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Old March 19, 2002, 17:35   #1
Arrian
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City Size
CivIII score is essentially 2 parts territory, 1 part population, averaged over the course of the game. Therefore, bigger cities = bigger score. I, however, usually cap my cities' growth between size 17 and 20. Basically, I let them grow until they are in danger of dropping out of WLTKD (Monarch level), or the next citizen will be a specialist (which are useless), whichever is first. I will run 10% luxuries, but don't like going over that. Hence 17 - 20. Clearly, however, I could rack up more points if I irrigated everything and let the cities grow up into the 30s.

My problem with that approach is that, in order to increase the "score" I have to make my cities less productive (mines to irrigation) and my citizens less happy. So I don't do it.

Maybe I'm being stubborn for no reason. I used to not let my cities grow past size 12 until I had ecology (!) because I hate pollution so much... but 1.17 seems to have toned down pollution, so now I let them grow (slowly) during the Industrial Age. That makes sense, since those extra pop points actually work the land, producing shields and commerce. Once you cross 20, though, all they produce is score.

So maybe, just maybe, it makes sense (once I do have mass transits built) to irrigate everywhere, except for a few cities w/lots of hills that I will leave for SS/Wonder construction, and jack up the lux rate higher. Obviously, this assumes that my army is all set up, and I don't anticipate massive casualties.

What do you all do?

-Arrian
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Old March 19, 2002, 18:55   #2
Aeson
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I tend towards two extremes when playing. My favorite is a rigid pattern of 20 tile cities. This claims a lot of land fast, doesn't waste any tiles, and just looks nice on the mini-map. I mine everything until my cities are set up, then switch everything to irrigation. The cities tend to grow to 25-35 on average, with plenty of high production cities. Pollution is quite annoying when I play like this, even with Mass Transits.

The other side of my bi-polar Civ personality just throws down cities anywhere and everywhere. I flood the map with Settlers, building on any Hills, Desert, or Tundra squares that have good food sources around them. Grasslands and Plains get ICS style cities. I mine everything to begin with, except in corrupt areas, then switch mid-game and irrigate every tile. My cities end up being closely packed and only grow to 8-12 in most cases. This saves me from having to build a lot of Hospitals and Mass Transits, but doesn't really give me any big production cities. I still get all the wonders, but that's just because the AI is in worse shape than I am from a production standpoint. Seems they never have any cities left after the Middle Ages.

Another benefit of this style is that luxuries keep everyone happy with a Marketplace. Any specialists can collect taxes or do research. In Despotism or Monarchy my army is always free, no matter how large it gets. And of course there are no pollution problems at all, probably my favorite aspect of this style of play.
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Old March 19, 2002, 20:14   #3
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I leave most of my cities at size 12 (by not building Hospitals) until the end of the game is in sight, at which point I irragte everything and buy Hospitals. I then try to get my population as high as possible in order to boost my score (think Civ2). When it's time to do this, my Workers have nothing to do anymore so don't mind cleaning up pollution for a living.

In general, you don't gain any significant advantage by having huge cities (production or economy) like you did in Civ2 or Alpha Centauri, so I see no point in getting them above 12. I will selectively put Hospitals in cities that can really use them (particularly, my Science cities), usually just enough to allow me to build Battlefield Medicine (I'm usually in Communism and at war when this happens, so it's just great).

It's too bad there's really no incentive to get huge metropolises in Civ3, which (for me) are a sure mark of the modern age.


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Old March 20, 2002, 02:51   #4
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I don't even worry about it. I figure, if a tax collector brings in a gold, so be it. I don't worry about pollution either. Often by this time, my workers have little else to do - bring on the coal plants! Also, I like to build Hospitals & max out my tiles as I don't pack my cities in too much. Sorry, it just sounds like too much worrying to me for what seems to me not a big consequence. Losing 1 square to pollution for a couple of turns??

There is a bonus for big cities - increased military support! Going from 4 to 8 is huge!
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Old March 20, 2002, 04:03   #5
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Well, since score is somewhat based on pop I tend to like to get as big a pop as possible as soon as feasable. This means a balance between needs for production and needs for food.

Production enables conquest. Territory is two-thirds of score so mining squares early is a good bet.

Population is better later on, after the armies have been built and they have conquered all the space that can be productive due to corruption. So slowly converting to irrigation is a good thing.

Once distance based corruption is absolute then cap the cities at 6 or so. Build nothing except Temple. Turn as many of the pop as possible to Banana, I mean Tax collectors. Each corrupt city can thus add to your available coin and to your territory based score. Also, 4 of these citiies are as many pop as your 24 pop capital for pop score.

Hmmm... It's all balance isn't it? Trade this for that and the other for something else.

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Old March 20, 2002, 05:41   #6
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Formerly (1.07, 1.16) I let my cities grow till their limit, got a big score and faced a lot of pollution.

In my newer (1.17) games I try to stop growth at a population near 20. I do this by mining all tiles, and irrigating a little only if I have a lot of mountains and hills. I don't care about score at all and seldom participate in tournaments or such. All I expect from my games is a bit entertainment after work and at weekends, so I usually don't go for a big population. In a couple of games I also tried not to build hospitals till end of industrial era, thus limiting population at 12. But that's not good in 1.17 games, because you need a lot of commerce to pay for tech advances.

For builders, there is another reason not to grow too much. This way you can manage not to be the first in the score table, thus lowering the danger to be constantly involved in wars by the rest of the world. Since you mined most of the tiles, you can easily outproduce the AI and, for example, win by space race.
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Old March 20, 2002, 10:17   #7
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I also tried out the "lets not let you grow beyond 12 until ecology" route, but I eventually discovered Ctrl-Shift-A, so I don't worry about pollution all that much. However, I just irrigate plains, flood plains (there's nothing else to do there) and desert if the city is in the middle of a desert. Grasslands always get and stay mined. Like you, Arrian, I tend to play the Egyptians, so being industrious and have a large worker-force takes care of most pollution issues. This leaves me with cities that generally end up in the 20 to 24 range. Of course, I don't play for score -- I just play to survive

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Old March 20, 2002, 11:46   #8
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Since I mine most of my grasslands, my population will generally fall off in the 18-24 range. A few cities will grow larger, but I try to keep them smaller and more reasonably sized.

In the early game, my workers focus on mining productive areas of my cities, but since the cities themselves cannot utilize all the spaces until after the discovery of sanitation I don't actually improve all the spaces until I need to. It saves time and reduces the number of workers you need. And, for whatever reason, I get a kick out of maximizing the productivity of a city.

This means that I do a couple of sweeps throughout my empire. Once for roads and mines/irrigation, two for rails, and a third for filling in everything.

When railroads are discovered, I place connecting my rail network as my Civ's highest priority. Eventually, I rail everything, of course.

Finally, after everything is done, I plant forests in all spaces that can't be worked but are within my culture borders. I do this for no good reason other than 'giving back' a little to the world. I've always noticed that all the civ's together pretty much deforest the world, and I wonder if this doesn't magnify pollution in some way. In theory, regardless, re-forestation should reduce air pollution. When the game ends, my Civ is always the one that has some preserved forest land.

I'd like to think that this helps global warming and pollution, but I doubt it. It does irk me a bit, though, that I get smacked with warming when I'm the only responsible Civ on the darn planet. Grrr... But, that's another topic...
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Old March 20, 2002, 13:19   #9
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There are several principals I apply to city management. I try to maximize production in the 'core' cities that are close to the capitol & FP. Cities that will never be good 'producers' because of corruption & waste get maximized for population. For producers I shoot for shield production amounts that don't waste production. By that I mean that if I have a city that produces 70 shields, then I will probably irrigate some tiles to drop that to 60 & set it to producing modern armor or cruise missiles.

I guess I really don't have an 'ideal' city size that I try to get to. & if a city can grow past size 12 I'll always build a hospital & let it. Although I usually build some happiness improvements first. Most of my core cities end up around 18 to 22 in size. It's the cities on the edge of the empire that end up getting large. I think the biggest I've had myself has been 28? playing monarch. I have seen ai cities built on flood plains that have been bigger than 40, but I haven't had the occasion to try to match that myself yet.

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Old March 20, 2002, 13:44   #10
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Re: City Size
Quote:
Originally posted by Arrian

Maybe I'm being stubborn for no reason. I used to not let my cities grow past size 12 until I had ecology (!) because I hate pollution so much... but 1.17 seems to have toned down pollution, so now I let them grow (slowly) during the Industrial Age. That makes sense, since those extra pop points actually work the land, producing shields and commerce. Once you cross 20, though, all they produce is score.
-Arrian
Exactcly the same as You. I hate poluution very much
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