Whatever happened to the size 40 city!

[Pickles78uk]

in civ 2 and civ 3 i would frequently get a size 30+ city...i havent got one past 20 in civ 4 yet

I know the game has changed and the larger the city gets the more unhealthy and unhappy the city gets, however i still havent managed to get a really BIG city.

am i doing something very wrong...i space my cities nicely...especially my first 5 or 6...

whats the largest cities you have encountered? either taking them by conquest or that you have built?

Tom

[Sparta]

Largest city I've gotten was 21.

[clarkcd]

I had a size 30 or so city but that was in a very large floodplain with lots of irrigation.

[vmxa1]

No extra food for rails.

[Nacht]

Since future techs make happiness/health a non issue and merchants can add food, in the long run, city size is potentially unlimited.

[Kuciwalker]

Merchants add 1 food. Not enough to feed themselves. You cannot have an infinitely large city.

[Soren Johnson]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Merchants add 1 food. Not enough to feed themselves. You cannot have an infinitely large city.

Great Specialists don't consume food.

[Makahlua]

Nothing wrong with your spacing, pickles - it seems to be very terrain dependent in CIV. I think the 'no extra food with rails' is a big bit of the difference. You do get some of that back with Biology, and the food resource squares, but it doesn't quite make up -all- the difference.

[cal_01]

I -think- I got up to size 27 on the Earth Scenario.

[Stageon]

Even though great specialists don't consume food, the number you will get in a game is limited, so this still limits the size of the city somewhat.

[Pickles78uk]

ok thats cool. I have no problems with my size 18-19 cities they are still very good at producing and churn out great ppl quite nicely. But i was just wondering if it was me that was doing something not quite right! i do miss the stupidly large cities tho! they were fun

tom

[Blake]

I had a size 26 city last game. It was a grasslands river city, mostly farms, mines and watermills. I wasn't specifically trying to grow it big.

It was not however, a spectacular city. Smaller cities had the honor of highest production.

Maximum city size under normal conditions should be 45ish, but health is going to present a problem. 35 should be quite doable even without insane health levels. I guess you'd start with stuff that produces hammers to build the global theatre and national epic and stuff, then just farm the hammer stuff over and rely on engineers/priests for hammers (and rushbuy).

[Sarxis]

I think it is good that we can't grow megalopolises - makes you have to plan out workers and specilialists more. And considering that specialists are more than just 'overflow' for extreme pop growth, this makes sense.

[khumak]

My largest was a size 28 city on a coast with 2 fish, 3 clams, and cows within it's city radii. Only had 6 land tiles within my city radii and 4 of those were hills. No brainer for a specialist city. Since it was my first city it also wound up being my "wonder city". During my Representation/Beaurocracy/Pacifism phase that city was putting out more research and commerce than the rest of my empire combined and wound up building every single wonder in the game except for the couple of national wonders I had to spread out due to the 2 per city limit. A high food city like that with a few great prophets and great engineers thrown in is just a total monster of a city. Especially if you build Ankor Wat for the extra priest shields.

[Pickles78uk]

quite honestly though you dont have to have size 40 cities! i just won a cultural victory on prince with 9 cities in total, 3 of which were my culture capitols, they were 10-12 in size and never needed to be bigger!

tom