City placement redux (for the third time)

[badams52]

Demographic comparisons

[Capt Dizle]

Ralphing looks more powerful than the 3 tile but is still far less efficient than my Holy 5 by 5. Do I have to explain this in more detail?

[badams52]

Originally posted by Theseus

What makes this so powerful, IMO, beyond early production and later metros, is the *flexibility*.

And yes, I'd use this in MP all day long. If anything, early power is that much more of an issue.

I agree with Theseus, This is certainly something you would use in MP. Arguably, I could have had a larger military force in the 3-Tile game, but Ralphing supports a larger military and makes it much easier to have a larger miliatary. It also allows the "keeper" cities to focus on temples and libraries. I didn't notice strong corruption at the first ring of keeper cities, but they did produce improvements at a slightly slower rate. This least me to believe that Ralphing should only go to the second ring of keeper cities, and maybe not even that. I'm still trying to see what happens in Monarchy to see if you can still Ralph between the first and second keeper city rings.

One other interesing aspect was how I was able to get 14 cities when Ralphing in the same time I got 9 from 3-Tiling. I think for the most part it's because the camp cities only build barracks, military, workers and settlers whereas in the 3-Tiling, I was more likely to switch to a temple or library as needed.

[BRC]

I'd say that they are pretty close. Still, the fact that Ralphing is more flexible later on makes me believe that I will be using this more often. You guys are amazing.

[badams52]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
Ralphing looks more powerful than the 3 tile but is still far less efficient than my Holy 5 by 5. Do I have to explain this in more detail?

jt, an image would be helpful.

[Capt Dizle]

Originally posted by badams52


jt, an image would be helpful.

When I have time I will do more than provide an image, I will provide a full "proof" supporting my claim that the Holy 5 by 5 is paradigm.

[Harovan]

Ralphing?

Dominae: I don't claim the credit to have invented something new. Indeed, the idea of camps has been around forever, especially in games on higher difficulties, where the chances to outexpand the AIs gets less. The credit for the camps goes to Aeson and Vel, what concerns Civ3, and I'm sure in the earlier Civ games were similar strategies possible (haven't been on Apolyton yet at this time).

The pattern I published was merely a try to create a combination of both worlds, i.e. to get the benefits out of an ICS-like build in the early game with the benefits of "OCS" (bad word) with gigantic cities and a reduced city number corruption in the late game after military expansion. Thus, it was just my proposal to answer Theseus' question in the first post of this thread.

[Theseus]

"If I see further, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants," wrote Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke.

There is no question that temporary camps, as a concept, have been around for a long time.

But I posed a question, and Sir Ralph answered it... 2/3/5 city spacing, or Ralphing, is f-cking fabulous.

Almost (but not quite) as good as mixed-unit Armies.

[nbarclay]

I just had an interesting thought: why not make some experimentation with city spacing a part of Apolyton University? We could either have different people volunteer to try specific city patterns in AU 206 (and encourage replays with alternative city spacings to see how they change things) or have a series of two or three AU games each focusing on a specific city build pattern. A maximum-land pangea map with the player starting a bit away from the coast would probably be ideal for this type of experimentation.

Nathan

[nbarclay]

By the way, there are two other advantages to not planning on having most cities get much if any past size 12. (1) Sanitation and hospitals can be lower priorities. (2) Happiness is less of an issue, making happiness buildings and wonders less important and reducing the impact if warfare temporarily causes a loss of access to luxuries.

Nathan

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
A maximum-land pangea map with the player starting a bit away from the coast would probably be ideal for this type of experimentation.

There's a very valid point put forward by a few posters on this thread (alexman and myself come to mind) that city spacing is primarily influnced by the available terrain (the "lay of the land" as I put it). Clearly on a big Pangea map anything that resembles ICS will be more powerful than any other strategy. Well all know ICS is the best. This is why badams' test, although a commendable effort, is heavily biased: the underlying terrain in AU105/205 is just "too good".

Again, I think the temporary camp idea is good, but it's use and exact placement of cities depends a lot of the terrain available. That's why I'm not sure this revolution is all that revolutionary (sorry for being the spoilsport).

What would be required to show me that a particular pattern is better than others is many successful games across multiple map types.


Dominae

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
By the way, there are two other advantages to not planning on having most cities get much if any past size 12. (1) Sanitation and hospitals can be lower priorities. (2) Happiness is less of an issue, making happiness buildings and wonders less important and reducing the impact if warfare temporarily causes a loss of access to luxuries.

I completely agree. I took the opposite approach and asked what advantages are there to having cities well beyond size 12. The answers that I got were: Tanks in 2 turns, less micromanagement, and faster SS components. The first two I consider a matter of personal preference. The third is valid in the 2% of games where a space race is actually a race. Anyone care to offer any other advantages?


Dominae

[Capt Dizle]

Who has proved that ICS is the best in standard multiplayer?

[BRC]

Originally posted by Dominae


I completely agree. I took the opposite approach and asked what advantages are there to having cities well beyond size 12. The answers that I got were: Tanks in 2 turns, less micromanagement, and faster SS components. The first two I consider a matter of personal preference. The third is valid in the 2% of games where a space race is actually a race. Anyone care to offer any other advantages?


Dominae

Wonders also (I know, similiar to SS parts). I haven't done tests, but it seems logical to me that you would rather have the least number of cities working the most tiles, for the purpose of less corruption. True, there is the opportunity to waste more shields when completing a project, but commerce is never wasted. You'll also be paying less upkeep on buildings if you have less cities, more than making up for the upkeep on hospitals in these metropolises. The defensive bonus is minor, but who knows when you might have to fend off an attack from the AI.

I, personally, also gain benefit from having less to worry about in my empire. Checking cities is much easier when I have less. This may actually encourage me to do it more, thereby increasing the payoff. I know that it's a stupid reason, but it is a realistic one, and one I need to consider. You know that I played with the wide spacing earlier. In my current game, I just don't feel like my empire is as powerful as it used to be. I know that the tight spacing is what let me get to my current position (own the whole continent, 50% of world), but, at the middle of the Industrial Era, I think its starting to hold me back now.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae

I completely agree. I took the opposite approach and asked what advantages are there to having cities well beyond size 12. The answers that I got were: Tanks in 2 turns, less micromanagement, and faster SS components. The first two I consider a matter of personal preference. The third is valid in the 2% of games where a space race is actually a race. Anyone care to offer any other advantages?

(1) A size 19 city and a size 18 city (39 tiles) provide essentially the same gross shields and gold as three size 12 cities using the same tiles, but with two thirds the building maintenance costs. (Of course the flip side to this is that you only have two thirds the cultural buildings.)

(2) Dividing the same land among fewer, larger cities results in less corruption due to number of cities.

In strictly economic terms, the ideal city placement would probably be designed around building fairly well-developed size 12 cities through most of the medieval era and then being able to disband them and use all the tiles elsewhere for bigger cities once hospitals become available. But I'm not willing to do it because the idea of disbanding a large, well-developed city strikes me as completely ludicrous. I've heard of ghost towns where everyone left when the mines or whatever it was that gave the town a purpose disappeared, but I've never heard of a ghost city where 800,000 plus people suddenly decided to leave. (I checked one of my saves, and 800,000 seems to be the pop size that goes with size 12, plus some extra for extra food stored up.) And besides, the extra culture from the extra cities makes up somewhat for the economic disadvantages.

Nathan