A pair of Qs~

Shr3dZ · January 26, 2005, 13:58

My first has to do with pop-rushing. The more I read strategies the more I see that ppl use it, I personally never have - but thats about to change! Im just wondering about the particulars, how many resources will it grant you? At what city size do you perfer to do it? Do you rather rush for a city improvement or a unit?

And my second has to do with the OCN, I dont know what it stands for but I know what it means - could it be Optimum City Number? Anyways, your OCN announced when the people want a FP right? So what happens if you exceed it, more corruption in all cities? How much? Does anyone really care, I always keep building cities if there is land to be had.

TIA!

joncnunn · January 26, 2005, 14:38

pop rushing yields 20 shields. UNLESS you haven't started the unit/improvement, in which case the cost in pop is doubled.

Yes, OCN = Optimum City Number
CRN = City Rank Number, sometimes also stated as CN.

You need to have at least 1/2 the raw unmodified OCN for that map size to be able to build the FP, and you always get an annoucement when able to build a SW.

If a city's effective CRN > OCN as modifed by govt and difficulty level : Max corruption.

Note that building a CH and PS reduces a city's effective CRN in half each.

Also note that building the FP increases the effective OCN.

In addition, if a city has a very high CRN compared to OCN, fewer citizens may start content by default.

Originally posted by Shr3dZ
My first has to do with pop-rushing. The more I read strategies the more I see that ppl use it, I personally never have - but thats about to change! Im just wondering about the particulars, how many resources will it grant you? At what city size do you perfer to do it? Do you rather rush for a city improvement or a unit?

And my second has to do with the OCN, I dont know what it stands for but I know what it means - could it be Optimum City Number? Anyways, your OCN announced when the people want a FP right? So what happens if you exceed it, more corruption in all cities? How much? Does anyone really care, I always keep building cities if there is land to be had.

TIA!

alexman · January 26, 2005, 14:50

Originally posted by joncnunn
If a city's effective CRN > OCN as modifed by govt and difficulty level : Max corruption.

Actually, that's not necessarily true. What happens when rank is greater than the modified OCN is that the rate of increase of corruption with rank doubles.

In addition, if a city has a very high CRN compared to OCN, fewer citizens may start content by default.

That's news to me!

Everything about corruption

Solomwi · January 26, 2005, 15:15

[shameless plug]

You can go to the end of the thread alexman linked and download the spreadsheet I posted, which will let you play with hypothetical cities at various ranks and distances and see the effects of both types of corruption in any situation.

[/shameless plug]

Shr3dZ · January 26, 2005, 15:29

I dont think Im any more clear on how OCN effects corruption. Perhaps an example would be wise, something like:

Standard map - after building 15 cities you get the FP pop-up, if you build another city, what happens?

And how exactly does the CRN play into things?

/me goes to check link and spreadsheet

Solomwi · January 26, 2005, 15:43

Going past the OCN does nothing to your cities that are already founded. All it does is change the formula used to evaluate rank corruption for cities where the city rank is above that city's OCN. In other words, if you don't mind the new cities not being productive, you can expand as much as you like without fear of crippling your core cities.

Shr3dZ · January 26, 2005, 16:28

Ahhh I seeee....

With that spreadsheet it shows that the OCN for a standard map in republic is 20. So how much would a FP boost that by?

Any ideas on my pop-rush Q? What advice would you give someone about to try it for the first time?

Theseus · January 26, 2005, 17:11

Well, pretty much never poprush from scratch. Otherwise, have at it!!

Solomwi · January 26, 2005, 17:21

Just enter 1 into the N_WE (Number of corruption-reducing Wonders in Empire) box and find out.

Tip: The OCN won't change, as it's a map-dependent base number. In this thread we, myself included, have been terminologically lazy to an extent, and used OCN for a city's N_Opt, which is actually the number used in rank corruption calculation. N_Opt will change when you enter 1 for each city individually, since it is, in part, based off the OCN. I'd also recommend enter one or two into the N_i (Number of corruption-reducing improvements) box for a city and watching what happens to N_Opt.

So, to answer your question, the OCN would remain at 20, but, in the absence of any other data, the N_Opt for each city would increase by about 34% under a republic. This will change with different governments.

For the record, I tried to match the nomenclature to what alexman used, so you should be able to use his original post as a key if any of the notations escape you.

I've never much used pop-rushing, so I'm afraid I'm ill-equipped to answer that one.

latka · January 31, 2005, 01:09

Pop rushing is a trade-off. You need to decide if decreasing the size of a city is more beneficial to you than waiting and if you don't mind handling discontent citizens.

I find that a good time to pop-rush is when the decrease in size is going to be small, but at the same time, my city is about to expand in size. If a city has reached it max size, and my food stores are near full, this is also an excellent time. In essence, I am turning food into production and I don't want to waste that production, because I have reached a size limit.

The question of, "Which is better to rush, units or improvements?" depends on the situation.
A) Most Improvements will cost money, where some units may not, depending on your government and the existing size of your military.
B) The threat of war may demand a particular rush, either to increase the size of your military or to provide a better defense.
C) You existing improvements may make rushing unwise. If you have a library and you are doing 100% science, then decreasing the size of your city to build a market place would be unwise. You are not going to get any money out of it, you will have to pay maintenance for the improvement and you decrease the total amount of science that that city will produce by decreasing the population.

I find that in boarder towns, which are a distance away from my capitol, it is beneficial to work on growing the city size and then pop rushing city walls for defense and even some units. This takes the burden of defending these cities, which have little production due to corruption, off of my main cities. Good units to rush are those that have bombardment capabilities. A barracks does not affect the performance of these units, so I do not need them in the city to get the best results from the unit.

Just remember, pop rushing causes unhappiness in that city. After doing so, you may need to create some entertainers when your city increases in size again or move your entertainment slider bar to off-set the unhappiness. Pop-rushing a temple is not a bad thing, because you off-set the unhappiness with the improvement. This is probably a good thing to do in most of your cities.

Shr3dZ · January 31, 2005, 21:24

Well I just tried it a lil last night, my second city had a 'wheat' on a flood plain, so i was dragging in 5 extra food there, perfect for pop-rushing but the bad part is Im playing at Emperor level and once the city became '1 size' I had to make the only worker an entertainer OR put the lux. slider up to 40%! :*(

I didnt get a great start, i think i only have 1, maybe 2 resources to help offset the problem...

My first impressions are, unless you are desperate, or just have way too much population, dont pop-rush too much.