Frustrated with immortal

[sampsa]

T71

Spoiler :

He went into missionary spam and lulled me into false sense of security. I prepared the fortress city, but with only 1 archer it's not holding of course. He was WHEOOHRN for 2T I think. I don't think I'll resign yet, but doesn't seem promising.

 

[Fippy]

Looks like a rough map for sure, despite rather juicy land.

 

[jorissimo]

I am also fustrated with immortal. I just died horribly. Without knowing the map beforehand, I am not sure what would have worked?

I attached a worldbuilder file and an original (no modifications) save file.

Map spoiler

Spoiler :

Axeman would have been fine. Swordsman were too much. A protective leader would have been night and day. Iron working is too far away. Chariots, even if I had horses, would have done jack.

View attachment 709856

Spoiler :

Such a stack on turn 63? That would have been rage quit for me. Also the sampsa playthrough shows immortal is really not an easy level and can even catch experts off guard.

 

[sampsa]

T95

Spoiler :

Shaka Oracled something (MC I guess), built the Mids and soon had HAs. First cats and elephants showed up T94 I think. Would take peace only for a city so would need to whip a settler and gift a city just for peace... I'd rather gift a city for +4 relations (should've obviously done it T60 or so). Barbarian axes start bothering me from the south... It's clear I'm just toast.

Couldn't think of anything that could save me when... the game saved me. Heroic gesture EVENT!! Forced peace and +1 relations to boot. He will WHEOORN on the heathen soon and we will rule the world together! It's still not a great position of course but I'd be betting on me winning it already. Expand a bit and piggyback against HC.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Started another random game. Immortal difficulty can troll, confirmed.

Spoiler :

This time I survived only because I was determined to. Yikes.

 

[sampsa]

1AD

Spoiler :

Land is great yes, but takes time to develop. Have a settler wandering in Shaka's territory trying to gift. I also realized they are pleased to each other despite religion so I'm not confident at all about this. I think I'll win barring a war declaration, but unfortunately I'm likely to get declared on at some point.

Need a million workers for all the jungle, and probably won't even try to take the barb city.

 

[soundjata]

1AD

Spoiler :

Need a million workers for all the jungle, and probably won't even try to take the barb city.

What if the barb city contains a million workers

 

[jorissimo]

Started another random game. Immortal difficulty can troll, confirmed.

Spoiler :

This time I survived only because I was determined to. Yikes.
View attachment 709949

You've been having some really tough luck my dude. Way worse than those games of mine that I came here to complain about.

 

[a pen-dragon]

Re: added value of additional cities.

What I will consider here is what I will call the economical value of a city. The criterion I will apply is if a city can cover the added maintenence while building wealth and running 100% gold slider.

I.e. for reaching the domination limit, grabbing essential resources or producing more units other considerations will apply. These are not considered here.

Calculating the maintenance of a city​

As a reference I used this thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/city-maintenance-costs-the-numbers.612888/. I am using the same convention for size/difficulty, namely Standard/Deity. For speed I will assume Standard.

The code for city maintenence is found in CvCity::calculateBaseMaintenanceTimes100().

First lets consider number of cities maintenance. There is a cap of 8 /turn for deity. This is iMaxNumCitiesMaintenance in Assest\XML\GameInfo\CIV4HandicapInfo.xml. For a sufficiently large empire this will only be 8 /turn, flat. Sufficiently large means that even a size one city hits the cap. This is equivalent to 27 cities.

Obviously most cities will be bigger than size one, reducing the number of cities when the cap is hit.

This is important because below this cap building a new city increases the number of cities maintenance in all cities. This contribution is at most equal to the cap per city.

Spoiler Proof :

If the cities in the empire have different sizes they will hit the cap at different numbers of cities, reducing the maximum impact. Thus here I will assume all cities to have the same size. I also assume rounding not having an influence and will neglect the cap in some intermediary steps. These assumptions mean that I will in some cases overestimate this contribution, but never underestimate it.

Let the empire be of such a size that adding one more city would mean hitting the cap on number of cities maintenance. Let N be the number of cities in the described empire. c is a constant that results from the intricacies of the maintenance calculation.

Each city has the number of cities maintenance c*N.
Now add city N+1. Each city has the number of cities maintenance c*(N+1).
The added number of cities maintenance for the first N cities is c*(N+1)*N-c*N*N=c*N.
We know that c*(N+1) is at or over the cap, but that c*N is not by definition.

Let the cap be equal to c*(N+1), then c*N is a fraction of N/(N+1) of the cap. This fraction is close to 1.

Thus the added number of cities maintenance to existing cities can not exceed the cap, but comes close.

Thus above the cap an additional city adds 8 /turn in maintenance, but just below the cap that amount can nearly be doubled.

Assuming a less homogenous empire will smear out this effect, making adding the most expensive additional city less expensive, but making more additional cities more expensive. In the limit of very high (equal) city count all empires will pay the same number of cities maintenance.

Note that for a size 12 city the cap is reached at about 17 cities.

Now distance maintenance has to be added, and since later built cities will tend to be further away from the capital (or FP, Versailles, I will call those centers for brevity) they will also tend to have higher distance maintenance. A size 12 city that is in the 16th ring of the nearest center will have distance maintenance of about 10 /turn.

So roughly adding a ~16th city on the fringes of an empire can drive up maintenance by about 20-25 /turn.
Now we have to consider Inflation. Inflation is handled in CvPlayer::calculateInflationRate(). In the early game (before turn ~200) it can be approximated reasonably well as 0.3*(turns-90). So by turn 170 (1100AD) it will be about 30%.

Adding that inflation will result the above example to have a post-inflation maintenance of 26-33 /turn.

If we assume that new city to be size one the added maintenance is still about 16-20 /turn.

The cost of a city​

If we assume two trade routes at 3 each the city will still need at least 20 + to not be a drain on the economy, and more if it is to pay back the investment of building settler and growing it. That corresponds to about 2 per tile for size 12 city.

This means that growing on coast is barely acceptable, and that non-river cottages take time (30 turns) to be better.

Note that due to the base values in the maintenance calculation growing a city reduces the maintenance per population. Furthermore, it means that on top of building a settler a new city will frequently incur a cost due to non-covered maintenance on small sizes. A settler will cost at least 100 , due to not producing wealth. Due to halting growth/whipping this will be significantly higher in most cases. Since this is a game of snowballing the actual investment is again higher.

The cost of the settler and uncovered maintenance will make up the cost of the city. That usually needs to be paid back before the next milestone to be worth it.

Conclusions​

Having the GLH on with overseas foreign trade-routes will almost cover the costs. Similarly, on non-Pangaeas post-Astronomy and post-Corporation the trade routes will cover a lot. SP will get rid of distance maintenance and inflation on it, halving the cost and allowing to workshop, cutting the time to grow cottages into great tiles. If the next milestone comes after these building a new city pays back quicker and may speed said milestone up. IMHO this is the time to build mediocre cities.

The value of added population implies, again, that only a city that has enough food to grow in a reasonable time is worth it.

What I did not consider is colony expenses, which apply for cities not on the same continent as your capital. Obviously, they increase the cost of a city.

Edit: fixed last section

 

[Lennier]

SP doesn't cut time for cottages to grow--US does that.

 

[jorissimo]

SP doesn't cut time for cottages to grow--US does that.

What a pen-dragon means is that late game SP workshops are better than cottages. They instantly give a bunch of hammers that can be converted into gold or beakers by building wealth/science.

 

[sampsa]

1000 AD

Spoiler :

Was able to gift a city and expand in peace. Shaka was between pleased/friendly and also my 2nd beg worked when he started plotting T141. He then soon declared on HC and AP ended the war after one city capture. An excellent result as now HC doesn't like him anymore!

Lots of GGs born elsewhere also, maybe around 5 or so.

Switched to caste+paci to get an edu bulber out (2nd , first was academy), then just manually towards liberalism. Capital is good, but 5 due to no rice/wheat on this continent. Other cities mostly have no buildings other than a granary, some have a library or AP buildings. Everything points towards a draft war in my opinion (also the hippodrome!).

Libbing nat for Taj. No good spot to chop it but I think I'll get it in Antioch in the old fashioned way. Hmm, barb city is probably useful to unlock HE.

 

[soundjata]

Good plan @sampsa

Spoiler :

also dont forget the cure to draft anger is to whip a little bit more

 

[BornInCantaloup]

I am also fustrated with immortal. I just died horribly. Without knowing the map beforehand, I am not sure what would have worked?

Here, I give you this :

Spoiler :

I tried this map when you posted it and brainlessly SIPed and researched AH. With the amount of corn you have, AH is absolutely unnecessary. This is made even worse since you are playing with no tech trades and it will be something like a 10T delay towards any other, more important techs.
Here, if you go SE, then the gold city (be it your 2nd or 3rd and whatever its exact location) will immediately be able to grow on an improved corn.

As a general strategy, meeting Shaka from the north, perhaps it should make sense to put a priority on a different direction for expansion. If comparable city sites are available, choose the not northern one.
Putting a distance between Shaka and you is not fool proof but contributes to give you time to sort him out (like gift him a settler or two once you, yourself, have achieved a comfortable city count).

As for what I would attempt to do on replay, so skip AH entirely. Monarchy and Iron Working seem to be the two essential techs to acquire.
I reckon Oracling Monarchy and researching IW would be my bet.

First AH try (pretty bad but relevant expansion wise) :

Spoiler :

Adrianople was late (3 workers out before 3rd city) and had access to the corn from Constantinople's border pop, which explains its odd location.
As tempting as it is to settle 1N of the corn itself and get some floodplains, this is my point : you do not have to provoke early close borders with Shaka.

 

[sampsa]

@BornInCantaloup

Spoiler :

I don't like it. River area is the best area. IMP means one -resource is good enough to whip settlers. If barbarian in the north is an issue, gift a city after settling 3 (=like T50). On immortal and below you can just spread asap, the barb trouble is very minor.

Settling away from the best area and claiming jungle gold with 2nd... dunno, maybe just not my style. I'm sure you can win it like that, too.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

I mean, I noticed you ignored the two corns and the gold south of your capital. We have very different views on what makes a good prospect for expansion, which is fine

 

[sampsa]

Well, "ignored". Settled it after settling river cities which I thought were much more important for settling up a "commerce base". I think my only mistake was not city gifting, but it was a huge mistake of course.

 

[drewisfat]

Your capital is size 8, you have 4 archers and 4 warriors (that I see), and you got rekt by a stack of 5 units from the game's most notorious warmonger. That's more than one mistake sir.
- Why didn't you fogbust the south? There's literally a barb axe in your base. I get that it's jungle so I might have ignored it at the beginning too. Surely though once you saw neighbors to the north you should have redirected to fogbust the only direction that matters.
- Walls don't outperform additional units until you have a handful already and you have just one. I get that you probably thought you had a longer plot time, but this really stands out. That could have been two archers. You probably hold with that change alone. Why do you even have masonry?
- Should have had a couple archers fortifying in the bait city ASAP. Worst case scenario is Shaka doesn't attack and you've spent 20 hammers more than you needed on happy police.
- You're IMP and you played the map like you were EXP. There's multiple silly farms. There's 6 roads by the capital where 2 would have sufficed. Too many workers too soon accomplishing nothing of value when you needed more military and more settlers.
- As BiC already mentioned, it's downright bizarre that you ignored a 2 corn 1 gold city. You can't argue that early commerce isn't important while simultaneously cottage spamming before you're even safe from barbs and neighbors.
- Cataphracts then astro should have been the plan. Drafting has more to do with traits, city count and espionage than it does happy/health ratio. You're ignoring one of the better UUs in order to utilize a mediocre UB.

 

[sampsa]

Your capital is size 8, you have 4 archers and 4 warriors (that I see), and you got rekt by a stack of 5 units from the game's most notorious warmonger. That's more than one mistake sir.
- Why didn't you fogbust the south? There's literally a barb axe in your base. I get that it's jungle so I might have ignored it at the beginning too. Surely though once you saw neighbors to the north you should have redirected to fogbust the only direction that matters.
- Walls don't outperform additional units until you have a handful already and you have just one. I get that you probably thought you had a longer plot time, but this really stands out. That could have been two archers. You probably hold with that change alone. Why do you even have masonry?
- Should have had a couple archers fortifying in the bait city ASAP. Worst case scenario is Shaka doesn't attack and you've spent 20 hammers more than you needed on happy police.
- You're IMP and you played the map like you were EXP. There's multiple silly farms. There's 6 roads by the capital where 2 would have sufficed. Too many workers too soon accomplishing nothing of value when you needed more military and more settlers.
- As BiC already mentioned, it's downright bizarre that you ignored a 2 corn 1 gold city. You can't argue that early commerce isn't important while simultaneously cottage spamming before you're even safe from barbs and neighbors.
- Cataphracts then astro should have been the plan. Drafting has more to do with traits, city count and espionage than it does happy/health ratio. You're ignoring one of the better UUs in order to utilize a mediocre UB.

Saturday night, time to grab a bottle and write some horsehocky to the internet!

I mean I sure didn't expect a dagger, maybe I should've. Of course it looks dumb when he attacks and I can't even get a 2nd archer in place.
- not sure how much you have experience with immortal barbs but often it's just a joke. Getting infiltrated by two barb axes is something I've never encountered before I think. But ok, fair, I could've taken it more seriously.
- two archers are unlikely to hold, but you are correct I should've had 1T in an archer to be able to whip it. I could only whip walls and they won't help with one archer inside, I understand that
- too many workers too soon, perhaps. I agree I had farms that I had to turn into cottages.
- I don't think it's so bizarre to ignore that jungle spot, there is another, closer gold for with a floodplain. There are pros and cons for both spots. Did I argue that "early isn't important?". Perhaps you misinterpreted something. You seem to like to interpret or guess rather than ask!
- sure you can go cataphracts if you want to, I mean I think the game is just won if you don't get attacked anyway. I agree that drafting has a lot to do with traits and city count. I never claimed it has much to do with say , of course to a degree.

Just ask if you don't understand, I mean I don't think it makes sense for you to guess what something means and then attack it? Unless you just like attacking, in which case it is a great thing to do.

Did you also misinterpret what I meant when I said "my only mistake"? Does that in your mind mean that I think everything else I did was perfect? Good night!

 

[drewisfat]

We both like to attack on here Sampsa. Too often we have been on the same side and bullied others! Shaka isn't the only one who can . I want NATO allies who can defend themselves!
But yes you woke me from my slumber with "only one mistake". We all make lots of mistakes, every game, even in the first 100 turns.
You argue against commerce early every time there's a gold mine lol. I'm arguing against your settle location not your settling order to be clear.
I didn't set the difficulty level. I just think if you're taking it seriously to help others, you should take it seriously and build good habits. I think the map and Shaka is only tricky if you don't settle that bait city, as it might be harder to predict where he attacks and of course it won't be on a hill.