The cost of big populations

[MORON]

A pop is a pop is a pop.

Right?


The biggest problem in civilization is the bigger is better problem. I think one of the problems is that the only facters that effects the people's productivity are city improvements, terrain and government type. This favours big civilization because even after all the corruption and happiness problems the bigger civ still would have production, lux and reseach advantage. I think to deal with this is that people should cost money to educate and stuff to incease productivity so that a small populations can be more productive than a big and inefficient one as a high pop civ would have higher pop maintance costs.

Am I making sense?

[Provost Harrison]

Bigger generally is better. Perhaps diminishing returns, yes, but the larger the population, generally, the greater the output. A large, undeveloped nation should not function as well (eg, India) as a smaller, well developed nation (eg, UK). However a large, well developed nation (eg, US) should have the best of both worlds. But it would require some skill to build.

[Urban Ranger]

Large is better. Other than the support problem, being larger means:

- You can have a bigger army
- You get a bigger talnet pool to select from
- You have more workers

Right now it's almost impossible what the productivity of a country is simply because there are so many transnational coporations. If Nike has a large sweatshop in Manila, would the output of that count towards the GNP of the Philippines or the US? Or worse still, parts of both?

[Grumbold]

I may be mistaken but I believe that in the modern world a key factor is GNP (Gross National Product). This sort of rolls productivity, trade income and the rest into one grand total. A small industrialised country with widespread trade can have a much better GNP than a large undeveloped country. A multinational whose money ends up back at the HQ does more for the GNP of that country than those of its foreign operations.

Civ makes no attempt to extrapolate the cost of running a city properly, like needing multiple schools, or the risks, like fire or disease. You'd need a whole different approach to get that working and I hope one of these days someone will attempt it. EU, like Civ, relies on national output to drive science but builds the cost of implementing the ideas into the research, so the bigger your country the harder it is to develop. This causes its own difficulties.

[Dauphin]

Re: The cost of big populations

Diminishing returns - yes, I like it.

I can't believe that a single market place can service the needs of a megalopolis when it was originally built for a village. The benefits would be negligible for a mega-city.

I would have thought the logical step would be higher maintenance costs and an upgrade cost for improvements, when cities become larger. It would reflect the need for a more efficient (upgrade) and higher capacity (maintenance) improvement.

[Earwicker]

Re: Re: The cost of big populations

Originally posted by Big Crunch
I can't believe that a single market place can service the needs of a megalopolis when it was originally built for a village. The benefits would be negligible for a mega-city.

I would have thought the logical step would be higher maintenance costs and an upgrade cost for improvements, when cities become larger. It would reflect the need for a more efficient (upgrade) and higher capacity (maintenance) improvement.

Good plan, analogous to the chaging upkeep cost of Barracks through the years. As long as I don't have to scrap and rebuild all my marketplaces and libraries every few hundred years. While it would be more realistic, it would be a big ol' PIA and slow down gameplay.

Tie it to city size, not technology. A way to look at it is like this: When Cardiff hits size 10 (say) a message comes up that says "The City of Cardiff has outgrown its library, and its citizens have built a second branch." Meaning the upkeep doubles. Similar for markets or temples. Probably not for banks, Univs, or Cathedrals, since we're talking serious money in that case.

While we're at it, how about another size restriction structure? Above 8 needs aqueduct, soon followed by needing a sewer system. Then you get to grow from 12 to 25 or higher with no further infrastructure. Perhaps a hospital or something along those lines?

[DarkCloud]

Literacy rates would represent Education... correct?

So...

Pop 500
2 science rate
2 luxury
1 trade (taxes)

The 2 science mean an automatic 20% literacy rate
The 2 luxury means an automatic 10% literacy rate
The 1 taxes means an automatic 10% (forced to learn Government Reading Program) literacy rate

So: 40% literacy for that city.

[Dauphin]

DarkCloud, what's your point?

[DarkCloud]

I was illustrating how big populations can produce lots of science, but that does not necessarily translate into a high literacy rate... thus making Big Populations harder to maintain.

The literacy rate system could also be modified to consider gold needed to sustain the people...

[Dauphin]

Therefor

With a lower literacy rate you would have cheaper labour costs, but consequently lower production outputs.

[Ralf]

Re: The cost of big populations

Originally posted by MORON
The biggest problem in civilization is the bigger is better problem.

Its one of the BIG THREE, yes:

1: Infinate City Sprawl (= the ICS syndrome)
2: Bigger is always better (= the BAB syndrome)
3: Lack of "Rise and fall" (= the eternal China syndrome)

My own idea how to combat BAB is to make big city happiness-control in small empires much easier, then similar big city happiness-control in large empires.

The fewer cities your mid/end-game empire consists of, the easier it becomes to control really huge mega-cities without too much happiness-problems. This means less expenditures on city-improvements & combat-units, but still an comparibly large empire-population tax-base. This means beneficial financial overflow. Also, allowing smaller empires building comparably bigger cities means that both shield-production, but mostly science-lightbulb production can more easily keep even steps with their bigger empire counterparts.

A good implementation of BAB is absolutely crucial - especially if they plan to have upto 16 civs on the map simultaneously (not officially confirmed yet). Theres no way they can do that, if not at least 8-10 of these AI-civs playes more passive 6-12 city mini-empire roles. Thanks to BAB, these AI mini-empires can contribute something worthwhile nevertheless.

[DarkCloud]

That wasn't exactly what I was saying... but it is a good point (and a better one than the one I was attempting to make!- Good job Big Crunch!)

[MORON]

My own idea how to combat BAB is to make big city happiness-control in small empires much easier, then similar big city happiness-control in large empires.

Its not gonna work. As long as larger pop means larger returns, I don't see how happiness is going to stop BAB. Slow it perhaps, but not stop it. Diminishing returns is still higher returns

Literacy is only anywhere higher than 10% in the last 400 years....

Anyway....here is my soluation to the problem of underdeveloped big ICS type expansion.
maintenance costs for improvements varies by pop

Or, to reworded it

Improvement maintenance counted on per pop basis

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by MORON
Literacy is only anywhere higher than 10% in the last 400 years....

With maybe one or two exceptions, there haven't been big cities, or high production outputs until the last few hundred years either.

Anyway, it doesn't have to be literacy rating, it could be a skilled labour rating. You may not need to be able to read to make a medieval boat, but you would require the trained/skilled workforce.

Also, thanks for bolding a pre-posted idea.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by MORON
Its not gonna work. As long as larger pop means larger returns, I don't see how happiness is going to stop BAB. Slow it perhaps, but not stop it. Diminishing returns is still higher returns

Literacy is only anywhere higher than 10% in the last 400 years....

Anyway....here is my soluation to the problem of underdeveloped big ICS type expansion.
maintenance costs for improvements varies by pop

Or, to reworded it

Improvement maintenance counted on per pop basis

Well, I just want the best possible BAB-solution, regardless what it is. At this stage, they have already implemented it anyway.

Remember though. Anti-BAB isnt about equalizing every output-difference between small and large empires, into a general lukewarm medium-output. That would be rather boring.

Then it comes to optimizing some benefits/outputs, striving for a huge empire really should be the best choice - and then it comes to some other benefits/outputs, striving for a small (perfectionist) empire should be the best possible choice. And both small and huge empires should have their own special "Archilles-heels", respectively.

Also, about my "The fewer cities, the bigger cities" model: The happiness-advantage only affects you below a certain number of cities. I dont promote an increasing CTP-2 style happiness-penalty for huge empires (the starving cities effect). The empire-size happiness-factor stays flat above a certain number of cities. Other "upper rubberband max-limit" factors (like economy) should deal with too-big-to-control empires.