Traits and city spacing
- Thread starter Spoonwood
- Start date
"Does a size-20 metro produce more gold, shields and beakers than a size-12 city on the same terrain? Sure. But it only starts producing more after it hits size 13."
I think some of this debate also revolves around playing style. C2C and many cities will work well if you capture territory. But, if you don't really capture territory and basically try to war as little as possible (like myself... see the final spoiler for COTM48 for a descpription)... at least usually... do many cities or fewer metros work out better and in what ways?
I think some of this debate also revolves around playing style. C2C and many cities will work well if you capture territory. But, if you don't really capture territory and basically try to war as little as possible (like myself... see the final spoiler for COTM48 for a descpription)... at least usually... do many cities or fewer metros work out better and in what ways?
It depends on the game. Warring is always an option in the early game on higher difficulties as it gives me a good way to win techs from a defeated AI and most players do prefer to do some early warring and wars of opportunity to gain land. If possible, I like to push for as much control as possible of my home landlmass (if im not on pangea).
As for what is better, switching to a hybrid c2c/c3c playstyle has been an adjustment. My early game was awesome but Im having trouble adjusting to the massive corruption I have now in the middle to late game. I've hit and exceeded my optimal city limit and even an FP could not help.
As for what is better, switching to a hybrid c2c/c3c playstyle has been an adjustment. My early game was awesome but Im having trouble adjusting to the massive corruption I have now in the middle to late game. I've hit and exceeded my optimal city limit and even an FP could not help.
TheOverseer714
Overseer
I have done Communism, it isn't bad, per se, just not as good as a well-oiled Republic with plenty of specialist farms. The income bonuses that Republic gets, tied to multiplier buildings, really has better income despite the size differential. My recent foray illustrated that. Before I was forced to go Communism, I was at 50-60% on the tech slider, getting 4 turn research, making 60gpt. After, I was at 90-100% tech slider and fighting to get 5-6 turn research, while losing 80gpt.
Mursi lives
Warlord
- Joined
- May 27, 2007
- Messages
- 250
Going for metros (e.g. researching sanitation ASAP) with a small/average civ may be dangerous. What if your bigger neighbour suddenly blackmails you? Will you take the risk of a war or will you let AI civs get hospitals 20 or 30 turns before they should? With their extra-loose city placement it will have a big impact on the game.
TheOverseer714
Overseer
Sure, I can hunt down something or other, or upload something from a recent game. Here is a recent one:
This was placed in the captured Zulu area.
Different game, this is a captured Ottoman area.
The Arab game, how I organize them for the domestic advisor is: ^{city name} is for a maxed out specialist town and ^^{city name} is for any specialist city.
This was placed in the captured Zulu area.
Spoiler :
Different game, this is a captured Ottoman area.
Spoiler :
The Arab game, how I organize them for the domestic advisor is: ^{city name} is for a maxed out specialist town and ^^{city name} is for any specialist city.
Spoiler :
Optional
Deity
As Doug.Lefelhocz showed us his Korea, I'll show you mine. I just learnt how you capture screenshots, so now I can show how I go about my city placing in the early game.
What I want in the early game is to capture the goodies. Often this means I end up with CxxxxC.
The first city I founded, P'yongyang, is put where I put it for the Ivory. I didn't put it right next to the Ivory, because that would mean missing out on the river, but it takes it in after a border expansion. That's good enough. It's CxxxxC between P'yongyang and Seoul, a bit wide, but that means I've claimed a fair bit of land.
Second city; Wonsan. Ideally I would have put that city one hill closer to the capital, to leave more space for an extra city right on the coast, but I was afraid that if I left space open there, the Mayans would grab it. So Wonsan went right next to the Deer and the Incense. On a tight map like this, the AI can all too easily beat you to the best spots. The Greeks had already beaten me to the Dyes, you see that in the right of the picture. I didn't go for the Dyes first thing because that's all jungle there, not very good terrain. So the Greeks got the Dyes. I still managed to get my cities in at good spots. Because what you see in the picture is basically my whole empire in the early game. There was space for one more decent city to the north, and way west I was able to squeeze in two more coastal cities. That was it. Until I conquered the Mayans. The Mayans hadn't got their city placement right. With them being Agricultural, and this being Demigod, they should have beaten me to at least one of those luxuries. But they chose to settle somewhere else. They still had Spices in their starting spot, but not much else. When I got Iron, through a trade with the Byzantines, they were soon gone. Oh, you can see something shiny in the left bottom corner, but that's not Iron, it's Silver; I've modded my game slightly.
Anyways, I'm not sure this adds much to the debate. I find these debates about CxxC and CxxxxC often a bit abstract. It's the first couple of cities that are the crucial ones, on a tight map at least. They need to cover the crucial spots. City spacing is probably mainly a discussion for spacious maps.
What I want in the early game is to capture the goodies. Often this means I end up with CxxxxC.
The first city I founded, P'yongyang, is put where I put it for the Ivory. I didn't put it right next to the Ivory, because that would mean missing out on the river, but it takes it in after a border expansion. That's good enough. It's CxxxxC between P'yongyang and Seoul, a bit wide, but that means I've claimed a fair bit of land.
Second city; Wonsan. Ideally I would have put that city one hill closer to the capital, to leave more space for an extra city right on the coast, but I was afraid that if I left space open there, the Mayans would grab it. So Wonsan went right next to the Deer and the Incense. On a tight map like this, the AI can all too easily beat you to the best spots. The Greeks had already beaten me to the Dyes, you see that in the right of the picture. I didn't go for the Dyes first thing because that's all jungle there, not very good terrain. So the Greeks got the Dyes. I still managed to get my cities in at good spots. Because what you see in the picture is basically my whole empire in the early game. There was space for one more decent city to the north, and way west I was able to squeeze in two more coastal cities. That was it. Until I conquered the Mayans. The Mayans hadn't got their city placement right. With them being Agricultural, and this being Demigod, they should have beaten me to at least one of those luxuries. But they chose to settle somewhere else. They still had Spices in their starting spot, but not much else. When I got Iron, through a trade with the Byzantines, they were soon gone. Oh, you can see something shiny in the left bottom corner, but that's not Iron, it's Silver; I've modded my game slightly.
Anyways, I'm not sure this adds much to the debate. I find these debates about CxxC and CxxxxC often a bit abstract. It's the first couple of cities that are the crucial ones, on a tight map at least. They need to cover the crucial spots. City spacing is probably mainly a discussion for spacious maps.
With that few cities, unless you play the 5CC variant, I'd think even metro-style players would want to build more cities.... at least 10 for the FP. It looks like you have some nice river spots (as a builder, I do NOT want to build aqueducts if I can avoid it).
timerover51
Deity
I am pretty much a dedicated builder for the early to mid-game, and then maybe war in the late game, but I have no problem with aqueducts if the resources are there to support a good city. The map generator is really off when it comes to rivers and water supplies, as you can tell when you look at a real life map verses a generated one. Not sure if that is deliberate or an unexpected side effect of the generation algorithm. One thing that does help is on my custom maps, I boost the population of a town from 6 to 8, and those extra two citizens really make a difference. However, if the map is really bad when it comes to rivers, not even considering fresh water lakes, i will add some in appropriate spots, normally running from mountain ranges or hills to the coast, about where they would be located.
One thing that I have noticed is that a lot of times, I have a fresh water lake in the middle of a desert. I need to start keeping track of that, but wonder if any one else has encountered that. Since I live about 4 miles from Lake Michigan, one of the Great Lakes, plus teach World Geography part-time, I do find that a bit odd.
Optional
Deity
Well, some border extension seemed desirable to say the least!
Your reasoning about the Forbidden Palace is, if you look at it carefully, amusingly upside down.
If 10 cities means you can build the Forbidden Palace, it means 10 cities create a jump in your corruption. You've reached a corruption level that wasn't there before, and that corruption level gets mitigated again if you have the Forbidden Palace built. For what would I need the Forbidden Palace at 6 or 7 cities?: lol:
It's not always at 10 cities that you can build the Forbidden Palace, it depends on your game settings. I believe you need to have reached half the number of optimal cities to get that little jump in your corruption, and get the option to build the Forbidden Palace. The number of optimal cities is determined by the map size.
del62
Deity
I have started using a system were I build a few cities close to tmy capital for early production, and a second set at what would be good placement round my capital for metros, i start to run down to abandon these close cities just when i get steam, industrialisation and make a beeline for sanitation, when the smaller cities are abandoned there is a corruption reduction in the metros and productivity and commerce from these cities goes through the roof.
This way you get the early benefits and the later benefits and you have a few cities early on dedicated to producing units, with barracks while you build up culture and inferstructure in you new metros
This way you get the early benefits and the later benefits and you have a few cities early on dedicated to producing units, with barracks while you build up culture and inferstructure in you new metros
del62
Deity
new metros should be pre planned metros
del62
Deity
on forbidden palaces the option to build seems to come much quicker on medium size maps i have played recently than the huge maps i had played on
"If 10 cities means you can build the Forbidden Palace, it means 10 cities create a jump in your corruption. You've reached a corruption level that wasn't there before, and that corruption level gets mitigated again if you have the Forbidden Palace built."
I assumed a standard sized map... so 10 cities for a standard sized map. Second, with the Forbidden Palace built (as long you don't have lots of cities very, very distant from your capital), you'll have more commerce and shields *empire wide* with 10 cities than you will with 5. Or at least the research rate I've had on 10+ city games outclasses that of 5 city game. 10 cities DO create a jump in the corruption rate over 9 cities... meaning each city does less. This doesn't imply that empire-wide you'd prefer 9 cities over 10 though, since you can generally get more commerce and more production with more cities... even if each individual city works less efficiently. For example, let's say you have a 5 city empire with each city producting 2 commerce on average. You'll have 10 commerce for that empire. Now let's say your cities produce 1.83333... commerce on average if you build a 6 city empire. You'll have 11 commerce overall from that empire, so even though you have more corruption per city commerce-wise, you have a better empire with 6 cities than you do with 5. With the FP, I'd think you actually end up with more commerce per city with 10 cities than with 9 cities (though I haven't done the calculations)... or your commerce per city for 10 cities will at least come rather close to the commerce per city for 9 cities. No doubt, it works out that you get more overall production and commerce empire-wide for 10 cities than you do with 9. And that's my reasoning (notice I didn't mention corruption in the original comment).
I assumed a standard sized map... so 10 cities for a standard sized map. Second, with the Forbidden Palace built (as long you don't have lots of cities very, very distant from your capital), you'll have more commerce and shields *empire wide* with 10 cities than you will with 5. Or at least the research rate I've had on 10+ city games outclasses that of 5 city game. 10 cities DO create a jump in the corruption rate over 9 cities... meaning each city does less. This doesn't imply that empire-wide you'd prefer 9 cities over 10 though, since you can generally get more commerce and more production with more cities... even if each individual city works less efficiently. For example, let's say you have a 5 city empire with each city producting 2 commerce on average. You'll have 10 commerce for that empire. Now let's say your cities produce 1.83333... commerce on average if you build a 6 city empire. You'll have 11 commerce overall from that empire, so even though you have more corruption per city commerce-wise, you have a better empire with 6 cities than you do with 5. With the FP, I'd think you actually end up with more commerce per city with 10 cities than with 9 cities (though I haven't done the calculations)... or your commerce per city for 10 cities will at least come rather close to the commerce per city for 9 cities. No doubt, it works out that you get more overall production and commerce empire-wide for 10 cities than you do with 9. And that's my reasoning (notice I didn't mention corruption in the original comment).
Optional
Deity
Doug.Lefelhocz, I'm completely with you here.
Del62, it's interesting to mention the temp town policy. It's a variant that hasn't come up in the discussions for a while. I don't really know whether there are any strong arguments against it.
Del62, it's interesting to mention the temp town policy. It's a variant that hasn't come up in the discussions for a while. I don't really know whether there are any strong arguments against it.
timerover51
Deity
That is a thought. The Dutch and the settlers on the Great Plains in the US were using wind power for irrigation long before electricity was available. I will take a look at the tech tree and see what would be a reasonable tech to indicate the use of wind power on land.
June10: After further review, it looks like either Invention or Physics would probably be appropriate advances to use. Your comments on this, Meisen.
Bartleby
Remembers laughter
I have used the temp town strategy too, but only in games that go all the way to 2050 AD.
For regular "fast finish" games there isn't enough time to thin the towns down.
For regular "fast finish" games there isn't enough time to thin the towns down.
AutomatedTeller
Frequent poster
I may be misunderstanding something here, but it sounds like people think that adding a city makes your empire less effective and it doesn't (assuming that you aren't changing the rank corruption of your core with it) - adding a city does nothing to the corruption level of your core cities. Once you past the tipping point in rank corruption, cities added after that will have much higher corruption - adding the FP changes that tipping point.
