26-04-2004 15:56									#1
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Hey all. I've been playing a single player game the past couple of days, and I have to say that I've never seen anything like this.

Early on in the game I came across two rivers that merged before wandering off into the ocean. The really cool thing was that both of these rivers created floodplain squares. Also, two of these flood plain squares had grain. Knowing how well floodplains created food, I built a town right in the crook of the two rivers and named it "Boomtown."

Right away the town took off. Very shortly I had a pop 12 town. Then I realized the fault of the city, it had a very low production (about 5). So, it took a long time to build a hospital. When it finnaly did I started work on a granary. By the time the granary was finished I had a pop 27 town, and it was gaining 1 pop per turn!

Right now it is pop 34, and is gaining pop about every 2 or 3 turns.

I am wondering though, how often this happens in random maps. I mean, I've got about all but maybe 4 squares are floodplain, and I'm not even using 2 of the flood plain squares due to a neighboring city. Another thing is that these floodplains extend in both directions about another citie's worth. So, I have 3 other cities built on the same rivers with floodplains. They are both currently in their 20's.

I also have to wonder how much more food I would have had if I was an agricultural civ. I'm currently playing as the Americans.

I can't wait to see my city reach a pop of 43!
Dan O.

	26-04-2004 22:48									#2
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Sounds like a great place to pop settlers

Well done on the location

Hope you have heaps of room for all the settlers you will be able to pop

	27-04-2004 00:26									#3
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That sounds nice ...

Evil idea - set it to build workers and sell them to the AI!

	27-04-2004 05:32									#4
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Paddy, it's too bad I could never turn it into a settler pump. The problem was the low production. When it was smaller (6-12) it took about 15-20 turns to pump out a settler. On the other hand, I had a lot of of pop 4-6 sized cited that coul pump a settler in under 10 turns.


It would be funny to give the AI about 50 workers, and watch them go broke. Currently, they have no money at all. I, on the other hand, am making about 300gpt. I've actually managed to save up about 10k, even though I spent about 8k on upgrading all 173 spearmen to infantry.

Well, class is starting, gtg,
Dan O.

	27-04-2004 09:48									#5
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Your workers will be upkeep-free for the AI, just like its workers are for you.

	27-04-2004 10:04									#6
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Whoa, I thought that they counted as a military unit.

I guess the reason I noticed a big drop in income when I build a lot of workers is the loss of population, thus the loss of people working the land.

Huh, so, I guess there would be no problem in building another 50 workers for my civ, too bad it's too late for the great rail roading operation.

Somehow I thought that workers counted as a military unit, I mean, they are listed in the military advisor screen.

I'm still not sure how my military is costing over 350gpt, I only have 172 infantry, and a bunch of galleons, and some of those wonder units from the ancient and middle ages. I guess it's possible that I have close to 200 more units somewhere, but I doubt it.

Any idea why my units are costing me so much?

	27-04-2004 10:06									#7
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Opps, I missed the word "it's" in the phrase "just like it's workers are for you.

Sorry, disregard that last post,
Dan O.

	27-04-2004 10:07									#8
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Let me be more clear:

Workers of your nationality do count as military units for support purposes, and work full speed.

Workers you control of other nationalities (including those you build in cities with none of your own citizens) do not count as military units for support purposes, and work half speed.

	27-04-2004 10:11									#9
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Okay then, I'll have to go in and investigate why my miltary expendatures are so high.

Thanks for clearing that up,
Dan O.

	27-04-2004 12:39									#10
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quote: Originally posted by Melboz99 Right away the town took off. Very shortly I had a pop 12 town. Then I realized the fault of the city, it had a very low production (about 5). So, it took a long time to build a hospital. When it finnaly did I started work on a granary. By the time the granary was finished I had a pop 27 town, and it was gaining 1 pop per turn!

I may be misunderstanding a little here, but did you build the hospital right after founding the city? If you did, then there's something weird going on with tech in your game (modded?) as Hospitals take a while to get to otherwise.

quote: I also have to wonder how much more food I would have had if I was an agricultural civ. I'm currently playing as the Americans.

Only one (centre tile) if there are no irrigated deserts around, otherwise this 1 and one extra per irrigated desert.

quote: I can't wait to see my city reach a pop of 43! Dan O.

Can you give us a screenshot or a save game? That would be cool to see.

	27-04-2004 12:51									#11
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I hope you are using all that excess population as specialists, and not just entertainers? You could get great benefits by putting them to work as taxmen and/or scientists.

Also, if you have discovered Replaceable Parts you can use a few as engineers, giving you 2 extra shields of production per engineer, which will go a long way towards offsetting the poor production of your flood plains.

By the way, did you have big problems with disease before you researched Sanitation?

On unit support costs, it also depends on your government. If you are in Republic, the support cost is 2gpt above your free support levels, which can be very expensive if many of yout towns are below size 6.

And I'm with MWIA....post a screenie or a save game - it would be cool to see!

	27-04-2004 13:28									#12
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quote: Originally posted by Melboz99 Right away the town took off. Very shortly I had a pop 12 town. Then I realized the fault of the city, it had a very low production (about 5). So, it took a long time to build a hospital. When it finnaly did I started work on a granary. By the time the granary was finished I had a pop 27 town, and it was gaining 1 pop per turn!

I may be misunderstanding a little here, but did you build the hospital right after founding the city? If you did, then there's something weird going on with tech in your game (modded?) as Hospitals take a while to get to otherwise.

quote: I also have to wonder how much more food I would have had if I was an agricultural civ. I'm currently playing as the Americans.

Only one (centre tile) if there are no irrigated deserts around, otherwise this 1 and one extra per irrigated desert.

quote: I can't wait to see my city reach a pop of 43! Dan O.

Can you give us a screenshot or a save game? That would be cool to see.

	27-04-2004 18:12									#13
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Hey all. Until I reached sanitation, the proper way (no mod) I mainly built settlers and things like a temple and a library. The city still has a production of 6, so I think that enginneers would be a great idea! It seems that the game has changed a lot since I was really into it.

Also, you'll note that just for the heck of it I took my other cities off the two squares they were working in this city's radius. The total food per turn is now a whopping 96!!!

It is a pop 38 currently, I don't get a chance to play all that often now that my teachers are loading on hw for the end of the semester.

Here is the cleared map:




And here is the city window:



By the way, do workers cost anything in Demorcracy to maintain? Because I have added up all my military, using the military advisor screen, viewing by unit, and the only thing that adds up to the 332 military that is says I have is by including workers.

Here is a screen shot of my military advisor's screen.




In case you haven't figured out, I play builder. The galleons were for exploring the map, and the crusaders and calvery were of course from the wonders that I built. They came in really handy for taking about 5 medium sized towns away from the Mayans. At first it was just to get some coal that was in their territory, then I was glad I took 5 of them when I got oil on the map

Well, thanks for the replies!
Dan O.

	27-04-2004 20:10									#14
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That's an awesome city!

Yes, workers cost 1gpt in Democracy like every other unit.

Ummm....very symmetrical city layout you've got there - from the minimap view. You might want to have another look at that.

	27-04-2004 20:29									#15
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I once heard that this was one of the better ways to do city layout. I simply place my cities 3 squares away vertically and horizontaly. In this way, each city loses only about 4 squares, yet it uses the map much more efficently, leaving only 1 square outside city radii. Often, fitting more cities on the map is more important than keeping each city's radius seperate from the others.

What kind of layout would you suggest for a builder?

Thanks,
Dan O.

	27-04-2004 22:31									#16
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nice city

why didn't you mine the desert for a bit extra production? (or plains or whatever those shield tiles in the bottom are)

	28-04-2004 05:00									#17
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Melboz99, awesome city... post a save in the strat forum so people can give you some more specific pointers, though. Two that come to mind are the city placement issue (3-tile spacing is fine, but strictly NS and EW could be improved), and the need, or lack thereof as a builder, for so many Infantry once in democracy and given your control of the southern half of the continent.

	28-04-2004 09:01									#18
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Maybe he's roleplaying...I know I do. I'll build at least one defence unit per city, and I'll research Bronze Working simply for the spearman. Sure, I would do just as well with warriors, and later on only a couple teams of defenders used in conjunction with my RR system, but that would be roleplaying an efficient player rather than an aesthetical one...I won't even mine grasslands unless it has the mineral bonus.

	28-04-2004 09:20									#19
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Population is listed at only 7.4 million. What is it with CIV and the undersized modern cities?

	28-04-2004 17:53									#20
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quote: Originally posted by Smiley Population is listed at only 7.4 million. What is it with CIV and the undersized modern cities?

He is still in the Industrial Era - does it change in different eras, or am I thinking of another game?

* MrWhereItsAt notices his dp - about an hour later!

Wonder how THAT happened....

PS thanks for those screenies!

	28-04-2004 18:55									#21
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Thanks for the replies guys. Isn't straight up considered North? By straight up I mean if you draw a line from the middle of the bottom of the screen to the middle of the top of the screen. That's how I spaced them, 3 spaces apart N, S, E, W.

Anyway, I now have 180 Mech infantry. I think alot my reasoning for this comes from playing games where the enemy massively attacked in the late game. In fact, I was just attacked by the Mayans. It wasn't to big of an invasion force, about 4 longbowman, but the 50 frigates were driving me nuts. So I had to build a navy and air force to sink their fleet.

Anyway, Most of the mech infantry started as spearmen. I upgraded all my spearmen, (1, 2, or 3 per city depending on population) to pikemen, then to riflemen (I never did get any saltpeter) then to Infantry. I then upgraded them all to mech infantry. I suppose the total cost was over 15k, but at one point, I had 40k, so it was no biggie. Add to that the fact that mech infantry costs the same to maintain as a spearmen, why not?

By the way, what is "dp"?

Thanks,
Dan O.

	28-04-2004 19:12									#22
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dp = double post. I have two posts with the same words in them. This sometimes happens if you click two times on the submit button or through other such accidents. Usually they're seconds apart at most though. Mine was a lot longer...

	29-04-2004 13:03									#23
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Melboz99 , you may want to investigate the OCP pattern (Optimal City Placement).

Basically it gives each city 20 tiles, no unused tiles, and only one overlapped tile per city. It's a skewed 4*5 pattern.

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Awesome city btw

	29-04-2004 18:10									#24
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Hey guys, I completed the game. I did a space race victory.

Did Firaxis remove the statement in the civlopedia about having to have double the culture points of any other civ, without removing the rule?

I have 180,000+ culture, the Mayans have about 100,000. I remember there used to be that qualifying statement in there, but I don't see it anymore.

Anyway the population of Boomtown is now over 11 million. I have 47 citizens. Actually, I could have bumped that up to 48, but one of the neighboring cities took one of the tiles agian. I figured 47 was big enough.

Here is a screenie:


Thanks for all the replies, I'm off to post the game on the strategy forum.

Dan O.


Oh yeah, anyone have a clue why engineers don't show an increased production, but do show a reduced completion time for projects?

Thanks,
Dan O.

	29-04-2004 18:19									#25
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I see you irrigate all that can be irrigated. I used to cause I got used to civ1 & civ2. But in civ3 I have more mines that irrigated squares. Think about it.... With all the production increasing buildings, it is better to have +1 shield than +1 food!

	29-04-2004 18:54									#26
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Perhaps you are right, but I'm not the type of person to micromanage over 100 workers around my vast empire.


Now, if there were some way to give workers more specific intructions, like the way the governor works for cities, then perhaps I would make more mines.

Besides, the year is 1980, I'm building manufacturing plants in all my cities (via governor) and that should be the last thing that most of my cities have to build. Having all those citizens gives me more commerce, allowing me to raise the science rate without going broke.

I suppose the other alternative would be to tell my cities to emphasise science, and then they might turn all those extra citizens into scientists.

Either way, it's more efficient for me to have tax men or scientists than to have wealth, which is one gold for every two production. A taxman creates 2 wealth, and a scientist creates 3 beakers.

Oh how I hated the days of Civ2 where every worker must be manually manuervered, for lack of a decent AI.

Dan O.

	29-04-2004 19:02									#27
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Oh, BTW, if you look at my citizens you will see I have 13 set as engineers. This creates 26 production. Now, I'm not sure if this comes before or after the factory and nuclear plant.

Either way, there is no way I would a have pumped out another 26 production out of those tiles, especially since I also have the option of adding another 8 engineers for 16 more production.

Dan O.