Pioneer Expansion Profitable? - A Real Example

[Stalker0]

So after my last attempt to do a theoretical dive into expansion, I decided to go deeper. So I took an actual Pioneer city from the day it was founded, and tracked it through all of its milestones to see each and every bit of yield it generates, compare that to the cost of maintaining such a city, and determine if the city is actually making us profit. (and yes its as arduous as it sounds!)

Setting the Stage

Spoiler :

I set up a Warlord difficulty game, so I could quickly get to expansion without being bothered by the AI. That said, I still played it like I would on Immortal difficulty, using build orders that I would normally, only getting wonders that my builds would normally accommodate, ensuring I had a full supply of units and proper defensive buildings, etc. I also followed a tech path that was normal for my play (aka I didn't just beeline it to pioneers and make a building).

I choose Mongolia, going Progress / Statecraft / Industry as my policy path. Why Mongolia? I wanted a civ whose bonuses would not impact the results, so it was easier to dig in to the actual benefits of the colony itself. Mongolia was perfect for that.

And so at last we came to our new fledgling colony, and my 10th city, Sanchu!

Spoiler :

For religion I have:
1) Cathedrals (+1 gold on farms, pastures, and quarries. Gold on Border Expand (10 w/ era scaling)
2) Synagogue (+3 prod, 10% science during WLTKD)
3) Theocratic Rule (WLTKD gives +10% Faith, Culture, Gold)
4) Holy Land
5) Orthodoxy
6) Open Sky (+1 culture/faith per 2 plain/grassland. +3 gold/+1 faith on pastures).

The Method

Spoiler :

At every milestone, I record all of the city yields, and also capture the current world science and culture rate, along with instant yields. The milestones for the city are:

1) Border Expand
2) Building Completion
3) Population Gained

I then do a bunch of math that I will show in a separate area for those that care, to determine how many yields I am gaining, versus how many yields I am losing to determine the total.

Phase I - Investment

Spoiler :

From Turns 223 - 257, I am focusing on getting the needed buildings for the colony. Per the critiques in my last work, I am going to use heavy investment with banks for more science, and put in more buildings than I had tried in my last bit of work. Also with Progress this time to add in the benefits there. Though I am going Industry, I don't have any important Industry policies yet during this phase...so that is not a factor in this part of the analysis.

Here is the exact build order. All buildings (except the Harbor due to lack of gold) were invested in.

From Pioneer

• Forge
• Council
• Library
• Market
• Barracks
• Granary
• Monument
• Shrine
• Well

Buildings Built

1. Bank (Cathedral and Synagogue bought with faith)
2. Walls
3. Castle
4. Lighthouse
5. Chancery
6. Arena
7. Amphitheater
8. University
9. Armory
10. Temple
11. Caravansary
12. Harbor
13. Customs House

The Yields so Far

So after 34 turns of investment, have I actually made any profit? Here are the totals. I have already subtracted the costs due to the extra city from these numbers, so a positive number is pure profit.

Science: 166
Culture: 63
Gold: -1,139 (includes the upgrade cost of a settler to pioneer)
Faith: -167 (cost of half a missionary + 2 faith buildings)

Though its cost a lot of gold, I am making some base yield profit. Its all about the instant yields right now, I am actually bleeding science and culture every turn, but the instant yields are what made the difference.

Phase 2 - Greater Investment Phase

Spoiler :

As Phase 1 finished, we ran science process from Turns 257-272 until getting to Industry 3. Now that we gain science for our buildings, and with the new Industrial Era gives us more instant yields, its time for a bit more building.

Build Order (all buildings invested)

1. Workshop
2. Circus
3. Herbalist
4. Aqueduct
5. Opera House
6. Arsenal
7. Constabulary
8. Garden
9. Grocer
10. Windmill
11. Stables

Our new total yields

Science: 2050
Culture: 118
Gold: -1927
Faith: 252

So the good news is we are still holding steady on culture (my effective culture output is abysmal but the insta yields are holding me a float). Meanwhile I am making actual science profit every round, Plus the insta yields for a nicer return. I'm only at ~3% extra gain, but the colony is starting to pull some weight.

Phase 3 (THE END!)
Phew, its been a lot of work putting this together. I'll clean it up and add some more things later, but for right now, here is the big note, how much did the colony actually make all things told?

This is for the whole life cycle of the colony. Turns 223 - 390, the whole show!

Science: 8,246
Culture: -1,784
Gold: 2,763
Faith: 1,846


% Gained

Spoiler :

So now that we now our colony yields (after costs), the next natural question is....are those yields....good? Is this a solid contribution that helped me, or a pittance barely worth discussing?

Science
So now lets look at the total science produced for the whole game:

Total Science: 217,317
Total Colony Science (before costs): 14,915

So I will subtract my colony from the main and increase the new total by 3.33% (aka the amount the extra city "costs" me due to the science penalty. So (Total Science - Colony Science) * 1.033

Total before Colony: 209,142
% Increase: 3.9% (aka 217k - 209k / 209k)

So in terms of whether that is "good" or not, if I had 10 equal cities, I would expect each one to pull 10% of the weight. Obviously that is not how civ 5 works, the capital especially pulls at least twice the weight of another city, often 3 times.

If we assume the capital is twice as strong as other cities, than I would expect other cities to contribute 9%. If the capital is three times as strong, about 8.3%. So 3.9% is about half the value of a core city for perspective.

Culture
And what was my price?

Total Culture: 238,961
Colony Culture: 5,948

Total Before Colony: 240,702 (yes this number is bigger than before the subtraction, that shows our math is working, remember that the colony costs me culture, so I would have produced more "effective" culture overall if the colony had never been made).

%Decrease: -.7%

Overall: So since its commonly argued that Culture = Science in relatively yield values, we could simply add their contribution and say that the colony contributed 3.2% to the "science/culture" pool.


The Big Data: I have attached the master excel with the raw data on it. I also included a legend tab that will explain what each tab does, so hopefully it should be easy enough to follow along. For those who like things more personal, I have included some save games if you want to just see the city in a few checkpoints. Please note you will need Enhanced Naval Warfare mod to run it.

 

[Stalker0]

So now the question becomes, should I build the remaining buildings or just switch over to processes? I think my napkin math suggests the investment and building is still worth it compared to a process with Progress but I'd be interested in thoughts.

What I might do is wait until I get Industry 3 so I also get science when I build these buildings, and I probably will be up another era as well. I think that will be my plan at this point.

• Aqueduct
• Circus
• Constabulary
• Herbalist
• Opera House
• Stable
• Workshop

 

[andersw]

The big issue here imo is the extremely high cost for pioneers.

 

[CrazyG]

This is a great analysis that would take a lot of work.

What I take away is that renaissance expansion is weak in terms of culture and science, even with a wide-friendly religion and social policies. So for it to be worthwhile, you would need civ bonuses too.

This city could have value in producing diplomatic units though. I don't think it would be good from a military-supply perspective (dumping the gold into units and just taking a city surely would be better).

 

[LifeOfBrian]

Stalker, that's very interesting!

A few observations, if I may:
1.) I usually use my pioneers very early in the Renaissance era, I usually beeline Banking if I'm planning on using them, so T223 is quite a bit later for founding with a Pioneer than in my experience.
2.) After a bank, could you have perhaps rushed a workshops and windmill next? That way you'd be able to pump out other buildings much faster?
3.) Have you considered using an internal trade route soon after founding to help the colony develop faster?
4.) I think I would have settled on the hill to the northeast, giving me lots of production-heavy tiles and two iron tiles and one horse tile more, making the city more worthwhile, also increasing the gold output of the city (if I were selling all the iron and horses).

 

[Stalker0]

Stalker, that's very interesting!

A few observations, if I may:
1.) I usually use my pioneers very early in the Renaissance era, I usually beeline Banking if I'm planning on using them, so T223 is quite a bit later for founding with a Pioneer than in my experience.
2.) After a bank, could you have perhaps rushed a workshops and windmill next? That way you'd be able to pump out other buildings much faster?
3.) Have you considered using an internal trade route soon after founding to help the colony develop faster?
4.) I think I would have settled on the hill to the northeast, giving me lots of production-heavy tiles and two iron tiles and one horse tile more, making the city more worthwhile, also increasing the gold output of the city (if I were selling all the iron and horses).

Lets dig in!

1) So I think two reasons for this. One, is that you tend to tech slower on lower difficulties as a natural matter, so since I did a lower difficulty run that is part of it. The other was my "immortal mindset". On Immortal you really can't ignore military techs, and Renaissance tends to have a lot of needs. So while I do want my pioneers and astronomy, its hard to ignore Machinery. I also like getting chemistry for leaning tower as well, as its a good wonder the AI doesn't often rush, so that may be my personal bias showing. That said, for your purposes you could could look at this as the result of a 2nd city you are considering founding, instead of your first one, if it helps the timing. I should note that I did the simulation all the way to Turn 390, but I have games that have finished by 370, and games gone to 430....so the length of the game is also a factor.

In terms of timing, so because the colony becomes relatively static by the end, here are some general numbers that say "ok if I got this colony earlier, or it ran longer, how much more/less would it produce?" Obviously these are estimates based on the last 40 turns of datapoints, but it gives you a ballpark.

Science: ~66 science per turn.
Culture: ~-28 culture per turn
Gold: +75 gold per turn.

2) Your right on the workshop, in hindsight now that I'm doing more building I think it would have been better to do. The windmill I got as soon as it was tech available.

3) I could use an ITR, though honestly (and I'll get the numbers later on) I was building those buildings pretty darn quickly, often in a single turn. So a hammer ITR would not have done as much as you might think, perhaps a food ITR though. That said, on Immortal TRs can snag you 20+ SPT, and a good amount of culture and gold as well....so its another yield sink you have to make up for.

I think its also worth noting that my happiness is higher than I'm used to seeing, again because of the lower difficulty. So I feel like the city basically grew like it would have with a food ITR, because normally on Immortal I would bump a few times and then my happiness would drop the growth rate by 50% or more.

4) The only catch is its exposed to two water spots, and again with Immortal mindset....the more water the exponential harder a coastal city is to defend. Now two tiles isn't the end of the world, especially since it is on a hill.....3 tiles is suicide. That said, my thinking on this one is that "under the assumption colonies are good productive cities", I would have built another city 4 tiles to the northeast. That would snag all of that extra strategics and given me another nice 1 water tile city with solid overall production, so that was my plan is I was going to make more than one city (but tracking one was hard enough!).

Your point about selling strategic is valid, and not one I factored in to the gold. Horses I find tend to "expire" after the agribusiness phase, and the AI won't pay for them anymore, but iron always lands you money. Hmm, I need some thoughts from people on what would good values for strategics be to consider.

 

[Stalker0]

The big issue here imo is the extremely high cost for pioneers.

For this scenario I used the settler upgrade trick, which is 390 gold to upgrade. As a note, its only 210 gold to upgrade a pioneer to colonist. I do agree with you that I think pioneers are too expensive, and settlers too cheap to upgrade.

 

[Stalker0]

What I take away is that renaissance expansion is weak in terms of culture and science, even with a wide-friendly religion and social policies. So for it to be worthwhile, you would need civ bonuses too.

This city could have value in producing diplomatic units though. I don't think it would be good from a military-supply perspective (dumping the gold into units and just taking a city surely would be better).

I updated the original post with the contribution numbers, which are about 3.2% overall. On a personal level for immortal, that does not seem like a major payout for the hassle of defense those cities often require in the higher difficulties, but I am very curious what other people think. Aka does this confirm an actual balance issue, or is this just things working as intended?

In terms of military supply, the city provides 5 supply at base. Population is always a question mark to me, if I just do a complete average of the supply per pop, the city contributes 13....but that seems way too high (I honestly have no real idea how the pop to supply numbers work, just that the UI tells me I'm getting 202 supply for 271 pop, aka .745 supply a pop)

 

[Stalker0]

So beyond my expansion analysis, my dataset gives me a ton of raw data to mine from.

how long did it actually take to build the buildings for the colony all said and done?

Spoiler :

Bank 9
Walls 2
Castle 5
Lighthouse 2
Chancery 3
Arena 1
Amphitheater 1
University 2
Armory 2
Temple 1
Caravansary 1
Harbor 3 (not invested)
Customs House 2
Workshop 3
Circus 1
Herbalist 1
Aqueduct 1
Opera House 2
Arsenal 3
Constabulary 2
Garden 1
Grocer 1
Windmill 2 (not invested)
Stables 1
Public School 3
Zoo 1
Wire Service 4
Civilized Jewlers 2

Total: 62
Average: 2.2 turns per building

Would Authority's Garrison policy actually produce more culture than Progress's building bonus?

Spoiler :

Looking at all culture instant yields from progress over the 167 turns of colony operation.

Progress Culture: ~7.66 CPT
Authority: 2 CPT

Winner: Progress!

How much instant science do I actually get population growth through councils and universities?

Spoiler :

From pop 3 to 16 its 343 science, or 26.4 science per pop.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

Honestly what this tells me are a couple of things:
- if settling with pioneers/colonists remains fundamentally the same, I'd remove the upgrade trick, increase the costs a bit, make them purchasable by faith as well, then increase the pop with which they found (from 3 to 6 for pioneers, by 3 for colonists) and add some buildings (walls, castles, lighthouses, arenas and amphitheaters for pioneers)
- if we're to change it dramatically, I'd make settling with pioneers and colonists the same as settling new cities as Venice -> they are puppets and puppets only, cannot be annexed. Make them more "land/resources grabbing strategic outposts" rather than normal cities. Or perhaps have this option as a toggle-able option in the setup for people to choose?

Perhaps Stalker you could start a balance thread (you're great at those), perchance with a poll, about how we feel re: settling with pioneers and colonists.

 

[Stalker0]

Perhaps Stalker you could start a balance thread (you're great at those), perchance with a poll, about how we feel re: settling with pioneers and colonists.

That is my intention, though before I do that I wanted a chance to sit with the data some more, and hear critiques like yours to ensure I am capturing a proper picture. Data is great, but its only as good as how we use it, so feel free to ask me more questions or point out potential flaws in the work, are their other things I'm not considering?

I did make a save of that game when I got to colonist, and I'm considering doing the same thing with that Colonist to see how an even later city but with more starting infrastructure fairs. Sigh....but its a LOT of work to get these numbers

Are there any logging geniuses out there that could help me whip up a log creator that would record the various numbers I'm tracking, so I don't have to manually collect them all the time?

 

[Stalker0]

I have now included the master excel in the OP, enjoy it you math heads

 

[DeAnno]

I updated the original post with the contribution numbers, which are about 3.2% overall. On a personal level for immortal, that does not seem like a major payout for the hassle of defense those cities often require in the higher difficulties, but I am very curious what other people think. Aka does this confirm an actual balance issue, or is this just things working as intended?

Sometimes it does happen that I settle a Pioneer or Colony in "hinterlands" of my main civ which weren't originally a good idea to settle in but somehow became a good idea later, while still not being a big defensive drain. This can be for a variety of reasons, but most often it's from putting really obnoxious Citadels and stealing choice land on the edge of your territory while simultaneously making it much more defensible. The AI isn't really that safe about its GPTIs and I've robbed more than few of them this way. It can also be because some important strategics were revealed, or perhaps because your mid/renaissance UI was unlocked and now additional cities are just much more good.

Basically the gut feeling to me is if you're sort of defending the land anyway you might as well settle it, even if it's a little late.

 

[CrazyG]

If you can get that settling date earlier it would make a big difference, not only because you get everything built faster, but because it means your other cities had less time to develop, thus the break-even point would be lower.

I think banking before gunpowder is viable if playing defensively.
Before chemistry IDK. In theory this is a wide strategy and if building a tall wonder still looks so appealing when going so wide it's weird. You might still be able to grab it after both banking and gunpowder because the AI really is slow to get it, it's common for AI to have 6 or 7 renaissance techs before chemistry. On the other hand I wonder if we should treat the AI undervaluing it so much as a bug.

 

[Stalker0]

If you can get that settling date earlier it would make a big difference, not only because you get everything built faster, but because it means your other cities had less time to develop, thus the break-even point would be lower.

So just to kind of throw a ballpark to what this might look like, I replaced the yield outputs for the first 20 turns with the outputs for the second 20 turns. Effectively we are "ignoring" the first 20 turns of development, and starting off with a colony that has had 20 turns to develop (but I kept all the instant yields it gained along the way). This is not accurate by any means (as I don't have the break evens from 20 turns earlier) but it at least gives us a ballpark of what a colony founded 20 turns earlier might look like.

Those totals:

Colony Yields (after cost)
Total Colony Science 8,718.17
Total Colony Culture -1,645.58
Total Colony Gold 2,578.40
Total Colony Faith 1,947.00

Original Totals
Science: 8,246
Culture: -1,784
Gold: 2,763
Faith: 1,846

 

[stii]

If you can get that settling date earlier it would make a big difference, not only because you get everything built faster, but because it means your other cities had less time to develop, thus the break-even point would be lower.

I think banking before gunpowder is viable if playing defensively.
Before chemistry IDK. In theory this is a wide strategy and if building a tall wonder still looks so appealing when going so wide it's weird. You might still be able to grab it after both banking and gunpowder because the AI really is slow to get it, it's common for AI to have 6 or 7 renaissance techs before chemistry. On the other hand I wonder if we should treat the AI undervaluing it so much as a bug.

I do wonder if the AI could be persuaded to tech a bit different or at least less predictably. Or maybe just move some of the military techs around, the AI not taking metallurgy causes issues.

 

[Stalker0]

For this scenario I used the settler upgrade trick, which is 390 gold to upgrade. As a note, its only 210 gold to upgrade a pioneer to colonist. I do agree with you that I think pioneers are too expensive, and settlers too cheap to upgrade.

Another way to consider this, so a pioneer costs 764 hammers (roughly, it does depend on how many cities you have). Now things get squirrely in that food can act as hammers, but it also stops growth....so lets keep it clean and say its 764 hammers. That converts to 191 science based on just science process.

So if we put that as a "cost" to our colony, it drops my contribution from 3.16% to 3.07%. So that's one way to estimate the cost if you are actually building the pioneer.

 

[Stalker0]

Something that is also worth noting. While we are focusing on settling during this era, these results do in some ways inform another decision.....whether to annex or puppet during this era. The results of an annexed city versus a pioneer are similar, both gain a certain amount of land. Pioneers need more worker support early but Annex cities have to get over resistance and build the courthouse. Annexed cities will actually often have less infrastructure than a pioneer city depending on how the conquest goes. Any difference in population is made up pretty quickly, getting to a size 6-7 city is really fast as a pioneer.

 

[Stalker0]

The Power of Puppets (well....actually the lameness of puppets)

Another what if. What if the colony did not increase our science %? Like a puppet city, all my yields are pure profit. So how much would a puppet have to contribute to hit that same increase. To keep this simple, I will assume no culture production or loss (so culture % is 0). So our science % has to be 3.16% to match the original colony. Note that it takes more culture to move the % needle than science, so I'm being kind to the puppet here. If I had instead chosen culture and kept science at 0, the puppet would have an even greater hill to climb.

Answer is 6,400 science, or ~38 SPT. If we use the normal puppet math (80% of science is lost), that's 190 SPT! If we assume that 50% is done through instant yields (which are not subject to the puppet penalty as far as I know).... than that would be 114 SPT. And for the ultimate wag, 50% of instant yields and only 60% is lost (imperalism), that would be 66.5 SPT.

This is telling, because even if we assume a puppet was able to generate the same infrastructure just as quickly (which we know is patently false), a puppet could not generate those kinds of numbers continously. So I think its reasonable to say that regardless of whether you think the colony is generating a "good" amount of science overall, a puppet would actually have been much less yield efficient.

 

[azum4roll]

I'm lost here. Why would a puppet need to produce anything to break even?