From: gnohmon@ssiny.UUCP (Ralph Betza)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games
Subject: CIV: small cities are better
Keywords: CIV small cities
Date: 5 Nov 92 17:58:03 GMT
Organization: Systems Strategies, Inc., NY, NY

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!                                                        !!
!!  SMALL CITIES ARE MORE PRODUCTIVE THAN BIG ONES.       !!
!!                                                        !!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got a few reponses to my earlier article, on the net and by mail.
I see I did a *lousy* job of stressing the most important point;
I talked about too many other things in addition to it.
The important thing was the idea that small cities are more
productive than big ones.

"Yes, Civ can be easy once you figure out the Mongol Horde strategy."

Well, I remember vaguely reading a description of the Mongol Horde
strategy before I got CIV. As I remember it, it involved waves of
militia, which is different from my implementation. I'd be happy to
see the description again.

Anyway, the implementation isn't the important point, and the most
important part of what I presented isn't the Mongol Hordes Strategy,
and it isn't even any particular strategy.

The most important point is that conventional wisdom is wrong, and
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!                                                        !!
!!  SMALL CITIES ARE MORE PRODUCTIVE THAN BIG ONES.       !!
!!                                                        !!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is an important *fact* that everybody seems to have overlooked.
It's a fact, not an opinion. Really.

Many strategies can be based on this fact. The particular strategy I
described is the one you get if you single-mindedly base
*everything* you do on this one fact. The first 2000 or 2500 years of
this strategy are unquestionably the "best way" according to the
rules of the game; the following years are simply taking things to
ridiculous extremes by playing the whole game like the start of the
game! Let's call the first 1500 years of it the "Big Start".

I have yet to complete a whole emperor-level game based on it,
because it's new by me. I'm working on it. I'm up to 800 AD,
discoveries every 3 turns, already got rocketry, keeping population
down to 300 for the moment, current score over 1000. Score could be
higher; I'm determined to do it all in despotism, which I know is
suboptimal. Score could be lower; I have used settler-build-fast
cheat at several points. Score could be lower; I started in what is
almost the best possible position, Zulus on Earth ( but with
Egyptians ). Could have conquered last opponent 500 BC ( or earlier,
if I had tried to do so ).

I believe that a 5000-point score with no cheating is possible, but
democracy is necessary to achieve it; also Zulus on Earth with no
Egyptians might be necessary.

By the way, isn't random-world less of a challenge than "English on
Earth"? I have worked out a strategy for this situation ( based on
small-cities, of course ) that I'm eager to try; might just retire
from the current game -- no feeling of accomplishment because I used
settler-build-fast.

"Once you get so many cities, you start getting VERY UNhappy people."

Yes, but you can slow down after you have everybody else beaten.
The point isn't so much how big you can get, but how fast you can
grow. Since version 1 is what I have, I can get the legal limit
without trouble, and in the game I described that's what I want to
do; but whatever version you have, you can take advantage of small
cities to outgrow all other opponents for the first 2500 years, and
then do something else.

Switching to larger cities, and fewer of them, after getting the
Big Start with small cities, is another thing I plan to try.
You may diminish your score or your chance of winning by doing so,
but the game must be easier to play. In my current game, it took
hours to get from 400 AD to 800 AD because I have so many settlers
running around and because I have so many cities demanding
attention; and things won't ease up for an estimated 400 years.

The good thing about the Big Start is that it isn't a cheat;
it's simply the correct way to do things according to the logic of
the game.

The bad thing about the Big Start is that it makes the game too easy
to win. I agree that you have to impose fair limitations on yourself
in order to create a challenge, like "don't use the settler cheats"
and "don't start as Zulus on Earth". However, refusing to use the
Big Start is just saying "I'll deliberately make bad decisions for a
while in order to give the computer a chance."


-Ralph Betza (FM),
 uunet!ssiny!gnohmon

"The question of whether a computer can swim is more interesting
 than the question of whether a submarine can think" - Lenny Dykstra

Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games