Big cities are bad for democracy.

[Wombat]

Until recently I hadn't been bothered much by war weariness much even in democracy, and I had wondered about the fuss about it in some threads. Well, I just started a war in late modern times, and after ONE turn I was hit like a ton of bricks. Even though all but one or two units were still inside my borders, most of my cities were now in disorder. I decided to try and analyze what had happened and discovered that war weariness has a really nasty effect on large (20+) cities, and it is very hard to counter. I gathered the following figures by checking various size cities the turn before and after the war starts. my empire has access to 5 luxuries, all the cities had all improvements except for the size 4, which only had a temple. I also had JS Bach's Cathedral and Universal suffrage. entertainment is zero to make comparison easier.

In the list H=happy,C=content,U=unhappy,E=entertainer

I have also listed the number of 'unhappiness steps' gained, moving from happy to content is 1 step, content to unhappy another step.

Size 4
before 4H
after 2H,2C 2 steps

size 11
before 9H,1C,1U
after 1H,9C,1U 8 steps

size 12
before 9H,1C,2U
after 8C,4U 11 steps

size 14
before 9H,1C,4U
after 8C,6U 11 steps

size 16
before 9H,1C,6U
after 8C,8U 11 steps

size 21
before 10H,10U,1E
after 8C,12U,1E 12 steps

size 24
before 11H,1C,8U,4E
after 8C,12U,4E 15 steps

size 25
before 12H,1C,6U,6E
after 8C,11U,6E 14 steps

[Wombat]

sorry, I accidently posted before finishing. I'll continue here.

Size 28
before 14H,5U,9E
after 8C,11U,9E 20 steps


There are a couple of things worth pointing out. The amount of unhappiness steps gained roughly increase as city size increases. Also, after the war starts, the entertainers seem to be providing no benefit at all. the size 12+ cities all have 8 content workers, the rest are unhappy, the 9 entertainers in the largest city proveide no noticable benefit, though they were before the war started.

I then started increasing entertainment. I won't give a detailed breakdown because it's complicated by how much the cities income is and how much corruption it is suffering. some interesting general results though. At 10% the size 20+ cities received NO BENEFIT. they had exctly the same number of content and unhappy workers after the war started. At 20% they showed some minor improvement, but by then the size 14 city had reached stability. The larger cities didn't start to reach stability until 40%, some not until much higher.

So, in general what I'm saying is if you wan't to fight a war as a Democracy, make sure your cities don't grow too large, or you're screwed.

[Arrian]

In Civ II, the bigger, the better, generally. Taxmen and Scientists produced quite a bit of money/science. Not so in Civ III. 1 gold or 1 beaker just ain't worth it. The bigger the city is, the more difficult it is to keep it happy, AND the more it pollutes. For this reason, I have taken to doing a lot more mining of grassland/plains than irrigating. I irrigate just enough to get the city large enough to use all of its land (and maybe a couple more people for entertainers) and that's it. Size 20 is all you need to cultivate all the land... so I try and keep the city under size 25.

Thus, whether you are a democracy or not, it's probably better NOT to try for that size 40 city.

For democracy, Sistine Chapel is crucial for war - any way you cut it, it's one of the best wonders in the game. Bach's is also really nice, and I imagine not having Univ. Suffrage would suck.

-Arrian

p.s. I find it a bit odd that Univ. Suffrage is a Major Wonder. So once one society becomes enlightened enough to allow all of its citizens to vote, none of the others can? No biggie, really, 'cause it's just a game, but kinda silly nonetheless.

[nato]

Good find!

This argues for having a higher number of smaller cities then. Getting high culture also argues for that, since culture is basically just the number of cities you have (because that determines how many temples, libraries, etc. you can have).

However, maintanence cost and corruption both favor having a few big cities.

I wonder which is better than, many small or few big?

[Mihai]

Originally posted by nato
I wonder which is better than, many small or few big?

Many big

[Pyrodrew]

It definitely helps the expansionists & hurts the specialists.

[Mihai]

DP

[Mihai]

Originally posted by nato
I wonder which is better than, many small or few big?

Many big

[Venger]

Originally posted by Arrian
p.s. I find it a bit odd that Univ. Suffrage is a Major Wonder. So once one society becomes enlightened enough to allow all of its citizens to vote, none of the others can? No biggie, really, 'cause it's just a game, but kinda silly nonetheless.

A salient viewpoint. I've never thought about it in that context - it's not very universal if only one Civ can build it! I think you are correct - Universal Suffrage should be a minor wonder.

Good find!

Venger

[Kc7mxo]

"Sorry Ms Smith, the Germans are already letting their women vote, so if we started it'd look we're copy cats. So you're outa luck."

[Dis]

maybe Firaxis thinks that women can't vote in England and Europe. you ever think of that?

yeah minor wonder would be a better fit. Wonder how hard that is to change?

I do think that big cities should be hit hard during wartime. We even have protests during the war on terrorism!! The bigger the city, the more peacenik weenies you have . But from what you describe the reaction is still too extreme. Very rarely has any disorder ever shut down an entire city!! They would have to seize manufacturing plants and such. So there is no realism for this, just a play balance thing. As we have all heard, they wanted to reduce the chance of some mega-civ rampaging the whole world. And hurting large cities is a way to do this. I usually don't war much in modern age, so I still like my large cities (except pollution )

[Sniffer]

I just wanted to quickly add that America was not the first nation to give women the right to vote and move toward universal suffrage. We were actually following England's lead. The early American suffrage movement stalled for a time, then came back later.

Anyway, cool point about it being better to have U. Suffrage as a minor wonder.

[BigNick]

I just wanted to quickly add that America was not the first nation to give women the right to vote and move toward universal suffrage. We were actually following England's lead. The early American suffrage movement stalled for a time, then came back later.

Actually, IIRC, the first parliament to give female suffrage was South Australia's colonial parliament, followed by New Zealand and (in 1901, at federation) Australia. The US was actually pretty late in the peace.

Having said that, I don't know who first instituted universal suffrage. I know that in Australia the aborigines couldn't vote until much later. I don't know what the go was for the maori.

I guess it depends what you mean by "universal". I don't know any country that extends the vote to children, criminals, the insane...