learn something new everyday...

[Preston85]

Each city has a maintenance cost that detracts from the commerce it can contribute back to your civilization. Maintenance costs grow with the population of the city, and are also higher the further the city is from your capital.

I just re-read it, seing if i'd forgotten anything and knew the distances affect the maintenance but never thought about the population and must of missed it first time I read that guide.

I can now see why Slavery is so popular early on, as it allows you to expand and control your population to keep costs down! I never really put whipping to much use and always went to happyness max in my cities but will now try to whip more to control population and keep maintenance lower.

Just wanted to see if this is a good way to keep maintence down or would I just be better off working a cottage square instead of whipping just to keep the pop down. I normally just cottage and whip once pop is at the limit, i've never really whipped when far below the limit so I was thinking about whipping once all the resource squares are being used in a city. I probably was to many hammers on workers early on atm to get cottages up to combat maintenance of early wars and expansion...

Anyway, just thought i'd point this out to see if whipping to control population to keep maintenance down early is a good idea?

 

[oyzar]

it doesnt keep maintanance down only upkeep. and its highly marginal. Growing to hapiness cap is almost allways benificial. If you dont have commerce you wont get very far.

 

[Sisiutil]

oyzar is right, you're better off growing to your happiness cap, even over it if you need the commerce, rather than whipping them away. A citizen working a good commerce tile (cottage, usually) will bring in more commerce than you'd save by losing them for no good reason. If there are no good commerce tiles but you're close to a strike situation, you can always go to Caste System (if necessary) and convert those citizens into merchant specialists.

 

[Preston85]

mmm well it was a good thought while it lasted. I just re-read you post again Sisiutil and I get it now, I was thinking that going over the happyness would just give the unhappy citizen but then you would whip him away, never losing a workable tile.

I got thinking about it cos current game I started as germany (freddy I think) is really shaping out to be a peaceful game (well start at least, gandi is near).
On continents map, and I have a lot of grassland area with quite a few hills, probably 10 really nice cities with minimal overlap and at least 2 resources each. The capital is a good production city, second city is costal with 5 flood plains so going to cottage that.

The biggest factor though is there is a bottleneck of about 2 tiles wide between me and the other 3 civs with me between them and about 6 or 7 city locations. So was just thinking of blocking the bottleneck, then spamming cities early on, but I know this kills the econemy so thought this would help keep the costs down.

I guess just founding the good commerce cities early and cottage spamming is the only way to fun rapid early expansion? Maybe get currency early?

 

[Sisiutil]

mmm well it was a good thought while it lasted. I just re-read you post again Sisiutil and I get it now, I was thinking that going over the happyness would just give the unhappy citizen but then you would whip him away, never losing a workable tile.

I got thinking about it cos current game I started as germany (freddy I think) is really shaping out to be a peaceful game (well start at least, gandi is near).
On continents map, and I have a lot of grassland area with quite a few hills, probably 10 really nice cities with minimal overlap and at least 2 resources each. The capital is a good production city, second city is costal with 5 flood plains so going to cottage that.

The biggest factor though is there is a bottleneck of about 2 tiles wide between me and the other 3 civs with me between them and about 6 or 7 city locations. So was just thinking of blocking the bottleneck, then spamming cities early on, but I know this kills the econemy so thought this would help keep the costs down.

I guess just founding the good commerce cities early and cottage spamming is the only way to fun rapid early expansion? Maybe get currency early?

A Currency bee-line is of limited value, IMHO. It's a very expensive tech early in the game and its only immediate benefit is +1 trade route in each city. Though that's nothing to scoff at, it's probably not earth-shattering. Remember that you'll have limited contact with other civs, who may have very few, smaller cities, so the trade routes won't be very helpful until much later. Currency allows you to build Markets, but they're very expensive hammer-wise, and you won't get much benefit from them until some of your cottages start mature. That being said, Currency would certainly be useful for tech trading.

Most players, myself included, prefer to use the Oracle to get Code of Laws early. If you're researching it on your own, getting Currency before CoL is a good idea, as the former is a prerequisite and will make CoL cheaper; but if you're getting it from the Oracle, it's free. This enables courthouses, which are cheaper than markets and reduce maintenance by 1/2, which is often a bigger cost savings than the +25% commerce a market would provide early in the game.

In the game you describe, another option is to block off the chokepoint with a city, as you're considering, then gradually backfill the remaining territory with cities when you can afford them. The best way to do this is to build coastal cities first, followed by inland cities. This prevents the AI from skirting around your chokepoint with Galleys. That, and watching for their Settlers and canceling Open Borders agreements as necessary. Remember that in Warlords 2.08, you can no longer see what's on a ship. The AI tends to explore with Triremes and transport units and Settlers with Galleys--so if you see the latter approaching your borders, cancel that OB.

EDIT: On the other hand, another benefit of Currency is enabling the ability to trade for gold, which you could use to boost research. However, you're going to need Alphabet to trade techs for gold, and you may need Calendar to make enough resources available for trading. And how much gold will your neighbours have available, this early in the game? Obviously, the answers will be situational, varying from one game to another.

 

[Preston85]

Thanks for the reply. I was thinking currency for trade routes since I would be settling so many cities, I really need to read the mechanics of trade routes, so much to remember about Civ 4, and I don't even have warlords yet.

I'd will only have 2 cities none coastal, both nice production cities.
2nd city is coastal with 5 floodplains and fish with 4 or 5 forests waiting to be chopped.

Capital is great production city and it has gold.
I'm thinking get the 2nd city up, cottage the floodplains.
Get second settler to the other good production site (it has eles and gold to!).

I'm not to concerned about the bottleneck, its all jungle with some mountains on the far side from me, so any city there would be initially poor, could probably wait to make it my 4th city, its only Gandi near me.

Thats 2 production cities each with a gold resource and a great commerce city. Once they're up I can probably expand to 6 or 7 cities?

I'm not sure about going for oracle for COL, 3 other religous civs on my contenent so bit of a waste doing that part of tech tree. With so much gold early while expanding I could probably tech to it.

I'm thinking instead of building Oracle do stonehenge, with 5+ cities early, and most having there resources in the 2nd ring it would save a lot of hammers from oblisks and libraries.

The 2nd city also has 4 or 5 forests so i'm thinking about Great Lighthouse/Colousus since I will have about 7 or 8 coastal cities. I'm not used to going for those wonders, usually just stonehenge/oracle/GL are my early wonders. But being industrial i'm tempted to go for both coastal wonders, stonehenge and the GL. No idea what priority to put on each though. Could do GLight/Col in the 2nd city by chopping, there is also a couple of hills I could temp-work to help them. Then put GLib in another nice coastal commerce city which has some forests to chop and couple of hills to work (city also has marble which is GLib resource isn't it?).

Gah, this expanding thing is harder to work out than just other civ's for there cities! I'll post SS's tommorow so you can see things for yourself.

EDIT: There is a distinct lack of calender resources, 1 gem is the only one that springs to mind but will post SS later. Another reason I am liking idea of stonehenge as I will be in no rush for calender which would obselete it.

 

[Preston85]

Freddy 2800BC <- The Attached Dot Map

Heres my map anyway.

Gandi and Cathy are to the north, no cities near the bottleneck, gandi's borders will probably block it from Cathy.

Cottage spam in city 2 but I was thinking of trying for Great Lighthouse with some chopping, with the tundra to the south I think most of the southern cities will be coastal so with currency thats a total of +3 trade routes. Marble should be hooked up after that for a try at Great Library in there to.

City 3 i'm thinking production city.

After i've done the warrior in the capital i'm thinking doing 2 settlers for 2 and 3, then stonehenge with so many cities needing to expand for there 2nd ring resources. city 2 would have warrior first and maybe second to go over to 3 and the capital.

Stay friendly with Gandi or roll over to Cathy? I bet it won't take long for her to tell me to stop trading with him, especially if he gets a religion, Gandi is much nicer trade partner, plus he would block me off from the north so Cathy would have to go through him to get to me.

Any ideas about how best to expand this area or better dot maps?

 

[AnitaGaribaldi]

I usually play at Monarch level. Just some thoughts....

Colossus is a cheap Wonder that expires early, but it gives a greater increase in the commerce input than Lighthouse, at least in the beginning of the game. If you are planning to build it, you should consider building it as early as possible, you will need Metal Casting, an expensive tech. In this case my second city would be 2 and the third 4. From city 4 you will have marble, copper and Ivory. The dye is a calendar resource. The copper will speed up the Colossus and the Marble will speed up the Great Library and Oracle. I would get the Metal Casting from Oracle.

Many of the resources on cities 2 and 4 requires the border to grow. If you need to wait the obelisk to finish, it might take too long. So the Stonehenge might not be a waste. The city 2 will need an obelisk (free with Stonehenge), fish boat and a granary, then I would let it grow as much as possible (it does not matter if it gets unhappy). I would farm it up. As soon as I have the Metal Casting, I would wimp a forge (cheap because you are Industrious) and start the Colossus (chop/wimp if you want). If you run an engineer, you may get a GE, I guess more than 60% chance. If you are lucky, a free wonder.

I really don’t know if you can get everything up on time. It’s a lot of resources, roads. You will need a bunch of workers and two settlers. You will need to wait the borders to pop up in most cases.

The Great Lighthouse is easy to get, if you plan for it. The AI built it 250 AD in my last game (Monarch, Marathon speed). The techs you need are cheap: Masonry and Sailing. The effects of the Great Lighthouse last much longer. You will not need to build Oracle to get any expensive tech. For your coastal cities you will need fishing and sailing anyway. IMHO you should choose between Colossus and the Great Lighthouse. First you go for sailing to build the required Lighthouse than you get Masonry.

I usually build one or two wonders. I run into problems if I build too many: I produce few units so the barbs are a problem, I usually get pillaged and that hurts my economy. Many times I saw myself wimp out units to avoid losing cities to the barbs.

 

[lilnev]

The problem with this dotmap is city 4 (green), which has no food. It may be that there's seafood off the coast which could salvage it, but otherwise....

I would put the green city SSW of Copper. Copper, Ivory, Wine, multiple flood plains, hills.
Blue city moves SE, where it can still work the Clams and 2 flood plains to mine all those hills.
Purple city moves either 2 or 3 spaces east. 2 would do a better job of sealing the isthmus, but three is the better spot (Dye, coastal).
Yellow and Brown are well placed.

peace,
lilnev

 

[Preston85]

Just as a follow up on what I did.

I founded city 2, 1N of my dot map location. Gained a floodplain, lost a hill, also got 1 more ocean square but won't be noticable till city is very developed.

I then founded city 3 on its indicated location. Then city 5 went 1NE of its indicated location on my dot map, it gained more workable squares from losing those mountains and blocked off the choak point well (made a nice commerce city to).

City 4 was a pain, no food resource, I ended up making a irrigation path by chopping trees near that lake and irrigating around the S of the city. There was lots of production tiles to be worked, the marble, eles and bronze with a couple of hills.

Rest of my cities in the S had 1 or 2 food tiles each, pleanty of grassland to cottage to so ended up with about 8 commerce/science cities (ALL coastal) and 3 production.

Monty got annoyed with me even though he was at top of the continent a good 30 tiles away and kept throwing units at my stack that was blocking the only path down that was on a hill with one of those worker made forts Even jag's didn't make an impression.

I got all the wonders I aimed for, stonehenge, colossus, great lighthouse and great library, I didn't realise how much colossus and great lighthouse had made until they went obsolete, with all my commerce cities coastal they had a big effect, I also made sure to get harbors earlier than I usually do. While I was cottaging and waiting for my tax bar to come back up I built taj mahal in the capital, the resulting golden age helped city 2 build the spiral minoret.

Had just declared war on Gandi after Cathy asked me, Gandi only had about 4 or 5 cities (lots of upgraded longbowmen though) which I could of took to expand north earlier but I liked my defensive bottleneck position with so much grassland area to expand into south of me.

Sadly today I had to format my HD (stupid norton goback, never using that again) after PC just bluescreened on windows load up, so lost my save file.

p.s. I really liked the timing of Taj Mahal to help with the Spiral Minoret, gave a nice research push which the Spiral Minoret joined in on after the Golden Age. Will have to try it again.