Health for fun and profit

[Minor Annoyance]

In civ 5 it was originally possible to have health 'profit' by which I mean build more cities and get more health than then unhealth they generate, allowing you nearly infinite health, constrained only by the amount of space on the map for cities. They created the concept of local health to counter that, so the health population generated could only be negated, and not surpassed by basic buildings. Leaving per city unhealth which you could almost negate but not quite.
In CivBE there is still local health but now per population unhealth is only 0.75 with 4 unhealth per city meaning a size 16 city with 16 local health could counter all the unhealth from its population and the city itself. In this way it is similar to civ 4 in that civ 4 cities cost money but more cities could generate more money so after building up a city for a while the city would turn a profit. It does seem to be to be a good plan as it allows vertical growth to allow horizontal growth. However some tings fudge that up real good.

Artists or Aristocrats give 1 health per city
Profiteering gives 0.5 health per trade unit which ends up being 1.5 per city
and Eudaimonia take off 25% of unhealth
Add those together 0.5 unhealth per city


EDIT: I forget to write in the prosperity synergy bonus of +1 per city. So that means you can totally eliminate unhealth per-city by getting a health + colonist, 10 prosperity and 3 industry virtues.

Eudaimonia also affects population unhealth taking it from 0.75 to 0.56.
And if that population is covered by local health then each population is 0.44 health profit.

Which means a population 2 city is already in health profit. Not that it really matters at this point but doing the math, if you get 2 levels in purity and the rest supremacy you can get local health of 23.4 per city. That leaves 10.12 of that health as profit so you could have size 33 cities before you need to dip into any other health source.

Unlimited size 33 cities. What the fun!

 

[Xenotitan]

It's even better! You can get the 0.5 health from the trade unit without it being active. So even if all your trade route slots are taken, you can keep building/buying trade units to push your health up. So...

Unlimited number of unlimited size cities!

I'm not sure how much of a problem the unlimited number of large cities is. I don't feel like health needs to be something that limits the maximum possible size of an empire on turn infinity. It just needs to be something that slows down expansion. If it takes time or a huge input of energy for a new city to build health buildings so it can turn a health profit then it is fine that it turns a health profit at some point.

I do think the health thing from inactive trade units needs to be fixed. And there are problems with the health system where the threshold people care about crossing the most is -20 health. And I'm sure there's other balance issues that need adjusting. But the way to look at it the state of the health system isn't how many size x cities you can have on turn infinity.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

Are you sure? I thought I remembered watching my health go up after I restarted a trade route.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

It's even better! You can get the 0.5 health from the trade unit without it being active. So even if all your trade route slots are taken, you can keep building/buying trade units to push your health up. So...

Unlimited number of unlimited size cities!

I do think the health thing from inactive trade units needs to be fixed. And there are problems with the health system where the threshold people care about crossing the most is -20 health. And I'm sure there's other balance issues that need adjusting. But the way to look at it the state of the health system isn't how many size x cities you can have on turn infinity.

Well you're right I just tested it and buying lots of trade units that I couldn't use gave me lots of health. It wasn't free though because trade units count against unit supply so it would inhibit my ability to build an army, but having ships sitting in the port should give me health. I'd assume the drawback is supposed to be that trade units can be killed so you're leaving your healthcare out on the high seas to be plundered.

It is good that there are several ways to combat unhealth and yes, harder in the beginning and easier towards the end to expand so the land rush isn't all in the beginning of the game, however it seems too easy to get to the point where health doesn't hold you back.
It could be because unbalanced trade make cities develop too fast and build too fast and research too fast so they can get new things to improve production and research and culture to get virtues to get health. All that adding up to what should be the end game coming around the time the mid game should just be starting. With all that it's hard to know if virtues come too soon or not because everything is too soon.

Oh and in my original calculation I forget to write in the prosperity synergy bonus of +1 per city. So that means you can totally eliminate unhealth per-city by getting a health + colonist, 10 prosperity and 3 industry virtues. That seems too easy.

 

[Xenotitan]

It wasn't free though because trade units count against unit supply so it would inhibit my ability to build an army, but having ships sitting in the port should give me health.

There's a bug. Trade units appear to consume unit supply in the UI, but they don't actually consume it.

Imo it does have the major downside of being a cheat, so I still don't abuse it for health.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

Ah, I did wonder why it didn't show that supply warning at the top. So it's wrong in two ways!