[NFP] So does the AI really not cheat? Spamming units

[Chefofrats]

I remember making a thread about this a few years back, but I can't find it now - I was told then that the AI does not cheat, beyond what is part of the description of each difficulty (extra combat strength, settlers, etc.)

So... how did the city from the screenshot below spam an archer every 2 turns for 10 turns? I occupied all of its productive tiles, so the archers could not have been built. After I captured the city, and had all of the tiles available, an archer build took 10 turns, and that with the 50% cost reduction from policies. Did Montezuma - at this strage reduced to that single city - earn 120 gold per turn to be able to buy an archer every two turns? How could he have had 1200 gold at this stage? And no, no chopping was involved - the city made one builder, which moved onto the rice tile and got captured by me, to be marched off the visible area.

This was on King difficulty, no mods, all available content up to and including NFP.

Here is the screenshot.

 

[JesseS]

Occupied tiles can still be worked by citizens. You just can't build a district or wonder on an occupied tile.

I count 2 forested plains hills (6 production)+1 gypsum plains hill quarry (3 production)+1 plains hill mine (3 production) for 12 total production from worked tiles. The city center adds 1 production and the palace adds 2 production. If they have 1 envoy in both of the visible military city states, that would take them to 17 base production towards units. With agoge, this comes to 25.5 production per turn, when an archer costs 60 production. They might also be in a happy city status, given that they're down to 1 city and have a luxury, which would bring them to 26 production. This means they would alternate between producing an archer every 3 and 2 turns (or maybe 3-2-2-3; I don't feel like setting up a full spreadsheet to analyze overflow).

If they took God the Forge as their pantheon for another +25% production, the city would be at 29.75 or 30.6 production per turn, depending on the amenity status.

The reason why your builds took so much longer is that the city lost population after capture and no longer had a palace. Even if you have envoys in the military city states, the city will no longer benefit from that production. It possibly had a negative amenity penalty as well.

 

[Chefofrats]

They had the desert folklore pantheon, so the extra 25% from God of the Forge does not apply. However, your explanation and math make sense, thanks! After 4 years of playing Civ VI I had no idea citizens can work occupied tiles. That makes very little sense from a realistic perspectve but I guess it makes it harder to capture cities, which is a reasonable game feature. Was it in IV or V that it was impossible? It must have been at some stage in the past or I would not have this idea in my head that those tiles become unworkable.

 

[Buktu]

Occupied tiles can still be worked by citizens. You just can't build a district or wonder on an occupied tile.

I count 2 forested plains hills (6 production)+1 gypsum plains hill quarry (3 production)+1 plains hill mine (3 production) for 12 total production from worked tiles. The city center adds 1 production and the palace adds 2 production. If they have 1 envoy in both of the visible military city states, that would take them to 17 base production towards units. With agoge, this comes to 25.5 production per turn, when an archer costs 60 production. They might also be in a happy city status, given that they're down to 1 city and have a luxury, which would bring them to 26 production. This means they would alternate between producing an archer every 3 and 2 turns (or maybe 3-2-2-3; I don't feel like setting up a full spreadsheet to analyze overflow).

If they took God the Forge as their pantheon for another +25% production, the city would be at 29.75 or 30.6 production per turn, depending on the amenity status.

The reason why your builds took so much longer is that the city lost population after capture and no longer had a palace. Even if you have envoys in the military city states, the city will no longer benefit from that production. It possibly had a negative amenity penalty as well.

On king the AI gets 20% production bonus you didn't mention so it could be 28,9 per turn without amenities. Edit: Ofc this number goes down a little since it was not god of forges. But then again with the missing AI bonus it is nearly the same as in JesseS' post again.
After you caputre the city it will
- have a penality for low loyalty
- loose some pops (so less worked tiles with production)
- loose palace, ki and envoy bonusses.
It's obvious that you will need alot of turns more to build something in that city.

 

[Siddharth Venkatesh]

They had the desert folklore pantheon, so the extra 25% from God of the Forge does not apply. However, your explanation and math make sense, thanks! After 4 years of playing Civ VI I had no idea citizens can work occupied tiles. That makes very little sense from a realistic perspectve but I guess it makes it harder to capture cities, which is a reasonable game feature. Was it in IV or V that it was impossible? It must have been at some stage in the past or I would not have this idea in my head that those tiles become unworkable.

In Civ5, you can't work occupied tiles. In fact, from what I remember, there's a radius around an enemy unit in which you can't work tiles (at least for sea tiles I don't think it was just the tile they were on).