Prince$s
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An interesting cosmetic feature is how much "population" does a city have. This affects your total population in the demographics screen. A city of size 20 can have several thousand times the population of a city of size 2.

So, based on historical data:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_throughout_history

Let us rescale the city populations numbers to more realistic ones.

Gentle players, I need you to post in this thread how big your biggest cities are in terms of city size at various points of the game. Then I will use it to fit a curve to the actual historical sizes of these cities. Any city on the list above will do, but most particularly I'm looking for:

(1) Babylon/Thebes @ 1000BCE: Pop 50k, size 5?

(2) Babylon/Alexandria @ 200BCE: Pop 250k, size 10?

(3) Rome @ 1~200CE: Pop 1000k, size 20?

(4) Chang'an @ 600~800CE: Pop 1000k, size 20?

(5) Hangzhou @ 1200CE: Pop 1000k, size 20?

(6) London @ 1900CE: Pop 6600k, size 32?

(7) Tokyo @ 2000CE: Pop 26400k, size 45?

You see a very interesting pattern here. RL city populations go up exponentially in terms of in game city sizes. That's the curve I'm looking for.
 
I hope this curve is for the following:

I think the real problem here is that lower amounts of population points need to represent higher populations. One thing to also keep in mind is that a city population is also representative of the tiles around it, at least the ones being worked. The surrounding area (eg. Birmingham for London) would also need consideration. Mostly, it should be very possible for China and India to achieve 1 billion populations by 2000CE.
 
Give another 1+ farm bonus (in addition to Biology) with another late technology.
Tech-tree needs more modern techs anyway imo, could pillage a lot from other Mods.
 
I find that the modern age numbers are way off: New York has a population of about 8 million according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Now, Im not sure whether that included suburbs of the city, but I would imagine that the "cities" in Civ. do as well. As such, a population of 45 should not equal 260,000... besides, I rarely encounter cities with such a large population anyways, and am wondering as to in which conditions this number was thought up with (city states+mega corporations)? I think that 8 million should be something more along the lines of 30, or perhaps 25. Then again, I rarely play into the modern age, so I am uncertain if these numbers are reasonable.

Also, just a thought: if we were going to modify/change the scaling for cities, why not make an accurate population count for towns? Just an idea
 
Pavel Chichikov said:
Give another 1+ farm bonus (in addition to Biology) with another late technology.
Tech-tree needs more modern techs anyway imo, could pillage a lot from other Mods.
Click to expand...

Refrigeration is the obvious choice. Alternatively, beef up Supermarkets to provide +25% food or something. (Malls have weird flavor already, though, since they give +1 food--+25% food would make them even stranger. I think they should be reworked somehow. Maybe Malls could be separated from Supermarkets and made a cheap building that provides its existing advantages over Supermarkets, while the Americans can still build Supermarkets, too.)

SheaferDaDawg said:
I find that the modern age numbers are way off: New York has a population of about 8 million according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Now, Im not sure whether that included suburbs of the city, but I would imagine that the "cities" in Civ. do as well. As such, a population of 45 should not equal 260,000... besides, I rarely encounter cities with such a large population anyways, and am wondering as to in which conditions this number was thought up with (city states+mega corporations)? I think that 8 million should be something more along the lines of 30, or perhaps 25. Then again, I rarely play into the modern age, so I am uncertain if these numbers are reasonable.

Also, just a thought: if we were going to modify/change the scaling for cities, why not make an accurate population count for towns? Just an idea
Click to expand...

8 million is the city of New York. The metro area has ~18 million residents.

While counting Towns in population would be cool, it would also be totally unnecessary.



One thought: Right now, the third Chinese UHV is often regarded as too easy (and even 5 golden ages by 1800 would probably be too easy). Maybe China's third UHV should be "Have 6 (or 7?) golden ages and a population of 1 billion by 2000 CE" (or some other date, maybe 1980, when China actually reached 1 billion people).
 
Though, it's totally irrelevant to gameplay, to be honest.
Unless you mean Cities should be able to grow bigger.

Ironic, as China put in all sorts of brutal measures to stop population growth.
 
Pavel Chichikov said:
Ironic, as China put in all sorts of brutal measures to stop population growth.
Click to expand...

One-child policy isn't brutal. It's the way it's acted out.
They're doing the world and the future a great favour.
 
Yes, one could also argue that allowing overpopulation is also quite brutal. Make masses of people starve and live in poverty.
 
To be honest, the one-child rule is genius fore thinking. The world will eventually hit a max of population, and rather than engage in systematic famines or wars/genocides or something awful, it's better to say, "have less kids now, that way we won't have to "get rid" of them once there is no more room."

I just hope that the rule is actually working because IIRC the RNC in China is still above 2.1, so their population is still increasing.
 
Pavel Chichikov said:
Though, it's totally irrelevant to gameplay, to be honest.
Unless you mean Cities should be able to grow bigger.

Ironic, as China put in all sorts of brutal measures to stop population growth.
Click to expand...

In fact, this policy is effective. And although this policy is working, Chinese population is still increasing slowly.
 
Pavel Chichikov said:
Though, it's totally irrelevant to gameplay, to be honest.
Unless you mean Cities should be able to grow bigger.

Ironic, as China put in all sorts of brutal measures to stop population growth.
Click to expand...

The One-Child Policy was only implemented in 1979, about the same year China reached 1 billion people (though this was only confirmed in the 1980 census). So reaching 1 billion people by 1980 is a totally realistic goal even if the country has tried to curb growth since then (and even so the population is still growing, just more slowly).
 
On the topic of Chinese UHV's, I think we should get rid of the Golden Age requirement simply because it encourages the player to found Islam and Catholicism just to build the Taj and Versailles(I think this has been changed to give one golden age upon construction, but could be wrong). If we were to replace the goal with some kind of expansion or infrastructure goal, like have an Academy in 5 cities, it would take away some of the incentive to found ahistorical religions.

But hey, I don't know a whole lot about Chinese history or how difficult it is to achieve the Golden Age requirement without these wonders, so take this all with a pinch of salt.
 
SheaferDaDawg said:
On the topic of Chinese UHV's, I think we should get rid of the Golden Age requirement simply because it encourages the player to found Islam and Catholicism just to build the Taj and Versailles(I think this has been changed to give one golden age upon construction, but could be wrong). If we were to replace the goal with some kind of expansion or infrastructure goal, like have an Academy in 5 cities, it would take away some of the incentive to found ahistorical religions.

But hey, I don't know a whole lot about Chinese history or how difficult it is to achieve the Golden Age requirement without these wonders, so take this all with a pinch of salt.
Click to expand...

maybe change it to "experience 4 golden ages START BY GREAT PEAPLE by 1840" or "have at least 12 cities at the city size of 15 by 1840"?
 
SheaferDaDawg said:
On the topic of Chinese UHV's, I think we should get rid of the Golden Age requirement simply because it encourages the player to found Islam and Catholicism just to build the Taj and Versailles(I think this has been changed to give one golden age upon construction, but could be wrong). If we were to replace the goal with some kind of expansion or infrastructure goal, like have an Academy in 5 cities, it would take away some of the incentive to found ahistorical religions.

But hey, I don't know a whole lot about Chinese history or how difficult it is to achieve the Golden Age requirement without these wonders, so take this all with a pinch of salt.
Click to expand...

It's really, really easy to get four Golden Ages right now anyway. You get one from just finishing the first two UHVs and another from the Olympic Park. That means just five great people, hardly a challenge, especially since you get a GA from Patronage, a GM from Economics and a GS from Physics (and as China you should be way ahead in tech the whole game, leaving everyone in the dust by the Renaissance).
 
The other 2 UHVs (Cathedrals + Inventions) have already imposed enough Tech/Economics requirements for China. The third goal should be Expansion, IMO.
 
I've read that Bagdad, Angkor and Ayutthaya had also hit 1 million people before 1600CE
 
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