New Growth Curve (v1.2)

[bumpyglint]

View attachment 729801

NOTE: Verified and obtained the exact formula in the Constructibles.xml file in folders for each age.
NOTE2: x axis is the cumulative food requirement. Basically, how much food do you need since the founding of a settlement.


Couple of things we can learn from this-- (with Edits, after some more thought)

-The new growth formula provides faster growth starting a population of 6, 13, and 24 for the Antiquity, Exploration, Modern Age, respectively, compared to the old formula.

-Growth is slower beneath these thresholds, in low-population settlements. Basically, this is intended as a nerf to wide play (more cities, less towns) and a buff to tall play (less cities, more towns).

-The biggest boost is that the rate of growth in the Antiquity Age is now SO MUCH faster. Now it takes only ~3000 total food since the settlement was founded to reach true population 12, whereas it used to be ~7500.

-Growth gets a lot slower in the later ages, but only for small settlements. That population 12 city at the start of Exploration is now on a fast track again, compared to previous. It takes only ~32000 vs ~68000 for a population 12 city to grow to population 24.

-The modern age is slowest. Good luck growing your smaller settlements. Your tall cities over true population of 24 will grow faster than version 1.1.

Sorry maybe there's a problem with the colours/ bolds?


In 1.1 the antiquity line is the lower one (meaning it's the Age where it's harder to grow) while nowin 1.2 it's the tallest (meaning it's easier to grow in antiquity compared to other ages)? I think the colours/ bolds have been inverted in 1.1 or 1.2 (guess in 1.2)

 

[Siptah]

Wait, I'm pretty sure urban pops don't increase the food needed. Basically they are just a benchmark with almost no effect in the game.

Even better then, and the poster I quoted needs to be sure they subtracted the urban pop in their calculations.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

But what is "One Population?" It seems that in previous versions it kind of scaled with time too.

Also, how long is a turn? Traditionally ancient turns have covered far more years than modern turns.

 

[tman2000]

Historically, there should be a growth spurt at Industrialization,.

In antiquity it’s the difference between hyper efficient, food optimization by rural subsistence farmers with large families versus complex production chains to produce bread and circuses let alone luxury food.

 

[CivMD]

But what is "One Population?" It seems that in previous versions it kind of scaled with time too.

The wisdom from a decades-long veteran!

 

[CivMD]

@chazzycat claims a 46 pop city in antiquity, playing tall. Maybe it's better than the graph appears.

I haven't asked, but the important distinction is we're talking about the True Population here.

True Population = 1+ number of growth events
= Number of rural tiles + Number of specialists
= Nominal total population - Number of buildings.

So typically, the true population of a 46 pop city is probably more like 21-22, if you built all buildings in antiquity.

 

[CivMD]

Did you subtract all urban pops? They increase the food needed to grow, but they grow without food.

Yup. The graph is talking about True Population, not Nominal Total Population.

True Population = 1+ number of growth events
= Number of rural tiles + Number of specialists
= Nominal total population - Number of buildings.

So typically, the true population of a 46 pop city is probably more like 21-22, if you built all buildings in antiquity.

 

[CivMD]

Sorry maybe there's a problem with the colours/ bolds?


In 1.1 the antiquity line is the lower one (meaning it's the Age where it's harder to grow) while nowin 1.2 it's the tallest (meaning it's easier to grow in antiquity compared to other ages)? I think the colours/ bolds have been inverted in 1.1 or 1.2 (guess in 1.2)

Good observation, that's actually the changes firaxis made. So in 1.1, modern age had the fastest growth, but now in 1.2, antiquity has the fastest growth.

 

[chazzycat]

I haven't asked, but the important distinction is we're talking about the True Population here.

True Population = 1+ number of growth events
= Number of rural tiles + Number of specialists
= Nominal total population - Number of buildings.

So typically, the true population of a 46 pop city is probably more like 21-22, if you built all buildings in antiquity.

Correct, which is why I provided a reference point from my previous games using the same play style. In all those previous games playing the same way, I was always around size 30-32, never more. Now I'm at 46. That is significant

 

[CivMD]

Correct, which is why I provided a reference point from my previous games using the same play style. In all those previous games playing the same way, I was always around size 30-32, never more. Now I'm at 46. That is significant

That city is a very tall girl

 

[chazzycat]

Yeah, the stars kinda aligned on that attempt - I even managed to get fertility rites for once. Good times!

I had a solid antiquity age, mostly keeping pace with deity yields but with one unfortunate exception. Napoleon is way ahead of everyone else. The unfortunate part is he's next to me and not friendly, so I have a bad feeling about the explo age.

 

[bumpyglint]

Good observation, that's actually the changes firaxis made. So in 1.1, modern age had the fastest growth, but now in 1.2, antiquity has the fastest growth.

Sorry but at we sure about this?

It seems to have completetly no sense, expecially considering that Modern Age had faster growning both for historical reasons (better health, food etc...) and gameplay reasons (what's the point of settling a city in Modern if it growth slowly while the game will finish in 30 turns?!?!).

And there’s another problem: why hand out town specializations in the first two Ages at all?

Specialization was meant to work like this: by the end of an Age a settlement hits a “soft cap” because the exponential growth formula makes further expansion painful. The +50 % Food bonus is nearly worthless at that point, so you drop it and slot in a more useful specialization until the next Age begins—when growth thresholds reset and everyone can balloon again. But if each successive Age actually raises the growth wall instead of lowering it, the logic flips. I’d be crazy to swap out +50 % Food; I’d want to cling to it forever, because every new Age makes the cap even harsher. In that scenario, early‑Ages specializations stop making sense altogether and probably instead I will use it only from turn 1 of Modern.

I hope it's just a typo in the graph more than a complete change in the gameplay, please someone tell me if I'm seeing something wrong or if it's like I'm describing this What's the source of the graph?

 

[aelf]

Town specialisations can give pretty good benefits (apparently hub towns are even better now), and there's no reason to grow further when all the valuable tiles like resources have been claimed. If you have a rule of thumb from before (e.g. specialise when a town needs 10+ turns to grow again), you can still use it.

 

[Manpanzee]

I'm very happy to see slower growth in Modern. I thought growth in that era was already more than fast enough before, and I was worried they'd speed it up further. Fewer growth events when I've got 20+ settlements and the game is almost over sounds good to me.

 

[chazzycat]

The change to fish is going to dramatically change the modern age growth stuff as well. Tin is not nearly as easy to amass in large numbers.

 

[CivMD]

Sorry but at we sure about this?

It seems to have completetly no sense, expecially considering that Modern Age had faster growning both for historical reasons (better health, food etc...) and gameplay reasons (what's the point of settling a city in Modern if it growth slowly while the game will finish in 30 turns?!?!).

And there’s another problem: why hand out town specializations in the first two Ages at all?

Specialization was meant to work like this: by the end of an Age a settlement hits a “soft cap” because the exponential growth formula makes further expansion painful. The +50 % Food bonus is nearly worthless at that point, so you drop it and slot in a more useful specialization until the next Age begins—when growth thresholds reset and everyone can balloon again. But if each successive Age actually raises the growth wall instead of lowering it, the logic flips. I’d be crazy to swap out +50 % Food; I’d want to cling to it forever, because every new Age makes the cap even harsher. In that scenario, early‑Ages specializations stop making sense altogether and probably instead I will use it only from turn 1 of Modern.

I hope it's just a typo in the graph more than a complete change in the gameplay, please someone tell me if I'm seeing something wrong or if it's like I'm describing this What's the source of the graph?

The source of the graph is me plotting the equations on R.... I also could NOT believe my eyes, so I double and triple checked. It's what it is. It is bizarre, I agree!

y1 <- x^3.3 + 3*x + 30 # Antiquity (v1.1)
y2 <- x^3 + 20*x + 20 # Exploration (v1.1)
y3 <- x^2.7 + 40*x + 20 # Modern (v1.1)
y4 <- 4*x^2 + 20*x + 5 # Antiquity (v1.2)
y5 <- 5*x^2 + 50*x + 30 # Exploration (v1.2)
y6 <- 6*x^2 + 60*x + 60 # Modern (v1.2)

In version 1.1, the exponents decreased from 3.3 -> 3.0 -> 2.7 from antiquity->exploration->modern. This results in Antiquity requirements surpassing the older eras eventually.
In version 1.2, all of the coefficients are changing in the same direction, increasing from antiquity->exploration->modern.

 

[Krikkit1]

The source of the graph is me plotting the equations on R.... I also could NOT believe my eyes, so I double and triple checked. It's what it is. It is bizarre, I agree!

y1 <- x^3.3 + 3*x + 30 # Antiquity (v1.1)
y2 <- x^3 + 20*x + 20 # Exploration (v1.1)
y3 <- x^2.7 + 40*x + 20 # Modern (v1.1)
y4 <- 4*x^2 + 20*x + 5 # Antiquity (v1.2)
y5 <- 5*x^2 + 50*x + 30 # Exploration (v1.2)
y6 <- 6*x^2 + 60*x + 60 # Modern (v1.2)

In version 1.1, the exponents decreased from 3.3 -> 3.0 -> 2.7 from antiquity->exploration->modern. This results in Antiquity requirements surpassing the older eras eventually.
In version 1.2, all of the coefficients are changing in the same direction, increasing from antiquity->exploration->modern.

Yeah, a better formula would be something like (altered in bold)
6*x^2 + 10*x + 5 # Antiquity.. (faster than v1.2 under pop 5, then slower)
5*x^2 + 50*x + 30 # Exploration..(same as v1.2)
4*x^2 + 100*x + 60 # Modern (slower than v1.2 under pop 20, then faster)

 

[CivMD]

Yeah, a better formula would be something like (altered in bold)
6*x^2 + 10*x + 5 # Antiquity.. (faster than v1.2 under pop 5, then slower)
5*x^2 + 50*x + 30 # Exploration..(same as v1.2)
4*x^2 + 100*x + 60 # Modern (slower than v1.2 under pop 20, then faster)

I hope firaxis devs see this haha!

 

[bumpyglint]

Town specialisations can give pretty good benefits (apparently hub towns are even better now), and there's no reason to grow further when all the valuable tiles like resources have been claimed. If you have a rule of thumb from before (e.g. specialise when a town needs 10+ turns to grow again), you can still use it.

The way things stand, according to your strategy every town ends up locked into the same speciality forever—and that shouldn’t be the case. There ought to be room for genuine strategic pivots. My old “rules of thumb” were simple but at least had a strategic choice: hit the soft‑cap, pause growth, shift the city to a new focus, then resume growth in the next era once the cap rises.

Now, that logic no longer applies. The optimal play now is just “keep expanding”—ignore specialisation entirely until the modern era (the lone exception might be influence, which looks inadvertetly buffed under the new connection rules). If you choose not to grow today, you’ll only make it harder tomorrow, so there’s really no incentive to do anything else and this makes the game obviously way more "flat" (and also historically NOT accurate, it's pretty obvious that the world population has drasticaly increased in the modern Age, so I really have no idea why they should do this).

The source of the graph is me plotting the equations on R.... I also could NOT believe my eyes, so I double and triple checked. It's what it is. It is bizarre, I agree!

y1 <- x^3.3 + 3*x + 30 # Antiquity (v1.1)
y2 <- x^3 + 20*x + 20 # Exploration (v1.1)
y3 <- x^2.7 + 40*x + 20 # Modern (v1.1)
y4 <- 4*x^2 + 20*x + 5 # Antiquity (v1.2)
y5 <- 5*x^2 + 50*x + 30 # Exploration (v1.2)
y6 <- 6*x^2 + 60*x + 60 # Modern (v1.2)

In version 1.1, the exponents decreased from 3.3 -> 3.0 -> 2.7 from antiquity->exploration->modern. This results in Antiquity requirements surpassing the older eras eventually.
In version 1.2, all of the coefficients are changing in the same direction, increasing from antiquity->exploration->modern.

Honestly, given this team’s track record—every “fix” seems to break something else—I’d bet money this is just a typo in the code, not a deliberate change. They never said they were flipping the antiquity/modern formula, they just said the cubic formula would have become quadratic. Inverting the formula between Antiquity and Modern is huge and would have been reported. It makes zero sense, either for gameplay or historical accuracy. I’m almost certain it’s a simple coding slip; I can’t see any other explanation and this seriously makes me lose all my hopes that this game will be fixed one day

Seriously, they have no idea how to code a game or they don't understand the math behind their own game at this point

 

[Krikkit1]

The way things stand, according to your strategy every town ends up locked into the same speciality forever—and that shouldn’t be the case. There ought to be room for genuine strategic pivots. My old “rules of thumb” were simple but at least had a strategic choice: hit the soft‑cap, pause growth, shift the city to a new focus, then resume growth in the next era once the cap rises.

Now, that logic no longer applies. The optimal play now is just “keep expanding”—ignore specialisation entirely until the modern era (the lone exception might be influence, which looks inadvertetly buffed under the new connection rules). If you choose not to grow today, you’ll only make it harder tomorrow, so there’s really no incentive to do anything else and this makes the game obviously way more "flat" (and also historically NOT accurate, it's pretty obvious that the world population has drasticaly increased in the modern Age, so I really have no idea why they should do this).

Not necessarily.
Issue
spend the last X turns in current age Growing v. Spend them getting benefit and Grow more next Age

even if
Next Age does mean more cost for growth...

1. Next Age will have higher output, so less turns will be needed
2. Next Age may rearrange resources to reach
3. Next Age food sent to city will also yield less Growth. (so send to cities now)