Testing the ruleset: Strategy notes

[Corbeau]

Since this is a completely new ruleset/paradigm, I'll be writing some notes as I continue testing. You can consider them strategy tips or just thoughts about how gameplay may be different here. The (almost) complete ruleset can always be found here (unless I forgot to update to the latest-latest version).

(Temporary note: I messed up some stuff with irrigating swamps, will be corrected in the final version, but don't want to change it while I'm testing due to savegame sanity checks. The current effect is: when you irrigate swamp, it will give 3 food, and road gives 1 trade. To turn swamp into grassland, use mining. Again, this will be back to usual/normal in the final version. Feel free to remind me lest I forget.)

Tip 1: Keep the empire small in the beginning

Facts:
- under Despotism corruption is +5% per tile away from capital (base: 25%); officially, it's 100% 15 tiles away; in effect, a bit sooner due to rounding down
- various buildings decrease corruption, starting from Temples

- minimum distance between cities is 1
- no happiness penalty due to number of cities
- extremely small initial city radius (only 4 neighbouring tiles, considering to increase it to 8)
- spontaneous migration is ON, still checking how it actually affects the game

Situation:
Size-1 city 3+1 tiles away from the capital has 1/2 trade.
Size-2 city 5+2 tiles from the capital has 1/3 trade.
Size-4 city 11+1 tiles away from the city has 0/5 trade.
(BTW, how is the distance calculated? Pythagoras or x+y? I assume Pythagoras but I left it like this just-in-case.)

Suggestion:
At first, cities even a bit further from the capital will contribute very little to overall Trade (sci and tax) so their only use will be establish outposts for the purpose of occupying faraway land AND increasing production (waste does not depend on distance from capital). Maybe a good strategy is to do some limited smallpoxing (build "villages" that will later be assimilated into big cities) and, after the sane corruption limit is reached, start building upwards (improvements) to decrease it, and also get into Monarchy (less corruption per distance).

[Corbeau]

Documenting something that probably few people experienced: at one moment (at TC), a message said: "Citizens of X have moved to Y". Y is the capital, was size 7, now size 8, X was 3 tiles away and size 2, now size 1.

Also, a bit later: "Citizens of Z are thinking about migrating to Y for a better life."

Y is the same capital, size 8 and no aquaduct, which presumably stopped the migration.

[wieder]

Might be interesting to know if cities can grow faster than one size in one turn by using this.

[Corbeau]

I'll have a look, but I think this would be near impossible because every time the city receives population from smaller cities, its food counter is reset. I don't have a granary there yet so it resets to zero every time, I presume with granary the food will drop to the granary level. But it seems that it is receiving population as soon as any of its nearby "satellite" cities grows to 2, the population moves immediately. This may even cause problems, but it actually makes much more sense: it could prevent players from considering cities just as military forts that can be built easily for military purposes.

Anyway, here is the progress report for now:

Turn 40

- 16 cities
- Government just switched to Monarchy
- Sci: 70% (15 bulbs), Tax: 30% (income: 7, cost: 4, net: 3)
- techs: Monarchy, Trade, Currency, CoL, full 1st column except Horsemen and Warrior Code.
- Capital size: 10 (at least 4 due to immigration, probably more)
- capital: trade 7/8, production 6/10

Cities and corruption
Size - distance from capital: x+y - trade net/full
4 - 5+2 - 1/5
3 - 8+0 (Temple) - 5/7
5 - 11+1 - 0/5

So, corruption is still large, but it seems even the first building reduces it significantly which doesn't add up. I'll have to check what's happening.

[Corbeau]

A sidenote: after fixing a bug in the ruleset, bulbs jumped to 38. Turn 47. Tech upkeep still 0.