The 'size six' strategy

[La Fayette]

Aeson,
The second threshold is at size 12. It works exactly the same as the one at size 6: you must have a hospital and a granary, then you grow the city to size 13 and build a worker. The city is reduced to size 12, but the foodbox is full, due to the change of size (4 food in a row at size 12, and 6 at size 13). After that first move, you build one settler/turn as long as you wish and the citysize remains 12.
I could name this 'La Fayette's size 12', but in fact it is exactly the same as what happens at size 6, so I keep the previous name:
'SIZE 6 = As many workers as you need'

(La Fayette, designer of the 'size 12' strategy )

[The Hermit]

You guys just figured this one out? I picked this up in my third game, Japanese conquest of the small world, a few weeks back. I sort of tripped over it by accident, but I had two cities ripe for doing this. I ended up with a giant mobile force of workers. More than I needed, really, but they were quite fun.

I wish I could develop some other strategies, though. That's about the only "good" thing I ever get right by everyone else's standards here. I just can't seem to get in to this thirty-well-defended-cities-by-A.D. groove that seems to be the norm.

I would have said something sooner if I hadn't thought it was common knowledge, so sayeth The Hermit.

"It's not enough, I need more
Nothing seems to satisfy,
I don't want it, I just need it.
To feel, to breathe, to know I'm alive." Tool - Stinkfist

[La Fayette]

The Hermit
Do you know what this forum is about?
It's about exchanging knowledge and ideas in order to play this game better. Therefore I am ready to believe you if you say that you had some kind of size 6 strategy in use before reading this thread. But what you should have done, if this is true, is take your pen and write about it in order to share your better knowledge with your fellows Apolytoners.
If you just come a few weeks later and say 'yes, I did that' anybody will be ready to laugh at you, or at least to ask 'why didn't you tell us then?'.
I am convinced that 'size 6' is a strong strategy and many people playing civ3 will be using it within a few weeks from now. None of those will be saying 'The Hermit was the one found out', just because you 'forgot' to write about it.

(La Fayette, designer of 'size 6' strategy...since no one wrote about it before he did)

[HalfLotus]

La Fayette, this is a gem. No need to defend yourself from hermit. His response was immature at best.

I betcha Soren sees this as an exploit and changes it in the next patch. The food box should go back to half full (thus losing some food), after building the worker. A great strat, and great analysis of the "threshold" concept.

I fear that in MP, anybody who doesn't use this will get whipped. Much like ICS in civ2, I think it would make the games formulaic and less fun.

BTW, someone brought up this strat as a "bug" in general forum, I pointed them in your direction.

[The Hermit]

Actually until two days ago I was only lurking over on general. I didn't read strategy forum because I really didn't want to hear how much better everyone else was than me at this. *chuckles* Anyhow...

I will attempt in the future to share what I know if by some strange miracle I should happen to find some sort of decent strategy by accident again. I actually stumbled upon this in my third game, on a small map, as the Japanese. I had coincidentally run out of things to build around the same time my capital hit size seven, and the workers I had weren't getting what I wanted done as fast as I wanted it done. Call it Civ 2 impatience. So I queued six workers, figuring it'd give my capital time to grow back around the same time I got to the next wonder (I was in that lull between Sistine and Copernicus). Once I noticed after three or so turns my population wasn't decreasing...I wore an evil little grin.

Is it an exploit caused by an unintentional loophole in the rules? Possibly. We'll know next patch, I suppose. Is it game-breaking? Not really. But it is an improvement over requiring an upkeep of food and/or shields. Then again, with current corruption levels, it's had to tell the difference. *grins*

And while we're not on the topic of immaturity, thank you for your constructive, mature, well-researched, and wholly non-judgmental post, Lotus, so sayeth The Hermit.

"Don't cry,
Or feel too down.
Not all martyrs see divinity,
But at least you tried." Tool - Eulogy

[HalfLotus]

One sentence of my post was directed at you Hermit. There were lots of other sentences.

To say: "You guys just figured that out?" is condescending and patronizing.

Having read the Firaxis chat transcript, Dan M. says Soren likes to read the strat forum and squash exploits. Apparently the next patch weakens the despot rush.

Vegas has the "size six strat" being squashed by Soren at 3:1 odds.

Merry Christmas.

[The Hermit]

To say: "You guys just figured that out?" is condescending and patronizing.

Sorry to be the ruiner, but that was actual, sincere shock and amasement. I don't consider myself a very top-of-the-line player, and to think that for some odd reason I'd found something out that the guru crew here hadn't yet gotten to just sort of threw me off. I will admit I probably could have worded it better. Such are the imperfections of non-oral communication. I will further admit that I did blow your sentence out of proportion, I made a reactionary retort to a hastily made conclusion that probably offended me more than it should have.

Anyhow, giant miscommunication. Can we try this again?

Not looking to make any enemies, so sayeth The Hermit.

"Remember, we are eternal - all this pain is an illusion." Tool - Parabola

[HalfLotus]

No worries, mate.

BTW, whats with the "so sayeth the Hermit" stuff. Is that a roleplaying thing?

[solo]

La Fayette,

I've been away, so sorry for the delay in answering your question. The answer is NO to being able to win OCC in deity yet, but I am trying only for spaceship wins. Best so far is 3 parts, before an AI launch. I may do better using your size 6, and will let you know how this works.

In 5-city deity games I have managed spaceship wins twice. I believe some others have managed OCC cultural wins at deity, which are impressive, but still easier to achieve than launching first.

[La Fayette]

Originally posted by HalfLotus
La Fayette, this is a gem. No need to defend yourself from hermit. His response was immature at best.

I betcha Soren sees this as an exploit and changes it in the next patch. The food box should go back to half full (thus losing some food), after building the worker. A great strat, and great analysis of the "threshold" concept.

BTW, someone brought up this strat as a "bug" in general forum, I pointed them in your direction.

Half Lotus,
Thank you for defending me against The Hermit. I suppose he's a very young man and didn't take enough care before writing. I think he apologized. OK, it's over.
(I wish I were as young as he probably is )

About the threshold at size 6 (and the other one at size 12), it is not a bug at all: it is exactly the same system as in civ2, but the programmers of civ3 decided not to grow the size of the foodbox every time the size of the city is increased, but to grow it at size 7 and at size 13. The foodbox works exactly as it should at size 6 (and also at size 12), but the change in size of the foodbox produces that marvelous effect that The Hermit and I noticed .
In civ2, there is a threshold effect at size 5 (due to the fact that specialists appear at that size and the city is able to starve every other turn). Xin Yu noticed that and built his well known 'size 5' strategy that anyone can find in the 'Great Library' (top thread of the civ2 strategy forum, initiated by my friends the SGs).
This remains true after several years (no civ2 patch has modified this) and many players go on 'Xinning'. And this also remains true for many other bugs or cheats or exploits or whatever you wish to name them: Ming started a thread where dozens of them are described in detail, and honest players decide which are going to be allowed or not when they start a game.

What is going to happen with civ3? This is clearly a decision in the hands of Sid or Soren or 'Firaxis'...
Never mind: whatever they modify, we shall find new ways of winning.
I loved civ2 (and probably spent thousands of hours playing it and certainly won't stop playing it before many months from now, since I have 4 different games going and another one in project).
But I feel that I am also going to love civ3, with or without a threshold at size 6, because it is a very different game and I enjoy feeling like a rookie in front of it (and knowing that there are many details to be understood or discovered).

solo
I started at Chieftain when I got the game from you a fortnight ago. I am now playing 'tournament 3' at Monarch. Probably join you at Deity within a fortnight or so. Merry Christmas.

[The Hermit]

BTW, whats with the "so sayeth the Hermit" stuff. Is that a roleplaying thing?

Despite the fact I do role-play, I do not do as such on internet message boards. It's just a tag line, a catchy one as I'm told, that I happen to use. I've posted under this name on a lot of boards in the last decade or so, and I enjoy doing so. However, it is, paradoxically, a rather popular name, I find. So my tag line serves the double purpose of identifying WHICH hermit I am, since I frequently need to modify the name to not clash with the other local hermit(s).

Thank you for defending me against The Hermit. I suppose he's a very young man and didn't take enough care before writing. I think he apologized. OK, it's over.

If that were the truth, oh, if that were the truth. Actually I've just got a tad too much Irisih in me (blood or alcohol, you decide), and it makes me a mite bit tempermental at times. Likely to take offence, you see. Though I really don't think I was so severe as to need defending against, do you? Terribly sorry if so.

Happy whatever your celebration of the season is, so sayeth The Hermit.


"What are you but my reflection,
Who am I to judge or strike you down?" Tool - Pushit (All versions)

[cheerful]

1. To set up a worker factory, you can join worker to that city. Once you reach size 6 with a full foodbox, you will get one worker per 1/2 turns. You will soon recover the workers you added to the city. The only consideration here is you need time to build granary (and maybe temple to keep them content).

2. I am guessing this will soon be corrected by the programmer unless this is intended behavior. This is caused by readusting from the total number in the in the foodbox, including the lower half in granary. In stead, they can keep only the effective No. of wheats (the top portion). On size change (build/add worker or settler), the bottom half will be adjusted to the new size, but the No. of wheats in the top half will remain the same.

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Bonjour, La Fayette! I see the CivLab has some new equipment...

I played my first game of Civ3 yesterday, and it looks like fun. As I am still learning "how to", I've made no effort to optimize or strategize at all. However, I stumbled upon the size 12 version of this strategy. Not because I planned to, but rather because I was unable to build hospitals. Unable to grow, I ordered workers to be built each turn. The food surplus would keep me at size 12 - essentially turning extra (otherwise wasted) wheatsheaves into workers. I'll try it with a size 6 city next time.

Some beginner worker questions:

1. How many workers do people typically have by 1ad (or per city, if that is a better way to ask)?
2. Do colonies made with foreign workers behave as if they were my own workers settling them?
3. Can one add foreign workers to my capitol without fear of the city changing hands? (This is far fetched, but might be good to know) Would this cause unhappiness in wartime that would be too much to handle?

[Aeson]

Marquis -

The number of workers is something that can vary greatly from game to game. Often I will have hundreds of captured workers from razed cities by the end of the BC's. If warfare isn't part of the game I'm playing, I usually build 1 or 2 workers per city by that time. Less if I am playing an Industrious Civ.

There isn't any difference between colonies built by captured workers either, and it's a good idea to use them for that task.

As far as adding those captured workers to your population, it can sometimes lead to trouble. I've had a size 33 city in the heart of my empire defect after adding 15 captured english workers to its population. This city was only 8 spaces from my capitol, and at least 50 from the only city the English had left, which was size 5. My people were in distain of their culture, and I wasn't even at war with the English at the time. Going to war with a Civ after adding a lot of their captured workers to your cities is very harsh on happiness, and should be avoided. I have read a couple of posts where people have said that the AI has lost it's capitol culturally, but have never seen it happen.

[solo]

I tried it at size 12 using a hospital, but the granary of a size 13 city only holds 30 food, which is 10 short of filling up the size 12 food box, so a worker per turn while maintaining size 12 is only possible if you are producing 10 extra food.

In contrast, at size 7, the granary supplies 20 food, which completely fills the size 6 box.

This is not so bad, as the strategy is most useful at size 6 anyways, and enough workers can be produced while waiting for a hospital, by building one whenever needed when the size 12 food box fills. Enough are accumulated for railroading and building up to size 20 and above, later.

[Shaka II]

Has anyone done an analysis on what best to use the workers and settlers produced by size 6 or any fast growing incubator city?

Mainly, I was thinking in the area of population leveling, so that all cities are about the same size (e.g., size 6) to minimize corruption, maximize production, gold, etc.

Generally, I use them (as probably most players) to make all significant improvements and then add them to the smaller cities when done.

[Marquis de Sodaq]

In size 12 cities with high food production, I've altered military units or improvements with settlers in the build order. While building the other things, the city grows back to size 12. Roll out another settler, repeat the process.

The settler jogs to a town and boost the population. As long as corruption in the town isn't too high, the benefits are enormous.

[Grrr]

I kinda figured this out a couple of days ago, but thank you for pointing out the prerequisites. I can't wait until multiplayer comes out, and start playing with such strategies. Furthermore, I think that there is a way to make setler factories. Just have two workers from your strategy lying around and rebuild the city to it's old size.

BTW is their any limit to the city size which can be increased with workers/settlers, as in Civ2.

Also to all those worrying about investment: once you have one Worker factory setup, then expansion should be easy as in 9 turns (8 workers+1 settler), one can have a new factory setup, for minimal cash.
I like this strategy better than WLT_D

[Aeson]

It is possible to add up to at least 230 workers to a city. Someone did this on one of the tourney games, not sure of the exact number. I tried it on another game to see how high I could get it. I would guess that if there is a limit, it would either be at 255 (size limit for civ 2 cities, 8 bit number) or at a significantly higher 16bit (65536) or 32bit (4294967295, wouldn't that be funny?) number.

The "cost" of setting up a worker factory isn't only in how long it takes to set up though, but in how much else could be done with those turns of production. By the way, you would need to build a granery as well, so that would cost a couple extra turns for set-up. Usually it isnt worth it to set up these types of establishments until the conquest phase of the game is over. Partly because of the military units that could be produced instead, and partly because of the huge number of captured workers that are available during conquest.

[La Fayette]

I beg your pardon for no reply: I had no access at all to Apolyton between Christmas and yesterday night.

Xin Yu
Happy to see you back!
Thank you for kind appreciation and tips.

solo
I must check that threshold effect at size 12 once more. I did check before writing about it, but what you write seems very convincing.

Marquis de Sodaq
Yes, Marquis, my lab is open, but it is in the open field for the time being, namely playing tournament #3. 'size 6' gives very nice results (but it seems that our master at ICSing, DaveV, is also going very strong ).
I agree with the answers that Aeson gave to your questions.

shaka II
No detailed analysis yet, but it would be wiser to add your workers to the bigger cities rather than the smaller ones (since the bigger ones usually have some more improvements inside; same idea as the one behind the SSC).

Aeson
Opportunity cost, of course!
'size 6' first or early conquest first? I suppose that geography and neighbours matter.

[La Fayette]

3 pieces of information (for those interested):

1) I have derived a new use of 'size 6': see my thread 'The enlightened despot' on this forum.

2) Julius Brenzaida gives the opportunity to play a huge succession game 'Heroic Epic so that civ2 will never die': see his thread on civ2 General Forum.

3) Xin Yu is busy exploding my previous records at CiC scenarios, with plenty of new findings about how this game (yes: civ2!) works: see my thread on civ2 Strategy Forum.

[La Fayette]

good news!
It seems that 'size 6' works like a charm at higher difficulty levels.
I made extensive use of 'size 6' in tournament game #3 (Monarch level) and achieved domination in 176O.
I am now using it in a game at Emperor level with poor Indians, planning to launch in the early 18 ies.

(La Fayette, winking to all happy 'size6' users)

[mengo76]

Wow.
I stay away from the forums for the holidays and look what i miss... Not that I wasn't playing civ, I ws just caught up in a huge-16civ-monarch game that took forever, especially since it hogged about 280 megs of ram and my machine froze every couple turns, i was saving the game at least 3 times per turn... but I digress :-P

NEway, love the strat, can't believe i didn't notice it, i have built workers at size 7 and grown back the next turn, but it didnt dawn on me that i could keep doing it forever!

So one strategy is to use the workers to populate other cities... But how about those of you who use them for improvements? How do you manage having so many workers? I have had nothing but bad experiences with automation, so I gave up on that. Now in this last game I had 54 workers at one point, and it just got so tedious, that once I improved all the terrain such that each city had at least 50 food, I just added them all to cities, keeping about 20 to deal with pollution. (By the way, I won by diplomacy in 1600AD).

Well now my head is spinning and I can't wait to get home to play some more... And can't wait for my new athlon 1700 and gig of memory :-P

PS: what's OCC mean exactly?

[Hurry]

OCC=One City Challenge

Beat the game with only one city.

[La Fayette]

OCC
3 years ago, no one thought it was possible (that was civ2 of course). Then Paul managed it and wrote a recipe that many people consider the best ever written about civ2 (that you can find in the GL, first thread on top of civ2 strategy forum).
Then the so-called 'early landers' started competing and got amazing results (up to winning the game with one city size 1!).
I shall name samson, solo and Ribannah (princess of the elves).

solo is now hard at work winning civ3 OCC at deity level, but another player, named toe truck IIRC, has already managed it last week.

I haven't seen any post sent by Paul, samson or Ribannah yet, but mind you, the day they start posting you probably open your eyes and glare.


(La Fayette, sending a friendly sign to toe truck ... and solo of course)

[Arrian]

Wow, somehow I totally missed this thread until now (I've been over in Vel's strat. threads). Very interesting stuff, and it helps explain things I've noticed, but never paid any attention to, in my games.

I always try to set up a "worker farm" early in the game, usually a city with floodplains but low production, but I've never realized what can be done with a 10-shield, size 6 w/granary & aqueduct/freshwater city. I must say, though, that a size 6 city early on in the game is usually a core city, which is almost always tasked to building something I consider really important - more so than workers (usually either wonders or key improvements such libraries, marketplaces, cathedrals, etc.). This phenomenon occurs later in the game, too, when my cities are building universities, banks and then factories - and at some point, some semblance of an army Only post-industrialization do I normally hit a point a which I say "I don't really have anything to build here" - and usually build wealth, because I have tons of captured workers handling improvements/pollution control. The one use I would have for this strategy late in the game is to pump cities up from size 12 to 20ish. That could indeed be powerful, but I have a self-imposed rule not to cross size 12 until I have mass transit. Sounds nuts, right? Well, I'm probably screwing myself out of a better score, but I am drastically reducing pollution problems (which I HATE - more than you can imagine) in my empire.

Sorry for the length of the post. I think it was Mark Twain who said something like "this letter would have been shorter, if I'd only had the time."

-Arrian

edit: I can spell, really.

[DrSpike]

I also worried about the appropriate window for this idea (especially on emperor/deity) many moons ago when la Fayette originated the thread. As always it depends on your playstyle, but after a few games my initial hunch that earlyish AD is most appropriate for me (post initial conquering hopefully, foreigh worker supply dried up) proved to be pretty good. I agree entirely about Arrian's points regarding core cities, which is why I often use gaps in my empire early on to build entirely self-sufficient (albeit slow) worker factories (which can also be used to rush units) as described earlier in the thread. An alternative I've tried with reasonable success is to break your back (need two MP, temple, 2 lux with no rushing in memory) to get a BC size six and use the pop created elsewhere to rush unit after unit in the throwaway cities (no problems later with spoilsport citizens ). The irony here is that in this case the window for the strat is larger on higher levels where you may be forced to be more militaristic, a different relationship between the window and difficulty level than I had envisaged.

[La Fayette]

Arrian and Dr Spike
We all are rookies (and I am much more a rookie than you are, since civ3 has not come to France yet and I got the game from solo 40 days after you ).
Therefore I think we need to climb several steps up along the learning curve before being able to judge which method is strongest (and civ2 has taught us that it wasn't easy to judge at all: I go on playing games against OCCers and ICSers and no one would bet in advance who is going to win).
Please go on playing as you feel. As long as we share information, I think all of us will learn faster by trying different ways rather than all playing along with the same pattern

[DrSpike]

La Fayette

That was kinda frosty I think both mine and Arrian's post were praising the ideas you originated, and adding some points for discussion. Surely this is good?

[La Fayette]

Dr Spike
I didn't intend my reply to be frosty at all (sorry english isn't my mother language). I am convinced that Arrian and you are among those who try to use their brains instead of complaining about the AI not being fair to them.
The point is that I am unable to discuss what you have tried, because I haven't tried it yet (and I really think it is wise to try many ways before deciding that this one or that one is best).