How much population is ""too much"

[1TimeCivPlaya]

i was watching Deity Challenge Series by SBFmad, and i noticed that he doesnt tend to let his cities grow in pop by not building farms.

is it smart to limit pop on all cities except your capital? why is it? and to do it, do i just limit the amount of farms i build?

thanks

 

[Smote]

Optimally, you want enough population to use all production hexes, good commerce hexes, and scientist or engineer specialist slots. Usually, you can't assign these roles only, because there is not enough food being made to sustain the population. Therefore, the minimum amount of farmers is also necessary.

A good city might want to use 6 hills, a sugar, a spice, and 2 scientists. The 6 hills and 2 scientists require an excess of 16 food from other sources. 2 will come from the center city tile. 6 more might come from water mill, landed elite, and granary. 8 more will have to be created with farms (4 riverside grasslands, each having an excess of 2 food production). Thus, a nice population for this city could be 14. Reaching this population can be done by earlier building aqueduct, and using excess farms, in order to grow faster, and once the population is achieved switching citizens off the farms and onto more useful tiles. Riverside hills can even be initially farmed, and changed to mines later (this is especially good to do between the techs of civil service and chemistry, while farms are better than mines).

This is an example of optimization in a tall empire.

It is easier to do citizen optimization in a wide empire, where a city might be population 3, funded by the center tile, a granary and landed elite, and work 3 hills.

 

[1TimeCivPlaya]

Sorry smote, i understood the first part about w/o decent pop tiles wont generate hammers ect...

But, what did you mean by your last sentence?

thanks

edit - also, if you dont mind. can you give me a basic ballpark amount of farms, i should have per city to remain happy and productive.

sorry if im confusing you. im just confused myself ><

 

[Smote]

This whole technique is something I've called citizen optimization, which is basically, "How can I make my empire most productive, given my land and happiness constraints?"

The last sentence would be in regards to a different example, where one is instead optimizing a city for population 3, and likely building military and going for domination victory.

There is no ballpark amount of farms. Some cities require no farms. Some cities require 4-6 farms. Capitals might require 15 farms (monarchy). Its dependent on the land, and your goals for the city. Basically, one typically wants to grow to size 4 or so, then produce hammers in order to build stuff that helps growth, then grow to the desired steady state size, then never grow again.

 

[1TimeCivPlaya]

Ooooooooook, i think im finally grasping this topic. it seems math is something that can be used. each citizen requires 2 food. 2 more questions if u dont mind.

when you mentioned scientists, are u referring to great scientists?

also, the other hexes that are not improved, is it smart to just build like trading posts or leave them empty?

also, when i build a farm, is that costing anything or is it "free" to just sit there, god i have so many questions. i wish i could jsut call you lol!!

is there like a ventrillo for this site?

 

[Smote]

Trading posts are not recommended. Try to manage your money with other means (Monarchy, river tiles, markets, trades with AIs)

I am referring to science specialists (it requires a university, which is unlocked with Education).

I would recommend build farms on other tiles, and just don't use them. They might be useful for growing in the future, once Fertilizer is researched if you want a bigger steady state population (because of cultural border expansion, or more specialist slots acquired). Or just disband extra workers. Or build a road to the enemy so you can invade them more easily (civs with finished tile improvements are usually caught up in wars).

It is nice to bring a worker crew of 4-5 workers over to any newly acquired city.

I must mention the one use for trade posts, which can be used to make conquered puppet cities make extra gold. These cities must be regarded as inefficient and as a drain on your happiness, however. Building tradeposts on hills in your conquered puppet's territory will help them to not grow and use up all your happiness.

 

[1TimeCivPlaya]

Trading posts are not recommended. Try to manage your money with other means.

I am referring to science specialists (it requires a university, which is unlocked with Education).

ok. thanks.

 

[trueblue]

My Capital goes as big as i can get it as quickley as I can get it there. Yours should too.

 

[1TimeCivPlaya]

My Capital goes as big as i can get it as quickley as I can get it there. Yours should too.

without at least one reason why, i wont jump on your bandwagon

 

[trueblue]

ill give you five. the more population you have the more hammers, gold, science, food and specialists worked.

 

[chazzycat]

higher population also raises the value of trade routes. growth = profit. As long as you have positive happiness, keep growing.

 

[MadDjinn]

heh... well, I don't do 'tall' empires mostly, so I'm definitely not that great with them. That, and my usual tech order has me far from Engineering for the aqueducts to get the early boosts.

So, definitely don't look to my vids for that part

For the rest - I rarely farm too much since I'd rather keep my happiness under control so that I'm not wasting huge numbers of turns building happiness buildings. (past the colosseums and circuses. Theatres where appropriate) This tends to allow me to sell more lux. resources for cash->RAs.

I'll figure out tall empires eventually...

 

[1TimeCivPlaya]

heh... well, I don't do 'tall' empires mostly, so I'm definitely not that great with them. That, and my usual tech order has me far from Engineering for the aqueducts to get the early boosts.

So, definitely don't look to my vids for that part

For the rest - I rarely farm too much since I'd rather keep my happiness under control so that I'm not wasting huge numbers of turns building happiness buildings. (past the colosseums and circuses. Theatres where appropriate) This tends to allow me to sell more lux. resources for cash->RAs.

I'll figure out tall empires eventually...

i just dont understand why more farms causes less happiness, someone plz explain? im very newby

 

[leflings]

I'm guessing: more farms equals more food which in return equals more pop growth. So to limit the growth ratio, or cap, you hold back on farms

 

[Smote]

i dont think tall is nearly as good for defeating deity computers, since luxury selling is crazy-powerful, and wide grabs more luxuries.

that said, you can't really trade in multiplayer, and tall tends to do better with beaker rate and overall production

 

[1TimeCivPlaya]

ok this thread has helped me alot. im gonna save it for a refrence. thanks to all who helped!!!

 

[Pazyryk]

You really need to consider the types of cities separately:

Capital: I go for all-out growth. Farms on all river tiles (including hills and initially forested tiles). Consider slowing growth only if you are going to have unemployed citizens (this is location dependent but should be rare). I only ever build trade posts on jungle tiles (or sometimes any non-river tile but only if I have excess worker capacity).

Non-capital cities: There are really two kinds of these depending on your approach. You either have a limited set of these (1-4: going "tall") or you are going all out REXing (many more). In the former case, I treat them mostly the same as the capital (but never let them grow at the expense of the capital, so you may or may not need to constrain growth early). In the latter case, I constrain their growth and treat them more as a puppet below.

Puppets: There are really two considerations here. You want to limit growth and you want to manipulate the tile-work selections of the AI. On limiting growth: if you are going to continue conquest, then limit to the size supported by that city's happy buildings: 4 or 6 with horses/elephants. (Logic: Your build selections are so much better than the AI's that you don't want to ever limit growth of non-puppet cities for the sake of a puppet city.) On manipulating AI tile-work selections: you have indirect but not direct control of what tiles the AI will work. Puppet cities always have a commerce emphasis. To grow, build farms on river tiles or trade posts on any grassland or jungle tile. To not grow, build trade posts on hills (forget mines on hills because the AI will not work them). If you plan to stop conquest with only one or few puppets, then you might want to let them grow more (but again, never at the expense of a non-puppet city).

 

[Smote]

On Non-Capital cities: They aren't all equal. The ones that have hills to be used that are not using them are a higher priority to grow than the ones that are using all of their hills.

 

[Deggial]

@Pazyryk:

Decent post.

What I always wonder is the Non-Capitals (Puppets, too) impact on research and gold income. Both is strongly linked to the population and even Puppets build research buildings.
Considering all preconditions you stated in your post, is it really so *bad* wanting taler Puppets? Dosen't it pay out (as long as you do not fall below -10 happiness)?

To be honest, I tend to develop all the tiles sourrounding my Puppets - even if not needed because their population is to small to work them. Maybe I have to take account of this aspect in future games (and save workers upkeep).

 

[Pazyryk]

@Deggial

There is really a separate category of puppet. These are Puppets that I Intend to Annex. These are the puppets in very very good locations, generally on a river tile with a lot of river tiles. I might have these in either a conquest game or a mostly builder game where I happen to take a couple cities. I don't annex immediately, but I do take the reins off and let them grow a bit. The time to annex them is either: 1) On conquest with severe happiness problem, excess cash, and have no more happy buildings to rush in non-puppet cities; 2) Steam Power if I have extra coal, 3) Plastics if I have extra aluminium and the puppet is on river with many river tiles. The reason for #2 and #3 is that the AI will never get around to building factories or hydro plants, so this is the time that the AI build choices really gimp the city badly relative to their potential. The reason to delay is of course to get more SPs (but this reason looses importance later) and so you don't have to rush buy courthouse (money better spent elsewhere, at least through much of the game). By letting these grow while puppets, you can have an instant powerhouse city when you do annex.

If a puppet is not clearly in this category, then I will always severely curtail their growth.