How bad is the expansion tech penalty?

Ornen

Ornen

King
Joined
Feb 25, 2006
Messages
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Fairly new to DoC, but I’ve already wondered about this question in a couple games already. It’s particularly pertinent in my current game because I’m playing as Russia, going for a tech victory (though I might end up just doing domination), and I’m not sure how much I should expand eastward. I already have a great eight-city core west of the Caucasus, an additional city on the cotton sorta northeast-ish from where Iran should be (right next to horse), and I have locations drawn up for five more eastern cities. My question though is whether to build them, and if I do, how many I should build without risking retarding my tech rate. I know the penalty is pretty heavy – something like 10%, which doesn’t sound worth it to me – but I wanted to ask here first, to see if I could still build these cities without screwing myself over. Thanks.
 
Tomorrow's Dawn said:
It's 10 cities.

If you're running Secularism, the 10% bonus essentially negates the 11th city.

Hope that helps.
Click to expand...

A bit off topic, but I'd like to ask if anyone thinks secularism is under powered, or is it just me. In my experience, organized religion or fanaticism is superior due to the greater bonus and the fact that with secularism, any and all religions undermine stability. I think that secularism really should get a boost in some manner, maybe by further increasing the research rate, or adding a commerce bonus (+2 trade routes per city). Otherwise, I often stay with a state religion for the entire game, something that shouldn't really happen.
 
In practice, though, at what point does that 8% per city bonus become prohibitive to research? Will any cities I found after the tenth hamper my research? Or can I get away with a few without significantly messing with my tech?
 
Your civ can still research OK with about 15 cities, but you may start to fall behind in the tech race after a bit.
 
Depends on how developed they are.

If you have 10 cities producing 10 beakers, you get 100 beakers per turn, which researches a 100 cost tech in 1 turn. The eleventh city needs to produce at least 11 beakers to break even, or greater than that to produce a profit. The twelfth needs to produce at least 12 to break even. The thirteenth needs ot produce at least 13.

You can extrapolate this further using the same formula, which is:

10(1.08^n), where n is the number of cites you have minus ten.
 
If all cities you found are equal, then your research will never slow down by founding a new city. However, they aren't.

10(1.08^n), where n is the number of cites you have minus ten.
Click to expand...

Unless the growth is exponential, as Locutus Morti seems to imply with his formula here. But is it?
 
Leoreth said:
No, they don't.
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Really? Then how come I get so much more instability with religion when running secularism, and a flat 0 when I am organized religion with no non-state religions?
 
I don't know.
 
SheaferDaDawg said:
Really? Then how come I get so much more instability with religion when running secularism, and a flat 0 when I am organized religion with no non-state religions?
Click to expand...
Are you on the latest SVN version? Secularism religious stability had been bugged until quite recently.
 
Unless the growth is exponential, as Locutus Morti seems to imply with his formula here. But is it?
Click to expand...

Yes, I was assuming that 8% per city was applied not as 8%*# of cities past 10". If not, this formula would be better to use, as it would less penalize small expansions past 10, while providing a hard barrier to higher city counts.

But here's a radical idea: What if unit maintenance increased using the same formula? This would put indirect pressure on a civ's tech rate, forcing them to slow down teching or delete units.
 
Yeah, I've said before that I would prefer the penalties to grow logistically, i.e. exponentially at first until approaching a certain limit.

But if I make such a change I'd like to use a smarter system than just counting the number of cities. I think it should be possible to found mediocre cities, and the whole 21-tile-supercity strategy is popular enough as it is without any further penalties for tighter settling.

Maybe civs should simply be penalized for being first in commerce, with a penalty depending on how much they outperform the second place.

Edit: for instance, if you have double the commerce of the second place, your tech speed would be reduced to 150% of that civ (assuming equal teching modifiers), which amounts to a +50% extra tech cost modifier.
 
Well yeah, the whole point of the mechanic is to slow down runaway players. Why else include a penalty at all?

At least this way every additional point of commerce would be a net gain, there'd only be diminishing returns.
 
I'd prefer speeding up the AI pace to match the human though. Give the AI bigger known tech bonuses(like 20%) for the human knowing a tech. This has a real-world precedent and would work better than the current, "sit at 10 cities for most of the game, then get to tanks in the 19th century and conquer as much as possible" strategy that everyone uses now.
 
I prefer staying on the timeline so slowing down (human) runaway civs is better than helping the rest catch up.
 
Leoreth said:
Well yeah, the whole point of the mechanic is to slow down runaway players. Why else include a penalty at all?

At least this way every additional point of commerce would be a net gain, there'd only be diminishing returns.
Click to expand...

I'm with Jusos on this. I don't really see it as something that would be invoking "yays".

Although I have no alternative to offer at the moment.
 
The problem with your proposed commerce-leader penalty is that then the game would be punishing you for playing well.

I mean, that's some civ 5 shi t there.
 
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