Too many cities?

[Gray_Lensman]

It's been awhile since I have been able to get back into Civ III, especially "Conquests". I've run into what I hope is a new change, though I'm not sure if it was not implemented in PTW and I just hadn't run into it while playing that version.

I'm playing a "Conquests" game at Emperor level, current only at Despotism govt. level, and have 11 cities being developed. Whenever I try to start another new city I get a message box "Too many cities". I am hopeful this is a despotism limit change, even though it is affecting me at the moment. Anybody else ever run into this limit before?

[Jaybe]

Are you WAY behind?!

The only reference to "Too many cities" is that 512 cities have already been built on the map (by all civs, combined). There is no limit to number of cities based on government, as in the Call to Power series.

[Gray_Lensman]

Darn! I didn't know there was a total cities limit of 512. Are you sure? I had modified the the starting Civs to allow for all 31 and also adjusted the map size to maximum dimensions of 362 x 362, and deleted ICBMs, but retained Tactical Nukes. I wanted a Conquest game, not a Nuke fest. Sounds like back to the drawing board for my modifications. Oh, Well, I needed to get reaquainted with the interface/rules anyhow. Thanks for the reply.

[Dis]

31 civs and 362 map. yep sounds like you have 512 cities.

[Gray_Lensman]

Seems like a ridiculous limitation "512", when you can adjust the total AI Civs to 31 and the map size to 362 X 362. Can't wait for Civ IV. Maybe it will be less limiting.

My original thought was that there was a limitation placed on being in Despotic govt., which if I recall a while back was one of the possible fixes that was being considered for limiting "pop-rushing".

[Proserpine]

Sound like you need to conquer and raze a few

[Jaybe]

Another way to avoid the 512 city limitation is to not allow cities on yucky terrain types.
No cities on Tundra, Desert, Jungle, (even forests!).

Increase the chop time of forests, increase the Clear Wetlands time or even delay it until steam power.

[Antrine]

Limit settlers! Thanks to the editor there are lots of ways to do this.

[Gray_Lensman]

Limit Settlers? Now that sounds intriquing. I've been studying the editor for a while but how does one go about limiting settlers? In what way?

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Gray_Lensman
Seems like a ridiculous limitation "512", when you can adjust the total AI Civs to 31 and the map size to 362 X 362. Can't wait for Civ IV. Maybe it will be less limiting.

My original thought was that there was a limitation placed on being in Despotic govt., which if I recall a while back was one of the possible fixes that was being considered for limiting "pop-rushing".

They may not increase it in Civ4 either. Imagine that 362 map with 1200 cities and 31 civs. It would be a real system killer.

It already is with 512. Not that many people want the game to be bigger, most do not even like huge maps at 160.

[Dis]

That's probably true.

I'd say the best solution is to limit building in tundra and desert.

[Gray_Lensman]

My thoughts are to leave the Tundra and Desert city capability alone. (After all there are numerous cities in the world founded in Tundra and Desert (Tripoli in Libya being an example of the former)

However, preventing cities from being built in forests/jungle terrain sounds interesting because you could give the settler unit the added capability of clearing the forest/jungle area like a worker unit, possibly at a reduced work rate since it's not a pure worker unit.

[MattPilot]

the AI not only tries to figure out where the best place for a city is, they will also build cities to grab land. This means they will build cities .... everywhere!!

So what i did was lower the number of culture points required to expand the boarders significantely. So now you got rapid boarder expansions (i think i set it to 5, instead of 10), and the AI doesn't put down a city everywhere. Infact, they spread out quite nicely, like i do.

[Jaybe]

I've gone the other way with culture expansion. I left the expansion factor alone and reduced culture generation of 2+ generators by 1, 6+ generators by 2.

Oh, and re building too many cities: It happens much slower if settlers cost 120 shields and 3-population (or more)!

[Antrine]

Settler production:

Not until nine techs up the tree, with no tech trading enabled and two or three techs possible early start.

When available for build, cost 200, pop 4.

Otherwise, each AI begins with 8 settlers ( human six ). One small wonder can be built early on that spits settlers out every 7 turns. Most AI’s do this.

Now for contrast, two of the units that are provided at start in limited quantities enslave ‘settlers’ via battles. These two units cannot be built however until later, though not to much later and then staggered.

This creates random and cyclic growth that does not overwhelm the game.

Fast start, but a slow grind for good long while, growth happens sure enough but not ever hog wild and never with a sense of settler pollution.

Cities can be founded anywhere including mountains, volcanoes etc.

I really like these boards, there are just so many good ideas cooking about, and I get them here all the time.

So I am off to mess with culture generation, that angle sounds intriguing !!