Personal experiments in the editor. Land Grabs: Ok

[jeremiahrounds]

So I play alot on monarch large marathon so I popped open a monarch large marathon and started tinkering with building cities as it relates to upkeep cost.

Through out this I will refer to +4 cities or add 4. or maybe even "4 cities" confusingly. Really I mean 4 cities plus your capital.

I was very interested in learning if there was a maintanence advantage to tight city placement versus no overlap placement with these world settings. An advantage would be say getting an extra city in for the same price. Note that a distance of 5 is no overlap and a distance of 3 is the tight city placement.

What I learned was this:
-City placements of 5 distance are basically as cheap as 3 distance
-Early on +3 cities is alot more efficient than +4 cities.

[EDIT: this is an error. There are issues with making the 4th settler city pay for itself, but they arnt insurmountable if you are aware of them and work towards them.
A schedule of cost for the 4th city in the early game at reasonable distances w/slavery is approximated by:
3 pop average ~ 4 GP
6 pop average ~ 7 GP
9 pop average ~ 8 GP
]

-Population totals and not number of cities is the dominate civic cost parameter.
-Buildings cost you nothing. (someone just the other day said on a strategy thread that walls cost you money. They dont. Build to your hearts desire its 0 punishment)
-Average a distance is nearly as good as ring placement (that is averaging 5 squares from the capital (two 7s and two 3s) was as good as being exactly 5 from the capital. So no need for ring placement but you should pick how far you want to average from your capital. 5 is good)

Youll note that just plain population growth can be dangerous in its own way. But the most dangerous spike is associated with a 4th settler when your population per a city is low (under 9). The first 3 settlers found cities that are fairly low stress.







MY BELIEF ABOUT OPTIMAL EARLY PLAY:
Once you go settlers build 3 and place them in the most perfect squares possible in a ring around your capital. Delay the 4th city until workers have created some financial support.

As far as distant land grabbing. It was only +3gp to go for a city distance 10 at a population of 10 in a +4 city configuration. So one long distance land grab is reasonable to get some strategic stuff. However, beyond that its crazy talk.

Also note that if you have to reach out to 7 in one or two cities you can "fix" that by putting a couple cities 3 from your capital. The numbers came out the same as having every city 5 squares from your capital.














I played around alot but I ended up deciding these numbers showed what I was interested in note civics are slavery and organized religion.

TIGHT EARLY TEST SHOWING +3 CITY ADVANTAGE OVER +4 CITIES
+3 cities distance 3 population 7
Cities +7
Civics +6
Total 13

SIMILIAR POPULATION BUT EXTRA CITY AND FURTHER OUT
+4 cities distance 5 population 5
City Maitenence 12
Civics 8
Total 20


TIGHT EARLY TEST NOTE THAT THIS 4th city cost 12 GP
+4 cities distance 3 population 7
City 11:
Civics 12
Total both: 23

MIDDLE GAME SIZE TIGHT CITY PLACEMENT
+4 cities distance 3 population 10
City: 13
Civic: 20
Total from both 33

SAME POPULATION AS ABOVE BUT SPREAD OUT OVER +9 cities instead of +4
(NOTE not much change in civic cost)
+9 cities distance 3 and 3 diagonal population 5
City:Total 29
Civics Total 24
Total from both 53

OPTIMAL CITY PLACEMENT MID GAME POPULATION ONLY COST 3 gp more:
+4 cities distance 5 population 10
Cities:Total 16
Civics: 20
Total from both 36

INSANE DISTANCE IS SUBOPTIMAL:
+4 cities distance 10 population 10
Cities Total 25
Civics:Total 20
Total from both 45

HOTDOG +4 CITY PLACEMENT
One city 5 distance south, two cities 3 diagonal and 1 south, one city 10 south
City 19
Civics 20
Total 39

Edit: I wanted to know if averaging to a distance of 5 was nearly as good as having a distance of 5.
So I made two 10 population cities at a distance of 7 and two 10 populations cities at a distance of 3.
Cities: 16
Civics: 20
Total 36
Youll note that averaging 5 distance was the same as being exactly 5 distant with every city. No punishment for outliers.

I also wanted to see the effect of taking all 4 settlings at distance 7:
Cities: 20
Civics: 20
Total 40

 

[InFlux5]

Good to know that the 4th city is a big jump in maintenance. Thanks for the post.

 

[cabert]

please note that this is all very level dependant
the 4th (aka +3) city is devastating on immortal.
It's painless on noble.

 

[Mischief]

Interesting article, Jeremiah ,

Are the city maintenance costs the same for all map sizes? F.e., would 5 cities on a tiny map cost as much maintenance as they would on a huge map (if the distance to the capital, city size, etc. were all alike)?

 

[axident]

Nice thread, my economy almost crashed when I rexed as England despite my building a few cottages and being Financial. The reason was that I only had 4 cities, which was my rule of thumb without knowing the math behind it, but then Ragnar suddenly DoW on me and when I took his capital (it was too juicy not to capture instead of raze), it dragged my slider down to 10% science for a good while. So maybe I should just have 3 cities from now on and figure that I'll have a 4th (someone else's capital) soon enough. I usually do that, have only 2-3 and capture another city, but my current game's staring location was totally metal-free so I built Great Wall and rex'd instead.

 

[jeremiahrounds]

Interesting. I totally understand and agree. The impetus to take a quick look in the editor was based on the fact that alot of the results i have seen werent large and monarch, both I assume are factors in how cities can be placed. I think the best advice to anyone is when pushing on a new level of difficultly open the editor and try common city patterns for you.

I found the most interesting result so far is that in some situations city distance can be average so a close in city can compensate for a strategic outlier (noting the neccesity comes from the growth of cost past about 5 or 6 average distance) I think a far more common pattern in play is going to be 3/3/7/7 distances.

I also learned that buildings dont hurt me. Which I think there is a ton of misinformation around about that.

IMPORTANT NEW CONCLUSION:
Using the 4th settler isnt as bad as I portrayed. I didnt take a close enough look at it.

I realized after playing a game with this information that a closer look at low population cities and no civics versus slavery is needed. I think I overstated the case against the 4th noncapital city because population is a factor and organized religion has its cost magnified by population. So if your missing population its worth taking a closer look, and when you do there isnt quite the unsavory jump. And also the size of the jump fits into a larger context that seems managable when you work it up from the bottom.

Ok again all large monarch highlands map. Noting again cause its really important that "+4" and "4 settled" refers to 4 ADDITIONAL cities. Thats kind of confusing and I am not sure if that was the right way to speak about it +)

+4 CITIES DISTANCE 5 POP 1 NO CIVICS:
City 9
Civic 2
Total 11

+4 CITIES DISTANCE 5 POP 2 NO CIVICS:
City 10
Civic 2
Total 12

+4 CITIES DISTANCE 5 POP 3 NO CIVICS:
(demonstrating early population isnt a bad thing)
City 10
Civic 2
Total 12

+4 CITIES DISTANCE 5 POP 3 SLAVERY:
(demonstrates slavery is a nonfactor early on)
City 10
Civic 2
Total 12

+3 CITIES DISTANCE 5 POP 3 SLAVERY:
City 7
Civic 1
Total 8

+3 CITIES DISTANCE 5 POP2 SLAVERY:
City 7
Civic 1
Total 8

+3 CITIES DISTANCe 5 Pop 1 SLAVERY:
City 6
Civic 1
Total 7

At first I thought maybe the advice against the 4th city was born out (and maybe a delay to get situated is still called for) Maintenence increases 50% by using a 4th settler in early play on these settings. However thats not the whole story cause I think percentages dont bear out the whole story =/

I took a look at using 2 settlers to compare
+2 CITIES DISTANCE 5 POP 3 SLAVERY
City 4
CIVIC 0
Total 4

So there is a 100% increase for using a 3rd settler. But that tends to be bearable so percentages arnt the whole story.

So alot of the beef against a 4th city requires first that it grows in size but that happens gradually. So I dunno how sound it is to worry about it if you can quickly recover the 4 additional gp required for a 3 population city. If your worried about it you might require the 4th city to put special emphasis on regenerating 4 gp with those 3 pop. Then its a free city right?

BUt consider these two things:
+4 CITIES DISTANCE 5 POP 6 SLAVERY
City 13
Civic 6
Total 19

+3 CITIES DISTANCE 5 POP 6 SLAVERY
City 9
Civic 3
Total 12

So at pop 3 you need to come up with 4gp extra for the 4th city. And at pop 6 you need to come up with another 7gp extra for the 4th city.


So what about by pop 9?

+4 Cities Distance 5 Pop 9 Slavery
City 16
Civic 11
Total 27

+3 Cities Distance 5 Pop 9 Slavery
City 11
Civic 8
Total 19

So now you need to come up with an additional 2 coin (8 total).
Short version with slavery your schedule of cost for a 4th city is
3 pop average ~ 4 GP
6 pop average ~ 7 GP
9 pop average ~ 8 GP

All of this suggest the 4th settler city is managable in the early game if you pay particular attention to making it pay for itself. Though I had to ask the question what happens if you lay on extra early game civics?

+4 CITIES DISTANCE 5 POP 9 HEREDITARY RULE, ORGANIZED RELIGION, SLAVERY
City 16
Civic 15
Total 31

+3 CITIES DISTANCE 5 POP 9 HEREDITARY RULE, ORGANIZED RELIGION, SLAVERY
City 11
Civic 11
Total 22

So 9 coin versus 8 in the same situation. I would say thats managable you just need to make sure the 4th city is a gold farm to really justify itself.

 

[jeremiahrounds]

I did have one more question that I answered to my satisfaction so I thought I would share the result.

And that is:
How much does it cost you to lay down a city that cant grow in order to achieve something like grab a resource.

For example in this case I assumed I was in the empire of +4 cities at distance 5 and I layed down a city at diagonal 3 from capital. This is in the hereditary rule, slavery, organized religion civics.

Total expenses 38
Change in expenses is +7 for just laying down the city.

If the population grows to 3 in that city.
City: 19
Civic 21
Total: 40
So that city of 3 pop cost me 9 gp where as the 1 pop cost me 7. So definate ineffiency in the smaller size.

Now if that same 5th settler city was 9 pop
Total is 44.


So our schedule of cost for the 5 settled city assuming all other cities are pop 9 (because in this case we are picturing a later settling and wondering if its feasible to just lay down a city that wont grow)

Pop 1 ~ 7 gp
Pop 3 ~ 8 gp
pop 9 ~ 13 gp

So it definatly shows some inefficiency to laying down small pop cities to get resources.