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Gastrifitis
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The happy land of Engineers
Feb 2001
time: 05:12
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I was playing a ICS-Perfectionist hybrid game when I realized that I had fallen into pure perfectionism. I had a huge empire, with lots of Engineers, but no new cities were being built. Between the subcontinents and various corners to be filled, I was never going to get all the available territory occupied by the end of the game. At that point, I could have switched all my cities over to Engineer production, a move that might have resulted in pollution and riots in many places. Instead, I called on one of my oldest cities to carry the load by itself. I call this the Super Engineer City because the option is not available immediately in the game. Also, Super Settler City would have a confusing acronym.
Government: Democracy or Republic
City Size: Greater than the available squares to be worked; usually 20+
City Production: 40+
City is celebrating
Usually, the first thing to do is get your SEC happy. In my case, it had just become happy; it only lacked the Supermarket to continue growth. So 2 turns later I was ready. I switched over to "permanent" Engineer production. Every year, my SEC grew 1 size from the celebration, and shrunk 1 size from the building of the Engineer. Therefore, size remained constant. All I needed to do was make sure there was excess food each turn and at least 40 shields going towards production. If the building of the Engineer made either of these things no longer true, I had to make sure the new Engineer was homed in a different city before the end of the turn, or had built a new city with itself. If the city's growth potential was greater than 2 from new farmland, I switched over to a Structural or Freight for 2 turns and then back.
It is recommended, though not absolutely necessary, that the fluctuation in city size that occurs each new turn affects only the Elvises. If it affects the actual workers in the field, different squares could end up being worked, resulting in disruption of food, happiness, or production. The idea is to leave as little micromanaging as possible, although you still have to pick a new home city for the new Engineer a lot of the time.
Even if a city is completely maxed in population, it can become an SEC. The city will shrink in size equal to every Engineer you keep homed in the SEC, plus one for the new Engineer being built each turn.
The expansion under this plan is not exponential, but it is a very steep straight line. Also, unlike the SSC, you can have as many SECs as there are available city candidates. I ended up using two. I don't recommend making your SSC into an SEC; you want as many Einsteins as possible there. 
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22-03-2001 05:52
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