A butt-burning occurrence

[Jim W]

Every once in a while, I find myself with a problem city. That is, it never seems to grow at a decent rate, and is quite often working on a food-deficit.

I build marketplaces, granaries, and harbours, and still find myself with a choice of putting out four shiuleds and no grain, or putting out one grain, and maybe one shield.


there must be a way to deal with this, but I have yet to find it. Any advice?

Jim W

[SCG]

I'm not sure I understand the problem. If there is a food deficit, irrigate or terraform. Granted, this takes settlers, but then I try and have at least 1 per city, if not more, just so I can deal with the day to day things like that (and building roads, mines, pollution cleanup etc).

If you are a representative govt, your city may be in WLTxD? If that is the case, try and produce food 2 at a time, instead of 1 (irrigate 2 tiles at a time instead of 1) since if you have a surplus of 1 food, the city will grow, and if it doesn't have a food tile to put the next worker, you will again be in food deficit.

Harbors are nice for a quick boost to food surplus, as are supermarkets. Graneries just prevent the food supply from being erased everytime the city grows by traditional means. If nothing else, send food caravans?

[Tom DeMille]

Well first off, learn from your mistake. You have probably put down a city where there are lots of mountains/hills, and so its potential for anything but an ICS type city are minimal. I know this has happended to me before (usually I have cities like this that are mining an iron special, so they can at least support a few military units if nothing else).

Secondly, name it something like "Runt" or "Pathetic" and leave it . It's probably not worth the bother of trying to upgrade the town's terrain enough to make a real city from it.

[jpk]

I agree with Tom DeMille. If you are interested in cities with a large population, stick to locations with lots of grassland or at least plains. Certain specials will help with population growth, fish, oases, and wheat come to mind. But they only help so much.

You may have a reason for building a city in a certain location and that location will limit population growth. Live with it. It's only one city. Who cares if it's small? (This assumes you are not playing OCC)

For the first few cities it is probably a good idea to limit yourself to locations that will ensure good population growth.

[Jim W]

quote: Originally posted by Tom DeMille on 06-23-2000 09:37 AM Well first off, learn from your mistake. You have probably put down a city where there are lots of mountains/hills, and so its potential for anything but an ICS type city are minimal. I know this has happended to me before (usually I have cities like this that are mining an iron special, so they can at least support a few military units if nothing else). Secondly, name it something like "Runt" or "Pathetic" and leave it . It's probably not worth the bother of trying to upgrade the town's terrain enough to make a real city from it.

This is the bad thing about it. It wasn't my chosen territory, I stumbled on an advanced tribe, with a buffalo and a fish in their territory. There were also several hills, and the rest was plains.

With two specials, even moderate specials such as these, I ought to have been able to grow.

Oughtn't I?

Jim W

[Smash]

Advanced tribes always seem to be 1 square from the correct location.I recommend disbanding ASAP and relocating the 1 or 2 squares needed.
Make sure any units attached to that city(if any) are resupported and any settlers are resupported or build new cities before the last citizen is "gone".(in case it was larger than size 1)

Course you would do this a soon as you found it.Sounds like this one has been around awhile and may contain several improvements.You could still disband but maybe engineers could do a little terraforming.
IE-if the city square is plains,then terraform it to grassland.2 or 3 other squares could also be terraformed to make the city more viable

[Steve Clark]

I really hate advanced tribes that pop up outside of my territory. One of the reasons is that it screws up my happy people when I add one more city to the max 10 that I can have (before Mike's). Advanced tribe cities for me will either get disbanded or left undefended.

[Sortub]

I agree that if the obsequious denizens of the "advanced tribe" want to join you, particularly if they are undefendable, they should be disbanded ASAP and "raise stakes" for you.

Speaking of the subject, it seems like maybe there should be a way go give one of your cities to another civ, lock, stock, and barrel, with units, etc. Ideas?

[geofelt]

Sounds not too bad to me. If there are fish, then a harbor would help. Buffalo and plains can be irrigated. It takes longer, but a fully developed plains city can be very good. Irrigate the tiles with a settler that is supported from a different city. Once you get refrigeration, it can really grow.

[Jim W]

quote: Originally posted by Smash on 06-23-2000 04:36 PM Advanced tribes always seem to be 1 square from the correct location.I recommend disbanding ASAP and relocating the 1 or 2 squares needed. Make sure any units attached to that city(if any) are resupported and any settlers are resupported or build new cities before the last citizen is "gone".(in case it was larger than size 1) Course you would do this a soon as you found it.Sounds like this one has been around awhile and may contain several improvements.You could still disband but maybe engineers could do a little terraforming. IE-if the city square is plains,then terraform it to grassland.2 or 3 other squares could also be terraformed to make the city more viable

Disbanding a city has always seemed to me to be a negative thing to do. Not ot mention that the city is way up there in size, and the year is presently 1760 AD. The process of disbnaing, as I recall, is quite a long one, and I have a feeling I wouldn't be done by the time the game ended.

The4 big question is, with two specials in the territory, how could a city fail to grow?

Jim W

[Smash]

How big is this city?

if it was say size 4 and you have some gold,which you should given the game year, you can rush 4 settlers/engineers in 4-8 turns.and build 4 new cities or send the first 3 together,have 1 build and the others "join city" then disband the city.Shouldn't take anymore than 10-12 turns

[Jim W]

Fascinating new turn of events; the Twaregi captured the city in question. Being the kind of person I am, I commissioned a diplomat as soon as possible, ran over, and bribed the city back.

Surprisingly enough, it now produces two food beyond requirement, as well as three shields.

Maybe I should do this to every city I have trouble with.

On the other hand, it does mean that there is something in the game that will allow me to make such a city profitable.

Further, the Twaregi who captured the city had not yet gotten to Engineers, so the best they could do was the kind of Settler improvements, and they didn't even do any of that, near as I can see.

Unfortunately, we are now up in the mid-1800s, and there is no way to get to AC from where I presently am, so I think the game will have to be trashcanned.

Jim W

[Ken Hinds]

Jim,

There is in deed a way to fix the problem with this city. Use the "Auto-Settler" command "K". If you read through the revision and bug fix information file that came with the game you will see that Auto-Settler is an intended feature and they even did some additional work to get it to function the way that the designers intended.

The same way that you can turn your city management over to the AI, so too can you let the AI run your settlers. The nice thing about this is, just like settlers for AI civs, your settler can now irrigate with no water source. You do have to keep an eye on the settler though. He won't found any new cities, but it will do roads, irrigation, and mining. Just make sure that he doesn't do things like irrigate your pheasants or mine your peat bogs.

I haven't used the feature often, but it does work well where your gold or iron mountain is surrounded by hills with isolated pockets of grassland, but no easy access to water. Park the settler on a grassland tile and automate. He will usually stay there until he has built a road and an irrigation system.

Ken