City Growth

[teacher_mark]

I'm just leaning to thrive at Regent and and I think there must be something I don't understand about city growth. Here's where I am, please lead me forward:
1- Cities get more citizens by filling the food box. Since each citizen eats 2 food per turn (ignoring for the moment the city square, which is worked by a ghost), their average has to be more than 2 to grow. So build cities in places where they can generate food, irrigate, and if necessary even manage which squares they work to maximize food production. This way you'll get more citizens.
2- Getting more citizens does not make a city expand its borders. This may or may not be related to their complaints that they're too crowded.
3?- A city's borders expand because of culture-- umm, the culture of my civilization as a whole or that of the city, or a combination of the two? So do a city's borders expand faster if I build a temple, etc? And if I build a wonder in some other city? Also just with time, it seems. Without building anything cultural, the cities still expand.
4!- The Russains moved in on this island of mine, but I decided I could live with it, cause they were on the snowy side. Who needs a city in the snow anyway? And then their city's borders proceeded to grow bigger than mine. In the snow! I'm missing something.
Please explain.

 

[MysteryX]

It is culture that expands the borders, the culture of the particular city. Any building that gives culture helps that (temple, coliseum, library, cathedral, etc.). It does not take very much culture for that first expansion that gives you extra workable squares.

Your capital's borders expand without building anything else because your Palace is in your capital, and it provides culture.

 

[teacher_mark]

Thanks, Mystery X. That clears up a couple of things for me. I used to make temples everywhere, I think because one of the advisers told me to, then I was advised I didn't need temples everywhere and quit making them anywhere. I do build libraries and universities, for the boost in research. I haven't lately built anything for the sake of culture. I suppose that's also why my governors are deposed more often than I'd like. So, when unhappy citizens complain it's too crowded, do they really mean they need the city expanded? Seems like someone who knows more than I claimed that was just their general whine. Also, what if I got the city as big as I wanted and then sold off the culture improvements. They don't shrink, do they?

 

[MysteryX]

A city won't lose culture if you sell off the culturally-enhancing buildings. It will stop gaining culture, but will not lose it. So your borders will not shrink.

The culture will defend you from the city flips (when your governors are deposed).

I think "too crowded" is the general default reason citizens give for being unhappy. It's the general whine. You may be able to do something about other reasons (pollution, war weariness), but you can't do anything about the "too crowded" thing, unless you just don't grow the population your cities. The size of the city footprint doesn't make a difference.

 

[vorlon_mi]

In addition, if you built some culture-producing buildings (temple and/or library) in New Umtata in the picture above, you might be able to depose the Russian governor, that is, culture flip that city to you. It may take awhile, but it's possible.

Also, you have mines on the wheat tiles near New Isandhlwana. Given that you are later in the game (1640AD) and not in despotism any more, you may want to consider irrigating those wheats for the food bonus to help the towns around them grow. However, the screenshot also says that you're in communism, which means that the towns on that peninsula will be producing a few shields per turn -- not just the single spt that I usually see in hopelessly corrupt towns under republic. You may want the extra production that the mines give you, to produce units or buildings.

 

[teacher_mark]

Thanks Mystery X and Vorlon mi,
I'll try to put this knowledge to use. Regarding terrain improvements, I think I'm just too lazy to do the math and figure out exactly what would be best. I have some vague sense that cities need a balance of irrigation and mines, and that's about it. There are two things I've been thinking about:
1) Under despotism, irrigation doesn't pay off (or sometimes?), so it might be worthwhile to mine some terrain even though one expects to irrigate it later;
2) I might want to be heavy on irrigation until the city reaches the size I want it to be (not quite sure how I will determine optimal size), and then switch some of those to mines.
And yes, frustration with corruption drove me to try communism. Too early to tell if it helped, as I gave up on this game around 1800, behind in the techs, under attack, no longer defensible. Lack of culture was part of the problem for sure, as I lost several cities this way.

 

[Theov]

FOOD:
Rule of thumb is too mine green and irrigate brown.
Or.
Have enough food so your city can go to size 6. or 12 if you have fresh water.
Look at it this way: it's useless for having surplus food after a city reached its max (6 without fresh water or aqueduct or 12 until hospital)

CULTURE:
On the top right of the city screen you can see the culture a city has and produces. The bottom left shows the buildings with music icons next to it to indicate what's making how much culture.
Culture is overrated though. You don't need much if you're gonna fight your way through it. City flips are a pain, but a war will clean that up too.
Culture fills in your empty space, so 1 culture expansion per city will do. But that's only 10 culture and a library produces 3 per turn. So a lib and you're done. Libraries also add some research. Temples make people happy, but they cost 1GPT too, so that money can also be spent on the luxury slider or on a war to get a luxury.
Imagine having 10 temples. You can also spend 10 civdollars on the lux slider.

HAPPINESS
"It's too crowded" is when the max of content citizens is reached. It depends on your difficulty level on how many that is. Oh look! A table.
Level = Content citizens
Chieftain = 4
Warlord = 3
Regent = 2
Monarch = 2
Emperor = 1
Deity = 1

Any guy after this will say "it's too crowded".
Another reason can be "stop the war" or something, this is war weariness. See my sig for that explanation.

 

[MysteryX]

How much culture you want to make and when depends a lot on your strategy.

if you spend more time peacefully building than warring, more culture can be a benefit to you, both in preventing your cities from defecting, but also in peacefully grabbing your opponents' cities. (Of course if you are going for the cultural victory condition, you want lots of culture.)

If you spend a lot of your time warring, culture is probably less useful. You'll probably use a tighter placement of cities (so the bigger footprint for a city is less important), retake defecting cities by force, take your neighbors' cities by force before they can defect to you, and keep your neighbors' culture low by trashing their cities and cultural buildings.

 

[bigFRANK]

City borders expand at 10 culture, 100 culture, 1000 culture, 10k culture, 100k culture. Culture has to be from that village/town/city.
Go smash the Russians and get your horses back.

 

[teacher_mark]

Thanks ya'll- especially Theov: Keep those rules of thumb coming!

 

[skov]

I recently started playing on regent level too. A few things you need to differently (or pay more attention to) when moving from a lower difficulty level that i noticed.

• If you're going "peaceful" (space race, culture, diplomacy etc.) keep your military budget low, build offensive units (the AI respects them more), build fast moving units so you can move to reinforce cities under attack. Only guard your border cities. Be prepared to accept some bullying by the AI, a tribute is most of the time preferable to an unwanted conflict.

• Offensive units matter. The days when you had a 1 age tech lead and could go rampaging with riflemen and infantry are over.

• Protect your offensive units with defensive units. A few defensive units protecting an attack force will save you a lot of losses.

• Terrain matters. Pay attention to the defensive bonuses from terrain (and city size)

• Build only what is needed, most of your border cities will most likely be so corrupted that production is useless anyway.

• Trade and talk with the AI's (a lot).

I found it was easier to handle military conquest when moving to a harder difficulty, just move to monarchy when available and bash some heads. The large military will prevent unwanted wars and keep you easily in control.

Other ways of victory requires a lot more diplomacy and careful planning.

 

[Theov]

I recently started playing on regent level too. A few things you need to differently (or pay more attention to) when moving from a lower difficulty level that i noticed.

• If you're going "peaceful" (space race, culture, diplomacy etc.) keep your military budget low, build offensive units (the AI respects them more), build fast moving units so you can move to reinforce cities under attack. Only guard your border cities. Be prepared to accept some bullying by the AI, a tribute is most of the time preferable to an unwanted conflict.

• Offensive units matter. The days when you had a 1 age tech lead and could go rampaging with riflemen and infantry are over.

• Protect your offensive units with defensive units. A few defensive units protecting an attack force will save you a lot of losses.

• Terrain matters. Pay attention to the defensive bonuses from terrain (and city size)

• Build only what is needed, most of your border cities will most likely be so corrupted that production is useless anyway.

• Trade and talk with the AI's (a lot).

I found it was easier to handle military conquest when moving to a harder difficulty, just move to monarchy when available and bash some heads. The large military will prevent unwanted wars and keep you easily in control.

Other ways of victory requires a lot more diplomacy and careful planning.

• ALWAYS negotiate. To the last penny. The advisor will tell your if they accept it.