Need for Large City Games

[E66man]

Oh... I wasn't aware of that. I didn't know how 'we love the king days!' worked after getting all 15 luxuries, so I had played it safe. But are you absolutely positive it works this way? Seems kind of strange to me.

Maybe it's a bug, but it has happened in every game where I have had every luxury. I'll just check the documentation to see what the official statement is on what should happen... oh wait.

If anyone else can confirm seeing this same behavior, that would be cool.

 

[E66man]

So seeing as Growth for cities being tripled, I don't think it being Marathon really mattered...

Well, if the Marathon cities are going to increase their population at a 300% rate over Standard *and* you get 3x as many turns to do it, I think it makes a huge difference. Unless it's growth at a 300% *slower* rate, in which case it would be more comparable to what a player on Standard can accomplish.

 

[Bandobras Took]

I think that part of the problem is that you don't realize how fast you can get through the tree. In the last Deity game I finished, I had Globalization on turn 156.

Yes, I'm aware. But if you can get through the tech tree before the game ends, however long it takes, then do you need to?

Elementary game theory: options which are dominated by another option are not really options.

Which is why I brought up Slavery in Civ 4 as opposed to other civics. The flip side of the game theory, of course, is simply the human factor: options that are perceived to have one dominant choice will not be considered as real options by a given player.

Have you visited the Hall of Fame for Civ 4? It establishes a question to be answered for every possible combination of settings - how fast can you win? This is why the norm is speed, but speed is judged in the context of the settings.

Good. We've come to the crux of the matter, which is this: people only play optimally to a certain point. Everybody who plays any game other than a Duel Settler Pangaea is assigning themselves arbitrary restrictions (gimping themselves) in order to provide more of a challenge, ostensibly because it makes the game more fun. In this context, not running the great scientists, but instead (to take an example) setting up a super-production city by using Great Engineers to produce Manufactories is not sub-optimal play. It's play with a different set of arbitrary restrictions that are meant to increase the fun.

If you want to define an inefficient goal, that's fine. I've already suggested what I believe to be two possible approaches for achieving Roxlinn's goal (which won't lead to an efficient win, but is a meaningful goal because it is challenging).

I agree, and would further add that this is what everybody does when playing at higher difficulty levels -- they go into the game having already set an inefficient goal.

In any event, we're pretty far afield and learner gamer appears to be satisfied. If you want to talk further about how to achieve the goal Roxlinn posed, fine. If you want to start a balance thread in the appropriate subforum, we can move the discussion there. But this isn't the place to continue the line we're on.

Actually, I think we're on meeting ground. I just don't feel that Civ 5 offers less choice than Civ 4. It's merely the kind of choice that has changed.

 

[Bandobras Took]

Maybe it's a bug, but it has happened in every game where I have had every luxury. I'll just check the documentation to see what the official statement is on what should happen... oh wait.

If anyone else can confirm seeing this same behavior, that would be cool.

Hey, that sounds like a new goal, as well. All the luxuries in my empire.

 

[Stanislaw]

Can you post more screenshots or a save from earlier in the game? Or just describe the general course of the game? I'm a little skeptical that those cities all grew big early enough to matter. I mean, in that screenshot it's 1937, you're getting 5000 beakers/turn and researching future tech. There's no reason for the game to still be continuing at that point, except to just play around in a sandbox with building cities.

Unfortunately the only save for that game is from 1937, and I didn't take any earlier screenshots. I can't really describe a more detailed course of the game than the one I already gave because it's been quite a while since I last played (motivation to play the Huge Map/Marathon game dwindled because I suffered from multiple endgame crashes pre-patch). And like you pointed out, I could have won the game much, much earlier and was playing around in 'sandbox' just like you described. What the OP wanted however was if it was possible to manage multiple huge cities and build tons of buildings - which some people, myself included, find it fun - and not suffer from chronic shortage of happiness and gold. Hence, that. I'm not saying it's the best way to play, just pointing out it's possible.

Didn't I have the same kind of discussion with you on this before? *weak laugh*

Well, if the Marathon cities are going to increase their population at a 300% rate over Standard *and* you get 3x as many turns to do it, I think it makes a huge difference. Unless it's growth at a 300% *slower* rate, in which case it would be more comparable to what a player on Standard can accomplish.

Slower rate.

 

[aimlessgun]

I would definitely get workshops first, since metal casting comes so much earlier. Basically there's not much you can do though- hospitals cost more than most wonders of the world and medical labs cost even more. That's one of the big bottlenecks of playing this way. All you can do I think is get biology very early, and allow 20 turns to build them. Might be worth saving one SP so you can get order once you tech biology.

Yeah maybe I'll hold off on Civil Society and save that SP point for Order.

Forgot Engineer specs were 2 hammers now, even more arguments for getting forges up before Biology.

Alternatively maybe I can spam TPs (this time went for a mix of TPs and river farms) and try to save enough money to buy a lot of the hospitals, and then change a bunch of the TPs to farms, so my cities would be like in the 8-10 range forever and then maybe explode to 20 after Biology.

Sadly that first game got corrupted or something on turn 208 and won't advance past that turn as I was driving for Penicillin. Wasn't able to hit the 10 of size 20 target by turn 200, not even that close really (size 12-15's mostly with a high of 18), but I made a lot of mistakes.

 

[learner gamer]

@Stanislaw: Thanks very, very much for your follow up post. That’s very helpful. I appreciate that there were some things peculiar to your game which may have changed the ease of this approach (eg. marathon speed, the huge map, how the latter affected barb spam and your ability to generate gold) but, as I’ve mentioned before, you can only beat what’s put in front of you. And you’re perfectly entitled to play whatever map and game speed settings you find fun. The fact that you used a few ‘tricks’ as you call them meanwhile, such as repeatedly pillaging one luxury resource to trigger we love the king days, actually corroborates a point that was made by lissenber and DiabolicX earlier in the thread: it really helps to trigger lots of golden ages if playing using this approach. So well done!

What’s more interesting to me is actually your build order, which emphasizes culture first. As I understand it, you then followed this by constructing the hammer generating buildings. Indeed, it may be that the point you made about how this dovetailed with your early teching of metal casting helps me enormously. As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve actually been emphasizing the upper part of the tech tree to try and get to biology, detouring as I need to the lower part of the tech tree to get metal casting, engineering and so on; effectively, I’ve been prioritising food (which is also evident in my early builds of granaries and watermills) and obtaining more hammers indirectly by working more tiles (including mines.) Maybe it’s time for me to think a little about the lower half of the tech tree in the early game (rather than beeline biology as I was beginning to think in my earlier post), to obtain hammers directly, and nab some GEs too. The point you make about de-emphasizing the order policy tree meanwhile is also very interesting.

FWIW, I’ve actually started another game playing as Washington using Thalassicus’ balance mods, the impact of which is to marginally increase hammer availability and lengthen research times. At the very least, I hope this might help offset some of what I lose by changing game speed to normal and playing on a standard map (instead of your huge / marathon settings). If indeed Thal’s mods do help implement a builder style game, I’ll be sure to post back in here and let everyone know (and of course I’ll check back in from time to time to see if anyone else can show me how to play a builder style game.) In the meantime though, thanks everyone for posting and happy civving.

 

[Seanner]

Right after alpaca made the thread about ICS I made an IGS (infinite growth strategy) game with 4 cities plus it turns out 6 puppets. The strategy was just to expand once the capital could quickly produce a settler and send him to a lux, repeating until nearby luxes taken (was 4 cities then).

500 BPT at turn 200 and 1600 at turn 300 when spaceship launched. 20-30 turns wasted by researching techs in 0.02 turns more than an integer value because of no beaker overflow, but didn't care to micro stuff. Also wasted time growing even at the very end when there is no time to recoup investment, but the goal was just to make big cities, I only "happened" to launch a spaceship. It could've easily been pre-250.

Granted, that's not as fast as this turn 200 that seems to have been done, but I believe that combining ICS and IGS is as fast if not faster. Why make 10 cities in 100turns that have to spend another 30 turns making buildings just to get them back to the point of not being useless? ICS doesn't really take off until you get all your colosseums up. Why not make a few early good high growth cities with granaries + mills and tech beelines to get SPs while cheap, that also have the production to make colosseums easily, and THEN make 20 settlers and buy 4 maritime alliances? There doesn't seem to be any hurry to get all those cities so quick because they don't really do anything for a while. You'd save time by getting more use out of your early happiness until those cities can provide additional room with coloseums. You use each city to pre-support a new city instead of just making 50 cities and saying damn I have to build 50 colosseums and libraries.

Even if this results in a 220 launch or something, the fact that it's far more reliable arguably makes it a better strategy. You never fall into a -10 happiness trap or anything like that.

One can still play builder game while taking advantage of ICS.

Also the beeline for freedom + -1F special + +2sci/special policies to use in a "builder city" with market/bank/lib/university/garden/workshop/etc. will produce roughly a billion science and make roughly a billion great people. The sheer amazingness of the cities is worth more than a few turns faster victory time IMO. One day your stupid maritimes will get patched and IGS will reign supreme.

 

[aimlessgun]

Alright, if anyone can hit the 10 cities of size 20 by turn 200, hats off to them. Seems like it might take some serious luck with the map to pull off. Size 20 is a lot of food.

Anyways here's my attempt at turn 204 (all standard large continents Deity if it matters) right after Penicillin, really not close. It's slower then it could be because in the spirit of a builder game I played it as a pacifist. Not sure if cleaning out a neighbor would have been enough of a boost, but it's possible. Only now getting to penicillin on 204 because I was playing to see what I could get by turn 200, and I figured getting Penicillin 15-20 turns earlier wasn't going to matter if I couldn't build the labs by turn 200 anyways.



Only have 8 cities because of space limitations without warfare. Could have squeezed 2 more in there but it wouldn't have made sense given the spirit of the thread.



Teching is also an interesting balance with this goal because just sticking 2 scientists in a pop 5 city and leaving it there to chill with no growth for a while seems wrong, but maybe it would have been the right choice.

General order was Calendar > Mining > Writing > Construction > Education > Rennaissance via astronomy > Metal Casting for workshops > Biology, then on to Penicillin.

Hammer cost of hospitals remained a big hurdle. Even with workshops setup beforehand, Order, and timing the happinness golden age (followed by a Great Scientist golden age!), it still took even my good cities 16+ turns to build the damn things.


Anyways even if the crazy 10 cities of size 20 by turn 200 challenge wasn't met, it's still obviously possible to be successful playing as a pure builder in this game, just not optimal.

 

[Celevin]

Even if I wanted to get 10 size 20 cities, I would still REX early game and build 20 cities. It gives me:
1) More technology faster, ie hospitals faster
2) More happiness
3) More gold to buy key buildings in the cities I want to grow
4) A larger area so I can nab more luxuries for We Love The King days

Having said that, I don't really see the point in trying to meet this goal other than to say that I've done it... It won't greatly hurt my chances of winning, but if I can get this, I'm probably 3/4s the way there.

 

[pi-r8]

That's pretty good. What kind of infrastructure do your cities have?

 

[aimlessgun]

They all have Monument/Lib/Colo/Workshop/Hospital/Market, mostly have Granary/Banks/Unis but a couple are missing one or the other, think there only 3 Public Schools. About to get a GS which I'll turn into a GA to pump out the factories and Med Labs.

 

[Niniux]

Would Rome be a Civ to consider for this? Rush buy things in the capital and enjoy that extra production bonuses on Hospitals?

 

[Bandobras Took]

Rome's a great one for focusing on infrastructure. For growing cities, the Aztecs can be good. For getting good use out of the cities, though, India's got a lot to work with.

 

[Paeanblack]

Alright, if anyone can hit the 10 cities of size 20 by turn 200, hats off to them. Seems like it might take some serious luck with the map to pull off. Size 20 is a lot of food.

Having 30+ size-15 cities is doable in that time frame, but yeah, even 10 size-20 cities sounds much harder. 20 is a serious crapton of food.

 

[aimlessgun]

Would Rome be a Civ to consider for this? Rush buy things in the capital and enjoy that extra production bonuses on Hospitals?

Maybe, not just for the hospitals but also everything else like Unis.

But for a vertical growth strategy like this India's ability is so incredibly good. Managing happiness was criminally easy, and I saved some major early hammers not needing to build many colosseums.

Plus for the hospitals the Roman UA would have brought me from +45% to +70% production, not nearly as much as a straight 25% boost. And you'd be buying the hospital in your capital, the city that will probably need it the least (huge maritime bonuses and likely decent hammer output) instead of buying the hospital in your worst hammer city.

Having 30+ size-15 cities is doable in that time frame, but yeah, even 10 size-20 cities sounds much harder. 20 is a serious crapton of food.

I think 30 cities of size 15 would be pretty difficult too Happiness management to keep them all growing would be a challenge. Getting hospitals up in all of them would be a challenge.

 

[City Raider]

I can't speak to the 10 cities by turn 200, that just seems a bit too hard for me right now.
But I am playing a "regular game" as a builder and just wanted to throw in some of my thoughts. I started the game over the weekend and actually took extensive notes, including city builds, happenings in the world, tech path, SP, etc. I am playing for Culture or Space win (prob space), and didn't try to go out of my way to only build. I tried to play peaceful but did get caught in two wars (both fairly early), neither of which I started. I took the Ottomans Capital (razed 2 other cities), and took one city from Siam and razed another. After that its been all peaceful building. Anyway on to the game.

Settings: Emperor, Standard, Continents, 8 City States (I try to limit CS to cut down on time between turns later in the game). I was Washington. Started on a landmass with Ottomans, Siam and France and 3 CS.

I left off at turn 300 last night (mid 1800's as I recall - about 1850 or so), I have 11 cities total, room for a couple more if I want, and still have unclaimed land between cities. Also Its not the best land for growth for every city, but good enough.

I have two cities that are (and will be) monsters for sure, Wash (18) and NY (16) with still tons of excess food too grow. The rest of my cities are around the 8-12 range and still growing. A couple newer cities are lagging but they'll grow just not fast.

I just bulbed Penicillan, I had Biology (after a triple Bulb) at about 1500 AD (just after turn 200, have to check my notes). I went a little wonder crazy early, build SH and Oracle in Wash. Build Notre Dame at some point. I believe I'm teching Replaceable parts now, but my tech rate isn't that outstanding. Think I'm still under 300 beakers per turn. I'm Allied with 1 Maritme CS. I'm also running into gold issues a bit. I'm building lots of buildings.
My cities have or will have monuments, Col, Circus (if allowed), markets, banks, Lib, Univ, Hospitals (some building now), Stock Exchanges (some building now), Water Mills, Wind Mills, Workshops, Granaries. I also have a temple or two, and a few other misc buildings. Golden Ages have really been a gold saver. With them I'm getting close to 100 gpt, but without, I flucuate from -10 to +20 or so. Traded resources to get extra happiness so I'm usually at +5 to 10.

Anyway, the pace of the game has been good, production is still slow in some cities or my newer ones, but I am getting buildings up in a fair amount of time in few cities. Wash and NY are somewhat topped out in "useful" buildings at the moment so I started building the Louve in Wash for the heck of it. Might start another Wonder in NY hoping for fail gold. Oh, I'll have to start building Med labs since I just got penicillan.

Social Policy wise, I've been sort of all over the board. Could probably use help here. I finished out the first tree (small empire one with bonus to wonder building, cheaper to buy land, food to capital, etc), I activated Patronage and Order as well, and I think I have maybe 1 more somewhere. I didn't save any SP points delibrately, so I buy as soon as I get an adopt policy. Normally I would save a few here or there.

I think I have a lot of room for improvement but its actually been a fairly enjoyable builder game, at least for my play style. In Civ 4 I'd usually play (on Emperor) to win by Culture or Space by 1950 at the latest, so I think I can definitely imporve my pace a bit in Civ 5, but this actually seems pretty good for me.

Right now not as easy or quick as ICS, but I think some type of mix could work. I definitely think in my next builder game I'll have some delibrately small cities just for the happiness buildings, trade routes and trading posts. I do have some trading posts in this game, but have been farming most land, and do have a fair amount of lumber mills at the moment.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

My cities have or will have monuments, Col, Circus (if allowed), markets, banks, Lib, Univ, Hospitals (some building now), Stock Exchanges (some building now), Water Mills, Wind Mills, Workshops, Granaries. I also have a temple or two, and a few other misc buildings. Golden Ages have really been a gold saver. With them I'm getting close to 100 gpt, but without, I flucuate from -10 to +20 or so. Traded resources to get extra happiness so I'm usually at +5 to 10.

Anyway, the pace of the game has been good, production is still slow in some cities or my newer ones, but I am getting buildings up in a fair amount of time in few cities. Wash and NY are somewhat topped out in "useful" buildings at the moment so I started building the Louve in Wash for the heck of it. Might start another Wonder in NY hoping for fail gold. Oh, I'll have to start building Med labs since I just got penicillan.

Social Policy wise, I've been sort of all over the board. Could probably use help here. I finished out the first tree (small empire one with bonus to wonder building, cheaper to buy land, food to capital, etc), I activated Patronage and Order as well, and I think I have maybe 1 more somewhere. I didn't save any SP points delibrately, so I buy as soon as I get an adopt policy. Normally I would save a few here or there.

I think I have a lot of room for improvement but its actually been a fairly enjoyable builder game, at least for my play style. In Civ 4 I'd usually play (on Emperor) to win by Culture or Space by 1950 at the latest, so I think I can definitely imporve my pace a bit in Civ 5, but this actually seems pretty good for me.

Right now not as easy or quick as ICS, but I think some type of mix could work. I definitely think in my next builder game I'll have some delibrately small cities just for the happiness buildings, trade routes and trading posts. I do have some trading posts in this game, but have been farming most land, and do have a fair amount of lumber mills at the moment.

The last two Social Policy categories, Rationalism and Commercialism, are very useful for the late game if you aren't a warmonger. Also, to solve money problems, befriend city states and also build marketplaces, banks and stock exchanges everywhere. They are money mills in any city.

And don't forget that now you can build barracks in one city and later on switch the production of military units to another city and sell off the barracks/armory et cetera in the original military city. A very good tweak to the game, I think.

 

[Stanislaw]

I know this is totally pointless gameplay wise, but I achieved a self-imposed challenge of getting a billion population without being Ghandi/India.

Managing multiple cities with sizes over 30 - not to mention a couple of 40s - got quite hard as the game got to that point, but I managed somehow. Was kinda fun, too.

Spoiler :

 

[pi-r8]

I think I can prove that it's impossible right now to have 10 size 20 cities by turn 200. A size 20 city requires a total of 2500 food to grow to that point- that's a LOT of food. Of course you cut down on that with hospitals, but it's hard to have biology much sooner than turn 200 if you're also focused on growing cities (because scientist you make is a farm you don't use). Getting 2500 food in 200 turns means you need an average of 12.5 food/turn- and that's just for the capital! Getting other cities big requires an even BIGGER food surplus! Usually you can't found a 10th city until at least turn 100, which means it needs to somehow bring in 25 food/turn, on average. No way is that going to happen.