[.95] Discussion on tension between cities/build queues and growth

I kind of like this "tension". Should I build a unit or make my city grow, or do I need more food before I accelerate growth? Very interesting to have these choices in my opinion.

There are growth improvements, but maybe you need the right techs. Can't remember.

Growth improvements are available one of three different ways:

• Town improvements (this is actually pretty silly but whatever)
• Soveriegns Call (researchable spell)
• Consulates (upgrades to outposts)

The fastest and gamiest way to grow cities it to surround them with outposts all with upgraded consulates.

There needs to be a more mainstread way of extending your queue capability in the earlier game. One can easily go through 300 turns with only 2 cities, and hense 2 queues. Even Consulates is out of your reach during that time.

I'll agree that Consulates is the probably the best way at extending your queue, but maybe move that gain earier in the tec-tree so that outposts to help your empire growth faster...

Hmmmm, it seems that the new changes have turned outposts into must haves.  But not necessarily to claim resources, but jut blank land, because then you can upgrade them with consulates.

Well its that, or be stuck with very few build queues to get any kind of growth....?

I think moving the consulates forward in the tech tree would change the growth of cities dramatically.  Basically at the moment, it seems the pacing of the whole game has been slowed down considerably (unless you want 10 lvl 1 cities... ).  What other changes (besides moving consulates) would increase the game pacing?  Has someone seed a word from teh Frog or Derek what game pacing they are looking to achieve?

I'm confused about what you mean between queues and growth.  I know prestige is split across all cities (so you pay for that expansion, and that seems to be a very balanced mechanic).  I built like crazy on my first beta-4 game (large map), out-paced the AI, and gobbled up my nearest neighbor, having 15 cities at the time I could basically bully everyone else into giving me the rest of the world.  At no time did I feel the pace was slower than in beta 3--by the time I produced armies of pikemen, my first couple of cities were 4th level or near-abouts.  Is your experience different?

How do you think build queues limit growth (other than the population cost of assembling units like pioneers)?

Build queues come from having cities, and having cities limits growth through the: City Growth = Empire prestige/number of cities + local growth bonuses, equation.

The games I played, my cities barely grew because I built lots because I wanted more build queues.  So I had lvl 1 cities, and a couple of lvl 2 cities mainly through caputuring them, when I won the game.  For me, to be able to build enough stuff on a timely basis, you need to build many cities, however, that makes the cities very small, and grow even slower.

I don't know what unit pikemen are, but for perspective, I had won when half my army was just spear, and the other half was spear and full leather armour.  I did go the ultimate domination route however.  My Sov and Champion were only lvl 5.  close to lvl 6, but not.  Neither of them took + exp skills.

I hope that answered your queries Gorde?  I'd be interested to know how long it took you to win the large map.  And whether your cities grew fast at the beginning, or whether there was massive growth near the end of the game, or whether all your biggest cities were actually captured?

Ahh.  I had never before heard of the poor cities denigrated down to just their build queues, and that designation was throwing me off, but I guess that makes sense if that's all your interested in them for. *grin*  FYI, my units used lightning pikes (about 120 attack per stack of 5), so you know I took my sweet time researching and building (rather than going for the quick domination victory).

As a related note, I promise you do not need very many cities for their build queues (1 fort and 1 conclave served me well--the rest were redundant), but what you need them for is Faction Power.  At times, I had a score a mere 2-5 point ahead of the AI opponents (early game), and yet I was able to get tribute from them just fine.  I probably had 3-4 cities at that point, and no noticeable growth penalty (those initial cities were huge by the end of the game, as I said, giving me more money than I needed to spend).  I played an enchanter, so used the scrying pool for an extra city buff and switched the buff to growth (Sovereign's Call or something like that) from Inspiration (which is only good for the initial start, so don't be afraid change that buff to match your area of pursuit).

I loaded up an old save to check, and I was at about 190 seasons when I demanded the rest of the world give in to me (430ish power when the remaining 3 opponents were under 200).  I played a bit more just to see what a level 5 town's choices were (and a couple choices are great).  

Heh, it sounds like you pushed military at the neglect of Civ tech and building a flourishing civ, so it seems odd that you'd complain about growth (as you can see, I had zero problems with it, building the well/inn line right after the material boosting buildings, as well as the occasional consular from protected outposts).  It could also be telling that I only used a single army of 4 units to own the world, with 4 other units in various frontier cities "just in case" (and they guarded more against wandering mobs wanting to enter my territory than the easily cowed opponents who never really put up a fight).

It seems our styles/strats varied a little even though we ended with the same result (military victory)--and it's nice to know the game can look vastly different based on our choices.

fair call on all your points I think.  I think I was farther up the civ tree than the warfare tree though.  with just two techs researched in  magic (to get wardens for outposts).  I found the well didn't increase growth rate for the empire, only for the city, adn the city had to be the town type (pop centre or whatever you want to call it).  I like your tactic of the enchantment and enchanters buff. Sounds like its a very powerful starting tool.  Well... that or slavery

I suppose your alternative in the end is probably better.  Rather than building everything (not rushing), and having many cities building in paralell, the fewer cities you have means you can rush queues more often due to your $$ budget.

I agree, it is good that different play styles come up with very different games   now... to unlearn all of beta 3's bad habits and find that "perfect" start for a beta 4 game.....  

Heh, SS.  I've had 2 wildly different starts so far in beta4--both require different strats than what worked in beta3, of course.  Good stuff, and makes for interesting testing (being a guinea pig never felt so good!).

Absolutely agree with this. I think there should absolutely be tension between the choice of expanding or remaining small with well built up cities. I don't think the current setup is enough though. I don't think the advantages of having well built up cities outweigh the advantages of the increased production, revenue, research and build queues a sprawling empire gives you. 

Ideally, I think this tension can help create a significant choice on the player of their game strategy. That makes the game more fun, and more re-playable. 

I know it's fun to play with hypothetical "how would you change the game to fix this" so here are some of my thoughts:

Make the growth hit to cities by rapid expansion meaningful. Do this by making level 5 cities legendary. Make it so a level 5 city is really like a mythical metropolis of awesome. I'm talking about borderline game-breaking. Things like fortresses gaining a separate build queue only for units, conclaves getting some sort of "sorcery tower" that can damage invading armies, or attacking one means armies of summoned units come together for the defense of it, huge boosts to research or mana, access to unique spells that only level 5 conclaves give you. Towns gaining access to huge economy boosts of gold, food, ability to recruit unique heroes, stuff like that. Make it so that once you obtain a level 5 city, your opponents become afraid. 

Additionally, I think concepts like making level 1 or level 2 cities a drain on the economy of your empire rather then a benefit should be considered. 

Obviously balancing of these issues is tricky. But ultimately, I'd like to see a game where either the option of expanding into a sprawling empire or remaining a nation of city states with awesome power can lead you to domination. 

Great ideas gumbostu!!  Come to think of it, REALLY great ideas!! 

I don't think I'd go the cost route for low level cities, but your ideas to buff lvl 4 and 5 cities in to the realm of AWESOME would indeed make the decision between many build queues vs my big fat metropolis a time worthy decision!!