ahha
Chieftain
What are the benefits of a high citizen number inside a city?
Citizens
- Thread starter ahha
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The main benefit of a high population city is that all of those citizens benefit from the buildings in that city.
So if you have a university in 8 pop city you have 8 pop getting 50% science bonus. Where as if you had 4, 2 pop cities you would have to build 4 universities.
Other than that. More cities with lower pop is better due to the bonuses of the center city tile.
So if you have a university in 8 pop city you have 8 pop getting 50% science bonus. Where as if you had 4, 2 pop cities you would have to build 4 universities.
Other than that. More cities with lower pop is better due to the bonuses of the center city tile.
Martin Alvito
Real men play SMAC
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The advantages are:
- More tiles worked, yielding a larger Hammer stream in the same place, speeding production of any individual output
- Since you have decent population, you can run specialists AND build stuff at the same time
- More Science from your buildings cumulatively acting on raw population Science production
- Higher defense rating, making the city harder to capture
The disadvantages are:
- Massively slower population growth
- Only one buffed city tile. The rest of the tiles are less efficient and require Worker improvements to become comparable.
In practice, small cities win out despite the advantages of large cities. A few buildings are extremely powerful, and you want as many copies of those buildings as possible. Also, Maritime food benefits operate on every city, meaning that lots of cities are the Food maximizer and therefore the population maximizer. The buffed city tiles mean that lots of small cities is also the overall Hammer maximizer.
- More tiles worked, yielding a larger Hammer stream in the same place, speeding production of any individual output
- Since you have decent population, you can run specialists AND build stuff at the same time
- More Science from your buildings cumulatively acting on raw population Science production
- Higher defense rating, making the city harder to capture
The disadvantages are:
- Massively slower population growth
- Only one buffed city tile. The rest of the tiles are less efficient and require Worker improvements to become comparable.
In practice, small cities win out despite the advantages of large cities. A few buildings are extremely powerful, and you want as many copies of those buildings as possible. Also, Maritime food benefits operate on every city, meaning that lots of cities are the Food maximizer and therefore the population maximizer. The buffed city tiles mean that lots of small cities is also the overall Hammer maximizer.
I'm not sure how helpful it is to know that your aggregate Hammer total is higher in 10 smaller cities vs 1 larger city. Science and Gold go into a global pool and are spent externally to your cities, but Hammers remain local and you don't really want to dilute them.
You can take advantage of diluted Hammers only if you have time to spare, so its okay to have 10 small cities producing 10 Coliseums if you can wait the 40 turns or whatever for them to all get done, as opposed to your big city that can do something now.
Martin Alvito
Real men play SMAC
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- Sep 23, 2010
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What diluting your Hammer streams means is that you build stuff slower. You build more stuff, but each individual item takes longer. You're right that there is an opportunity cost on that time, and that pure Hammer maximization isn't as efficient as taking a slight hit in Hammer maximization in order to get those Hammers into the same stream.
But the Food maximization of an ICS approach (coupled with the punitive growth curve) guarantees that the ICS will end up producing a lot more Hammers than vertical growth, and therefore ends up taking a minimal time hit as compared to the sheer volume of extra things it can make.
But the Food maximization of an ICS approach (coupled with the punitive growth curve) guarantees that the ICS will end up producing a lot more Hammers than vertical growth, and therefore ends up taking a minimal time hit as compared to the sheer volume of extra things it can make.
