FEB 2011 Patch Details

[vexing]

You could always buy a Stock Exchange. Gold->hammer conversion rates aren't that bad for later buildings and you can easily work out how quickly it will be paid back.

generally: never. all the currency buildings have a penalty for rush buying, stock exchange costs something like 1800 gold base... if your city is producing 30gpt base that'll be paid off after just 180 turns.

 

[biohazard72]

My take:

Early social policies looking good. I'm really feeling France again - they should do well with a Landed Elite policy beeline, followed by a Meritocracy run. In the process they net 4 culture buildings, +1 culture/city, +2 food/city, +15% growth, +3 culture in capital, 0.5 happiness per trade route, cheap culture tiles, and a free great person. All that culture should allow them to pick up some extra policies by the time things are said and done, which could grab Freedom/Civil Service. And the extra tiles will definitely be helpful in the new, cities 3 tiles apart civ paradigm.

I wonder about the possibilities of Representation. I suspect a beeline would be more costly than the culture it saves as it would significantly delay Landed Elite, but if it comes out cost-neutral or close it could be useful to grab it before Meritocracy, Freedom, Civil Service and the like for the golden age.

Universities and Public Schools were boosted, as were tech costs. Not sure how this will shake out, but the game will probably end up longer by a bit. I do expect to see more Great Scientists though which should help clear late techs.

What I'm wondering about is whether or not there will be small filler cities now. Neutral happiness from population w/Colosseum at size 3 is very restrictive. Landed Elite is clearly a great policy now, and there will be less overall cities per unit area, so growing everything to size 7 or better (and putting in Theatres where possible) might be the best play from a happiness standpoint if there is no easy war on the horizon. Those size 7 cities would then be well equipped to put in Public Schools, Markets, and Theatres before probably shutting down (completely gold-focusing, to counteract the economic drain of the buildings).

One wild card of this patch is the Aqueduct. Depending on cost and tech position, it could be a worthwhile early build if you limit your first-wave horizontal expansion a bit so growth never stagnates (then obviously second wave expansion occurs concurrent with Colosseum building). More likely, I see it as an early build in obvious future production cities to get them nice and big.

Granary might be useful now if it's cheap and the terrain seems good. I suspect all the other buildings will retain their current roles in cities despite subtle tweaks.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Early social policies looking good. I'm really feeling France again - they should do well with a Landed Elite policy beeline, followed by a Meritocracy run.

If you want a guess, optimal France play will be Tradition -> Legalism -> Liberty -> Collective Rule -> Landed Elite. You're better off with Maritimes when it's just the capital early on, but once the satellite cities start to go in you'll want Landed Elite.

What I'm wondering about is whether or not there will be small filler cities now. Neutral happiness from population w/Colosseum at size 3 is very restrictive.

I honestly don't need the fourth citizen in the filler cities anyway. Besides, you can get that point of right back from Meritocracy and the GE from Meritocracy (which can build the FP if you need it).

One wild card of this patch is the Aqueduct. Depending on cost and tech position, it could be a worthwhile early build if you limit your first-wave horizontal expansion a bit so growth never stagnates (then obviously second wave expansion occurs concurrent with Colosseum building).

A lot depends on the cost of the Aqueduct. I'm unwilling to make guesses about the Aqueduct's impact until I see the cost. If it's cheap enough, it may be worthwhile to avoid diluting your streams and grow cities early on. My suspicion is that the power of specialists will still dictate the choice to build filler factories.

 

[_hero_]

This isn't really an ICS nerf, just an ICS recalibration. 1 more tile between cities+25% higher settler cost probably works out to the map actually filling up faster. You will have fewer cities and be paying +1 gold per city to link them, and losing 1 gold from the base tile, however, we don't know how the math will work out with trade routes now.

Before, you could fit one city per every 7 tiles with perfect spacing, which in turn made "optimum pop" 6 as far as tile usage was concerned. Now as you'll see here, you get an average of 13 tiles per city; your 7 base tiles, +2 overlapping with each of the other 6 cities that are adjacent. Giving each city one of the two tiles that it shares with each other city, it works out to 13 tiles per city, or 12 pop.


http://s1181.photobucket.com/albums/x434/herojon/?action=view&current=hexmap16x16.gif


Looking at the patch notes, you now get +3 for Coliseum, +4 for Theatre, and +5 for Stadium, working out to +12. Amazing, now optimum tile usage aligns perfectly with the maximum from buildings, ignoring Circuses. That means with Theocracy alone, you can be at +3 per city -2 from the city itself for a net of +1 per city with no other SPs, no luxuries, nothing else. Or you can do one of the many other social policy methods to nullify unhappiness from cities. (Personally I want to try Oligarchy+Military caste. It's the most hammer intensive but it's also the only method that will give you a superior military and defense. A big deal in Deity games.)

Anyways, if before you were building a settler for every 7 tiles, and now you are building one for every 13 tiles, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that there's almost half as many possible cities in a game now. Certainly, the number of cities will decrease by more than 25%, which means that from a hammer standpoint, the 25% settler cost increase is more than offset.

All this shows that the real difference in ICS now, is that ICSers will be developing their cities more, but that they will have more time to do so as well. The question has become what the new trade route formula will look like. Patch notes stated that Ultra-small cities won't get the normal amount, and made it sound as though everyone else will now get the same amount +a bonus from capital size. No idea how significant that bonus is, but if capitals are going to be at least 12 pop, I'm sure it will be equitable.

I'm predicting the new ICS will involve adding at least one growth building, or investing in landed elite (+15% growth/+2 for per city according to patch notes), a stable or another production building, if plausible, and building all 3 happiness buildings. Since Stadiums come so late in the game, holding cities other than the capital at 7 pop for a while now seems likely. Maybe it will be city/library/coliseum/whatever/theatre/do stuff until you grow to 7/settlers until stadiums come available.

 

[joncnunn]

As I understand it; ICS currently strictly means placing every single new city 2 hexes away from each other.

With new patch means you have to be 3 hexes (unless separated by a water tile), which makes it in its current form illegal with the patch.

The only time I've seen AI cities 2 hexes away from each other have involved water tiles; so this doesn't seem to impact the AI.

This does seem to mean that anyone building lots of cities 3 hexes away (current tight city spacing) is currently following the new ICS tactics. The AI is in part doing this. AI plays with settler happiness bonuses already, so those city sites that are marginal for a human are benfitial for the AI.

The most important new downsides to lots of built new cities (regardless of city spacing) are loss of a hammer in non capital cities & trade route income caped for tiny cities. (Hurts new & small cites a lot more than established cities). Cap a city at size 4 and it's likely the trade route won't even pay for its share of the road maintenance.

Fish tile sites have been greatly devalued as well. You'll need the Lighthouse & Compass technology just to get it back up to what it is now. With a work boat increase on top of that, it pretty much means have an already established city build the work boat(s) the city needs if at all possible. And you'll probably end up cash buying the Lighthouse if there's limited hammer production.

 

[_hero_]

As I understand it; ICS currently strictly means placing every single new city 2 hexes away from each other.

With new patch means you have to be 3 hexes (unless separated by a water tile), which makes it in its current form illegal with the patch.

The only time I've seen AI cities 2 hexes away from each other have involved water tiles; so this doesn't seem to impact the AI.

This does seem to mean that anyone building lots of cities 3 hexes away (current tight city spacing) is currently following the new ICS tactics. The AI is in part doing this. AI plays with settler happiness bonuses already, so those city sites that are marginal for a human are benfitial for the AI.

The most important new downsides to lots of built new cities (regardless of city spacing) are loss of a hammer in non capital cities & trade route income caped for tiny cities. (Hurts new & small cites a lot more than established cities). Cap a city at size 4 and it's likely the trade route won't even pay for its share of the road maintenance.

Fish tile sites have been greatly devalued as well. You'll need the Lighthouse & Compass technology just to get it back up to what it is now. With a work boat increase on top of that, it pretty much means have an already established city build the work boat(s) the city needs if at all possible. And you'll probably end up cash buying the Lighthouse if there's limited hammer production.

2 hexes in between each other* you can't put cities 2 hexes away from each other except when one is on an island, currently. Second of all, since the last patch, the AI almost exclusively puts their cities with only 2 hexes between each other. You are right that ICS in it's current form will become illegal, but the concept behind it is very much in tact and depending on what how the new trade route formula works, it may actually end up stronger than before at least in gold generation.

 

[Rittmeyer]

I`m also unsure about the nerf on ICS. They are certainly changing ICS due to the 3 tiles apart rule. That means less cities anyways. But you will problably still want as many cities as possible, and the reason is simple: you want as many of this new powerfull universities as possible.

GS`s will be even better now that techs will cost more. So will RA. That means that whatever gives you more gold and more GPP generation will be desirable.

 

[GfxJG]

Anyone know exactly when this will be released? It looks like an improvement from the current state =P

 

[biohazard72]

If you want a guess, optimal France play will be Tradition -> Legalism -> Liberty -> Collective Rule -> Landed Elite. You're better off with Maritimes when it's just the capital early on, but once the satellite cities start to go in you'll want Landed Elite.

I thought about that, and you're probably right. While Landed Elite also increases training speed of Settlers, you don't get the freebie. I'm just wondering whether or not I would want to throw that many policies in Liberty, which is why I hesitated, as Collective Rule doesn't open up any interesting policies. But you're probably right, even though it delays Landed Elite a bit it doesn't overly because of the huge +5 culture for the first 4 cities (and decent culture from cities thereafter).

I honestly don't need the fourth citizen in the filler cities anyway. Besides, you can get that point of right back from Meritocracy and the GE from Meritocracy (which can build the FP if you need it).

You don't strictly need it (1 4F citizen, 2 science specialists, with slight improvements in food, production, or gold depending on Maritime CSs, Civil Service, Landed Elite, or Statue of Liberty). I'm just thinking that any time I get squeezed out of a significant second wave of expansion, I can use the surplus happiness to grow larger cities which can benefit from Public Schools (gaining 1 happiness from Freedom, more science from the specialist and Public School boost, and more Great Scientist points).

Going up might even be required- 7 or 8 cities in a first wave expansion might be all you get due to the new spacing requirements.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Going up might even be required- 7 or 8 cities in a first wave expansion might be all you get due to the new spacing requirements.

6-8 is a pretty typical first wave for me. Going beyond that starts straining the cap and also screws up SP timing.

 

[Jatta Pake]

What does "ICS" mean?

I'm struggling to get through this thread with all the jargon.

 

[joncnunn]

Infinate City Sprawl

In Civ 3 and Civ 4 it refereed strictly to city spacing as tight as possible allowed by the game.

Civ 3: C-x-C
Civ 4: C-x-x-C

What does "ICS" mean?

I'm struggling to get through this thread with all the jargon.

 

[Jatta Pake]

I assume holding the populations of these cities to a very low number is key to the ICS strategy? How do you do that?

I happened to spam out a bunch of cities in my current game because I had a continent almost all to myself (shared with Aztecs who have stayed at war with me almost the entire game). My unhappiness launched into the 13+ range and my economy and growth crashed. I had few luxury resources, and little contact to trade with anyone. My production was so penalized that it took forever to build any buildings or units. Thankfully, the Aztecs have been ineffectual fighters.

I built granaries in all of my cities to boost and speed population growth. I'm guessing this is a bad idea with a bunch of cities?

 

[joncnunn]

Under current rules; most pure ICS players hold non-capital cities down to size 4. (Colosseum) Micro manage the workforce once the city hits that desired level so that it's stagnate.

-10 is where the very unhappiness hits; -20 is where empire is revolt and adds barb units spawning inside your territory.
Yes, if your having a lot of trouble just keeping your empire happy, you don't want any more buildings that increase growth until after you've cash rushed enough happy buildings to solve the happiness issues.

I assume holding the populations of these cities to a very low number is key to the ICS strategy? How do you do that?

I happened to spam out a bunch of cities in my current game because I had a continent almost all to myself (shared with Aztecs who have stayed at war with me almost the entire game). My unhappiness launched into the 13+ range and my economy and growth crashed. I had few luxury resources, and little contact to trade with anyone. My production was so penalized that it took forever to build any buildings or units. Thankfully, the Aztecs have been ineffectual fighters.

I built granaries in all of my cities to boost and speed population growth. I'm guessing this is a bad idea with a bunch of cities?

 

[Martin Alvito]

I assume holding the populations of these cities to a very low number is key to the ICS strategy? How do you do that?

The concept is to take advantage of the support-free on the city tile and the bonus from Maritimes to work a small number of high-yield tiles and/or run specialists. Every unit of population requires two units of to support it, and you quickly reach a point where each new unit of population has to work a tile that yields . Unfortunately, those tiles don't yield much else.

 

[Ibian]

Problem is, each new city adds 2 unhappiness, so those 2 base food are not exactly free. The new granary aqueduct will help make a small number of big cities viable, to me it's roughly 90% of this patch (with things like the new, finally worthwhile workshop being most of the remaining 10).

 

[TM Moot]

Pretty sure:

Fish after patch: 2 base (one for ocean, one for fish resource), one more from fishing boat, two more from lighthouse, total of 5 . Gold starts a 1, up to 2 with Compass and fishing boat.

two more from Lighthouse???

i thought it was only 1

 

[joncnunn]

In the new patch, lighthouse will provide an extra food for fish in addition to the extra food in all water tiles.
But that's because the base values of fish & workboats have been cut, so it's probably just getting back up to where it is currently.

two more from Lighthouse???

i thought it was only 1

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Please, can someone explain this line to me:
"Culture border expansion discount in cities placed on Tradition branch opener. "

Whaa? I've read it dozens of times and still dont understand what this is actually saying.



Also, is Longhouse directly worse than the Workshop now?

 

[Martin Alvito]

Problem is, each new city adds 2 unhappiness, so those 2 base food are not exactly free.

The question is which constraint binds. It turns out that the production and growth constraints are a lot more binding than the constraint if you optimize properly.

Aqueducts may or may not change this. My guess is that they'll push things closer to parity but that small cities still win. Specialists are incredibly efficient producers, and small cities get a lot more.

Please, can someone explain this line to me:
"Culture border expansion discount in cities placed on Tradition branch opener. "

Whaa? I've read it dozens of times and still dont understand what this is actually saying.

My guess is that the cost of border acquisition by will be reduced only in those cities already settled when you take Tradition.

It's a feeble attempt to discourage you from taking what is obviously the best opening SP with your first pick. +3 while you are still just the capital is absurdly huge for everyone except France, and it's big for them.

Also, is Longhouse directly worse than the Workshop now?

Not quite strictly, but the Longhouse will only be better if you are working a ton of improved Forests and nothing else. Keep in mind that a Longhouse is going to be a lot cheaper - at least 50% to build and half the maintenance.

Also keep in mind that all of the production bonuses are calculated off of raw , and there are a lot of bonuses as the game wears on. This means that the Iroquois will still be able to tear Wonder and part production up like no one else after Steam Power, because the Longhouse bonus gets picked up in the multipliers and the Workshop bonus (other than the +2 ) does not.