Growth

So I am a comfortable King player who excells in science(thanks to an earlier thread) but now I have one major recurring problem: growth. I just can't get enough citizens! The game I am currently playing is as Morroco on quick, 1860's in Modern Era, and my capital and second city only have 17 people each. I just can't generate the food! Can I get some help?

 

bild de farms mahn, dem ppl luv da wheats, also make the grandmother house of apples, dat b gud wit da apples stash up all kinds, fresh water river side gangster, in da aquadeuctz my <snip> be poppin with all kinds of farms, raiding da neighborhood gangsters in da camps for apples from small civs.

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Anything else?

 

I've never had trouble with population, probably because it was the first thing my noob brain latched on to as "important" when I was learning the game in 2010. Never quite got over being a "food junkie" and growing super-tall cities.

Here are a few pointers:

1 - INTERNAL TRADE ROUTES
Sending food to your capital is extremely powerful. After I get my Libraries and NC done I always make sure to get a caravan or a cargo ship loaded with food and headed towards my cap. Most experienced players have at least 2 food routes directed at their capital for the whole game.

2 - FOOD WONDERS
Hanging Gardens, Temple of Artemis. HG is great because it gives you a Garden, which saves hammers later on and synergizes with the food bonus (the HG city is often the specialist city anyway). I like HG more than ToA, but ToA is very powerful due to how the bonus food is actually calculated (you can look it up if you want to know more about that). Much more powerful than "Fertility Rites" for example, even though both have the same bonus.

3 - GRANARIES
I don't ever wait too long to build this. If you have 2 tiles that benefit, it should be an early build, if you have 3+ tiles that benefit build it ASAP. Granary is almost always my first build in any new city, NEVER use a brand-new city to build a unit, because only buildings will make it strong in time. The only thing that I might get over Granary first is a Monument, if I didn't go Tradition and thus don't already have it for free.

4 - CIVIL SERVICE
Don't overlook this tech. Have the farms ready BEFORE you hit Civil Service. Always be around one tile improvement ahead of your pop in any given city, a common problem is people not having enough workers/improvements. 1.5 workers per city is my general rule of thumb, to be safe.

5. - COASTAL CITIES
Lighthouses are very important if you have a lot of Fish/Crabs etc. Get it before you start pumping out those expensive, vulnerable fishing boats.

6. - KNOW THE LANDSCAPE
If you have a city on grasslands, the citizens will have to be divided between food-heavy tiles and production-heavy tiles. Improve those food-heavy tiles, then those citizens will support the production-only tiles like hills and mines. On plains, food IS production. Every new pop adds a hammer, so focus on growing and your production steadily increases. You'll notice setting a plains city to Production Focus often doesn't change much, but setting a grasslands city to Production Focus often moves almost half of the population around. Grassland cities are more "customizable" because of this, but also easy to stagnate if you're too intent on working those hills.

7. - CARGO SHIPS!
I know I mentioned caravans, but cargo ships bring INSANE amounts of food, think multiple Hanging Gardens. It's often worth making a coastal empire just for this.

8. - MANAGE YOUR SPECIALISTS
I tend to add specialists while watching my growth meter. If it goes over 10 turns to grow, that's generally too high for me. Ideally my cap is growing every 8-4 turns, or better. Don't slot too many specialists or your city grinds to a halt.

9. - MAKE BUILDINGS IN CAP, BUILD UNITS IN OTHER CITIES
If you make too many units at your cap (tempting as that is with the short turn times) you slow down your "building momentum." Your cap should be making buildings as often as it can, preferably buildings that increase its own growth first (Granaries, Aqueducts, Hospitals). Make your units in your productive satellite cities, which will generally be your 2nd or 3rd cities.

10. TRADITION
Tradition is very strong. If you finish it quickly, and line it up with Engineering as best you can, you can snag those free Aqueducts fast, and Aqueducts are super-important for long-term growth (along with Medical Lab, which does the same thing later on).

11. DON'T OVER-SCIENCE
Science buildings are only as useful as your population. Don't build Libraries until you are at 4 pop at least, 6 pop ideally. Don't build Universities in cities that have 5 pop, grow that city first to like 10 or so. Don't be too eager to slot science specialists, as mentioned before, until you can do it and still grow every 4-8 turns. Science buildings without pop are a total waste of time.

12. LOOK AT THE TILES
Yes, people know that cities next to resources (cows, deer, wheat, fish) are good. However, those tiles are where most of your growth comes from, not the regular grasslands farm. Any 2 food tile simply supports the citizen that is working on it, therefore you must have 3 food tiles somewhere to grow (putting food in the food bucket). Plant Academies on 2-food tiles (grassland) so the citizen working it supports himself and doesn't have to rely on other citizens to feed him.

13. WE LOVE THE KING DAY
The best players exploit this for maximum benefit. If you want good victory times, it is imperative to use this. Do whatever you have to do to get the resource (within reason), but get it. Remember that if only one civ has the Marble your capital wants, and he's not selling it cheap, then you are never going to get to those other WLTKD demands for the rest of the game, that are probably easier to fulfill, because you are stingy about paying for Marble. Thus, you're sacrificing having any WLTKD for your capital, for the whole game. It's better to just pay for the Marble.

14. MARITIME CITY-STATES
Very important if you're going wide. The more cities you have, the more it pays to ally with Maritime CS. If you're going tall you should look to at least be friends with them, so your cap gets the food bonus. Allying gives your cap a better bonus AND your other cities get food also, so the more cities you have, the better it is to ally Maritime CS.

15. MICROMANAGE
This is a skill you learn over time. Sometimes it's better to rush the food building and deliberately stagnate while doing so, rather than continue on Default focus and be "growing" in 44 turns. At that point, it's better to just hit Production Focus and rush Hanging Gardens/Granary/Hospital etc. to get that food sooner.

16. DON'T OVERDO IT
If you're growing every turn, think about setting that city to Production Focus. The reason is, a city can only grow so fast (1 pop a turn), and while that food DOES carry over down the line, you're only ever going to "catch up with your growth" much later in the game. It's better to grow every 2 turns and churn out buildings in your cap, rather than having everyone toiling on food tiles even though you're already growing every turn.

17. DO THE MATH
The math in Civ 5 isn't as scary as it looks. For example, if Fertility Rites gives you a 10% bonus to your food, then you'd have to be making 10 food a turn (in a particular city) in order to even see one extra food. Not much, right? Probably better to get Goddess of the Hunt, and get two apples NOW than get one "free" apple for every ten apples that you manage to harvest. Get the snowball rolling early and things get easier as you go on, early food is very strong.

18. BUY TILES
Go into the city screen sometimes, especially early in the game, and just look at how everything is working. You'll often notice that your city is painfully grinding out a measly one food surplus so it can grow in 14 turns, when there's a nice juicy 3-food cow tile that lies just outside of your borders. The AI isn't always smart about which tiles it expands to first, so just drop the 50 gold and buy the cow tile. After a while it becomes obvious when you need to just buy a tile and improve it NOW rather than wait 10 turns for it. Again, 50 gold seems like a lot for a tile on turn 15, but the snowball effect ensures you reap the returns many times over later in the game. Doing this can literally save a city that otherwise would have stagnated and never caught up to your other cities.

19. AVOID UNHAPPINESS
Being in negative happiness totally murders your growth rate. Get out of it ASAP, every turn lost is a turn other civs are outgrowing you. Remember to pay attention to your happiness as you grow and make proper plans to avoid this happening to you.

That's about all I can think of right now, hope that was helpful.

 

All right thanks that's very helpful!

 

I recently read a guide with a video to follow, and one thing I picked up is that you should favor growth over production in your choices. Get your cities settled early and get caravans going before building too much fluff. Just get the granaries, and maybe a couple defensive units going before you are building caravans.

Going Tradition also helps a ton at going tall, because it comes with a free aqueduct for all cities, which is important. Later, make sure to get hospitals and medical labs.

My first Emperor level games had max cities of 20. I just finished an Immortal game today with a max city of 42.

One last thing. If you are a warmonger (no disrespect, I love to warmonger), you will not have a large of cities. You won't be able to support the unhappiness that comes with a lot of cities.

 

Wowzers - this is the best post I've ever read on these forums.

 

Right from da hood!

As a french canadian i didnt understand much...

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk

 

I'm not sure klaskeren understood it either. Sounds like a European using American slang. But there's a certain poetic quality to it...

 

To correct one thing in Tyrus's excellent explanation, you don't need to go for Engineering if you're going Tradition. You get the free Aqueducts regardless of whether you've unlocked the tech or not.

 

There's an extra trade route at Engineering. That's 8 food if you can run Cargo Ships.

 

Can someone confirm this is true? I happily admit I'm not that knowledgeable on Civ 5 but I had assumed you needed the tech to get the effects of free buildings from a social policy.

 

It's true. I'm surprised you haven't noticed. It should be apparent each time your city grow.

 

It is true, though you will eventually get engineering, you can wait until after you get education, because once you finish tradition, you do indeed get aqueducts without that tech.

 

It appears I was mistaken, you do get Aqueducts without Engineering. Goes to show that it's worth double-checking these things, even though to me it doesn't make sense.

I do not get Engineering for the trade route, it is probably better to get Sailing if you haven't done so. While Engineering is somewhat useful for the trade route, it has little else to recommend it if you already have Aqueducts. However, I try and get to Metal Casting quickly after finishing Tradition anyway for Workshops, and Engineering has to be picked up along the way.

Another thing I'd like to mention: When you find that you've pretty much built everything you want and are waiting on the next tech to unlock something, either slot specialists or set the city to Food Focus. Think of it as turning hammers into growth, because that's what it is (don't need a fancy tech to do this). It's often much more useful than just building random buildings that do little else than increase maintenance costs (Stable if you have one Horse, Colosseum if you are already drowning in Happy).

 

Wow... I never realized that you get the Aqueducts without Engineering.
I wonder how many other crucial things I still haven't learned after 1300+ gameplay hours!