The Three Pop Challenge

[CrazyG]

Was there any take-away from this playthrough?

This game was pretty normal until about the medieval era, when having no scientists and no bonus science from councils/universities is noticeable. Even then, its a pretty normal game with slightly weak science. Late game I would eventually lose because I don't have enough science because I don't have enough specialists and public schools depend on population.

The hard part of this challenge was having so few specialists. If you did like a 7 pop challenge (enough to get 3 or 4 specialists in a city without killing your production) you could have a pretty normal game. I think a 0 specialist/great people challenge would be more difficult than this was.

Skipping food tiles and building granaries/aqueducts/grocers put me really far ahead in all other yields. I am extremely skeptical of those buildings, spending production to get food is fundamentally dumb.

You get too much free food. These cities would have hit 10 or more population despite actively collecting as little food as possible. My bonus yield tracker had my bonus food at 13 per city in Renaissance.

 

[Stalker0]

You get too much free food. These cities would have hit 10 or more population despite actively collecting as little food as possible. My bonus yield tracker had my bonus food at 13 per city in Renaissance.

I think part of the issue is the food scaling. It takes too little food to grow to early on, but way too much to grow late. So you can shoot up to Size 10-15 cities without almost no big food sources, but pushing 25 pop cities to 30 takes a lot of effort. Its even more noticeable because those pops matter less and less as time goes on.

 

[CrazyG]

I think part of the issue is the food scaling. It takes too little food to grow to early on, but way too much to grow late. So you can shoot up to Size 10-15 cities without almost no big food sources, but pushing 25 pop cities to 30 takes a lot of effort. Its even more noticeable because those pops matter less and less as time goes on.

I hadn't thought of changing food costs, its an interesting idea that hasn't really been discussed before. Does it follow a formula, or are the numbers chosen?