86 Food!

[Melboz99]

Hey all. I've been playing a single player game the past couple of days, and I have to say that I've never seen anything like this.

Early on in the game I came across two rivers that merged before wandering off into the ocean. The really cool thing was that both of these rivers created floodplain squares. Also, two of these flood plain squares had grain. Knowing how well floodplains created food, I built a town right in the crook of the two rivers and named it "Boomtown."

Right away the town took off. Very shortly I had a pop 12 town. Then I realized the fault of the city, it had a very low production (about 5). So, it took a long time to build a hospital. When it finnaly did I started work on a granary. By the time the granary was finished I had a pop 27 town, and it was gaining 1 pop per turn!

Right now it is pop 34, and is gaining pop about every 2 or 3 turns.

I am wondering though, how often this happens in random maps. I mean, I've got about all but maybe 4 squares are floodplain, and I'm not even using 2 of the flood plain squares due to a neighboring city. Another thing is that these floodplains extend in both directions about another citie's worth. So, I have 3 other cities built on the same rivers with floodplains. They are both currently in their 20's.

I also have to wonder how much more food I would have had if I was an agricultural civ. I'm currently playing as the Americans.

I can't wait to see my city reach a pop of 43!
Dan O.

[Paddy]

Sounds like a great place to pop settlers

Well done on the location

Hope you have heaps of room for all the settlers you will be able to pop

[Last Conformist]

That sounds nice ...

Evil idea - set it to build workers and sell them to the AI!

[Melboz99]

Paddy, it's too bad I could never turn it into a settler pump. The problem was the low production. When it was smaller (6-12) it took about 15-20 turns to pump out a settler. On the other hand, I had a lot of of pop 4-6 sized cited that coul pump a settler in under 10 turns.


It would be funny to give the AI about 50 workers, and watch them go broke. Currently, they have no money at all. I, on the other hand, am making about 300gpt. I've actually managed to save up about 10k, even though I spent about 8k on upgrading all 173 spearmen to infantry.

Well, class is starting, gtg,
Dan O.

[Solomwi]

Your workers will be upkeep-free for the AI, just like its workers are for you.

[Melboz99]

Whoa, I thought that they counted as a military unit.

I guess the reason I noticed a big drop in income when I build a lot of workers is the loss of population, thus the loss of people working the land.

Huh, so, I guess there would be no problem in building another 50 workers for my civ, too bad it's too late for the great rail roading operation.

Somehow I thought that workers counted as a military unit, I mean, they are listed in the military advisor screen.

I'm still not sure how my military is costing over 350gpt, I only have 172 infantry, and a bunch of galleons, and some of those wonder units from the ancient and middle ages. I guess it's possible that I have close to 200 more units somewhere, but I doubt it.

Any idea why my units are costing me so much?

[Melboz99]

Opps, I missed the word "it's" in the phrase "just like it's workers are for you.

Sorry, disregard that last post,
Dan O.

[Solomwi]

Let me be more clear:

Workers of your nationality do count as military units for support purposes, and work full speed.

Workers you control of other nationalities (including those you build in cities with none of your own citizens) do not count as military units for support purposes, and work half speed.

[Melboz99]

Okay then, I'll have to go in and investigate why my miltary expendatures are so high.

Thanks for clearing that up,
Dan O.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Re: 86 Food!

Originally posted by Melboz99

Right away the town took off. Very shortly I had a pop 12 town. Then I realized the fault of the city, it had a very low production (about 5). So, it took a long time to build a hospital. When it finnaly did I started work on a granary. By the time the granary was finished I had a pop 27 town, and it was gaining 1 pop per turn!

I may be misunderstanding a little here, but did you build the hospital right after founding the city? If you did, then there's something weird going on with tech in your game (modded?) as Hospitals take a while to get to otherwise.

I also have to wonder how much more food I would have had if I was an agricultural civ. I'm currently playing as the Americans.

Only one (centre tile) if there are no irrigated deserts around, otherwise this 1 and one extra per irrigated desert.

I can't wait to see my city reach a pop of 43!
Dan O.

Can you give us a screenshot or a save game? That would be cool to see.

[Aqualung71]

I hope you are using all that excess population as specialists, and not just entertainers? You could get great benefits by putting them to work as taxmen and/or scientists.

Also, if you have discovered Replaceable Parts you can use a few as engineers, giving you 2 extra shields of production per engineer, which will go a long way towards offsetting the poor production of your flood plains.

By the way, did you have big problems with disease before you researched Sanitation?

On unit support costs, it also depends on your government. If you are in Republic, the support cost is 2gpt above your free support levels, which can be very expensive if many of yout towns are below size 6.

And I'm with MWIA....post a screenie or a save game - it would be cool to see!

[MrWhereItsAt]

Re: 86 Food!

Originally posted by Melboz99

Right away the town took off. Very shortly I had a pop 12 town. Then I realized the fault of the city, it had a very low production (about 5). So, it took a long time to build a hospital. When it finnaly did I started work on a granary. By the time the granary was finished I had a pop 27 town, and it was gaining 1 pop per turn!

I may be misunderstanding a little here, but did you build the hospital right after founding the city? If you did, then there's something weird going on with tech in your game (modded?) as Hospitals take a while to get to otherwise.

I also have to wonder how much more food I would have had if I was an agricultural civ. I'm currently playing as the Americans.

Only one (centre tile) if there are no irrigated deserts around, otherwise this 1 and one extra per irrigated desert.

I can't wait to see my city reach a pop of 43!
Dan O.

Can you give us a screenshot or a save game? That would be cool to see.

[Melboz99]

Hey all. Until I reached sanitation, the proper way (no mod) I mainly built settlers and things like a temple and a library. The city still has a production of 6, so I think that enginneers would be a great idea! It seems that the game has changed a lot since I was really into it.

Also, you'll note that just for the heck of it I took my other cities off the two squares they were working in this city's radius. The total food per turn is now a whopping 96!!!

It is a pop 38 currently, I don't get a chance to play all that often now that my teachers are loading on hw for the end of the semester.

Here is the cleared map:




And here is the city window:



By the way, do workers cost anything in Demorcracy to maintain? Because I have added up all my military, using the military advisor screen, viewing by unit, and the only thing that adds up to the 332 military that is says I have is by including workers.

Here is a screen shot of my military advisor's screen.




In case you haven't figured out, I play builder. The galleons were for exploring the map, and the crusaders and calvery were of course from the wonders that I built. They came in really handy for taking about 5 medium sized towns away from the Mayans. At first it was just to get some coal that was in their territory, then I was glad I took 5 of them when I got oil on the map

Well, thanks for the replies!
Dan O.

[Aqualung71]

That's an awesome city!

Yes, workers cost 1gpt in Democracy like every other unit.

Ummm....very symmetrical city layout you've got there - from the minimap view. You might want to have another look at that.

[Melboz99]

I once heard that this was one of the better ways to do city layout. I simply place my cities 3 squares away vertically and horizontaly. In this way, each city loses only about 4 squares, yet it uses the map much more efficently, leaving only 1 square outside city radii. Often, fitting more cities on the map is more important than keeping each city's radius seperate from the others.

What kind of layout would you suggest for a builder?

Thanks,
Dan O.