SSC = Starving Silicon City

[La Fayette]

City A
Monarchy,Size 8 (with cathedral, temple and 3 units inside, for example), + Library,University, Copernicus and Isaac.
City square + 5 grassland squares provide 18 food/turn (surplus 2). They also provide 6 to 12 arrows (river or no river) and a few shields. 3 Einstein provide the best they can.
No trade route yet.
City A is a typical SSC under growth. Beakers produced: 9*6=54 by the Einsteins + 8*6=48 by the arrows (12 arrows and cursor at sciencemax=70%) (total=102 beakers).

City B
Monarchy, Size 20 (with temple and 3 units inside, for example), + Library, University, Copernicus and Isaac + aqueduct and sewer system.
City square + 4 grassland squares provide 15 food/turn ( 25 food/turn needed to avoid starving). They also provide 5 to 10 arrows (river?) and a few shields. 16 Einstein provide the best they can.
No trade route yet.
City B is a typical "Starving Silicon City". Beakers produced: 48*6=288 by the Einsteins + 7*6=42 by the arrows (total=330 beakers).

The growth from A to B requires Construction, Sanitation, 12 turns and 24 food caravans (the price of 2 modern wonders).
1 food caravan fills 1/2 food box (containing 105 food in city B). This means that city B needs a sister city able to produce 12 shields/turn to avoid starving.

Main advantages:
Colossus, Republic, Market Place, Colosseum, Mike, JSB, not needed; you can even sell your cathedral.
You just stay in Monarchy and go on conquering if you feel like it.
Your rate of research remains very high during growth from A to B (and of course you don't forget to establish 3 strong trade routes, probably giving 20 arrows, hence 80 beakers on top of the 330 that I mentioned).

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aux bords mystérieux du monde occidental

[Edward]

La Fayette,

Let me see if I have this straight.

You start out with city A (8 population).

You use the one-time food bonus from the incoming food caravans to grow to size 20 or so. As you grow, new workers are turned into Einsteins. You add an aqueduct and sewer system as necessary.

You don't need Colossus or Republic since the Starving Silicon City is getting most of its beakers via einsteins instead of raw trade arrows. (Colossus & Republic add trade to worked squares which we're keeping to a minimum.) A Super Science City without Colossus!? What blasphemy!

We don't need Michaelangelo's Cathedral, J.S. Bach's Chapel, a colosseum, a cathedral, and a marketplace because almost all the citizens are einsteins (and therefore are immune to unhappiness). The remaining 4 citizens are kept happy with the temple and 3 martial law units.

It looks like your *6 beaker factor comes from: normal beakers *2 (for library/university combo)) *2 (for Copernicus's Observatory) *1.5 (for Sir Issac Newton's College). I always thought the wonders' factors added in (like city improvements) instead of compounding one another. Guess I've been underestimating their power.

I don't understand how the number of shields produced in the sister city(s) has any bearing on avoiding starvation. Did you mean to say 12 food/turn?

Your strategy is very clever. Use einsteins to avoid unhappiness while keeping beaker production up. Use food caravans to rapidly reach your desired size and to maintain the food deficit. Nice work!

[Blaupanzer]

Twelve shields a turn is sufficient to produce 1 food caravan every 5 turns with 10 leftover. Not clear on the relevancy of those numbers (1 per 5 or 10 leftover).

[DaveV]

quote: Originally posted by La Fayette on 02-23-2001 11:53 AM The growth from A to B requires ... 24 food caravans (the price of 2 modern wonders).

Yes, but if you spend 60 shields on a granary (or 200 shields for pyramids), it only takes 12 caravans to grow. Surely one of the best investments in the game!

quote: Originally posted by La Fayette on 02-23-2001 11:53 AM you can even sell your cathedral.

... and your aqueduct and sewer system, if you don't want to grow beyond size 20. Or, you can grow to size 36: 16 more einsteins, for 288 more arrows. And 32 more food needed...

quote: Originally posted by La Fayette on 02-23-2001 11:53 AM This means that city B needs a sister city able to produce 12 shields/turn to avoid starving.

I presume you meant 12 food/turn. But you need 12 sister cities, since each city can only provide one food to the SSC via food routes, I believe.

Edited because I didn't understand the concept at first !

Question: if all other cities have three trade routes to this monster trade center, at what point is it better to put the einsteins to work producing trade arrows?
[This message has been edited by DaveV (edited February 23, 2001).]

[La Fayette]

Dave
1) Granary
Of course I build a granary (just forgot mentioning it, bad boy) and 12 caravans are needed for growth. But, maximizing research during growth of the city means starving all the time, hence 1 caravan against starvation + 1 caravan for growth means 2 caravans/turn.
(of course one can make it cheaper: for example keeping the cathedral and building a colosseum allows to grow to size 15+ without food deficit, with a sacrifice on research meanwhile).
2) Cathedral, aqueduct, sewer system
In fact the cathedral is not required in city A (I mentioned it for the fun of being able to sell it later on).
Aqueduct and sewer system are nice to keep in view of later growth, but AFAIK 16 Einstein is the max.
3) 12 shields/turn
The SSC is starving: 40-15=25 food are needed each turn to avoid starvation. 1 food caravan brings 1/2 food box (21*5=105 food at size 20). Hence, the sister city must send 1 food caravan every 105/25=4,2 turn, which means a capacity to produce 50/4,2=12 shields/turn (or partly rushbuilding if the production is lower).
This means 1 sister city, no more, producing 12 shields, no more.
4) At what point is it better to put the einsteins to work producing trade arrows?
It seems to me that trade routes have no influence on this (though they are welcome). I would say that 1 einstein produces the equivalent of 3 arrows; hence if you can get more than 3 arrows from 1 square (being in Rep or Demo, rivered and roaded grassland, Colossus, Motorways, ...is there anything else?) and you have no happiness problems, then skip the einstein and choose the worker. This is the "classical" SSC I read about, isn't it?

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aux bords mystérieux du monde occidental

[La Fayette]

quote: Originally posted by Edward on 02-23-2001 03:36 PM You start out with city A (8 population). You use the one-time food bonus from the incoming food caravans to grow to size 20 or so. As you grow, new workers are turned into Einsteins. You add an aqueduct and sewer system as necessary. You don't need Colossus or Republic since the Starving Silicon City is getting most of its beakers via einsteins instead of raw trade arrows. (Colossus & Republic add trade to worked squares which we're keeping to a minimum.) A Super Science City without Colossus!? What blasphemy! We don't need Michaelangelo's Cathedral, J.S. Bach's Chapel, a colosseum, a cathedral, and a marketplace because almost all the citizens are einsteins (and therefore are immune to unhappiness). The remaining 4 citizens are kept happy with the temple and 3 martial law units. It looks like your *6 beaker factor comes from: normal beakers *2 (for library/university combo)) *2 (for Copernicus's Observatory) *1.5 (for Sir Issac Newton's College). I always thought the wonders' factors added in (like city improvements) instead of compounding one another. Guess I've been underestimating their power.

Very good summary, Edward, thank you.
I have given information about the sister city and the 12 shields, replying to Dave. May I add that, with a granary (that I forgot mentioning when writing the first post, sorry, sorry ) the level of food in the box is close to the green line halfway down. One doesn't need to send exactly 1 caravan every 4,2 turns; 4,2 is an average, not a requirement.

Blaupanzer
I hope this answer about the 12 shields in the sister city is also OK for you. In fact the number of shields produced in the sister city is not important at all, since one can always use gold (or rehoming) to achieve the objective of building 1 caravan every 4,2 turn.

[Edward]

La Fayette,

Another caravan every 4.2 turns! Yikes! I didn't realize this was necessary. I was under the impression that a bunch of permanent food routes supplied the Starving Silicon City with it's needed food. I guess a bunch of permanent food routes would mean you'd loose 25 food per turn from the various cities. Surely your way (only loosing 12 shields/turn) is superior.

[La Fayette]

bump

[Scouse Gits]

OK - now I understand

SG[1]

[Xin Yu]

This is an interesting topic. I did some calculations for this to see if La Fayette got the best configuration. It turned out that there are several variations to this SSC set up. I'll mention three of them here, I'm sure there will be other good ones.

First, some assumptions:
We assume that the city square is on grass (+3 food), also assume one extra food from food trade route due to food caravans delivered to this city (there can be as many as 3 extra food but let's consider 1 only). 16 specialists will eat 32 food, so there is a 28 food deficit, without considering workers. We suppose that each worker can only bring 1 food difference (+1 food for irrigated grass, -1 food for forest or hills), with the exception that an irrigated wheat can bring +2 food, but we limit the number of wheats to 1.

Also, since the government is Monarchy, we assume a tax rate to be :30% science, 0% luxury, 70% tax. Which means science output from workers will be very small.

Now let's start.

At size 16 (0 worker), half of food box = 85 food, deficit per turn = 28 food, the city needs one food caravan every 3 turns (28*3=84).

At size 17 (1 worker), half of food box = 90 food, deficit per turn = 27-29 food, the city needs one food caravan every 3 turns.

At size 18 (2 workers), half of food box = 95 food, deficit per turn = 26-30 food, the city needs one food caravan every 3 turns.

At size 19 (3 workers), half of food box = 100 food, deficit per turn = 25-31 food, the city needs one food caravan every 3 turns if not all working squares are irrigated grass, but the city only needs one food caravan every 4 turns if there are 3 irrigated grass squares (a substantial saving, but probably not the optimal one, see sidenotes below).

Side notes: What is common in the above situations:
martial law is enough for keeping the city content (no need for temples)
No need to put workers on irrigated grass; any terrain can get you within 3-turn per caravan bucket so it is better to put workers on shield producing squares (better than trade-generating squares since science rate is only 30%). Especially, at size 19 if you put 3 workers on mined hills you may end up with 10 shields per turn from this city (beware of waste though), which in 15 turns will provide shield productivity equivalent to 3 caravans. Considering the fact that it only needs 5 food caravans in 15 turns, the saving is substantial.

Now continue:
At size 20 (4 workers), half of food box = 105 food, deficit per turn = 24-32 food, the city needs one food caravan every 3-4 turns, depending on terrain.

At size 21 (5 workers), half of food box = 110 food, deficit per turn = 23-33 food, the city needs one food caravan every 3-4 turns, depending on terrain.

Side notes:
At size 20-21 you need a temple in addition to martial laws (assume you have the tech of mysticism). At size 21 (5 workers), if you have a wheat special, then you can cut the food deficit per turn to 22, which means you only need one food caravan every 5 turns. With some luck, this city can produce 5-6 shields per turn, plus some extra science outcome from workers.

Conclusion: three good configurations for the Monarchy SSC are:
1)a city at size 16 with no workers (not exactly optimal but requires very little effort to set up); or
2)a city close to the capital at size 19 with 3 workers on mined hills (10 shield per turn production is a killer); or
3)a city at size 21 with 4 irrigated grasses and one irrigated wheat (minimum support from other cities and more science outcome).

[La Fayette]

Xin Yu
Nice that you read it!
Even nicer that you found it interesting!
Few people reacted to this proposal when I first published it and I have used it now and again without trying to improve it since then.
I think your analysis is quite in accordance with what I had in mind and I agree with you: with a bit more research, we should be able to find other interesting configurations.

[Scouse Gits]

I too have been playing with this concept - finding the establishment cost too high for normal use, but a thought or two ...

As the SSC is not utilising its entire footprint on the map there is room for at least one, and perhaps 2 satellite cities which are entirely within the footprint of the SSC - ideally these satellites will be on grass and have two forrest squares to work at size 2 - this gives a shield production of 5 - hence a caravan every 6 turns for 44g.
If there were to be two of these that would provide the maintenance and at least half the original build cost for the SSC (and two food routes into the SSC & at least 1 gold each per turn - reducing the cost to just over 6g/turn/satellite - which in a perfect world will be met by the cash output from the SSC itself.

So it looks as if a perfect SSC site has 4 wood, a wheat (actual SSC site?) and 6 or so grass ...

How does this fit with your thinking?

SG[1]

[La Fayette]

At the moment, I have no idea at all about the perfect SSC.
Here are my guidelines:
1) WLT*D is very performing, but it has an opportunity cost (especially higher luxury %) and often is uneasy to use (especially because of rough terrain and food problems related).
2) A SSC often works best with helper cities and trading partners ('twin city' for example).
3) samson and solo have demonstrated that growth problems are probably more important than the final balance sheet.
4) 'double growth', as recently discussed by starlifter and Xin Yu, is probably very useful.
5) Consequently there is a wide open field for research towards the 'perfect' SSC.

[Xin Yu]

La Fayette, I tought that the whole concept was for boosting science under Monarchy. Under DEM it is better to have citizens working on grass than have them starving.

[La Fayette]

Originally posted by Xin Yu
Under DEM it is better to have citizens working on grass than have them starving.

Quite true, but what if there is no grass?
(I agree that it would be silly to build an SSC on tundra, but it happens that the terrain is partly rough - example: our current succession game with the glorious city of Sticky Mouse ).
And what if you wish quick growth before being able to double irrigate? (I haven't studied that yet, but I shall try to think about it while growing Sticky Mouse).