How many cities should I keep?

[swapoer]

I am playing as Japan in Immortal and Epic Speed. I had entered Renaissance after researching gunpowder. I puppet cities which have not much buildings left or have crappy location. I have a list of questions. I hope the community would enlighten me.

1. In the case of authority, how many cities are ideal? What is the exact number of penalty on Tech, Policy and Culture from expansion? Most conquered cities take a long time to catch up with my other cities and I am thinking annexing them might not be the right decision.

2. Some enemies capitals have wonders and some wonders such as stone hence and pyramid are useless for me because I don’t get the instant bonus. These wonders increase my wonder building cost though and I cannot destroy them. Any solution?

3. Can I destroy the holy city of enemies? I have my own religion, so I don’t want to have one of my cities generating heretic religious pressure. Is it possible to convert the holy city of another religion and what is the benefit of this action?

4. In regard of city specialization, does anyone have suggestions? I think guilds farm, other great person farms and military unit production cities are obvious. I tried to have my capital specialize in producing wonders and land units and another city specialize in producing mounted units, since stable increases mounted units production quit a lot.

 

[Minh Le]

I am playing as Japan in Immortal and Epic Speed. I had entered Renaissance after researching gunpowder. I puppet cities which have not much buildings left or have crappy location. I have a list of questions. I hope the community would enlighten me.

1. In the case of authority, how many cities are ideal? What is the exact number of penalty on Tech, Policy and Culture from expansion? Most conquered cities take a long time to catch up with my other cities and I am thinking annexing them might not be the right decision.

2. Some enemies capitals have wonders and some wonders such as stone hence and pyramid are useless for me because I don’t get the instant bonus. These wonders increase my wonder building cost though and I cannot destroy them. Any solution?

3. Can I destroy the holy city of enemies? I have my own religion, so I don’t want to have one of my cities generating heretic religious pressure. Is it possible to convert the holy city of another religion and what is the benefit of this action?

4. In regard of city specialization, does anyone have suggestions? I think guilds farm, other great person farms and military unit production cities are obvious. I tried to have my capital specialize in producing wonders and land units and another city specialize in producing mounted units, since stable increases mounted units production quit a lot.

1. Ideal number of cities for Authority is 1 if you can support it. Because most yield from authority are instant yield (culture/science on kill, gold on border expand, science/culture from city capturing...). Most of your captured cities should be kept as puppet except some really good cities and border city where you want to annex to build defensive building there ASAP. The increasing cost is 7% on standard map and 5% on large map if im not mistaken.
2. Wonders from 2 era before dont increase cost of current wonder so you dont need to worry about that. You still have yield from them and their buff though.
3. You cannot destroy enemy holy city, but you can fully convert it to your religion (normally it required 1 inquisitor and 1 missionary). The pressure it emits is small enough to not be a factor. You can convert the holy cities of another religion but it will require a lot of effort. Normally you will need A LOT of missionary doing spread at a same time (in my Byzantium destroy all religion challenga playthrough, I need around 20 - 30 heavily buffed missionaries to fully convert a civ to my religion, including its holy city). By doing so you deny all of the benefit from their previous religion, and they will not have the benefit from your founder belief.
4. You should work all the scientist specialist in all city because they are the only source of reliable science. I specialize some cities to work guild and 2 or 3 heavily productive city to build units. My capital always is the wonder central.

 

[tu_79]

About puppets.
Even though what Minh Le says is true, authority bonuses dilute with the number of cities, cities provide a more steady yield production. A city with all classical buildings built is not a drag anymore, because the cost is 100 + 7xN (number of controlled cities), while the production is Yields x N. What really slows you down is the happiness cost.
A puppet produces 1 unhappiness every 4 pops. A controlled city may be more or less, depending on how developed the city is. Underdeveloped cities are advised to be left as puppets, unless you can replace them with a pioneer or colonist.
Another important thing to consider is that puppets do not provide any supply, which is so necessary for warmongers.

So, when you conquer a city, take a look at the infrastructure. Can it be repaired fast to a medieval infrastructure? Do you have enough happiness to work on integration? Do you need some extra supply? If yes, annex it right away for a free investment in a consulate.
Do you need another controlled city, this one sucks, and you can settle with pioneers? Then raze and resettle.
Otherwise, just keep it as puppet, you can annex it later if it ever becomes a productive and big city (better than your usual city).

 

[swapoer]

I believe the yield is not N, since non capital cities has lesser yield.
Maybe make a assumption that it is 1+ (n-1)*0.6.
I intend to do some math but I am away from keyboard now.

 

[tu_79]

I believe the yield is not N, since non capital cities has lesser yield.
Maybe make a assumption that it is 1+ (n-1)*0.6.
I intend to do some math but I am away from keyboard now.

I think you get what I mean. If you have a library and a council in all of your cities, that's 3 science x N cities. Of course, you may have some cities producing less yields while they develop.
But it is interesting that every controlled city adds a 7%, instead of multiply by 7%. This means that once your empire is big, any extra city is really not so difficult to add, cost wise. Having 10 cities, your cost is 163%. Adding one city raises the cost to 170%, which represents a 4% global increase, not 7%.

Edit. If you are adding a city that is equal than the others, your total yields will increase by a 10%, which is much bigger than the 4% of the increased cost. That's why I said that happiness is more limiting when considering to annex cities in an already big empire.

 

[swapoer]

Exactly. That is my initial thought, but I want to put it in an excel and see the graph. The problem is that it is hard to take new cities development time into consideration.

 

[crdvis16]

Exactly. That is my initial thought, but I want to put it in an excel and see the graph. The problem is that it is hard to take new cities development time into consideration.

It's also difficult to take into account the effect of instant yields and great people generation when deciding to annex vs puppet. It's going to be very hard to calculate the decision in excel. And that's without taking into account happiness, supply, the ability to produce military in annexed cities, policies that make puppets stronger by reducing their yield penalties, etc.

 

[black213]

3. You cannot destroy enemy holy city, but you can fully convert it to your religion (normally it required 1 inquisitor and 1 missionary). The pressure it emits is small enough to not be a factor. You can convert the holy cities of another religion but it will require a lot of effort. Normally you will need A LOT of missionary doing spread at a same time (in my Byzantium destroy all religion challenga playthrough, I need around 20 - 30 heavily buffed missionaries to fully convert a civ to my religion, including its holy city).

If you control another civ's holy city (while having a religion of your own) you actually can wipe out the religion by using an inquisitor there.

 

[tu_79]

If you control another civ's holy city (while having a religion of your own) you actually can wipe out the religion by using an inquisitor there.

If the owner is still alive, a great prophet spawn by the owner will be of the same religion, so there's still a chance that it comes back. But certainly, without the holy city, a lot of pressure is lost.

 

[swapoer]

Emm. After doing some simple math, the conclusion is it is always good to have more cities, without taking city development time into consideration. The catch is the usefulness of new cities goes down quickly, to the extent of only 2% increase in tech and culture speed when you have more than 10 cities. The exact number would change depend on the assumption.

 

[tu_79]

Emm. After doing some simple math, the conclusion is it is always good to have more cities, without taking city development time into consideration. The catch is the usefulness of new cities goes down quickly, to the extent of only 2% increase in tech and culture speed when you have more than 10 cities. The exact number would change depend on the assumption.

The right answer is that after medieval, your number of cities is only limited by happiness.
Did I say that before?

 

[Stalker0]

But it is interesting that every controlled city adds a 7%, instead of multiply by 7%.

Are you absolutely sure about that? I could have sworn it was multiplied instead of add.

 

[tu_79]

Are you absolutely sure about that? I could have sworn it was multiplied instead of add.

Very sure.
Only capital: 100%
Two cities: 107%
Three cities: 114%
Four cities: 121%

 

[Rekk]

Which is also why your new city only needs to get above 7% of the capital's science/culture in order to be a contributing member of your civilization.

 

[Stalker0]

Which is also why your new city only needs to get above 7% of the capital's science/culture in order to be a contributing member of your civilization.

Its not quite that simple, even with the additive model. Let me show you an example to prove the point. Lets take an existing empire, than we will add a city. Our goal is to keep our number of turns to research a tech the same, so we will see how much science the new city needs to make for that work.

Original Scenario (10 city)
Base Science Need: 2000
Science Need (City Adjusted): 2000 * (1 + .07 * 9) = 3,260

Capital: 100 science / turn
Other Cities: 20 science / turn
Total: 280 science / turn
Turns: 11.6429

So to start out, we are assuming your satellite cities are making about 20% of the capitals yields. We have adjusted our base science need for our 10 cities, and calculated the number of turns. While the numbers are not necessarily realistic, for this example they will show the point.

New City Scenario
Base Science Need: 2000
Science Need (City Adjusted): 2000 * (1 + .07 * 10) = 3,400

Capital: 100 science / turn
Other Cities (other than brand new one): 20 science / turn
Science Per Turn: 280 + X (our new city's science/turn)

So how much science does the new city need to make (X) to keep the same number of turns of research?

Turns of Research = Total Science Needed / Science Turn

11.6429 = 3,400 / (280 + x)
11.6429 * (280 + x) = 3,400
280+x = 292.023
X = 12.023 science / turn (~12% of Capital Yields)

So in this case, the new city has to make 12% of the capital's yields to contribute. Ultimately the more your current satellite cities make compared to the capital, the more a new city also has to make to keep things the same. You can't just look at the capital's yields to know how to stay even.
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