Master & 2 rookies
- Thread starter MattiK
- Start date
Barcelona has been conquered and finally pacified! I have also founded new city by the coast of West France. Settler is on his way to make another city near silver tile by the north-west coast of Spain. Second screenshot shows my eastern front between Aegean Sea and Black Sea. Chopped woods have provided Antium with extra production which I use to build walls. Just in case Alexander decides to come by to knock. Neapolis borders 3 civs and thus is in need of stronger garrison than lone Warrior. Therefore it shall have an archer or 2 and Warrior will get an upgrade to Axeman. With access to horses and 2 iron tiles Neapolis just might become industrial powerhouse some day. Such resources deserve to be well defended. I will have access to Catapults shortly. In the meantime cities make more Praetorians in preparation for war against Germany, and Archers to garrison the cities. I have a plan to gut the Germany for good, though with more cities it might take some more turns than Spain. I have open borders with everybody I've met. If someone makes a problem about it, I'll crush him.
Attachments
Imperator Knoedel
Simperator Knoedel
Again, I think it makes more sense to whip an Axeman somewhere else and move him to Neapolis than upgrading the local Warrior unless for some reason he has at least two promotions.
I'll save whipping for Catapults when I have them available (soon). Also more Praetorians for conquest and Archers to garrison the cities. I believe I can afford to shave off less than 1 turn's worth of research for $ to upgrade that 1 unit at this time. I'll have the Germany for sure, then I need to consider should I have a go at Greece or develop my cities (libraries and whatnot).
As my army takes first step to Germany's territory, China and Greece declare war against me.
By Knoedel's recommendation, I razed Cologne to the ground in order to make room for better city placement. Besides Cologne didn't have any buildings nor anything else of importance. Greece seems to send forces piecemeal, only 1-2 units at a time, against walled city. First spearman is likely to spend the next turn pillaging the copper mine, which gives me time to reinforce the city. 2 archers (other completing production) and 1 praetorian (on the way) will be enough against Greece's initial force of 2 spearmen, archer, and swordsman. Bring it on! My plan is to destroy Germany first, then proceed to do the same with Greece. From China, my plan is to kick back their first attack, then call for peace.
By Knoedel's recommendation, I razed Cologne to the ground in order to make room for better city placement. Besides Cologne didn't have any buildings nor anything else of importance. Greece seems to send forces piecemeal, only 1-2 units at a time, against walled city. First spearman is likely to spend the next turn pillaging the copper mine, which gives me time to reinforce the city. 2 archers (other completing production) and 1 praetorian (on the way) will be enough against Greece's initial force of 2 spearmen, archer, and swordsman. Bring it on! My plan is to destroy Germany first, then proceed to do the same with Greece. From China, my plan is to kick back their first attack, then call for peace.
Last edited:
Imperator Knoedel
Simperator Knoedel
I think China's declaration was pure opportunism due to Bismarck's bribe, I doubt they have any significant forces anywhere near you.
Greece spearman destroyed copper mine as expected. Antium has now 2 archers, praetorian, and is working on another praetorian. On the northern front my corps is advancing towards Berlin. Let's do this!
My fear about overlap isn't irrational. At worst overlap and mountains would mean city has only handful of tiles it can work. City would stay small, its resource value likely low (depending on surrounding resources), and existence of that city would drive up city maintenance cost. As I understand, city maintenance depends on total # of the cities and distance from the palace. In addition city needs military unit to garrison it to keep population feel safe and happy, and that just drives up the maintenance/upkeep cost.
With that in mind, I prefer to have cities which have much room to grow, have many tiles to work on, and can have good production. That keeps city # low, city maintenance low, need for military lower and less settlers to build. Cities with good production values don't need to specialize: they can build everything and excel in almost everything. I have 3 exceptions: cottage farm for creating commerce (Ravenna is for that purpose), securing important PRODUCTION resource (oil or the like in middle of the desert), and integrity of my civ so other civs don't divide mine in the same manner as Poland divided Germany at end of the First World War. So in short: I want my cities be few but large and effective all around which can build up military in short order as needed. I don't see a way to do that with large number of cities in close proximity with significant overlap.
Or am I in wrong in something here?
My fear about overlap isn't irrational. At worst overlap and mountains would mean city has only handful of tiles it can work. City would stay small, its resource value likely low (depending on surrounding resources), and existence of that city would drive up city maintenance cost. As I understand, city maintenance depends on total # of the cities and distance from the palace. In addition city needs military unit to garrison it to keep population feel safe and happy, and that just drives up the maintenance/upkeep cost.
With that in mind, I prefer to have cities which have much room to grow, have many tiles to work on, and can have good production. That keeps city # low, city maintenance low, need for military lower and less settlers to build. Cities with good production values don't need to specialize: they can build everything and excel in almost everything. I have 3 exceptions: cottage farm for creating commerce (Ravenna is for that purpose), securing important PRODUCTION resource (oil or the like in middle of the desert), and integrity of my civ so other civs don't divide mine in the same manner as Poland divided Germany at end of the First World War. So in short: I want my cities be few but large and effective all around which can build up military in short order as needed. I don't see a way to do that with large number of cities in close proximity with significant overlap.
Or am I in wrong in something here?
Last edited:
Imperator Knoedel
Simperator Knoedel
Okay, look around in your empire, and tell me what your average city population is. 4? 5 if we're generous? Rome, your biggest city, has 8 population, and a bunch of them are unhappy. We'll be generous, and assume that you can get every city up to 10 population after Monarchy without having to go out of your way to invest into happiness and health. A BFC has 20 tiles. That means that it quite simply doesn't matter if half of a city's tiles overlap because it can only work half of all available tiles anyway, and even if some more overlap you can employ some specialists, plus Slavery is always an efficient way to deal with surplus population.
But let's talk money. Sure cities cost money, but they also make money. After Currency (a very important technology) you can expect every city to make AT LEAST 2 Commerce per turn from trade routes from the moment it is founded. Then there's an additional 1 Commerce per turn from the city center, so that makes at least 3 commerce per turn for every city just for existing, likely more because international trade routes give double yield and with all this awesome riverside land you have it's very likely you'll work some more with the city's population, but I'm only talking about the absolute minimum here. Granted, that absolute minimum amount of commerce you are practically guaranteed will likely be canceled out by upkeep until you get a Courthouse up. Also IIRC if the city has at least two population it will automatically grant free upkeep for one unit so its garrison of a single Archer will become free pretty quickly, and after you grow to size 4 it will start decreasing the upkeep of other units. Sure a city is an investment initially, but in Civ4 they start paying back relatively quick even at pretty small sizes.
Let's look at that future deer city north of Antium for example:
There are only two workable tiles it has access to that no other city does, a forest grassland Deer and a regular forest grassland, both on a river. However I sincerely doubt that the neighboring cities Antium, Neapolis, Berlin etc. will grow beyond size 10 anytime soon (never mind that you still have to conquer/settle some of them), so we can safely assume that this Deer city can also work the Iron grassland hill and two riverside grassland tiles without really infringing on another city. At size 5 with basic infrastructure (Granary and Courthouse) in place this city would yield 7 production and at least 9 commerce per turn assuming cottages on all three river grassland tiles, but at that point they are likely all hamlets already so we can safely be talking about 12 commerce per turn. Even if that city would never ever grow beyond that size 5 (and the three tiles it "steals" from other cities are really negligible because it would take forever for those other cities to grow enough population to work them anyway) and we disregard all buildings or civics modifiers, 12 commerce per turn (which will grow beyond 20 as the hamlets grow into villages and towns) easily cancels out any increased upkeep cost that city might incur directly or indirectly, and even without whipping, 7 production per turn in pre-industrial times is nothing to scoff at. That's a Praetorian every 6 turns.
Now the situation would be different if the 5 tiles the city would work were all naked plains without river, forest or resources, but the map has blessed you with awesome land, grassland, rivers, forests and resources everywhere, and it would be silly not to exploit that to your advantage.
Now that we've gotten cost out of the way, let's look into health and happiness!
Let's be generous and assume that because of resources, Hereditary Rule and terrain like rivers and forests any city you found won't encounter happiness or health problems until it grows past size 10, without you having to actively work to increasing health or happiness. If you have 20 good tiles, and you settle one city to work them all, you need to invest quite a bit in health and happiness infrastructure to get to 20 population. 100 Production for an Aqueduct, 150 for a Grocer, another 150 for a Market, 80 for a Temple, that's 480 production and even with all relevant resources you still start running out of health past size 16. Imagine that instead you just invest 100 production into another settler, so instead of one mega city with 20 population you only need two average cities with 10 population each to work all tiles, at no extra cost for health/happiness infrastructure.
Also it's way faster to get two cities to 10 pop each than one city to 20 pop because you need more and more food to grow to every additional size.
That room to grow you like won't do you much good if it takes 200 turns to actually grow to take up that room, while with two smaller cities you would only need 50 turns to work it all.
Also you really need to read Adam Smith yo, specialization is the foundation of all human civilization. Instead of trying to build one city that someday will be able to yield 50 production and 50 commerce per turn, I guarantee that you would sooner be able to build two cities, one which yields 40 production and 10 commerce and another that yields 10 production and 40 commerce, and it would be cheaper production wise because the 100 production for the extra settler is nothing compared to the 500+ production you save on health and happiness infrastructure.
Not every city needs good production, especially when it has access to lots of food anyway.
Also 10 size 8 cities can more quickly assemble an army than 5 size 16 cities thanks to Slavery and Drafting.
In short:
"Quantity has a quality of its own."
-Stalin
Sieging Berlin. Because my catapults have promotions, they already got defense down to 22%. Also I chose wrong praetorian to attack the German settler: the one with medic promotion. Bah!
[edit]
Something I forgot. Carthage came up with a trade: they offered writing for horseback riding. I accepted the trade and I'm now going for monarchy & hereditary rule through polytheism.
Saladin comes up with an offer. Are you kidding me!? That is NOT a fair deal there!
Random event to boost my research. Yes please!
Time to crush Greece. Corinth fell on the first try, though I lost couple praetorians in doing so. Small detachment on the east stops reinforcements coming from Sparta. My next target: Athens to the south. After my banged up catapults have recovered (4 turns).
Luthor_Saxburg
Vassal of Civilization
- Joined
- Jan 19, 2005
- Messages
- 4,454
Corinth location might not be the best! One tile North (or NE) and it could allow access to the Black Sea by ships. Didn't you think of razing it?
EDIT: Nice post! Enjoyed reading it!
EDIT: Nice post! Enjoyed reading it!
