small is good?

[Random_Person_A]

in reading all of the pre release info and articles, i keep seeing things about them making smaller civs able to still be competitive(they compared it to switzerland), but have yet to read any specifics. i was just curious if anyone knew how/if they are going to make this possible, where its not really like a snowball. it'd be nice to know that if you develop a little late and slow your still not screwed.

 

[HourlyDaily]

Culturally strong city = better defence inside city. Some of the game mechanics seem to indicate that having an imbalance of too many units and not many cities will economically cripple your civ (improved system over the old upkeep/cost per unit)
Some of us are assuming that in order to grow big, you have to carefully manage the cities you have, healthwise etc. and expanding too quickly without some infrastructure may cause you some problems.

You can pull diplomatic strings too - peace brokering or asking another two nations to go to war (without you being involved)

We don't know everything about how its going to work - but maybe small can still be competitive is a good assumption. Or small with access to all of an important resource is a good position to be in.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

These are the ways I think it will work:

1) More cities=higher cost to maintain current level of culture and tech rate.

2) Each city will cost money to maintain, but cities with valuable tiles will often reap a profit overall. This means that the quality of the land worked will have greater importance for a nation than merely the quantity of land.

3) Fewer and Larger cities will be better able to specialise-meaning that nations might start leaning towards science, or industry or commerce-and barter this advantage with other nations for the things they need. This may allow small nations to get wealth and influence far beyond their size.

4) Specialization also allows for a greater chance of Great People, this may be a prime way in which a small nation can zoom ahead of a larger rival-as these people can be used to get massive boosts to science or industry or culture et al.

5) Cities with larger populations probably have lower health-and thus require new infrastructure to keep the people healthy, money and production used for this is money and production not used to create more settlers for ever more expansion.

Please note that this is about 70% speculation (at least) and 30% what we know from interviews, but I get a feeling that much of it will prove to be true.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[joethreeblah]

These are the ways I think it will work:

1) More cities=higher cost to maintain current level of culture and tech rate.

2) Each city will cost money to maintain, but cities with valuable tiles will often reap a profit overall. This means that the quality of the land worked will have greater importance for a nation than merely the quantity of land.

3) Fewer and Larger cities will be better able to specialise-meaning that nations might start leaning towards science, or industry or commerce-and barter this advantage with other nations for the things they need. This may allow small nations to get wealth and influence far beyond their size.

4) Specialization also allows for a greater chance of Great People, this may be a prime way in which a small nation can zoom ahead of a larger rival-as these people can be used to get massive boosts to science or industry or culture et al.

5) Cities with larger populations probably have lower health-and thus require new infrastructure to keep the people healthy, money and production used for this is money and production not used to create more settlers for ever more expansion.

Please note that this is about 70% speculation (at least) and 30% what we know from interviews, but I get a feeling that much of it will prove to be true.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I love it. I love your theories.
Whenever someone wonders about how it's going to be, you have the best "I think it's going to be like this" ideas of anyone.

 

[Superkrest]

id have to agree..aussie you have some awsome ideas..

it just leaves me to wonder if you sleep while tapes of civilization theory are playing in the backround..lol J/k of course.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Oh gee, thanks guys, I'm all red . Now I just hope I am right about all 5 points (I am more than 50% certain about points #4 and #5, just based on the interviews alone-the rest is primarily speculation on my part).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Avayaman]

what about technology being free after a certain numberm (large number) of turns? that's what evens out the playing field for small countries. that way, you will still be behind strong countries, but you will never be left behind.

 

[Soren Johnson]

Aussie is more or less correct. Another point in favor of more advanced smaller cities are the new Small Wonders (now called "National" Wonders).

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OMG, OMG, OMG-We have a SOREN SIGHTING!!!! Oh wow, I can't believe that I was so close to the mark!!! Are you saying that I am more or less correct on all five points? 'Cause, if so, that would be so cool !! One other thing, whilst you're here, if you don't mind of course. Could you clarify this comment:

Another point in favor of more advanced smaller cities are the new Small Wonders (now called "National" Wonders).

When you say this, did you mean to say smaller cities , or did you mean smaller nations ? Because it felt like you meant the latter, but I could be wrong.
Anyway, its great to see you here, Soren, and can't wait for Civ4-hope its all coming along great !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Meleager]

Soren Sighting!

Good to here!

Are the national wonders more city specific -> therefor helping in city specialisation, As opposed to benifiting the whole civilization?
Or perhaps their benifits decrease over cities (distance)?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Oh, Soren, I do have one more question I would love to ask-whilst you're around. I do understand if you feel you can't answer it right now!
Will there be any relationship between the building of units and a city's health? i.e. will building lots of units from the same city reduce that city's health and, I am guessing, reduce its population growth? Its just that I speculated on how health will impact on city growth, and this was sort of tied into that. Any answer you could give would be very much appreciated !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Soren Johnson]

OMG, OMG, OMG-We have a SOREN SIGHTING!!!! Oh wow, I can't believe that I was so close to the mark!!! Are you saying that I am more or less correct on all five points? 'Cause, if so, that would be so cool !! One other thing, whilst you're here, if you don't mind of course. Could you clarify this comment:

When you say this, did you mean to say smaller cities , or did you mean smaller nations ? Because it felt like you meant the latter, but I could be wrong.
Anyway, its great to see you here, Soren, and can't wait for Civ4-hope its all coming along great !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

oops, you got me. I meant smaller civs...

and, yes, the national wonders are mostly all city-specific (+100% science, etc...)

 

[joethreeblah]

Oh, Soren, I do have one more question I would love to ask-whilst you're around. I do understand if you feel you can't answer it right now!
Will there be any relationship between the building of units and a city's health? i.e. will building lots of units from the same city reduce that city's health and, I am guessing, reduce its population growth? Its just that I speculated on how health will impact on city growth, and this was sort of tied into that. Any answer you could give would be very much appreciated !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

And he's gone.

You should probably throw up your own thread on this or bring it to everyone's attention.Isn't that 5 new points that are "more or less correct"??

I think I encouraged him to write that because of my love letter

I kind of like Joe - THE BLAH!

 

[Meleager]

I've been thinking about this.

A side effect:
Less Cities = Less time spent on expansion = Faster game?
I've got no problem with this whatsoever. I'd love to get straight to killing people rather then spending time building settler after settler.
I imagine that some people arn't going to like this at all though.

Another side effect:
This ties in with maps being smaller. Lots of people complain about smaller maps but scince you got less cities it all balances out.

Overall sounds like a much "tighter" game. Cool.

 

[The_Architect]

Questions:

Does this mean that if I have a smaller civ, would be at an advantage in some sense. Actually what I wish to ask is that if I have a large nation instead, would it be difficult to manage it then a smaller civ and the large number of cities would not really be of any use?

Also, what about population? Will smaller nations with better cities will have more pop and more prodution or a more skilful pop.?

Is there a danger of a large civ breaking into smaller civs via a civil war?

Finally, if you wish to win a conquest victory without increasing the number of you cities but your empire is it possible to enslave cities (like UK did to Asian and African nation in the 18th and 19th centuries?).

 

[playshogi]

Just wondering
Small wonders can only be built by small civs?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

No Playshogi, Small Wonders are things like Battlefield Medicine and Heroic Epic from Civ3. They are 'Wonders' which can be built once by each civ-unlike Great Wonders which can be built by only one civ-ever. By renaming them 'National Wonders', they are probably trying to eliminate the confusion over what Small Wonders actually are.
Also, shame Soren is gone now, I was so hoping that we could 'draw him out' with regards to my whole 'Units and City Health' theory, or get more detail on the whole National Wonders thing. Oh well, with only a couple of months or so left before release, I guess he is a very busy man right now, and we ought to be thankful for every sighting we get !
Once again, thanks for the info, Soren, you Da Man !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Meleager]

Maybe we could start an "ask fraxis" thread so that next time they come round we are all ready?

Just devling into the broader effects of this...

Large Civs...
More Overall Production (scince corruption is gone)
More Overall Population
More Rescources (= better health, better happiness, better trade)
More Overall Unit Support?
Acess to better tiles

Small Civs...
More Money
Hence more science
Better city improvements? (less sheilds (opps hammers) on settlers and soilders)
more imports

I didn't factor in the specialisations cause a large civ could still do that i think.

Now latter on in the game your cities will be larger (weather you expand or not) meaning that large civs will eventually overcome the money problems (scince they have a bigger population anyway). So unless the effect is significant enough in the earlier ages you may still get the steam roller problem. Ofcourse not having money OR science means you are effectively stuffed at the begining.

Its an interesting balance. It seems to me that in the begining smaller civs will rule but latter larger ones will. This is actually quite good for gameplay IMHO because it means that during the entire game you are trying to expand but not too fast. This will mean that you have a constant goal or challenge. Could it stop the "I know I have won early" problem?

in short...
large civs ongoing challenge = keep your economy alive
small civs ongoing problem = make sure you are big enough for the end game

 

[The_Architect]

But more cities should not be same as more population. India is 1/7th the size of US and has a pop. of 1 bil. While US is 'only' 280 mil.

There should be some more factors deciding upon population. Well, in India the main reason for high pop. is that while better medical facilities are available to decrease the infant mortality rate, aa large part of the pop. is uneducated and does not understand the importance of keeping the size of family small.

Hence, while more hospitals should add to the growth rate, literacy and high culture should work towards balancing the pop. with resources available and making the pop. more skilful.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, Architect, consider it this way. India has several very high population cities (most lacking the infrastructure necessary to sustain them-like hospitals and aqueducts in Civ terms) and probably 5 times as many small villages and towns-which together constitute its 1 billion population.
So, how would this work under the new system? Well, firstly these overpopulated cities will be both unhappy and unhealthy as a result of the lack of infrastructure-thus being far less productive than they could be (yet still costing a pretty penny to maintain) wheras the large collection of towns and villages will lead to a far more diffuse culture-spread and much lower tech rate-a fact made even worse by the total maintainance cost of these population centres. Yet, unless they have lots of luxuries, food or other resources to trade, then they have precious little source of income-hence leading to the current living standards we currenly see in RL India. The US, OTOH, stayed very small for a large part of its early history (up until the mid-19th century) with much of its population located in a few key population centres, this allowed them to focus more money into techs and culture and infrastructure developement. Then, when they felt ready, they started a huge Westward expansion-using their wealthy East Coast cities to help subsidise these new settlements. Then, once they all became self sufficient-due to access to valuable resources and the like, America used its vast wealth to purchase cities from the French and Spanish, whilst waging a war against the Mexicans for the rest. See, even in RL, the world behaves much like it sounds like it will in Civ4 !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.