City Development

[Txurce]

I have a question regarding the growth speed of cities. In my last game, my lovely neighbour Hiawatha managed to grow the city seen as screenshot in attachments.

As it was an AI city, I have no idea how he does it. The land or water isn't particularly rich compared to some of the locations I was sitting on, is this just the result of sitting on food focus the entire game? Size 69 seems a bit excessive, he must have had 140+ million people living there. Version 6.9 of the mod.

You may have read that this happened to me once. At the time Thal said it was a bug he hadn't been able to locate.

I haven't had quite the same results yet, but periodically think that some of the AI are growing unusually quickly.

 

[Thalassicus]

Thal, have you considered writing the DLC-dependent changes in SQL? Or is there a reason you didn't?
I think it's perfectly possible and would remove the need for users to do anything if they have the DLC:

[COLOR=Navy]CASE WHEN EXISTS(SELECT[/COLOR] Type [COLOR=Navy]FROM [/COLOR]Improvements [COLOR=Navy]WHERE [/COLOR]Type=[COLOR=DimGray]"IMPROVEMENT_TERRACE_FARM"[/COLOR])
    [COLOR=navy]THEN 
        insert into[/COLOR] Improvement_TechFreshWaterYieldChanges [COLOR=navy]([/COLOR]ImprovementType, TechType,YieldType, Yield[COLOR=navy])[/COLOR]
            [COLOR=navy]values([COLOR=DimGray]'IMPROVEMENT_TERRACE_FARM'[/COLOR], [COLOR=DimGray]'TECH_CIVIL_SERVICE'[/COLOR], [COLOR=DimGray]'YIELD_FOOD'[/COLOR], [COLOR=DimGray]'1'[/COLOR]);
        insert into[/COLOR] Improvement_TechNoFreshWaterYieldChanges [COLOR=navy]([/COLOR]ImprovementType, TechType,YieldType, Yield[COLOR=navy])
            values([COLOR=DimGray]'IMPROVEMENT_TERRACE_FARM'[/COLOR], [COLOR=DimGray]'TECH_FERTILIZER'[/COLOR], [COLOR=DimGray]'YIELD_FOOD'[/COLOR], [COLOR=DimGray]'1'[/COLOR]);
    END[/COLOR]

I just typed this^ up, didn't test if it actually works or needs changes.
(I don't have any SQL knowledge, I fabricated this by looking at mihaifx's and gedemon's SQL stuff.)

Thanks, this will be very helpful! I posted a question about this back in November, no one at that time knew a way to check for DLCs automatically.


@Sporhund
Could you post a zip of your Mods folder and the savegame, so I can look inside the city?

 

[Sporhund]

@Sporhund
Could you post a zip of your Mods folder and the savegame, so I can look inside the city?

There you go. I'm playing as polynesia, so you will need that DLC to load it (probably). If I recall correctly, the save is from the turn before a cultural win, he could probably have grown it even bigger had he more time.

 

[Iceco]

Thanks, this will be very helpful! I posted a question about this back in November, no one at that time knew a way to check for DLCs automatically.

I hope it actually works.
Also, not really related to this particular thread, but not really worth a separate post:
Instead of including a readme.txt telling people to go to the internet, can't you just add a shortcut to the site? (How to create: right click - "New..." - "shortcut" - and instead of filling out a file path, give the site's url.)

 

[Vanchelon]

Not sure if this has been mentioned or not (Been trying to check older pages) but in 6.9 I had issues with WLtKD 25% surplus food bonus not actually having an effect on the final surplus (or total) food yield, has this been corrected for 7.0 or am I alone with this issue?
(effects like +15% surplus from Tradition were the only ones taken into account for the visible calculations in the city screen)

 

[Txurce]

Not sure if this has been mentioned or not (Been trying to check older pages) but in 6.9 I had issues with WLtKD 25% surplus food bonus not actually having an effect on the final surplus (or total) food yield, has this been corrected for 7.0 or am I alone with this issue?
(effects like +15% surplus from Tradition were the only ones taken into account for the visible calculations in the city screen)

I never looked, but will try to remember next game.

 

[Thalassicus]

@Iceco
Ironically I use that to pin the shortcut for the site to the Firefox icon, but never thought of including a shortcut in the folder.

@Vanchelon
Thanks for pointing that out! I had indeed forgotten to include it in the surplus calculation. That's probably not a good sign when WLTK is so unimportant I don't even consider it. I'm not sure how it could be changed though. I remember seeing some mod where it was changed to a 50% bonus with half the duration, making it more important when it does happen. The problem with this is late game when we have all resources we get a constant bonus. I guess this wouldn't be too bad though, considering how slow late-game city growth is.

 

[SlightlyMad]

WLTK is actually a pretty good bonus early in the game, and sometimes worth picking what resources to trade for on the rare occasion that you can actually get one out of an AI that soon. The biggest problem with it is that 90% of the time it's more accidental than something the player can intentionally seek out, so it's not particularly fun or interesting. I'm not sure that's a solvable problem with mods though.

 

[Seek]

I definitely enjoyed the WLTK changes in PWM (+100%, only lasts 10 turns but has a cooldown period) - could be worth considering here.

 

[Thalassicus]

Ahh right a cooldown period. I think it's a good idea and would like to include it, I've just had more pressing priorities like leader/policy balance.

 

[black213]

Can someone explain the term WLTK

 

[Thalassicus]

We Love The King, the growth bonus from acquiring particular resources.

 

[SlightlyMad]

I'd also like to second the fast & furious WLTK with a cooldown. It would definitely make it more noticeable while not having constant WLTK notices by the end of the game.

 

[Seek]

A quick thought, probably considered before, but I'll throw it out there anyway: Perhaps the buff to Spices and Sugar should be moved from the Granary to the Water Mill. I think it would help balance the two buildings. Actually, thinking about it more now, maybe just move one lux and one bonus resource (suggest Spice and Wheat) to the WM for further usefulness in more cities.

 

[Txurce]

A quick thought, probably considered before, but I'll throw it out there anyway: Perhaps the buff to Spices and Sugar should be moved from the Granary to the Water Mill. I think it would help balance the two buildings. Actually, thinking about it more now, maybe just move one lux and one bonus resource (suggest Spice and Wheat) to the WM for further usefulness in more cities.

The granary is almost automatic for me now if I have two applicable resources. I would like to have a similar choice with the water mill, but would keep in mind that the Mill already has +1 hammer, so I wouldn't want to nerf the granary too much.

 

[Thalassicus]

That's where the wheat, spice, and sugar bonuses were originally, I moved them to the Granary since Firaxis seemed to want them there in the March patch.

I could move the Spice and Sugar resources to the watermill and remove the 1. An engineer slot and 2 ais already very useful, anyway.

 

[Txurce]

That's where the wheat, spice, and sugar bonuses were originally, I moved them to the Granary since Firaxis seemed to want them there in the March patch.

I could move the Spice and Sugar resources to the watermill and remove the 1. An engineer slot and 2 ais already very useful, anyway.

That works, since it gives you a decent shot of one or the other being useful. Both give you 2f + additional food for the right resources right?

 

[Stalker0]

I don't see any need to change the watermill, its already a solid building. I generally consider it better than the granary...unless I can get 4 food out of the granary and that's the benefit of having a lot of those resources nearby.

+2 food +1 hammers is great, or +3 hammers (with specialist) when I need it. Its often the first building I build in a new city (next to a river of course).

 

[Seek]

That's where the wheat, spice, and sugar bonuses were originally, I moved them to the Granary since Firaxis seemed to want them there in the March patch.

That's what I thought. Seemed that reopening the discussion might be a good idea. The granary is often a nobrainer, as Txurce mentioned, while for me at least, the Water Mill is rarely even considered. (Continued below)

I don't see any need to change the watermill, its already a solid building. I generally consider it better than the granary...unless I can get 4 food out of the granary and that's the benefit of having a lot of those resources nearby.

+2 food +1 hammers is great, or +3 hammers (with specialist) when I need it. Its often the first building I build in a new city (next to a river of course).

Huh. I never build it. My approach is very tile-based, so a monument to get the outer resources is usually my first build in a new city (plus it's cheap) followed by buildings which augment the resources to get the city up and running quickly with super-tiles. Perhaps the "problem" (if there is one) is that the cost is too great for Water Mills - they never seem efficient considering that with the 2gpt maintenance.

 

[Thalassicus]

The Watermill does seem to be a rather underwhelming. It gives 1, but costs 100, so without the engineer slot I added we don't recover that for 100 turns. Meanwhile we're also incurring a 2 maintenance fee, and it gives the same food (or less) than a Granary. The only times I use a watermill are the ones I insta-purchase in my military and wonder cities to get as much production as possible, and fill the engineer slot.