More Food

[Bobfregman]

If you want tall cities purely for the sake of having tall cities then just farm every tile and micromanage your citizens so they prioritize growth. If you're playing on prince you shouldn't have much difficult founding a religion so do so and choose the most useful applicable food buffs. Make sure you always have as many trade routes as you can and be picky about where you settle.

Honestly you'll never get particularly good at this game playing this way since the game isn't set up to reward such a style. Civ 5 is probably more your cup of tea in this regard. But if this is the way you like to play there are definitely options for you and so long as you keep the difficulty down and stay away from online games you should be fine!

 

[legalizefreedom]

If you want tall cities purely for the sake of having tall cities then just farm every tile and micromanage your citizens so they prioritize growth. If you're playing on prince you shouldn't have much difficult founding a religion so do so and choose the most useful applicable food buffs. Make sure you always have as many trade routes as you can and be picky about where you settle.

Honestly you'll never get particularly good at this game playing this way since the game isn't set up to reward such a style. Civ 5 is probably more your cup of tea in this regard. But if this is the way you like to play there are definitely options for you and so long as you keep the difficulty down and stay away from online games you should be fine!

Not purely for the sake of having tall cities... It's that cities should be able to continue growing throughout the game. That doesn't mean I'm going to sacrifice the entire rest of the game mechanics to make it happen. Let's be reasonable...

Well, after playing civ for 25+ years, if I'm not "good" at it yet, I should probably just give up.

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

Tall cities is about more than just food... balancing housing, amenities, and how you place your districts. If you want to try a "builder" type game where you try to build everything in every city, try out Australia. The Firaxis Earth TSL map is ok, but the YNAMP maps are better, you have tons of space and it's almost impossible to get into war before oceanfaring

 

[legalizefreedom]

Tall cities is about more than just food... balancing housing, amenities, and how you place your districts. If you want to try a "builder" type game where you try to build everything in every city, try out Australia.

Yes, exactly. That's why I asked for everyone's strategies. But apparently there isn't anything I'm not already aware of. I intended this thread to be about discussing strategies, but it turned into a debate about my preferred playstyle.

Just played Australia on a huge map. That is the game I referenced above. I do like them for sure. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

Well, on the internet people like to argue, or maybe they just assume everyone likes to play the same way. Obviously, I use mods (that's a different discussion) but my main civ is Arabia which I play about 50% of the time. I also play TSL maps if i'm solo-playing almost exclusively, and generally the starting location whether Cairo or Mecca tends to suck. As such, I use a mod that buffs things like oasis' slightly, as it can be very difficult to get started in the desert, with aggressive early game neighbors like Sumeria and Egypt nearby. I've learned to play without my cities getting big; but I too recently finished an Australia game where I was able to make a couple mega cities so that was my suggestion. Cheers

*edit

I saw a mod on Steam called "More Food" which sort of made me lol as I had just finished posting in this thread. Might be worth investigating, of course it could be a "cheese" strategy that will make your game too easy, but occasionally I like to try mods just to see what they are about. If it's too overpowered, I usually edit the mod to my playstyle.

 

[legalizefreedom]

Well, on the internet people like to argue, or maybe they just assume everyone likes to play the same way. Obviously, I use mods (that's a different discussion) but my main civ is Arabia which I play about 50% of the time. I also play TSL maps if i'm solo-playing almost exclusively, and generally the starting location whether Cairo or Mecca tends to suck. As such, I use a mod that buffs things like oasis' slightly, as it can be very difficult to get started in the desert, with aggressive early game neighbors like Sumeria and Egypt nearby. I've learned to play without my cities getting big; but I too recently finished an Australia game where I was able to make a couple mega cities so that was my suggestion. Cheers

*edit

I saw a mod on Steam called "More Food" which sort of made me lol as I had just finished posting in this thread. Might be worth investigating, of course it could be a "cheese" strategy that will make your game too easy, but occasionally I like to try mods just to see what they are about. If it's too overpowered, I usually edit the mod to my playstyle.

VI seems to be a slow burn early anyway. First 200 turns feels like I haven't done enough. Then the snowball catches up.

I saw that one too, but I'm generally not interested in defeating a mechanic/balance that is intended. Mainly just to fix stuff that's broke/not finished. I actually kind of like it the way it is. Sometimes it's just hard to tell what is intended with these guys. They leave stuff broken/not finished for so long you start to wonder.

I've actually only played two (complete) games so far, so I just wanted to check my experience against popular opinion. Thanks for yours!

 

[Jarms48]

I wouldn't say no to more food being available in coastal cites, as a compromise to having less workable/improbable tiles. Having a building similar to the water mill, available only to coastal city-centres; which provides +1 food / +1 production and +1 food to fish and crab resources, would go a long way.

I'd also give Monarchy a small buff, giving Medieval walls +1 food / +2 housing, essentially making them additional granaries.

When it comes to anything else regarding food I'm pretty happy with it.

 

[gimper42]

I use the TCS Better Water Yields mod. It is not overpowered and gives a (needed imo) food boost to coastal cities that build harbors. The food bonuses are tied directly to the harbor buildings, so building a lighthouse gives you more food from sea resources, etc. It also adds some gold to the water tiles at some point.

 

[MyOtherName]

VI seems to be a slow burn early anyway. First 200 turns feels like I haven't done enough. Then the snowball catches up.

At the risk of beating a dead horse, that could very well be because you focus on growing tall cities -- if the effort you put into getting surplus food and keeping up with housing/amenities went instead towards building settlers and districts/buildings that give yields, you might find the snowball catching up much earlier.

That might be the fastest path to tall cities anyways, since the farm adjacency bonuses are tied to research.

Note that wide play wants a handful of tall cities too, so that you can get big yields from trade routes targeting them. Or other things such as the city with lots of hills that will become the spaceport city will need to grow tall enough to work all the hills.

 

[MyOtherName]

Also, the duration matters. You're looking at turn 400 victories, but I'm intending to win in a little over half that time if not sooner.

Maybe size 20 wouldn't sound so ridiculously large to me of the Deity AI pressed me enough that my victories were that late.

 

[legalizefreedom]

At the risk of beating a dead horse, that could very well be because you focus on growing tall cities -- if the effort you put into getting surplus food and keeping up with housing/amenities went instead towards building settlers and districts/buildings that give yields, you might find the snowball catching up much earlier.

That might be the fastest path to tall cities anyways, since the farm adjacency bonuses are tied to research.

Note that wide play wants a handful of tall cities too, so that you can get big yields from trade routes targeting them. Or other things such as the city with lots of hills that will become the spaceport city will need to grow tall enough to work all the hills.

Agreed. The interruptions to combat the city growth limiters is significant.

What further disrupts the process are things like government and city state bonuses coming and going. One turn it looks like your short, so you adjust and the next turn you didn't need to after all. I can see where players who somewhat ignore the growth limiters get by.

That said, I don't consider a happy and sheltered population optional. It's part of the game and part of the joy of strategy. Continuous growth may be a personal goal, but one any roleplayer can relate to.

I also tend to delay (and prevent others') victory until I'm "done" with the game. Not nearly as necessary in VI as BE however. I like that they are there, but they don't define my experience.

 

[sa1vy]

I don't think anyone's mentioned Kongo's special ability. IIRC, it's +2 food for up to 4 relics in the capital. Not much, but it can add up, and the other bonuses for the relics are really good too. Kongo also has the Mbanza, adding +2 food/+4 gold, in addition to the housing bonus, so those are also really good.
I also don't think anyone has mentioned Petra, adding +1 food/+1 production for each non-floodplain desert tile. I think this stacks up quite nicely with Australia because of outback stations. If I'm calculating it correctly, a desert hill outback station with Petra and 6 surrounding outback stations will give 5 food and 6 production, which is ridiculous. Of course, outback stations don't really need to be built on deserts, so you build them just about anywhere. It would be entertaining to see someone improve every single tile around a city as an outback station (38, I think). That might be the highest potential for city food. Housing would be your limiting factor, as you can only get 19 from the outback stations, and like 15-25 from other sources.
Somewhat relevant to the housing limitation is picking Monarchy for the +2 housing, and also the New Deal card for +4 housing.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

@sa1vy Ask and ye shall receive:

This was a test game where I wanted to test the Outback Station potential. Calcutta is the biggest city, though only a handful of cities have less than 12 pop. And every single inch is covered by Stations (with a few luxuries, pastures, Lumbermills, mines and districts here and there). But keep in mind that Stations only have food adjacency after Rapid Deployment, which is an Atomic Era civic.

Edit: On a side note, my best tile was a Cattle surrounded by Stations. 4 food, 8 production and 1 culture. A freaking 13-yield tile. Feels good.

 

[sa1vy]

@sa1vy Ask and ye shall receive:


This was a test game where I wanted to test the Outback Station potential. Calcutta is the biggest city, though only a handful of cities have less than 12 pop. And every single inch is covered by Stations (with a few luxuries, pastures, Lumbermills, mines and districts here and there). But keep in mind that Stations only have food adjacency after Rapid Deployment, which is an Atomic Era civic.

Edit: On a side note, my best tile was a Cattle surrounded by Stations. 4 food, 8 production and 1 culture. A freaking 13-yield tile. Feels good.

Lol! Nice! Wow, 13 yield is pretty darn good.
I remember vanilla civ v, though, had some really crazy stuff, like 20 science academies. That got nerfed...

 

[Noble Zarkon]

A freaking 13-yield tile. Feels good.

Love 13 yield tiles
View media item 4244

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I appreciate everyone's advice, but it is my belief that cities should always be growing or they aren't being managed properly.

I intended this thread to be about discussing strategies, but it turned into a debate about my preferred playstyle.

Each game in the series is an optimization process with rules.

Growing cities as much as possible isn't a "style", it's one option among many, with investments and returns associated. Going for cities that are "always growing" is akin to always playing for culture victory without exception, or insisting on making spears as your only military unit. You can do it, and might even succeed doing it, but the game's not designed around such an approach, just like it's not designed around never making any builders.

The effects of pop in and of itself is limited, its strength comes from the tiles worked. Even from a role play perspective, some land is just better for concentrating populations than others.

Trade routes and pushing amenities can get you pretty unnecessarily large coupled with farms even as generic nations though. How large do you need your cities to get?

 

[legalizefreedom]

Each game in the series is an optimization process with rules.

Growing cities as much as possible isn't a "style", it's one option among many, with investments and returns associated. Going for cities that are "always growing" is akin to always playing for culture victory without exception, or insisting on making spears as your only military unit. You can do it, and might even succeed doing it, but the game's not designed around such an approach, just like it's not designed around never making any builders.

The effects of pop in and of itself is limited, its strength comes from the tiles worked. Even from a role play perspective, some land is just better for concentrating populations than others.

Trade routes and pushing amenities can get you pretty unnecessarily large coupled with farms even as generic nations though. How large do you need your cities to get?

It's a style too. I'm a grower and a builder. Naturally some locations support larger populations than others.

I agree it's an option. A city stops growing, I look at the options available at that moment. My inclination is to build the thing that allows it to continue growing, but many times the city can be improved more significantly in another area. I'm okay with that, but I'm not hung up on return on investment. Some people thrive on that kind of thing, but I would rather play the game than have the game play me.

How large? As large as possible of course! That said, I'm generally happy with the way things are (specifically regarding food), but I do think an agricultural district would be a good addition.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

:shrug: just settle on flag grassland and spam out neighborhoods .

Outside very specific role play stuff I think more in terms of securing a victory condition as defined by the game.

 

[legalizefreedom]

:shrug: just settle on flag grassland and spam out neighborhoods .

Outside very specific role play stuff I think more in terms of securing a victory condition as defined by the game.

The limiting factor isn't housing... because there's a district for that. (although I rarely need to build more than 1 in a city)

The limiting factor usually isn't amenities... because there's a district for that. Amenities are sometimes an issue since they depend on trading with other civs for at least part of the game.

The limiting factor is usually food... because there's not a district for that. The lighthouse buff will help, but that probably just compensates for the lack of workable food for half the tiles in coastal cities.

Yes, farm triangles are good where you can work them in, but as food tiles disappear in the later game, there's not much you can do to replace them.

I'm not really concerned about victory conditions. More times than not I'm delaying victory until I'm finished with the game. That's the primary reason efficient players have a difficult time finding merit in my entirely voluntary suboptimal play. I'm a role player. I pretend I don't know what's coming next and make decisions in the moment. Not everyone's cup of tea.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

@sa1vy Ask and ye shall receive:

This was a test game where I wanted to test the Outback Station potential. Calcutta is the biggest city, though only a handful of cities have less than 12 pop. And every single inch is covered by Stations (with a few luxuries, pastures, Lumbermills, mines and districts here and there). But keep in mind that Stations only have food adjacency after Rapid Deployment, which is an Atomic Era civic.

Edit: On a side note, my best tile was a Cattle surrounded by Stations. 4 food, 8 production and 1 culture. A freaking 13-yield tile. Feels good.

how are you getting those hammers from shallow water?