Deity Startup Difficulties...

[ursketchy]

hi all, LTWFTW (long time watcher, first time writer) here...

despite how much fun i've had constantly crushing opponents on king, i've recently made the leap (of faith) to deity to see just how difficult it really is, and if it's all it's cracked up to be. well, it is pretty tough. although i had success on my first attempt, i still feel that i could have improved greatly on said first attempt, and tried another game. which brings me to the point of this thread...

my style of play in games of lesser difficulty is to expand, expand, and, oh, i don't know....expand some more - until i hit an opponent or two. then, unlike what most of you do i imagine, i sit tight and become a technological giant. this strategy obviously has it's downfalls, one of which being if i'm on an island, i'm in trouble (though that can be survived pretty easily too sometimes).

again, king and below, this is how a typical new city's production goes early on: one military unit, then constantly build settlers until no empty area surrounds it, then one more settler to handle tranforming the nearby land as appropriate. after this, probably a temple. by this point, i've *usually* made my capital the Wonder City (unless i find a really sweet city location early on), and start pumping out caravans as soon as i can to complete wonders. note - since i always seemed to find wonders to build early on, i rarely completed trade routes...

that strategy worked fine and all...until i ran into deity. so, a number of questions for you experts, some specific, some not so specific...

1) this question i know the answer to, but thought i'd ask anyway - i really only need to have science wonders in one city, not every wonder, right? i always had the luxury of completing every (worthwhile) wonder in one city, but i'm afraid i'm stretching myself too thin to try and complete that task now...

2) my typical build queue outlined above gets totally screwed with deity - especially when i start to reach the city threshold count (where the first citizen is unhappy - more on that later). i find myself building not one, but two military units (both warriors) before i even attempt a settler - sometimes even being forced to build a temple before a settler gets pumped out. is there something i'm missing? or is this the way it's done in deity? should i start building marketplaces/libraries? should i increase luxuries?

3) caravans, caravans, caravans...i know they're extremely important, but i don't think i'm using them correctly...to expand on what i said earlier, i used to have cities build caravans until it's time to build an aqueduct, only because each city could make it to that level without too much unrest with ease. now, with two military units + temple + monarchy, the 5th pop unit is unhappy...

4) how soon do you start building caravans for generating trade between your cities? i know it stays at 0 for quite some time...

5a) expansion - once you reach the aforementioned city threshold (where the first citizen is unhappy), do you continue to expand anyway? i'm used to having an enormous amount of cities, and this puts a seriously damper on that strategy...

5b) expansion, take 2 - i go back and forth on this issue, and am unsure which one is better. sometimes, when building new settlers, i build a road on each square to it's destination, to make it easier for everything else to come through to the destination, including new settlers. but, is it worth while to spend the extra turns to build roads all the way to the destination? or should i just get there and settle ASAP? i go back and forth on this issue...it's either immediate return, or long-term return - but i'm not sure if i can wait that long for the return....?

6) just so i think i'm heading in the right direction, here's my early tech goals, in order:

moarchy
literacy
monotheism
philosophy (i like the free tech advance)
engineering
invention
explosives (for some reason, i can't seem to live w/o engineers...)

and, depending on my situation, republic is mixed in there somewhere...

i guess that's it for now. i've read through a couple deity threads, couldn't find answers to too many of my questions, but apologies in advance for those already asked...

thanks again, and good luck gaming!

 

[Terrapin]

1. All the Super Science Wonders need to be in the same city: Colossus, Copernicus and Newtons. Most people throw in Shakespeare's too, but I usually use that for a 'super shield city' to expedite warfare in Democracy. Against me here is that most of Shakes-in-SSC players are better than me. On my side is a bit of logic: The SSC has plenty of trade to maintain Happiness, but a shield oriented city is going to need help.

2. I have basically the same problem. I usually just do not push the # of cities limit until Republic when I can use luxuries to make happy people. In my current game I over-expanded and had just the problem you describe. I am curious as to what others, particular the ICS devotees, say on this one. I guess Hanging Gardens would be a help here...

3&4 Another question I join in. I never feel like I am making 'optimal' use of my caravans.

5a. See 2

5b. Initially, I will build at most 1 road per city and that only if there is no good special in the city radius. Only after Trade do I start knitting my empire together. From what I have read about ICS, that strategy does involve Imediate roading, but the cities are only 2 hexes apart...

6. I assume Trade is in there somewhere?

 

[Peaster]

Welcome to the posts! I am rather new too, but have been working on the kinds of questions you asked for a couple of months. If you haven't read DaveV's guide to ICS (Infinte City Strategy, in Apolyton's Library) that might answer some of your questions. I think it applies mainly when you play for conquest. It sounds like Terrapin plays mainly for spaceships (?).

One key idea is to keep your cities small (size 2), with 1-2 militia inside. Another is to build HG asap (when you have about 10 cities). You don't build any improvements such as temples. I usually build mainly the HG, MPE and ST wonders, and it doesn't matter which city makes those. Some people like Li or Mike's or LW, too. I build caravans only for wonders, and don't know much about using trade routes.

5a) I think about 15 cities is enough to start conquering, but have built (or captured) up to 60 in few games. I guess you can build more if you want a higher score, or just like being big.

5b) Good question. Avoid building any long roads until 500bc or so. Like Terrapin, I usually build only 1-2 square roads along the way to the next city. I even skip that until maybe 2500bc. I once figured that building the road pays off if you are going to use it 5-10 times in the near future, but I don't exactly remember my logic for that any more.

6) Go for monarchy, trade, pottery, maps, monotheism (w/ philo on that path) and feudalism. I often give up on science after that and raise taxes. But in some games you might want chivalry, navigation or maybe invention. Of course, this applies only to a conquest game.

One exercise that helped me a LOT was to look at some games by the masters. For example, you can go to the spoiler thread for the Apolyton August tournament, and download DaveV's saves (or Zenon's). Try to imitate his style and see if you can finish by 1000AD ! The game logs in the spoiler threads here at CivFanatics can also be useful, but saved games are the best. Good luck !!

 

[Terrapin]

It sounds like Terrapin plays mainly for spaceships (?).

Yep. I am trying to become more violent, however!

 

[rrhal]

1) An early city with trade specaials or a river should be your super science city. It gets colossus, the observatory, shakespeares, and Isaac Newtons. You also want to build caravans early and often here - send these out to trade instead of building wonders with them. A helper city (or two) will build the other wonders.

2) Increase luxuries but also moderate your growth until you can build some happiness wonders. If a city is getting too big build a settler. Just have these settlers doing good works until you can get a happiness wonder. 7 cities until republic then 11 until Mikes. I build 1 warrior then a settler or 2.

3) Caravans ASAP - you need these to build all the "late" early wonders. I usually have Hanging Gardens and colossus prior to building the first caravan.

4) Once Monotheism (and Mikes) hits your cities can start to grow some.

5a) I consider the AI's cities my cities. You will have your tremendous number of cities in the end.

5b) Establish your 7 cities, then put in roads and irrigation while waiting for republic. Have your settlers built and ready to found the next 4 towns when the time comes.

6) Republic (picking up bronze working and pottery early)
Trade
Astronomy
Monotheism
Democracy
Railroad
Electronics

I've done pretty well at Deity (my best game scored I 7800 points) but there are people on this board who have done better.

 

[Terrapin]

6) At Diety, if I wait until after Republic and Trade for Astronomy, the AI typically beats me to Astronomy. I have been playing MGE, so I pretty much have to do all the research myself...

 

[ursketchy]

6. I assume Trade is in there somewhere?

right, that was an important thing to forget, wasn't it? i probably research it very soon after literacy...

peaster, i read through the ICS info you mentioned - very interesting stuff, and yes it did help answer some of my questions. what i found every MORE interesting was the ELG guide - that had some very juicy tidbits. i personally don't like the spaceship conquest, and prefer conquest through absolutely overpowering, when possible. that guide is all about getting off to an early tech lead, which seems to fit me well.

one thing i'm confused about - in a couple of places, i've read that it's good to "keep cities at 2-3" citizens - why is this a good thing? and how do you do it? rearrange resource allocation to avoid gaining food? seems like a silly thing to me to stunt city growth, even if to avoid unrest...

i tried another game last night, and i think i got off to a pretty good start. i didn't recklessly expand like i normally do (although it was really hard not to constantly build settlers ), and instead focused on getting a SSC and caravans up and running as soon as possible. so far, so good...we'll see how it goes...

 

[Andu Indorin]

While my play is decidedly not expansionist, much less ICS oriented, I think that I can make a couple of points.

2) is there something i'm missing? or is this the way it's done in deity? should i start building marketplaces/libraries? should i increase luxuries?

First, in making the jump to deity, one of the biggest challenges to the player is managing unhappiness. This usually requires increasing luxury rates above levels found at lower levels, which in turn requires developing skills in other aspects of the game. (Having read many threads over the years, I think there is tendency among developing players to apply insufficient luxuries at the higher levels of difficulty.)

1) this question i know the answer to, but thought i'd ask anyway - i really only need to have science wonders in one city, not every wonder, right? i always had the luxury of completing every (worthwhile) wonder in one city, but i'm afraid i'm stretching myself too thin to try and complete that task now...

6) just so i think i'm heading in the right direction, here's my early tech goals, in order:

moarchy
literacy
monotheism ...

And at Deity, being selective with early Wonders are important. The Hanging Gardens becomes essential wonders (to be supplemented by Mike's Chapel). Your inclusion of Literacy suggests that you may rely on the Great Library; Marco Polo is the much stronger Wonder here, especially if you can maintain a degree of peace with a number of AI civs. Where the Great Library can mess up the rate of tech progress, the skillful use of diplomacy can provide the means of maintaining the pursuit of the more powerful mid-game techs, of which Explosives is probably the most decisive. And, of course, the Colossus for a World Trade City and Science City rounds out the short list of "must have" early game Wonders.

As alluded to by others, learning to play the game under the Republic and establishing Trade Routes among your cities is also desirable at Deity. Under Republic you can WLCD your cities at 80% luxuries for a few turns, then drop the luxuries and employ specialists to help with the unhappiness. Trade Routes, in addition to increasing science and finances, also directly effect happiness (via Luxuries) and indirectly effect happiness (via the Market, Bank, and SE) improvements.

3) caravans, caravans, caravans...i know they're extremely important, but i don't think i'm using them correctly...to expand on what i said earlier, i used to have cities build caravans until it's time to build an aqueduct, only because each city could make it to that level without too much unrest with ease. now, with two military units + temple + monarchy, the 5th pop unit is unhappy...

4) how soon do you start building caravans for generating trade between your cities? i know it stays at 0 for quite some time...

6) ... and, depending on my situation, republic is mixed in there somewhere...

As alluded to by others, learning to play the game under the Republic and establishing Trade Routes among your cities is also desirable at Deity. Under Republic you can WLCD your cities at 80% luxuries for a few turns, then drop the luxuries and employ specialists to help with the unhappiness. Likewise, the extra trade arrow per trade square helps established trade routes get above 0 and thus actually become effective.

Trade Routes, in addition to increasing science and finances, also directly effect happiness (via Luxuries) and indirectly effect happiness (via the Market, Bank, and SE) improvements.

Hope that clarifies a few issues, and Happy Civving.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Something Andu forgot to write was to check out the Power Democracy article that he wrote (check the index in general discussion).

At diety, the comp's cities actualy grow well enough to allow foreign trade. Go for Marco Polo and get the maps of foreign civs, to find where they are and to open up trade with them when possible. Having collosus in an already high trade city that you own is a good idea for early trade, becaue the routes can give quite a lot of arows when added up, and even 1 arrow can sometimes give an extra luxury that could give the happy citisen needed for order. Internal trade is not normaly the best for initial payout, but the arrows are very important. The key to diety is to TRADE, TRADE, TRADE.

 

[ElephantU]

Welcome to CFC, ursketchy!

Deity level play is all about anticipating happiness issues before they cause trouble. The reason players keep their cities small early on is to keep below the level at which you need improvements or luxuries. In Despotism and Monarchy you can impose martial law with military units, which also double as defenders. Once you make the jump to Republic, though, those units become liabilities rather than assets. You need to prepare a transition to depending on happiness wonders, improvements and luxuries instead.

You cannot accomplish all you wish at Deity level, so you must prioritize your objectives in both tech research and building. Getting a strong foundation is the first priority, and that means a good set of cities close to each other on decent terrain and getting out of Despotism, which has massive corruption and waste, low maximum of cities before that first citizen is unhappy, and penalties toward special terrains and irrigation of grassland. Explore with your two Settlers a bit to find good lebensraum, but try to get them both planted within the first 6-8 turns. One or two Warriors (or Horse, if you already have the tech, but don't research it) to explore the neighboring terrain, then switch to building Settlers and planting them as close as decent terrain allows. Try to be "just-in-time" with building an extra Warrior for martial law, and ignore Temples, Libraries, Walls and Marketplaces for now. Also avoid roads if there is a way to get an arrow along with food and shields, or road just one shielded grass on your way out to found the next city. Take the shortest path you can in research to get to Monarchy, and switch the next Oedo turn.

I like to shoot for Trade right after Monarchy, and Philosophy right after that. Philosophy requires Mysticism, which makes Temples worth considering at a time when you have switched Settler production to Caravan production. One of your first group of 4-6 cities should have been placed in a site that will have high trade terrain, either from specials or rivers or ocean. That city should never produce Settlers; it should produce a Temple to allow growth, then 3 Caravans for overseas trade. Other cities should feed it Caravans for wonder building. If possible, you must get Colossus in that city; getting Hanging Gardens there is a significant secondary benefit. In the near future you are going to want to have Copernicus and Shakespeare there too, and Newtons later on. But Colossus is the foundation stone of your SSC/STC, and it must be in the right city.

I prefer to play Classic/2.42 version, rather than the Multiplayer/Gold versions, because diplomacy is not skewed by the irrational hatreds imbued in the later versions of Civ2. Given that, the other very powerful early wonder worth shooting for is Marco Polo. With it you become the arbitrator of techs, and you can keep civs pacified with occasional self-interested tech gifts that steer their research while you milk them of gold in return. You don't have to carry all the off-path techs as loads on your research rate - you can let other civs research for you, reaping the results only when you are in need of them. This gets around the increasing research costs as your tech numbers increase, which is the real problem with Great Library. Choose a tech path that focuses on governments and happiness and bring in the off-path techs as needed, or even skip the first generation techs (like Horseback and WarCode) in favor of the second or third generation, researched by an AI tech slave.

Early trade really should be to AI cities off of your main island, because of the bonus multiplier. If there is an AI city on your island, though, try to keep it around and set up the SSC/STC trade routes with it early on. Later you will set up road and rail bonus routes that will greatly multiply your trade route values. If not, look for the biggest nearby AI cities that demand your available commodities. Send the SSC/STC caravans there first, and try to get at least one if not two routes from every city in place by the time you get MonoTheism and Republic. Use the bonus gold you reap from these trades to get Temples and Marketplaces in cities as they start to grow. This will prepare you for the leap to Republic.

After Philosophy I like to aim for MonoTheism, then Republic; if things are going well with improvements and trade routes I may get Republic earlier. Republic allows a few more cities before the riot factor kicks in, but hold off on major expansion till you can shift to Democracy due to the increasing corruption issue as you settle further from your capital. Also try to replace Triremes and Caravels with Galleons before going to Democracy. You'll need Medicine and Sanitation to max out your SSC/STC, but once that is done you can consider switching secondary city trade routes to the mega-city. Try not to replace its own routes to more profitable AI cities. Look into what commodities you have in supply and overseas demand and set up one or two ship chains for accelerated delivery as well.

Solo's Early Landing Guide at Apolyton.Net and Andu Indorin's compilation on Power Democracy should give you the rest you need to make this a success. Try to incorporate one or two new ideas in each game you play, not shooting for high score or early conquest but working on civ development and tech progress. Getting a civ humming in Power Democracy takes most of the fun out of a quick Early Conquest...

 

[la fayette]

Getting a civ humming in Power Democracy takes most of the fun out of a quick Early Conquest...

(but I agree with your 'deity' lesson: trade and happiness are the key, ... even in most conquest games )

 

[ursketchy]

wow OliphauntU (sorry, just watched LotR again the other night), that's some good stuff. couple questions...

1) i didn't realize that luxuries are that important - for some reason i only thought they were useful for celebrating WLT# days. question though - are luxuruies really that affective in early/mid games when you're still in monarchy? i have a hard enough time producing a handful of beakers, let alone shifting focus to luxuries, in non-SSC cities...

2) i'm kind of surprised to hear that going 6-8 turns before settling your first city is acceptable...i've always had the impression that settling almost immediately is crucial to the game, at any of the more difficult levels, really. if i can't find a suitable spot (and i use that term loosely, i'm just trying to get my game started) within 2-3 turns or so, i'm normally reaching for ctrl+Q...

3) given what you've said about planning for a smooth transition, sounds like i shouldn't even attempt republic until i have Mike's built...does that seem like a fair assessment?

4) i don't think anyone's answered this yet, unless i'm missing something...how exactly do you "keep cities small"? just by starvation? like i said, i'm surprised starvation provides a benefit over [growth + unrest]...is that true?

that's about it for questions...oh, by the way - for whatever reason, i NEVER thought to build caravans with the SSC. i always built caravans to be delivered there...of course, knowing now the importance of overseas trade, that standard will change immediately.

thanks again

 

[ElephantU]

Quick answers (my bus leaves in 5 minutes):
1. Celebrating Monarchy gives you the same extra arrows as Republic, without the loss of shields to support or extra food for Settlers. If your SSC/STC has 3-4 citizens to work high-trade tiles it is worth a try. After it starts you can often shift the Lux down 10-20% and keep it going. It does not have to be in all your cities, just the biggie. Otherwise, though, Lux is for getting a happy to balance out an unhappy.
2. Learning to analyze terrain patterns helps reduce time to first settlement, but don't "settle" for the first thing you see. The capital city is very important - it has no corruption and is in fact the hub of your early empire as far as reducing corruption is concerned. Place it well, if possible as the SSC/STC; the other early cities should circle around it.
3. Don't rule out Republic before Mikes, but evaluate how well you are along in preparing to shift from martial law to improvements/wonders and Luxuries as the basis for keeping your cities content. Mikes is just so powerful that it is often a breakpoint kind of thing.
4. Keep cities small by making Settlers - the city drops in size when they are produced. The usual practice is to set the first worker on a shielded Grass tile till the city grows to size 2, then resetting him to Forest to slow down growth and increase production. Also look for opportunities to round out rows of shields with "incremental rush-buying". See Starlifter's Codex for a better description of that than I can make. If you can keep going between size 1 and 2 you won't need to worry about happiness beyond a single defender/pacifier unit. But the SSC/STC is a completely different matter...

 

[rysingsun]

5a) expansion - once you reach the aforementioned city threshold (where the first citizen is unhappy), do you continue to expand anyway? i'm used to having an enormous amount of cities, and this puts a seriously damper on that strategy...

first of all this is one reason why hanging gardens is so useful on deity level. it allows an unlimited number of size 1 cities with no luxuries or temples. so once you get that built you can resume your expansion.

and in the meantime? well typically i dont found more than 6 or 7 cities before getting HG. i DO keep building settlers who irrigate or build roads while waiting for HG. i make a priority of discovering "trade". once i discover it assuming i have my six cities and assuming i do not yet have HG i will then convert pretty much all my production to caravans so that i can rush produce the ancient wonders that i consider important. after rush producing whatever i havent been beaten to then its mostly a mix of settlers and caravans for a long time after that.

 

[rrhal]

If you build Hanging Garderns you are usually ok in Republic until you can build Mikes.

 

[Peaster]

"4) i don't think anyone's answered this yet, unless i'm missing something...how exactly do you "keep cities small"? just by starvation? like i said, i'm surprised starvation provides a benefit over [growth + unrest]...is that true?"

The ICS answer is : Once the city reaches size 2, set the production to a settler. The city will probably produce and shrink to size 1 before it ever gets to size 3. In my opinion, it is not really as important to keep your cities small as it is to produce a lot of them. But they go together. As you can see from the other posts, there are many different views on this. But I am guessing you want an early conquest, and this method is a good way to go for that.

I make exceptions to this size 2 rule. For example, when I want a bunch of caravans in a hurry, or when I have too many settlers around late in the game. I almost never get size 4's, though, and I never seem to need Mike's, but I guess you would if you want bigger cities.

If I accidentally get a size 3-4, and it riots, I will normally just use an Elvis (unless there is a spare warrior nearby). If this causes starvation, that's OK with me. Don't know if this is the best strategy though.

 

[Old n Slow]

I think Andu's & ElephantU's advice is just about the complete package, but there may be a couple of tidbits still available. During the early game, in Despo, Mon & even Rep, rioting cities still allow food to be dumped into the foodbox -- so go ahead & found away. Once those cities reach size 2, have the second citizen become an elvis & build the warrior for martial law -- then when that satisfies the local popupation demands the city can be productive for for social gain.

Actually, as far as I'm concerned, in the early game there seem to be a few types of cities -- the SSC (which gets the preferential treatment that we know & love), cities supporting the social welfare (usually making camels), starter cities (noted above) and the frontier -- cities that have to pay attention to outside threats or the risks of them. Aside from the SSC, most of the cities won't get any infrastructure until the switch to Rep/Dem and/or size 5 or so; a possible exception being a desire for a barracks at/near the frontier.

I still do too much roading in the early game and also develop too many spaces ahead of their time -- translation too few cities and those are started too late, so my advice there is suspect.

Wonder choices in the early game -- HG has significantly more value at Deity than at lower levels -- it and Colossus also go early (and rightly so) so those tend to be great choices. Marco's has a lot of value and should come next if possible.

 

[rysingsun]

to me the secret of deity play is that the faster you expand the less significant military threats are. they simply do not materialize fast enough to compete with the madman expansionist. for one thing if expansion is done in a fanatical manner then by far the most likely cities to be conquered (by barbarian or alt civ) are going to be the size one cities you just settled. these i take back with diplomats really cheap. heck i even pick up one or two military in the process so it sort of pays for itself. it snuffs out barbarian threats and if the one that took your city was an alternate civ it usually is enough to cause him to ask for peace.

so when does expansion take a rest so i can start a military? pretty much never. when i get howitzers or planes or something i take a little break build a few and conquer the remaining civs.

as i said before its mostly settlers and caravans. i rehome my caravans through my collosus city (which unlike other cities gets all kinds of stuff rush built in it) and move them to the foreign city of choice. i like it to be overseas which is why im one of those oddball players who actually has a use for the lighthouse wonder. my cities remain poor because of the rehoming of the caravans but when you think of all those caravans homed to a size 12 collosus city only 4 turns after the discovery of construction it wont take you long to start imagining what sort of cash it generates. its weird having a game where your cities are generating 200gold per turn and your caravans are generating 1000 per turn. and you look at your cities and say "my gosh! i have 20 cities average size 3 most of which have no trade route and generating 5 gold average! im poor! and you bring in 3 caravans for another 400 gold each that turn. and they are all homed to your collosus city so your cities are STILL dirt poor! but it works. would you blame me if i make a higher priority of getting magnetism than democracy? anything other than galleons under democracy would be horrifying to even dream about much less have happen in a real life game.

without hanging gardens this whole thing will be a nightmare too. under deity. you must. you MUST .. have hanging gardens .. to preserve your sanity.

after getting monarchy trade and my core wonders i dont research anymore. my caravans do it for me.

 

[Peaster]

(but I agree with your 'deity' lesson: trade and happiness are the key, ... even in most conquest games )

Can someone explain why trade is important in a conquest game? If "trade" means "trade routes" and "conquest" means "early conquest", I am skeptical about this. I have studied and played successful EC games without SSC/STC or trade routes, but have not seen any that use them. Does anyone know of any .sav's of EC games that use these running dog capitalist atrocities ?

 

[Terrapin]

after getting monarchy trade and my core wonders i dont research anymore. my caravans do it for me.

In a sense, that is the real key to Diety play. The AIs build and grow faster at Diety, but when you are a 'trade based' civ, the AIs' growth works for you. Their populations grow unnaturally fast and their settlers build roads on everything which stands still and then - boom- you show up with a caravan and cash in on all their hard work.

i rehome my caravans through my collosus city

I am not a re-homer myself, but one thing I would point out: Trade routes grow along with the cities which they go between. I have found a lot of utility in getting a few early trade routes in all my cities. Remember each trade route arrow gets counted on each and every turn and the routes get bigger as your city. So giving up a couple hundred gold/beakers by not rehoming some caravans early may actually pay off over the long run. Now consider that the extra arrows will make it much,much easier for your cities to grow via celebration. Now 2-3 trade routes in each smaller city give 5 or more arrows instead on or two. Ten extra trade in each of say 25 cities (just the first couple generations of your expansion, there won't be enough demand to consume all your cities' caravans) over (just an estimate) the last 100 truns of your game is 25x10x100=25,000 arrows, a substantial return on the loss of 50-75 caravans not rehomed through the colosuss city, especially if you get the 'vans out early, when the col. city is only slightly bigger than the others, which minimizes the opportunity cost of the non-rehomed 'vans. (I apologize for this run-on sentance...)