Indian Expansion

[Randall Turner]

These guys are killing me. Not literally, they've still got the same dumbass AI running their combat, but they're expanding like rabbits.

I'd naively thought their morale hit for multiple cities would limit their expansion at least some, but a bit of math shows that's not the case.

They've got 10 puppet cities on one of my borders, all 10-15 citizens each. Assuming (say) 12 citizens each, with both the Theocracy and Planned Economy policies (which we've both got), that gives us a comparative morale hit of:

52 for India [12 (cities) + 45 (citizens)]
95 for Me [5 (cities) + 90 (citizens)], if I had the same 10 cities.

Basically, the additional x2 for number of cities from India doesn't matter at all for expansion purposes, they're still able to support far more cities. (This is discounting bonuses for playing on Immortal difficulty, which just makes it worse.)

At a rough count I think they've got sixty-some cities total, including a few stupid one-hex island towns, ranging up to 36 population (and there's quite a few in the 30's). They're churning out troops as fast as I can swat them. Entertaining, but a bit worrisome.

One of the other posters, I forget who, called out the Indian national ability as one of the most powerful. I'm starting to agree, it might be the most powerful for late-game purposes playing marathon/huge games.

 

[Zechnophobe]

These guys are killing me. Not literally, they've still got the same dumbass AI running their combat, but they're expanding like rabbits.

I'd naively thought their morale hit for multiple cities would limit their expansion at least some, but a bit of math shows that's not the case.

They've got 10 puppet cities on one of my borders, all 10-15 citizens each. Assuming (say) 12 citizens each, with both the Theocracy and Planned Economy policies (which we've both got), that gives us a comparative morale hit of:

52 for India [12 (cities) + 45 (citizens)]
95 for Me [5 (cities) + 90 (citizens)], if I had the same 10 cities.

Basically, the additional x2 for number of cities from India doesn't matter at all for expansion purposes, they're still able to support far more cities. (This is discounting bonuses for playing on Immortal difficulty, which just makes it worse.)

At a rough count I think they've got sixty-some cities total, including a few stupid one-hex island towns, ranging up to 36 population (and there's quite a few in the 30's). They're churning out troops as fast as I can swat them. Entertaining, but a bit worrisome.

One of the other posters, I forget who, called out the Indian national ability as one of the most powerful. I'm starting to agree, it might be the most powerful for late-game purposes playing marathon/huge games.

I always think of it like this. At size 4 a normal city generates 4 (for popoulation) and 2 (base) = 6 unhappiness. A size 4 Indian city generates 2 (For population) and 4 (base) = 6 unhappiness. That means all Indian cities size more than 4 experience reduced unhappiness.

That breakpoint is extremely low. Also, there are many ways to decrease unhappiness (or increase happiness) on a per city basis, but only one on a per citizen basis. That means they have more ways to 'work off' the +2 unhappiness per city.

 

[Randall Turner]

I think your math is better than mine.