Need for Large City Games

[Roxlimn]

This is from learner gamer from the General Discussion Forums:

@Roxlimn: I appreciate that this is off topic but could you please do me a favour and direct me to a thread - or preferably a savegame - which shows how easy it is to run an empire that consists of a number of large cities full of infrastructure and wonders? The reason I ask is that seeing how this is done (and understanding just how I can do it in Civ 5) would help ameliorate a number of my objections / much of the source of my frustration with Civ 5 at a stroke. (Don’t get me wrong BTW, I’m not asking to see a game that builds every building in every city – just a game on a standard map that sees a Civ with many large pop cities constructing all those buildings that are appropriate to its specialisation.)

The problem for me is that even when I’ve run games playing ICS, I seem to end up - at best - with a large number of mid size cities, all possessing nothing more than a skeleton infrastructure and the occasional wonder. Now maybe I’m just a very poor Civ 5 player (I could only get to emperor on Civ 4 after all) but I just haven’t yet been able to play a game in which I build masses of infrastructure, because of Civ 5’s maintenance costs and dearth of hammers. Moreover, despite checking the Civ 5 forums to witness such a game and having tried myself to run a builder – style game without success, I haven’t yet found a save or thread that illustrates what I’m missing / why it’s so easy to play as a builder in Civ 5. If you – or anyone else for that matter – can direct me to a hosted game which illustrates just how easy it is to build alot of infrastructure and wonders in Civ 5, I really would like to see it...it would massively reignite my interest in Civ 5 at a stroke.

I was an Emperor player myself at the time I quit Civ IV, but I'm playing King now, and I have had no problems building cities as large as 35+. Could easily have gone size 40 if I'd waited and stalled.

It seems to me that this complaint and hole is common in people who want to like Civ V better, coming from Civ IV. I do not know how to host a game and I don't have the time, anyway. I might post screenshots if I can find a hosting site that doesn't show all my private pics, but that might take a while.

So this is a call to forum goers who are interested: show us how to get a builder game going where you grow your cities as high up and as hard as you can.

EDIT: I think I can manage uploading save game files. I'll try to do that in the coming days.

 

[lissenber]

Big large cities take time to be constructed and even more time to be grown. This is possible but ABSOLUTELY IMPRACTICAL. Sure, it works on King difficulty but what about Deity? You don`t need a city which`s gold production is nearly eaten up by it`s building maintenance. Also instead of spending an eternity for building every building you dream of you are better off spending your hammers on an entire army capable of defending your not so big cities and taking over the whole world.

 

[Roxlimn]

lissenber:

That may be true (don't know yet, but I suspect not), but what we need here is not a discussion of whether or not large cities are better than small cities. That can be discussed well enough in the ICS threads (of which there are two). What we want is a how-to for building large cities at all, since some players appear to have difficulties growing them.

 

[lissenber]

What we want is a how-to for building large cities at all, since some players appear to have difficulties growing them.

My bad.

It`s just that answering that makes me feel... silly. Maybe you will know why when you read my answer.

Build your city on any land except desert or snow. Now, to speed up your city growth i suggest you build a worker and farm the tiles you plan to work. You may also build a granary. Once you reach a decent population, simply balance your tiles out so that you get +2 excess food. Keep your plains and hills farmed. You can trade post some of your grasslands, just try to keep the +2 food bonus for some growth. You might also want to get the policy that makes specialists cost only 1 food. Be sure to use all the specialists you can.

Buildings you should have... Pretty much all science, definately all gold, all happiness and some culture buildings. Workshops, barrackses, and such are not recommended as they will kill your gold income. But if you want to play a game of specalization then go ahead and build them aswell.

Golden Ages will be your 15 minutes of glory. Great artists and generals should be used for golden ages.

Also, wonders are nice. But if you spend all of your time wonder-whoring you will never complete those buildings you need. Still, they`re kinda worth it. So i say go for it.




To me this feels kind of like explaining the too obvious.

 

[northernlights]

Hi All,

Been a lurker for many years and finally decided to join the community.

I think we're overcomplicating this.

The OP is absoloutley right - On more advanced difficulties (Immortal and Diety) everything he says his true.

Coming back at him with your strategy for King difficulty doesnt really help things.

So, I would repeat the OP's query but specifying that it be on a more advanced difficulty.

If you have a high-difficulty game where your successfully building large cities and have many of them I would encourage you to share a save.

Thanks!

 

[Celevin]

My bad.

It`s just that answering that makes me feel... silly. Maybe you will know why when you read my answer.

Build your city on any land except desert or snow. Now, to speed up your city growth i suggest you build a worker and farm the tiles you plan to work. You may also build a granary. Once you reach a decent population, simply balance your tiles out so that you get +2 excess food. Keep your plains and hills farmed. You can trade post some of your grasslands, just try to keep the +2 food bonus for some growth. You might also want to get the policy that makes specialists cost only 1 food. Be sure to use all the specialists you can.

Buildings you should have... Pretty much all science, definately all gold, all happiness and some culture buildings. Workshops, barrackses, and such are not recommended as they will kill your gold income. But if you want to play a game of specalization then go ahead and build them aswell.

Golden Ages will be your 15 minutes of glory. Great artists and generals should be used for golden ages.




To me this feels kind of like explaining the too obvious.

You're completely ignoring opportunity cost. Yes, you will always grow while you have positive food. But it's not very feasible when it takes you 50 turns to your next size. A big portion of this problem is how late hospitals come into the game. Other than the Aztecs and We Love The King days, there's no other way to speed up that growth. The reason this is such a huge problem is the food requirement is exponential, meaning a size 20 city will require more than just a substantial amount of food over a size 10 city.

This problem really shows its ugly face as more than opportunity cost with an example. Let's say you have an empire with 1 big city, and 5ish smaller cities, and your goal is to make your big city even bigger. You're at -1 happiness. Say you go up to +2 happiness. The first cities that are going to grow are your smaller ones (due to Maritime city states the food production of your cities is really close). Your big city actually won't grow, instead it's going to just increase its surplus food, and have to wait for its next chance! The smaller cities soak up remaining happiness at a much faster rate.

The fastest city grower is easily your capitol. This is because of the Tradition tree (which honestly should be extended past your capitol), and Maritime city states.

To summarize, if you want big cities you have to:
- Have more than just surplus happiness to cover your faster growing small cities
- Maritime city states help a lot but only if you have that surplus happiness
- Gun for hospitals, and try and get as many We Love The King days as possible in the cities you want to grow

 

[Neuro]

How to create and maintain a large city empire:

Early game: Don't expand too quickly. Focus your early game on getting any wonders you want (GL is my personal fave) and getting some decent defense up and running. If you are playing on the harder settings, you'll want to beeline to Horsemen so the AI doesn't come over and stomp you. Even if you don't want to play Conquerer, the best defense is a good offense, so get 3-4 Horsemen built ASAP. If the AI decides to drop cities close to you, take em! Puppet cities are great, especially in the early game, as they don't increase your Social Policy Cost, and they usually can only make a few buildings which you want them to build anyway. Nearby City States are also nice for making puppets, but I don't recommend attacking more than 1-2 or the rest will declare on you.

Midgame: Before you really start to expand, you'll want to get any social policies you think you'll need. The price starts to skyrocket, so get em while they're cheap! Personally, for large empires I like Order, but that requires beelining for either Biology or Steam Power, which takes awhile. Biology is easier to get to, but it means focusing on the top part of the tech tree. You can also go for Meritocracy, which as Pagh80 pointed out is just as good as Planned Economy. I'm a fan of Patronage, because Maritime CSs are so powerful. They also allow you to pass on building a lot of farms, and instead focus on trading posts.

Endgame: Build up to your preferred victory condition. You'll need to maintain a small but effective military force, to keep the barbs and other civs in line. Horsemen-Knights-Cavalry will do this job quite well for a long time, even against spearmen/pikemen. Enjoy!

I'll work on a game in a decent difficulty setting and upload the save file.

 

[Neuro]

Also, wonders are nice. But if you spend all of your time wonder-whoring you will never complete those buildings you need. Still, they`re kinda worth it. So i say go for it.

I feel I must politely disagree with this statement. With a strong (read: lots of TP) economy, you can buy many of the buildings you need, especially the later ones. For some reason, building costs are not linear; a Library (80 hammers) costs you 420 gold, while a Factory (300 Hammers) costs 920 gold, and a Hydro Plant (600 Hammers) costs 1550 gold. In many of my games, my capital spends the majority of the game ONLY building wonders, and I buy the buildings I need.

 

[lissenber]

I feel I must politely disagree with this statement. With a strong (read: lots of TP) economy, you can buy many of the buildings you need, especially the later ones. For some reason, building costs are not linear; a Library (80 hammers) costs you 420 gold, while a Factory (300 Hammers) costs 920 gold, and a Hydro Plant (600 Hammers) costs 1550 gold. In many of my games, my capital spends the majority of the game ONLY building wonders, and I buy the buildings I need.

I would rather use that money to buy off maritime city states instead of libraries but you are still absolutely right.

 

[Roxlimn]

Neuro:

Thanks for the effort! Remember, guys, we want big cities with lots of useful infrastructure. The bigger they are, and the faster they get there, the happier the OP will be!

Wouldn't hurt to outline the crucial ingredients so he can check 'em off recipe-like.

 

[Bandobras Took]

Big large cities take time to be constructed and even more time to be grown. This is possible but ABSOLUTELY IMPRACTICAL. Sure, it works on King difficulty but what about Deity?

Um . . . I thought the whole point of Deity was that you had to follow the One True Path to victory, so that you can give contempt instead of advice on Strategy Forums.

You don`t need a city which`s gold production is nearly eaten up by it`s building maintenance. Also instead of spending an eternity for building every building you dream of you are better off spending your hammers on an entire army capable of defending your not so big cities and taking over the whole world.

So instead of buildings which eat maintenance, I can have UNITS which eat maintenance? Does this mean I can be a builder or a warmonger in a Civ Game? What a concept! Actually, since unit maintenance increases over time, unlike building maintenance, wouldn't building the army end up being a bigger drain on gold?

Buildings only take an eternity to build if you're ignoring production in favor of other things. It's almost like there's a tradeoff of some sort.

Piety isn't bad if your main source of unhappiness is going to be population. Also, Tradition allows a happiness buffer in your capital city, which is likely going to be the first one you attempt to grow anyway.

 

[learner gamer]

Wow! Just wanted to say thanks for all your input to date everyone. (Indeed, I had to re-write this post because a number of the points I was going to make have already been discussed further.) Oh, and welcome to cfc northernlights...and thanks for your insight Neuro!

On the issue of difficulty, I’m actually happy to see a playthrough at a level lower than immortal (eg. at emperor) if it helps. My reasoning is that I’m perfectly happy to see a demo played at a level which gives the civver sufficient time to specialise their cities without fearing an imminent DoW every turn, so that they can show me how to overcome Civ 5’s main barriers to specialisation as I see them: maintenance costs and hammers. All that said, if someone can indeed provide a save, playthrough or “how to” guide at immortal or deity (which will require diverting hammers and / or gold from building infrastructure into military units, purely to survive), I’d love to see it.

As it happens, lissenber’s provided a perfect illustration of just how this thread can help me by mentioning the following:

barracks' and such are not recommended as they will kill your gold income

because, this is precisely what I’m hoping that this type of thread will help me learn how to do in Civ 5 – build (or buy), for example, the various military buildings in my unit producing cities, without bankrupting my Civ. In a similar vein, I’d envisage too that other cities in any posted game or walkthrough would construct the various buildings appropriate to their specialisation. (lissenber: I hope you understand that my quoting you is not meant as a criticism at all ; it's just that your quote illustrates perfectly one of the mechanics - maintenance costs attached to buildings - that I'm trying to learn to live with in Civ 5.)

You see, as it stands, (and as my OP kindly copied by Roxlimn implies), when I’ve tried building nothing more than infrastructure on this scale in my Civ 5 cities, (so please note: I’m not asking to see every building built in every city), I’ve invariably found that (i) maintenance costs have crippled my economy (limiting the availability to purchase buildings) and / or (ii) a lack of hammers has meant that buildings take an age to complete (which is something that I find aggravated by the non-linear increase in hammer costs, as you note Neuro). Combined with the point made by Celevin re: the exponential increase in food required to grow to a large pop, I’ve found that, at best, I can therefore only construct an empire consisting of many mid size cities (ICS style) with a skeletal infrastructure – so I must be missing something.

To quote Roxlimn (who I think has summed things up perfectly), I would therefore love to see how to build an empire consisting of “big cities with lots of useful infrastructure. The bigger they are, and the faster they get there, the [better]” and see just where I’m going wrong in Civ 5.

Thanks again for all your help!

 

[}{ELL/\/()]

the problem with building big cities here is that there really are no good food resources, fish give gold wheat is only +1 over normal tile, cows and sheep are worthless. For the huge cities in civ4 you wanted 2-3 food based resources.

I might try doing this, id roll with rome as I think you are going to have bigger issues producing the buildings you need than to keep growth.

 

[Roxlimn]

}{ELL/\/()

Haven't tried it with Rome, but I don't think the hammers will be a problem. Large cities tend to be able to work a lot of hammer tiles when necessary, and having Workshops for the +20% boost helps immensely. Granted, Rome's ability can only help.

Food and happiness are the usual big limiters, so what you really want is Aztec, Siam, or India. You also need all the turns you can get for growth, so you want Civil Service farms early, then have Granaries and Watermills, have the Maritimes, then go for Fertilizers and Biology.

Happiness is an unexpected issue, so need some way to counter that. Meritocracy isn't that good. Might be better to aim for Piety tree, and Patronage.

 

[pi-r8]

I think you can do it. It's just very, very difficult (much more difficult than covering the map with small cities, and a lot slower to get going).

First problem: food. How are you going to grow your cities that big? Maritime city states help a bit, but not enough. You'll need to start in grassland, with a good river to get the civil service bonus from farms. You'll also need to get biology as soon as possible, and maybe penicillin too. On the plus side, both of these can be gotten fairly quickly thanks to scientists. You can beeline directly from biology to penicillin in just 3 steps. With 4 food farms, hospitals, and medical labs, the growth rate should be... decent.

Happiness: you should be fine as long as you use India. You'll get 12 happiness from buildings, which corresponds to 24 population for India. Plus whatever resources you have, but if you're going for fewer, larger cities, you won't have as many resources.

Production: You want a lot of buildings, and there's no way you'll have enough gold to buy them all. That means that every single city needs good production. In Civ V that means hills. (forests are OK too). You need every city founded near a grassland river with lots of hills, too. Spread them far apart so they can work the full 4 tile radius.

Science: This one is fairly easy. Since research comes from population in this game, just keep growing the population. Also make all the research buildings, and run max scientists at all times. You might want to run Rationalism and/or Freedom also.

Gold: This seems like the biggest problem. Lots of buildings means lots of maintenence. Normally you pay for that with trading posts but... if the cities are already working lots of farms and lots of mines, how can they also work trading posts? You might be able to switch between working mines and working trading posts. But I think the easiest solution would be to designate one city to work nothing but trading posts, and don't build anything there except the gold buildings. They'll take a really long time to build, but that's OK.

There's no way this would ever work on immortal or deity, but on lower levels it will probably work.

 

[Roxlimn]

There's no way this would ever work on immortal or deity, but on lower levels it will probably work.

Don't be too sure about that. As far as I can tell, you largely only have to cleanse your continent with Horses and then you can pretty much do whatever the heck you want. Haven't tried it yet, but that's because I don't want to war with Horsemen and see BoDs.

First problem: food. How are you going to grow your cities that big? Maritime city states help a bit, but not enough. You'll need to start in grassland, with a good river to get the civil service bonus from farms. You'll also need to get biology as soon as possible, and maybe penicillin too. On the plus side, both of these can be gotten fairly quickly thanks to scientists. You can beeline directly from biology to penicillin in just 3 steps. With 4 food farms, hospitals, and medical labs, the growth rate should be... decent.

The growth rate is actually quite excellent after Hospitals. With the right setup, you could see pop points every 4-8 turns or so. The problem is getting there fast enough and having the hammers or gold to afford hospitals at the same time.

Grassland starts are not required, but having some grassland in the tile radius helps. Rivers or lakes are pretty much necessary, IMX, and river especially are a help as they also provide gold.

Need good farms, granary, watermill, hospitals, med labs, and about 3 or 4 Maritimes is my rough estimate for good growth.

Happiness: you should be fine as long as you use India. You'll get 12 happiness from buildings, which corresponds to 24 population for India. Plus whatever resources you have, but if you're going for fewer, larger cities, you won't have as many resources.

Not sure exactly what learner wants to see, but having more than 10 cities is no barrier to have multiple cities past size 25. No need to go for fewer cities.

Production: You want a lot of buildings, and there's no way you'll have enough gold to buy them all. That means that every single city needs good production. In Civ V that means hills. (forests are OK too). You need every city founded near a grassland river with lots of hills, too. Spread them far apart so they can work the full 4 tile radius.

In fact, you can afford to buy a decent number of buildings, because you won't be buying that many of each one. The latter buildings, in particular, have very good gold to hammer ratios natively, and get better with Commerce and Big Ben.

I think I can get away with having two or three cities having absolutely crap production for their size before SoL.

Gold: This seems like the biggest problem. Lots of buildings means lots of maintenence. Normally you pay for that with trading posts but... if the cities are already working lots of farms and lots of mines, how can they also work trading posts? You might be able to switch between working mines and working trading posts. But I think the easiest solution would be to designate one city to work nothing but trading posts, and don't build anything there except the gold buildings. They'll take a really long time to build, but that's OK.

I employ a number of solutions. One is to alternate between TPs and mines, and another is to just have Mines and then TP them over once Lumbermills supercede their production values (transfer primarily military production over to another city).

It's not as big a problem as you might think. Big cities mean big Trade Routes for less roads. A size 24 city still won't be working every tile in sight, as especially after Freedom, it won't be working much tiles aside from food and production at all, so you don't need to space them 4 tiles apart. They can be three tiles apart, be big, and still have only 3GPT road maintenance.

Key here is half-food specialists, since you are essentially manufacturing 1-food tiles out of hammers. This means that the large cities don't have to work any bad tiles that don't generate food - nonriver hills and whatnot. Freedom is also key to managing the happiness issue.

Target buildings for ideal Trade Cities are:

Mint
Market
Bank
Stock Market
Workshop
Granary
Watermill

Support buildings are

Monument
Temple
Opera House
Library
University
Windmill

 

[tokala]

The closes I came to the OPs requirements were heavily forested starts with Hiawatha. In a forest environment, the Iroquois have some really nice features that help "sim city" style civ.
1. (almost) zero maintenance roads/railroads
2. Ridiculous mobility of all your units helps you to get away with less military
3. lots of saved worker turns due to 1. and 2.
4. UU that excels at homeland defense
5. Any forest tile will provide hammers AND gold with TP and longhouse, as long as you get at least 1-2 maritime CSs

 

[aimlessgun]

What do you mean by 'big' cities? What do you mean by a 'lot' of cities?

Also needing definition is a 'lot' of infrastructure and wonders (a lot of wonders? really? this is of prime importance to enjoyment?).

 

[Roxlimn]

aimlessgun:

I can't speak for OP, but off the cuff I would say that a big city is one size 25 and over, preferably size 30+. Lots of buildings, I would say would be about 13-15 buildings per city, give or take.

And yes, some of us do like our buildings and our Wonders.

 

[Neuro]

So what would you consider to be the proper criteria for a Large City game? I was thinking 12 cities of at least 12 pop each, on Emperor level, though I can try it at a higher level if you prefer. If I do it on Immortal or Diety, it will necessitate a Horseman Rush to clear the continent before I focus on building up, which is why I was going to do it on Emp.

I figure I'll use a standard size Continents map, with default settings. The only thing I will do to maximize my potential is I'll restart until I get river + marble.

I'll check back in once I start; currently watching College Football =)