Mathematical peculiarity of population growth.

[cracked]

This regards the Indians unique ability.

I'm wondering whether or not the way play them is to use their UA counterintuitively.

E.G.

A standard civ with 20 cities and 200 population (i.e. ten in each) will generate:

38 unhappy (for cities) with 200 unhappy for population. A total of 238 unhappy.

But

The indians with 20 cities and 200 population would generate:

76 unhappy (for cities) but only 100 unhappy from population. A total of 176 unhappy.

In short, for the indians to be as unhappy as their rivals, they would have to have another 124 citizens.

Also,

a city for each of the other civs will generate 6 unhappy once they reach a population of 4 citizens. 2 for the city and 4 for the population.

This works out the same as for the indians. 4 for the city but two for the population.

Beyond this point, each indian city will logically produce far less unhappiness than any city a standard civ will create.

Thus, if the indians are played counter intuitively, they should be able to support much larger empires and populations without the happiness problems and thus without the need for crippling infrastructure. indeed, it could be argued that failing to support a large empire is not using the UA to its optimum.

Am I the only one to spot this?

Hope this helps.

 

[S.K. Ren]

This has been covered before but seeing the numbers helps to realize just how powerful their UA really is. Good work.

 

[Trickster7135]

The Indian trait lets their city population unhappiness matter more for almost all situations compared to other civs. The only strategy I would avoid completely is the honeycomb/ICS strategy.

 

[cracked]

I strongly suspect it's very overpowered.

 

[Nunya]

Normally you get 2 per city and 1 per population. with Inida you get 4 per city and 0.5 per population. As long as the average size of your cities is higher than 4 you will have more happiness than normal.

 

[cracked]

Normally you get 2 per city and 1 per population. with Inida you get 4 per city and 0.5 per population. As long as the average size of your cities is higher than 4 you will have more happiness than normal.

This is precisely my point. Early rexing may be hard with the indians, but worth it as soon as you get that city above 4 pop.

 

[alpaca]

No, you're not the only one to see it. The main trouble with India is founding cities, once you get them over that stage they're good.

The problem is that this trouble comes in the very crucial early parts of the game where those extra 2 happiness hurt a lot. It also doesn't help that the Forbidden Palace effect only removes -1 unhappiness for India like for everyone else instead of halving their unhappiness.

 

[Asylumer]

This is precisely my point. Early rexing may be hard with the indians, but worth it as soon as you get that city above 4 pop.

And with Liberty's Meritocracy you can effectively knock 1 off of the fixed city while your Trait deals with the much more problematic population

... and in late game you can reduce the per city again.

It is kinda weird how an apparently anti-expansionist Civ trait can help produce the largest Empires.

 

[alpaca]

And with Liberty's Meritocracy you can effectively knock 1 off of the fixed city while your Trait deals with the much more problematic population

... and in late game you can reduce the per city again.

It is kinda weird how an apparently anti-expansionist Civ trait can help produce the largest Empires.

Well at least playing ICS with Gandhi is not so great because you have a mucher lower happiness-neutral population (i.e. none before you can pick up the FP, two with it, it only reaches 4 after you also get Planned Economy)

 

[glaivemaster]

It's not an anti-expansionist trait so much as it is an anti-REXing trait. Building your second city as early as you normally would will almost certainly end in you going below the starting happiness cap (and thus slowing growth, invalidating the second part of the ability). However, once you're past that expanding tends to become very easy, especially since you don't have to worry so much about a whole bunch of cities growing and massively decreasing happiness in one quick line

It seems counter-intuitive, but really the first part is just a minor hamstring on the second part, to stop it being too runaway good - Gandhi is still intended to be bigger and more populous than any other civ

 

[Biz_]

remember that it's not designed to be a break-even tradeoff

it is a civ bonus, and a powerful one at that

 

[cracked]

To my mind, building one new city with the indians quite early isn't such a hard thing to do. 4 pop in your capital and a new city is as expensive (or less expensive if it rounds down) than 4pop in another civs capital and a new city.

Indians: 4pop in capital: gives 2, + 1pop in new city 4, a total of 6 assuming it rounds down.
Other civ: 4pop in capital: gives 4 +1pop in new city, 3, a total of 7

Exploration and luxury resources should easily deal with it. Indeed, once that new city reaches >4 population it's actually allot easier.

Still, rexing early in this game is ill-advised, regardless of your civ. But it would be interesting for someone to try it with the Indians

 

[Celevin]

Due to Maritime city states, you can get cities to size 4 in about 10-15 turns even on Epic. This makes the Indians great at REXing.

 

[Darth Varak]

Well at least playing ICS with Gandhi is not so great because you have a mucher lower happiness-neutral population (i.e. none before you can pick up the FP, two with it, it only reaches 4 after you also get Planned Economy)

Have you experimented with it before? Just curious, because combining the Forbidden Palace, Meritocracy, and Planned Economy theoretically means that each city is only -1 , and population sits at .5 per person. I'd think this would allow for a ton of growth. Maybe it's not as effective as some other leaders, but if you're trying to stay peaceful all game it seems as though it's not a bad idea. You can even get Communism after Planned Economy, further boosting the ICS production.

 

[Nunya]

As Ghandi Planned Economy and Forbidden Palace both reduce unhapiness from number of cities by 1 per city. So if you get both of them you will get 2 per city from number of cities.

 

[lissenber]

If you play the game on a huge map then you get 1 unhappiness per city, 2 if you`re Ghandi.

Huge map + Ghandi = WIN

 

[cracked]

A happiness neutral position regarding number of cities is more important with Ghandi.

Even if you have twenty cities, your unhappiness with ghandi is 76 whereas it's going to be 38 for anyone else.

Assuming the example in the openning post:

with the indians, city unhappiness would account for ~ 43% of 57% would be accounted by population

With other civs, it falls to 16% caused by number of cities and 84% caused by population.

So social policies like meritocracy and planned economy, and wonders such as Forbidden palace would be far more important for India. As someone has already said, by using these you could effectively wipe out Gandhi's disadvantage. A typical civ wouldn't use these as effectively, because planned economy works as a percentage of unhappiness, as does forbidden palace.

FP and PE combined would reduce the indians unhappiness by 76 for the above example, and then counter this with 19 happy from meritocracy. (a boost worth 95 happy people, or 19 luxuries).

A typical civ in the same example would reduce the 38 unhappiness caused by cities and add 19 from meritocracy. Providing a total boost worth 57 happy.

Whereas the only social policy for dealing with population unhappiness directly is theocracy, which is 20% and legalism which reduces unhappiness in the capital by 33% .

in the op example, this works out at a boost of 43 happy for a typical civ. (40 unhappy reduction from pop and 3 from legalism). (you'd still have more unhapinness than an Indian civ without any wonders or social policies).

With the indians, this is reduced to about 21.5: 20 from theocracy, 1.5 from legalism. (hardly worth it).

From this angle, the unhappiness caused by Indias penalty for the number of cities is easier to deal with because there are so few effective options for reducing unhapinness casued by population growth.

P.S. I'm going by what I've read in both the online manual (charts and tables) and Ariochs well of souls, so if it's different in the game due to patches etc don't blame me. But Forbidden palace reduces city unhappiness by 50% as does planned economy.

 

[cracked]

There is an obvious issue of balance here. There should be more social policies that allow you to deal with pop unhappiness as a % to even things up. (Or theocracy should be improved). Looking at the math, population is such a massive contributer to unhappiness for a typical civ that Gandhi's UA looks seriously overpowered.

It's a bit strange that the social policy mechanic and wonders of the game focus so heavily on a factor that has so little influence on the unhappiness levels within your empire.

 

[Darth Varak]

As Ghandi Planned Economy and Forbidden Palace both reduce unhapiness from number of cities by 1 per city. So if you get both of them you will get 2 per city from number of cities.

Add in Meritocracy. I know, it doesn't specifically reduce the unhappiness, but it adds happiness which amounts to the exact same thing. So in reality each city only adds +1 net unhappiness.

 

[cracked]

Add in Meritocracy. I know, it doesn't specifically reduce the unhappiness, but it adds happiness which amounts to the exact same thing. So in reality each city only adds +1 net unhappiness.

I have read in the forums that the civilopedia essentially lies on this point, and that you can only reduce unhappiness to +1 (so the bonus essentially works out the same for a typical civ and the indians).