The Wisdom Of No Hospitals

[stonewall]

For my last and current games I thought I would try a strategy of not building hospitals. Building hospitals does allow you population to grow and utilize more squares, but you pay maintenance and have more expenses keeping the people happy.

This worked fine for my last game, which I won by conquest. However, my current game I have had a more challenging time. I have been able to keep up in the size of my territory, but my total population is behind (not unexpected), my military defense was thin, and I am at least 3/4 of an era behind in tech. This part surprised me. I have been playing the Babylonians and I usually take a builder approach. My build list usually prioritizes Temple, Library, and then University.

So I was thinking, maybe those extra citizens have much more influence than I thought. The extra shields for building, the extra commerce for research. And when the 21 city squares are full, the scientist specialist helping research.

I have only tried this on two games so I am not sure if the no hospital thing is a valid stategy. Any thoughts on not using hospitals?

[Arrian]

Well, if you're not going to build hospitals, you better be packing your cities in tighter so you can use all your terrain tiles. Just set it up such that each city gets around 12 tiles of land.

-Arrian

[Cruddy]

Going for a no hospitals approach is generally beneficial with Arrian's point above, but there are a few things that reduce its efficiency;-

1) You are gong to have to build more settlers to begin with, to fill up the space. This can slow down your military if you're a fan of early conquest.

2) The city tile itself only produces 2 food - so building cities on grassland/flood plains loses some potential score. You have to do this sometimes to fill up the cracks - but if hills are plentiful, build on them for the extra food. If they are not, the extra production from working them instead makes more sense than the food.

3) As for your current game; did you have any starting penalities like starting close to a jungle or with a large mountain range nearby? Did the AI civs have access to flood plains or lots of wheat for early expansion? The start position is crucial - I will usually bin an unpromising start, because I'm not really very good yet at the early game.

Doing without hospitals is a different strategy to the normal supercity one - it requires practice and thought to make the most of it. I like it because it avoids the unhappiness problems of large cities. But as stated, I'm not really very good at it yet.

EDIT: I will ALWAYS build a marketplace before the university, sometimes before any others! It doubles the commerce and it boosts the effects of multiple luxurt resources too, the most powerful individual improvement you can have. Shame it has no culture points. That doubled commerce boosts your tech research too, so I think it is the root cause of your problem.

[Arrian]

50% tax income bonus, not double commerce, IIRC. But you're right about the power of markets.

They are a huge priority for me. I may build them before libraries in some cases (if I'm doing 40-turn research, milking the Great Library, for instance).

-Arrian

[stonewall]

Cruddy,

1) I really think I did a good job pumping out settlers and expanding. I think I did have more territory than any other civ until they starting stealing from each other.

2) Not really any issue for me here.

3) I think I really had a good spot. Actually my capital became my settler factory. Not sure about the other civs. Like I said, I think I did real good during the initial expansion faze of the game.

4) Marketplace - you could be right here. For the most part they came after the University. I am such a culture whore that I didn't build it early because it generates no culture.

Thinking about my current game some more, I also had a big period of war (about 40 turns against the Persians followed by about 15 turns against the Russians) that really hurt my research. Although I was already behind before then, this really made the problem worse. I think the AI was really picking on me because I focused so much on expansion and city improvements that my military was weak and the AI really took advantage of that.

Like I said, 2 games is a small sample to see if this strategy of no hospitals is valid or not.

[Cruddy]

Oh yeah, one other factor - do the other AI civs have rivers and you don't? I wasn't convinced about the power of rivers to generate tech, until I actually got a start on one. I preferred coastal cities up to that point.

Now I've had a river start, I prefer them - but having a good coastal stategy for commerce does me no harm.

Arrian: Totally right about the tax thing - but if you have a marketplace and a library, that gives 100% boost total to research, which is where I got muddled.

[Nakar Gabab]

Originally posted by Arrian
50% tax income bonus, not double commerce, IIRC. But you're right about the power of markets.

They are a huge priority for me. I may build them before libraries in some cases (if I'm doing 40-turn research, milking the Great Library, for instance).

You kidding me? Sometimes I'll prioritize a marketplace over a TEMPLE. Okay, rarely, but the marketplace is usually the second or third thing built in ANY city.

Say you have four luxuries. That's a difference between most of your city happy and WLTKD for the next thousand years.

[stonewall]

Rivers

I just loaded the save game, and while my capital was on a river, most of my other territory that I did not conquer did not have rivers. I checked the other civs and they seem to have alot of rivers. Maybe this was also a factor.

[Catt]

I've found that not building hospitals has its plusses and minuses (not surprisingly), but that the minuses tend to outweight the plusses for my preferred playstyle. I think it is very important to plan your city locations carefully from early on if you know you'll not be building any hospitals -- using a city spacing plan that results in many cities having more than 12 tiles available to be worked meanings you're wasting potentially productive tiles. The first time I ever played Emperor (one of the early minitourney games) I decided to avoid more than a few hospitals in order to better manage happiness -- unfortunately, I spaced my cities in such a way that each city had 15 - 18 tiles available, meaning up to a third of my land was not producing for me -- the only time I've ever established a decent tech lead in the Industrial Age and watched as it withered away faster than you can say lickety-split. (I did build 5 hospitals so I could build the Battlefield Medicine small wonder). The extra citizens really do have a profound effect -- over the course of the last several months I have steadily increased my preference for getting to Sanitation earlier -- just for the productivity (mainly commerce and research) that hospitals can unleash early in the Industrial Age.

Even assuming that you pack in cities in a way that generates few wasted tile opportunities, you still need to factor in the increased maintenance costs associated with each city -- a size 20 city needs only one market, library, etc., whereas a pair of size 12 cities needs two of each. If you fail to seal the game in the Industrial Age and are actually in a tight tech race for the spaceship, the smaller cities will have a much harder time building spaceship parts (although effective pre-building could eliminate much of this drawback, I think).

All in all, I've come to favor a denser build (cities will grow to 15 - 18 size, occassionally no more than 12 or 13 and occassionally a full 20). After experimenting with a more or less "no hospitals" approach, I find it less powerful for my preferred playstyle.

Originally posted by Cruddy
Arrian: Totally right about the tax thing - but if you have a marketplace and a library, that gives 100% boost total to research, which is where I got muddled.

Bear in mind it's not quite a straight-line 100% boost. Markets only increase tax revenue from the city (putting aside the happiness factor); libraries only increase science revenue from the city -- both are subject to the whims of the slider position. Assume a city produces 20 gold (after corruption). With a library and a market, and the sliders at 50% tax 50% science, the city will generate 15 tax and 15 science. Without the market, it would produce only 10 tax -- the extra tax generated by the market can be used to increase sceince spending, but even moving the slider up to 80% science (a pretty darn big jump for just building markets - i.e., I doubt markets alone could generate sufficient additional income to move the slider that far), the city will then only produce 24 science (and only 6 tax) -- not quite a doubling. Another way to look at it is, with science set to 100% building a market will not affect your income in the slightest (except for the maintenance cost of the market) -- with no gold being devoted to taxes, there is no gold being multiplied by the market.

Catt

[Arrian]

You kidding me? Sometimes I'll prioritize a marketplace over a TEMPLE. Okay, rarely, but the marketplace is usually the second or third thing built in ANY city.

Hmm... well, yeah. That's about right. It depends, though. If I'm off to a great start and am already even or ahead in tech, I will probably build the libraries first and continue to research myself, and build the markets next.

Believe me, I love what markets do for you. The dual benifit (tax renevue and happiness) is awesome. But if I'm researching at 80%, building the libraries first makes sense (just as building the markets first makes sense if I'm researching at 10% or 1 scientist). It all depends.

-Arrian

[stonewall]

City spacing is one thing I didn't really consider fully. My only thoughts on it was that I was going to continue with my normal spacing so that I would occupy territory faster. I really didn't consider all the tiles that would not be worked as being an issue.

As far as having one city with one library, etc versus two cities each with a library, etc. I guess that can have a big economic impact as far as support costs go. However do I get more commerce and shield output from two size 12 cities compared to on size 20? And will have have to have more happiness improvements to support the larger city population? Also, wouldn't I get double the culture from having 2 smaller cities compared to one larger?

I think my head is spinning

[CerberusIV]

The way I try to play is to identify 5 city sites that are either inland or coastal but mostly land very early on and settle my cities so those 5 can have 19 or 20 tiles to work. I pack other cities a bit tighter. When I get sanitation I build hospitals only in those 5 megacities, and then battlefield medicine.

I usually have quite a few coastal cities that don't benefit that much from hospitals until the commercial dock and offshore platform become available. At that point it is worth building hospitals and mass transit in those cities because the extra commerce from the coastal tiles then more than pays for the improvements.

This certainly works pretty well at monarch and allows your smaller cities to catch up on improvements during the industrial era or build infantry and artillery to support the tanks from your main cities in trampling the neighbours.

[Cruddy]

Originally posted by stonewall
1) City spacing is one thing I didn't really consider fully. My only thoughts on it was that I was going to continue with my normal spacing so that I would occupy territory faster. I really didn't consider all the tiles that would not be worked as being an issue.

As far as having one city with one library, etc versus two cities each with a library, etc. I guess that can have a big economic impact as far as support costs go.

2) However do I get more commerce and shield output from two size 12 cities compared to on size 20?

3) And will have have to have more happiness improvements to support the larger city population?

4) Also, wouldn't I get double the culture from having 2 smaller cities compared to one larger?

1) CerberusIV has given an able reply here - it's not the only solution but it is a good one.

2) Given the same improvements in each, you would get slightly less commerce (to pay for improvements), about the same production. However, with the 2 size 12s, you get up to max very quickly - it takes a LONG TIME to get to size 20. Getting that gold and production earlier gives you the tools to do the job quicker.

3) A size 20 city is hard to keep happy. 8 luxuries and a marketplace with all other imrprovements will just about do it on Deity - one bit of war weariness and you should hiring entertainers or adjusting the lux slider.

The size 12s are MUCH easier to keep happy, even with a long war under Democracy. It means you don't have to buy luxuries off the AI (or use military to conquer the resource areas).

4) Of course you get double the culture! That's one of the best reasons to do it (seeing as you are a sell confessed culture sex industry worker).

[Catt]

Originally posted by stonewall
As far as having one city with one library, etc versus two cities each with a library, etc. I guess that can have a big economic impact as far as support costs go. However do I get more commerce and shield output from two size 12 cities compared to on size 20? And will have have to have more happiness improvements to support the larger city population? Also, wouldn't I get double the culture from having 2 smaller cities compared to one larger?

I think my head is spinning

Yeah - you're on to some of the factors that weigh in the calculation. You will get more culture; you may get more production (net of maintenance costs); you will need less happiness; and you will have more corruption. In fact there are a whole host of influencing factors that, in my mind at least, pushes me towards city placement and city growth strategies dictated more by the available terrain than by a conscious play tactic from the get-go. Where appropriate, I pack cities in tighter, and where appropriate, I spread them out to encompass an OCP or near OCP playout (all twenty tiles available). But I'd say that if you start the game with the intention of building few if any hospitals, you probaly ought to use as denser city build -- if someone played an OCP city spacing (full 21 tiles) but never built hospitals, almost half of their empire wouldn't be producing -- all that fallow land . Another way to think of that situation is that an AI empire the same geographic size as yours, but with typical AI city size of 20+, would be twice as productive as yours.

Catt

[stonewall]

I am getting more convinced that the best strategy is to use hospitals, but not necessarily everywhere. That is what I normally do, but thought I would try the no hospital thing.

Actually, in my current game I did start building some hospitals 'cause I was just getting whooped on. I just advanced a turn in that game and noticed a couple of cities built marketplaces and my research time for Computers went from 5 turns to 2 turns! Just from a couple of markeplaces Don't underestimate the power of chee...marketplaces