Early Growth production paths

[Psycedilla]

why is the early rexing so important to you guys?

i think establishing a big hq is the way to go. more city def, your gathering all you eggs in one basket, but you dont need 2 library's when you only got 1 city. and also, would you rather attack a spread out 2 city's with 4 pop? or a city with 10 pop ( and probably walls cause of center of production ). seeing as how many got agreesive early uu's, i think the fortress start may be good.

when you have unlocked techs for popping ressources, then you can maybe get another city ( and increased sp cost, and 2 happiness wasted on the city itself ) with hefty supply from the home front in terms of unit support and worker support.

 

[Sir Og]

Early expansion will depend on how much happiness you get from natural wonders. If you have 4 NW nearby you offset the unhappiness caused by 2 new cities. (that's another reason to scout early)

I assume that you get the +1 from NW simply by spotting them (don't have to be within your border and you don't have to be the first to discover them)

 

[Kordanor]

You will offset the initial unhappiness, yes. But you will still have a problem if they grow.
You bascially need additional technologies for all luxury ressources you may find. Well, you might choose your science path depending on what you find, but this will however not bring you to special goals like Wonders or temples very fast.
Natural wonders seem to give their happiness by discovering them, as shown in the first part of the stream.

 

[Kordanor]

Need to correct myself a bit, or make a note at least:

The data regarding the science costs are either outdated in the manual or in the stream with 2k greg.

Example 1:
Turn 0: Greg needs 10 turns with 4 science to gain the first row (equals 36-40)
Manual: First tier: 35, meaning Greg would have beeded 9 turns.
Turn 9: Greg needs 8 turns with 5 science to gain the first row (equals ~40)

Example 2:
Turn 9: Greg needs 12 turns with 5 science for bronze working (equals ~60)
Manual: 55

In addition I didn't saw that Calendar is more expensive than the other ones. Most probably costs 80 instead of 60. (Manual: 70 instead of 55)

 

[Sir Og]

Expansion is beneficial once your capital reaches pop ~5 or 6 because after that growth gets a lot slower.

With the new happiness system it is best if you can put all your population in one city but it would take forever to grow that city. Even on higher difficulty levels at about size 5 of your first city your happiness will outpace the growth of your capital and it will be beneficial to have a second city if you want to work as much tiles(or specialists) as your happiness cap allows you.

 

[Kordanor]

Expansion is beneficial once your capital reaches pop ~5 or 6 because after that growth gets a lot slower.

With the new happiness system it is best if you can put all your population in one city but it would take forever to grow that city. Even on higher difficulty levels at about size 5 of your first city your happiness will outpace the growth of your capital and it will be beneficial to have a second city if you want to work as much tiles(or specialists) as your happiness cap allows you.

True, but creating 3 Cities just to disable growth in them right away does not really seem to be a good way to handle it.

 

[jaldaen]

Kordanor,

Perhaps the discrepency is based on game speed... perhaps normal is what the manual includes, while Greg was playing a slower game speed? Or the manual could be wrong... which wouldn't be a first

 

[Kordanor]

Already checked that, Greg was playing on normal speed. I guess the manual is wrong.

 

[Thyrwyn]

The formula for city growth appears to be: Food Needed for Growth = 10 +(Current Pop * 6). Greg appeared to need 16 to grow to size 2; The image of Rome, below, shows Rome at Size 11 appears to have no food in the bank, and is accruing +1 food/turn - and needs 76 turns to grow to size 12.

 

[Kordanor]

The formula for city growth appears to be: Food Needed for Growth = 10 +(Current Pop * 6). Greg appeared to need 16 to grow to size 2; The image of Rome, below, shows Rome at Size 11 appears to have no food in the bank, and is accruing +1 food/turn - and needs 76 turns to grow to size 12.

Yep, that is what I said in another thread and is also the formular I worked with.
Well, haven't expressed the formular in that way though.

The only formulars I am missing so far are:
What is the amount of money you need to pay to accelerate production?
What is the formular for Social Policies? We know 25 and 45, but I don't have anything further atm.
Edit: And from gregs 2nd part:
1 tree unlocked, 4 policies bought -> 5 policies total
6th costs 625 / 4 additional Cities -> 521 base cost
7th costs 840 / 4 additional Cities -> 700 base cost
8th costs 1075 / 4 additional Cities -> 896 base cost

Still don't get it.

 

[gibson1314]

You will offset the initial unhappiness, yes. But you will still have a problem if they grow.
You bascially need additional technologies for all luxury ressources you may find. Well, you might choose your science path depending on what you find, but this will however not bring you to special goals like Wonders or temples very fast.
Natural wonders seem to give their happiness by discovering them, as shown in the first part of the stream.

Does every civ get a bonus by discovering natural wonders, or is it the first civ to discover it only?

 

[Kordanor]

Manual says

Natural Wonders: Each natural wonder you discover permanently increases your civilization’s
happiness.

While it doesn't make it clear, it sounds like it's every Civ. Otherwise they should have written "If you are the first Civ discovering a natural wonder...."

 

[Kordanor]

Now I also checked the stream and found a nice tooltip, which would not make much sense if it was only the first civ. It states "You have 3 still to find" (attached)

 

[Polobo]

So basically every map has 7 (maybe map size adjusted) free happy you can obtain via exploration.

Thus, the only major exploration rush is to be the first to contact other city-states so you can get 30 gold instead of 15.

The other subsidary reason to explore is to capture more barbarian camps more quickly and thus get the additional gold they provide into your coffers. The XP benefit is of somewhat lesser value unless an early war is in the offering. Your first scouts and warrior can make for decent garrisons/scouts while your real army is built in cities containing a Barracks.

Even a classical era exploration binge should not be hampered that much by civilization borders that you would be unable to get to all the parts of your own continent so eventually you'll find all the "early game" Natural Wonders.

 

[Kordanor]

Well, in the map he was playing (standard size) he discovered 2, and 3 were left.

As long as we don't know how much gold is worth (including how much we get from babarians and how much we need to speed something up in the early game), it's quite hard to say if early exploration is worth the efford. If we are just "sitting" on the gold, as we can't do anything with it, or we can only buy another scout-value with it - it's not worth it imho (Germany Excluded anyways).

 

[Cyberian]

@Cyberian
Looks nice so far. But how do 2 farms lead to 5 excess food for the settler? A farm only improves a tile by 1. (and only with higher techs by 2).
The City produces 2, 2 worked farms will give you 4, tradition giving you 1, making 7 alltogether. As you got 3 citizens 6 of these are consumed. So basically what you have left is only what the 3rd one produces in terms of food +1.

size 3 city

2 main tile
3 farm
3 farm
2 grass
1 tradition
-6 feed city

5 excess food unless I am wrong

I don't think pushing out 2 settlers quite early is a bad decision, I just think that pushing them out in the first 40 turns, will make you stumble over your own feed. You will need to decrease growth in all cities with focusing them on production. Newly found cities without palace and no improvements won't do much efficient work. Not taking the 50% speed increase but 1 food bonus will probably not make it much better, though your worker might have a better time for improving any luxury ressources (given you have the tech for it, which is rather unlikely).

I think I'd wait with my 3rd settler until I see where I can get iron. If you push these settlers that early you might also be screwed if you don't have any iron as you can't afford to build a fourth city for sure.

I agree, personally I will wait for my second and third settler until I have burial tombs (egyptian temple) ready which will give me 2 extra happy per city. Although tactics could change if you really find lots of early happy ressources or natural wonders.

 

[Kordanor]

Yep, that is what I said in another thread and is also the formular I worked with.
Well, haven't expressed the formular in that way though.

And I need to correct myself again. This is not the formular I worked with.
Your formular assumes:

>2 16 /fit with stream
>3 22 /fit
>4 28 / does not fit
>5 34 /does clearly not fit
>6 40
>7 46
>12 76

Meaning it always takes only 6 additional food.

I was going with the formular, that with each growth the needed amount increases by 2
>2 16 /fit with stream
>3 22 /fit with stream
>4 30 /fit with stream
>5 40 /fit with stream
>6 52
>7 66
>8 82
>9 100
>10 120
>11 142
>12 162

Well, the one with the screenshot does not fit, but in difference to the stream we can't really be sure of the conditions there. But of course we won't know for sure until release.

5 excess food unless I am wrong

Yess...I confused that a little. Well, doesn't really make a difference if you put this guy from the hills to grass when building the settler. What you could do though is after finishing the 2 farms start building a mine under the 3rd citizens feet to increase the speed of the following productions.

 

[Cyberian]

Yess...I confused that a little. Well, doesn't really make a difference if you put this guy from the hills to grass when building the settler. What you could do though is after finishing the 2 farms start building a mine under the 3rd citizens feet to increase the speed of the following productions.

Ah I understand you meant because the other was still working on hill.

Regarding mine:

Thank you I will do this. And maybe work another mine if it is still possible to have temporarily negative food (unless your bucket is not empty). Just to get that Stonehenge finished early.

 

[iop]

Provided monuments were built first, you'd see a net gain in cultural spending for the course of the game and it'd probably be a wise investment to expand earlier than later since the incubation period required for a new city to reach it's fullest culture potential will grow as later cities are introduced with poor infrastructure and more culture buildings to build.

That depends a lot on how SP cost is calculated. If the cost of the next SP includes the cost of the current SP, then building additional cities later is better. If the cost of the next SP does not include the cost of the current SP, then you're still better off getting a few SPs with just your capital first, especially if you beeline for Stonehenge (which, granted, may only be possible with the French or the Egyptians).

However, getting additional cities early will get you more land sooner, which means more luxury and strategic resource early on. Luxury resources mean you can grow your cities, strategic resources mean that you can go out and level up some swordsmen/horsemen/UUs on barbs or that you go and crush the first enemy immediately.

 

[Cyberian]

That depends a lot on how SP cost is calculated. If the cost of the next SP includes the cost of the current SP, then building additional cities later is better. If the cost of the next SP does not include the cost of the current SP, then you're still better off getting a few SPs with just your capital first, especially if you beeline for Stonehenge (which, granted, may only be possible with the French or the Egyptians).

However, getting additional cities early will get you more land sooner, which means more luxury and strategic resource early on. Luxury resources mean you can grow your cities, strategic resources mean that you can go out and level up some swordsmen/horsemen/UUs on barbs or that you go and crush the first enemy immediately.

I can't really understand some comments in the last week where it was actually said:

Don't build additional cities because it will hurt you.

Of course happiness will be the limiting factor and will hurt you if you don't take care.
But increasing costs on the other hand I think won't really stop you from expanding. They are just for making fast expansion a bit slower and balanced.
Civ always has been about building cities and building an empire.
I don't think that this will change in any way.