Size Eight Sleaze

[Richard Bruns]

Hello. I've been lurking around this forum for a long time, but never before felt the need to contribute anything. All of the information here has been really helpful, and I've learned a lot. This is a great site. I've gone from barely surviving at Deity to doing quite well.

I have MGE 1.3 and play a variety of map sizes. I typically set the number of civs and barbarian activity to "Random" so the game is less predictable.

I have had considerable success with a strategy I call "Size Eight Sleaze." Despite the fact that I'm really not a skillful player and can't micromanage, trade, or fight well, I usually get good results this strategy successfully. Since I've never seen anyone discuss anything like it, I thought I'd tell how it works and see what you all think.

The basic idea is to start with ICS, but put every city in a good position and leave enough room between them. I'll keep the cities small and sleaze outward until I get Mike's or run out of room. Then I build them up to size eight.

I have found that with the proper wonders (Mike, Bach, Hoover's, SETI), the size eight city is the second most efficient production unit in the game (after the super science city). It can be kept happy with nothing but the garrison troops. I never have to build colosseums or even temples, and I never need luxuries. Obviously, it also doesn't need an aqueduct or sewer system.

A typical city radius only has eight decent squares or less. Simply keeping a larger city fed typically takes a lot of terrain alteration, and the extra citizens don't produce as much. A size eight city only needs a few roads, which I have to build anyway.

In other words, the marginal cost of extra citizens is high and the marginal benefit is low. That means that additional citizens are a bad investment.

It's also easier to get this type of city to celebrate. A celebrating commie city gives the trade benefits of representative governments without any of the disadvantages. And with the martial law, commie can give me a higher science rate then democracy. I typically SOL commie as soon as possible.

Another benefit to the micromanagement impaired is that these cities will not grow and riot. It annoys me when an extra citizen pops out and pushes the city into unrest. These guys should automatically become entertainers instead of working on a useless square and then rioting. But when a city can't grow, I don't have that problem.

There are a few disadvantages to this system. I need to build more city improvements, and I can't get any decent trade routed or bonuses. But these extra buildings aren't as inefficient as they appear. A factory costs as much as an aqueduct and sewer system and has the same total maintenence cost. So two size eight factories cost as much as one factory in a size sixteen city, and the total shield output is typically greater. Similarly, the need for extra factories and universities is cancelled out by the ability to do without happiness improvements. I do lose the ability to build profitable banks and stock exchanges, but I think it's worth it.

But I've never been able to trade effectively. I've airlifted freight to cities on different continents halfway around a large world where the quantity was demanded, and gotten maybe 100 gold and a +2 trade route. Definitely not efficient. But I seem to be so far ahead of the AI's science that I don't really need the trade routes. I seem to do fine without them.

In a decent game, I'll wind up with dozens and dozens of highly productive size eight cities, all created and maintained with a minimum of effort. Despire setting science as high as possible, I have plenty of cash to bribe AI cities and enough production to crush them if they can't be bribed easily. It helps that I'm typically attacking phalanxes with vet Dragoons.

Anyway, what do you think?

[Bird]

Hello Richard. My first reaction is that your analysis appears to be a matter of personal preference because that approach depends on getting certain wonders. What if you don't get Mike's? Or Bach? Plus, how applicable is this style to MP, where micromanagement is widespread, if only b/c you've got eons between turns Let's face it, if you're good enough the plop down 20 or so cities at deity, you are good enough to, and should, win. Always. Without exception.

But the more I thought about it the more I realized my skepticism is even more basic than that: even if your assumptions are right about optimal squares and the like, limiting cities to size 8 ignores the beneficial trade effects of larger cities. Intuitively, I can accept that the costs of growing a size 8 city to a size 12 city (aqueduct and say, maybe 20 cumulative turns by a settler to improve the terrain) (just made that up, who knows?), won't necessarily equal the benefits of alternative uses of those resources (new cities and units), but I feel certain that the trade benefits of larger cities will make up the difference. Caravans and freight cost 50 shields no matter how large the city is, and the bonuses and per turn trade arrows increase significantly as city size grows (I know, the amount of bonus depends on existing trade arrows, but I'm talking about averages) and you build modern improvements, such as superhighways. But superhighways don't make a lot of sense with size 8 cities.

Moreover, certain city improvements, such as harbors and offshore platforms, don't depend on settler/engineer activity to improve performance to the entire city radius. Therefore, the marginal benefits of those types of improvements increase with city size. Some wonk out there will probably demonstrate that neither improvement ever makes sense in the theoretical Civ II world, but the basic premise can't be refuted: the bigger the city, the greater the benefit of having those types of improvements.


Well, I'm tired and my wife says the Halloween hoodlums are probably all asleep now, so goodnight.

[Smash]

I play something like this sometimes.In conjunction with a SSC.You can use colliseums and courthouses instead(markets and trade routes though) to keep Democracies content with 0 luxuries.Shake's is in the SSC so that one goes to size 20-30 with "we love" days.Basically an OCC type strategy with more than 1 city if that makes any sense.

If you get some trade routes up early it will be even better for you.

[Drago Sinio]

This strategy seems like a good one to me. The reason is that by having many cities, spread reasonably far apart, you will control a large portion of the map. And the more real estate you control, the less the other civs have. If you combine your own expansion with conquering territory from your neighbors, you will have the advantage of controlling so much territory that the competition has nowhere left to expand to. The only way you could lose with this style would be running out of time before you get your spaceship built. I like it.

[Richard Bruns]

Bird:

You have many good points. I certainly feel the loss in trade possibilities, as I pointed out in my first post. Maybe I should modify my strategy to grow a few cities to larger sizes in the modern age, after I get offshore platforms. With harbor and platform, ocean squares are indeed productive, giving a shield and two or three trade. Maybe I can use those cities as trading centers to complement my SSC.

I know that my strategy depends on certain wonders, but so does every other single player strategy I read about. ICS needs HG, and OCC needs all the science wonders.

I am sure that I would get creamed in multiplayer; I was trying to demonstrate a strategy that helps a beginning player do well at Diety level.

Smash: I've tried trade routes early, and I can never get them to work. I know all the formulas, but it always seems that building wonders gives me better results. I think that the sleazing keeps my cities too small to be good trade centers.

Drago: Definitely. I typically control most of the real estate on the map. On small maps I quickly take over a fourth to a third of the world. Large maps often present a difficulty, as the civilization on the other side of the world invariably seems to be the one that is best at expanding and conquering neighbors. Then it is a battle of superpowers.

Thanks for the input, everyone.

[Campo]

Interesting approach. I have a few questions:

You didn't mention Hanging Gardens among your happiness wonders. Do you build it?

How fast do you lay down your cities? Is it the typical ICS approach (city, warrior, settler, new city) or do you expand more slowly?

You said "dozens and dozens" of cities -- do you keep expanding the whole game, or do you stop at a certain point (other than conquests)?

Do you always build a science city?

I assume you turn off informational ("X needs an aqueduct") messages?

As far as trade goes, what about having a single growth city (in addition to the science city) just to churn out caravans for the one-time trade bonuses?

[Simpson II]

I'd say it's a good strategy for small map duels or any situation where you share space with a human opponent, because of the terrain denial factor. If you and your opponent are not sharing a continent, then you might be better to stack the cities two squares apart. That's better defensively and makes better use of the available resources, since every square is worked. I would say the irrigation is worth the hassle, if it's the only factor.

Are you able to use WLTPD to grow your cities, or do you try to build granaries/pyramids? If the latter than Pyramids ought to be a crunch wonder for the strat.

An interesting idea, anyway.

[Adam Smith]

I have been playing this type of strategy for a long time out of personal preference, since, in my opinion, it makes for a faster game than managing large cities or a large number of cities. (I usually have no more than eight or ten cities.) There are a number of things you can do to make this strategy work well.

Assuming one of your cities is the SSC, then:

1. Happiness. As long as you have no more cities than allowed by the type of government, a temple + Mike + Bach will keep any size 8 city happy with zero luxuries.

2. Improvements. All you need is a temple, factory later. Add city walls or a library if you really feel you must.

3. Production. Work production squares to the point where you have no food surplus. (These cities arent going to grow anyway.) Add factory + Hoover later, and you get 40 shields per turn, the max you can get without any pollution or need for mass transit. If you rush buy the rest of the rack you can turn out a caravan in every city on every turn.

4. Trade. When you deliver a caravan, max out the trade in the origin and destination cities to increase your initial bonus. Run your trade route into the SSC instead of into foreign cities. The large SSC population, maxed out trade, and greater number of SSC improvements (eg., superhighway, Colossus, etc) will more than make up for trading with a different civilization on a different continent. In addition, since continuing trade arrows depend on origin + destination trade, most of which is coming from the SSC, you can still get plenty of continuing trade even when the size eight city is in full production mode.

Bird:
How are you? Havent heard from you since half past never.

[Richard Bruns]

Campo:

Yes, I build HG whenever I can. That was assumed to be a part of the ICS start. I lay down cities as fast as I can, using the typical ICS pattern you described. I try to expand the whole game. When I get caravels I'll load them up and claim new continents. I'll also put diplomats on those caravels for an alternate form of expansion

I'll always try to build the SSC; that was something I learned from these forums. I plan to experiment with building a few large trade cities, but I haven't been doing that so far. It does seem that a couple big cities with offshore platforms could be a good addition to the strategy; they would be able to make caravans fast enough and would have enough trade to make them effective. I'll have to try that.

Simpson:

If I'm trapped on a small continent and I will sometimes use the dense pattern, but I don't like it because it takes too much settler work. I'd rather send them off to colonize new continents.

WLY growth doesn't seem to work for me. I've tried it, and can't get it to work. I've found that normal growth results in the wonders being built at about the time they are needed. If my cities grew any faster, they would go into riots. By the time JSB is done, they are about size five or six, so the celebrating would be pretty pointless.

I usually find that representative governments are not worth the trouble. They need about 30% luxuries and the shield penalty causes production to grind to a halt. For the same amount of luxuries, I can have celebrating communists. I stay in monarchy until I SOL commie.

[Richard Bruns]

Adam Smith:

I agree with that analysis. That is why I like size eight.

I've found that I don't even need temples with monarchy and communism. I hardly ever build them. But I do build libraries, especially after Adam Smith. They help my science rate a lot.

But I don't stop at eight cities. I sleaze out as much as possible. I just ignore the riot factor. Wonders and troops will keep control in monarchy, and communism eliminates the riot factor.

Trade with SSC? Good idea; I'll try that.

Again, thanks everyone.

[Matthew]

Your style of play is bad. just plain bad. In fact, it's just wrong

Everybody has to play just like I do. No one gets to play in any way I don't like.

But while you're playing just like me, you are not allowed to play as well as me, or to have any of the wonders I like. Cause I get to win.

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The camel is not a part of civ.

THE CAMEL IS CIV !!!!

SAVE THE CAMEL !!!!!!

[Matthew]

Seriously, you should try MP. You need to accept the fact that as often as not you won't get MC or Bach's, but that just means you'll need temples, and just maybe colloseums. On the other hand, in MP there will generally be someone concentrating on trade a lot more than the typical AI. Even if your cities aren't big, you can still get a great trade bonus and trade routes by trading with him. Ever see a size 3 city churning out 100 science a turn? It's pretty cool. This should more than make up for not having the big happies.

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The camel is not a part of civ.

THE CAMEL IS CIV !!!!

SAVE THE CAMEL !!!!!!