Extreme Cities - You can do THAT??

[DeletedUser61]

The City Builder community has a fine tradition of trying stuff, just to see if it will even work. In this thread we'll be honoring that tradition by examining three types of Extreme Cities.

• Mostly Workshops, with Fighting for sectors
• Mostly Manufacturing, with Negotiation for sectors
• Mostly Diamonds, primarily to figure out where you CAN'T use Diamonds.

We'll be talking about the numbers for level 15, so that we will have apples to apples comparisons, and we'll note what it takes to bring the building(s) up to level 15. All of the cities will have at least:

• A Trader
• One House
• One Workshop
• Three Manufacturing Buildings, one for each of your boosts

For the next few weeks these posts will be my research notes, for the most part, so I'll be updating them every day for a month or so.

You're very much encouraged to chime in with your own suggestions, observations, and questions. The only risk is that you might end up stuck with a few of the research tasks, as needed to drain the swamp.

Note that we NOT talking about practical cities, any more than you'd make a Thanksgiving Dinner out of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme, but we very much DO want to examine several design techniques that MAY BE useful, in small amounts, and thereby ensure that we understand the strengths and limitations of the various approaches to building a well-balance city that thrives on it's own, without requiring constant attention.

 

[DeletedUser61]

Mostly Workshops, with Fighting for sectors

<Placeholder>

In this post we'll examine a city with TONS of Workshops and Armories, and very little else.

 

[DeletedUser61]

Mostly Manufacturing, with Negotiation for sectors

<Placeholder>

In this post we'll examine a city with TONS of Manufacturing buildings, and very little else.

 

[DeletedUser61]

Mostly Diamonds, primarily to figure out where you CAN'T use Diamonds.

<Placeholder>

Milestones	KPs
Elves	6293
Chapter I	226
Chapter II	678
Chapter III	1012
Chapter IV	1114
Chapter V	1425
Chapter VI	1838
Humans	6293
Chapter I	226
Chapter II	681
Chapter III	972
Chapter IV	1151
Chapter V	1425
Chapter VI	1838
Ancient W	13862
MM&S	3429
CL&GBS	3365
DB	3703
MH	3365
TOTAL	20155

We have by no means done a comprehensive analysis, but it appears that there are only a few things that you can't speed up and/or skip by using Diamonds.

• Ancient Wonder leveling Goods and Relics
• Relics can, however, be obtained indirectly by negotiating sector encounters.

 

[DeletedUser43]

You can't speed up scouting times with diamonds. Though, I guess you don't need to scout anything if you just buy all the expansions. So maybe it is irrelevant.

 

[DeletedUser188]

Yes you can speed up scouting by paying with diamonds but Who would be that stupid
You cant buy all the expansions with diamonds only the 17 that are tied to each level of your main hall
The expansions you get from the research tree and from gaining sectors are separate from the diamond ones

 

[DeletedUser1161]

This will be fun to watch. I have always liked testing extremes in Sim City.

I don't see a diamond option to make up for missing coin or supplies on building upgrades. I'm not sure about goods.

Are you going to skip the barracks and armories in the manufacturing city? I will be particularly curious to see how that one turns out.

 

[Deleted User - 107391]

You cant buy all the expansions with diamonds only the 17 that are tied to each level of your main hall
The expansions you get from the research tree and from gaining sectors are separate from the diamond ones

Actually, you can also pay for the research tree expansions with diamonds.
As for the province expansions, you can buy each of the relics in a province with goods. You can speed up production of goods with diamonds.

 

[DeletedUser61]

The balances will be 90/10 ish and 10/90 ish, rather than all or nothing.
I don't think it's feasible to be avoid either the Barracks nor the Trader.

• My expectation is that the Workshop city will deliver the most cost effective benefits, simply because producing supplies only takes time, and training your military only take supplies, although Scouting does require coins (in both scenarios).
• My expectation is that the Manufacturing city will deliver the least cost effective benefits, because manufacturing Goods eats enormous amounts of both Coins and Supplies, and the buildings themselves require a lot of workers and culture.
  -
• The Gotcha is that, no matter how skillfully you play, you'll reach a point where you'll seldom win.
• At that point, negotiation is your only remaining sector acquisition option if you're not willing to wait for the next chapter to be released.

OR, you could develop your Ancient Wonders as you go along, rather than painting yourself into a corner.

 

[DeletedUser1161]

You can speed up production of goods with diamonds.

You can? I don't see that option in my game. I only see an option to speed up building upgrades.

 

[Deleted User - 107391]

You can? I don't see that option in my game. I only see an option to speed up building upgrades.

Sorry, my mistake. Often when I'm not looking at the game itself, I get confused.

 

[DeletedUser627]

This will be fun to watch. I have always liked testing extremes in Sim City.

..... I will be particularly curious to see how that one turns out.

You'll be disappointed, Aydenn - because these will NOT be examples of Extreme Cities. Yes, they will be cities weighted in one direction or another but which still remain under Katwijk's primary criteria "the city with the fewest clicks wins". Basically, a small city with an extra armory or two instead of a manufactory...

Your current city looks nice, with good balance and spatial usage. You may learn something from KJ's experiment, but I'd recommend asking another experienced player before implementing any of it....unless your goal is to produce the smallest possible city.

The top extreme cities:

Monomachos in Arendyll. Functioned with zero workshops and only 15 Fertility goddesses. 32+ functioning maxxed manufacturing with 4 armories. Fabulous spatial usage. Current score 108K. If he decides to re-work his city per the new quests and build workshops again, this determination will surely demonstrate extreme gamesmanship.

Brymstone and recently Tanjab, Arendyll. Massed Fertility Goddesses allowing Brymstone to produce the most goods of any player. Tanjab can produce less, because he placed all 4 Wonders, but with the same willingness for extreme Goddess allocation. Spatial usage is wonderful - both cities so clean.

Fat Freddy: I'm not visually adept enough to evaluate a human city - someone want to offer me help here?

LordBrian: the single most advanced non-premium building city remaining. This is extreme in itself. He does have all the expansions, so he either has purchased some or finished an extreme number of provinces. This city is reasonableness embodied.

Rokett1212: His extremism is that, with a score over 91k and 2 Wonders in place, he still has 80+ grid spaces open (after Dwarven Level is completed). His patience is extreme, and thus he's on track for one of the most carefully maximized grids, having spent very little money.

me: my extremism is for pure stubbornness. I started in July ranked about #32k. I wanted to be on the first page, but not by sacrificing my Italian city structure. Also, I finished the Dwarven Wonder in about ten days, because I used my goods and coin production capabilities to purchase KP and bought copper. Not saying it was the best idea, but it certainly was extreme.

I know there are other examples of Extremism. I saw The Undertaker build all 4 Wonders the first day they were released! BobbyKitty is, I believe, the highest ranked non-payer (sans builders). Katwijk is already an example of Extreme City, since measuring one's city according to the number of clicks is extremism, too. Who else has examples of extreme cities and players? I'm not familiar with the other worlds, so please do contribute examples.

 

[DeletedUser1161]

You'll be disappointed, Aydenn - because these will NOT be examples of Extreme Cities. Yes, they will be cities weighted in one direction or another but which still remain under Katwijk's primary criteria "the city with the fewest clicks wins". Basically, a small city with an extra armory or two instead of a manufactory...

Your current city looks nice, with good balance and spatial usage. You may learn something from KJ's experiment, but I'd recommend asking another experienced player before implementing any of it....unless your goal is to produce the smallest possible city.

The top extreme cities:

Monomachos in Arendyll. Functioned with zero workshops and only 15 Fertility goddesses. 32+ functioning maxxed manufacturing with 4 armories. Fabulous spatial usage. Current score 108K. If he decides to re-work his city per the new quests and build workshops again, this determination will surely demonstrate extreme gamesmanship.

Brymstone and recently Tanjab, Arendyll. Massed Fertility Goddesses allowing Brymstone to produce the most goods of any player. Tanjab can produce less, because he placed all 4 Wonders, but with the same willingness for extreme Goddess allocation. Spatial usage is wonderful - both cities so clean.

Fat Freddy: I'm not visually adept enough to evaluate a human city - someone want to offer me help here?

LordBrian: the single most advanced non-premium building city remaining. This is extreme in itself. He does have all the expansions, so he either has purchased some or finished an extreme number of provinces. This city is reasonableness embodied.

Rokett1212: His extremism is that, with a score over 91k and 2 Wonders in place, he still has 80+ grid spaces open (after Dwarven Level is completed). His patience is extreme, and thus he's on track for one of the most carefully maximized grids, having spent very little money.

me: my extremism is for pure stubbornness. I started in July ranked about #32k. I wanted to be on the first page, but not by sacrificing my Italian city structure. Also, I finished the Dwarven Wonder in about ten days, because I used my goods and coin production capabilities to purchase KP and bought copper. Not saying it was the best idea, but it certainly was extreme.

I know there are other examples of Extremism. I saw The Undertaker build all 4 Wonders the first day they were released! BobbyKitty is, I believe, the highest ranked non-payer (sans builders). Katwijk is already an example of Extreme City, since measuring one's city according to the number of clicks is extremism, too. Who else has examples of extreme cities and players? I'm not familiar with the other worlds, so please do contribute examples.

Thanks for the compliment. My little villa is coming along. You can probably tell I'm an old SimCity player. I realized after a fun evening of rearranging that I had instinctively put the plank factories (trees) between the houses (residential) and the workshops (industry). Old habits die hard.

I enjoy visiting your city as well. It has a lovely layout and it's cool to see the wonders in-game. I was wondering how you got them so fast. I'm following your advice and holding off buying KP with goods. I'm not really looking to go extreme with my own city, at least not the main one on Arendyll.

Also thank you very much for the big list of cities to check out. I'll enjoy looking at them!

Perhaps Katwijk will be less frugal with the clicks for this example. Otherwise your point about an inadvertent bias in the experiment is absolutely correct.

 

[Deleted User - 107391]

Thanks for the compliment. My little villa is coming along. You can probably tell I'm an old SimCity player. I realized after a fun evening of rearranging that I had instinctively put the plank factories (trees) between the houses (residential) and the workshops (industry). Old habits die hard.

I enjoy visiting your city as well. It has a lovely layout and it's cool to see the wonders in-game...

It is indeed a neat little town. I'd recommend more workshops as you have space, but otherwise it's very nice.

 

[DeletedUser1161]

It is indeed a neat little town. I'd recommend more workshops as you have space, but otherwise it's very nice.

Thanks! I get a bunch of expansions in Act IV so I'll look at adding workshops.

I'm actually doing OK for supplies at the moment because I have mostly boosted factories. The unboosted dust eats supplies but my fellowship doesn't make enough dust. I haven't figured out what to do about that.

 

[DeletedUser43]

The unboosted dust eats supplies but my fellowship doesn't make enough dust. I haven't figured out what to do about that.

Unboosted factories make so few goods that even if you trade the boosted goods 1:5 at the trader, you are doing just as well. Don't forget about the trader that Frosywrym and BobbiPiazza started. The Arendyll trading post. If your whole fellowship is short of something (as we almost always are) then you can trade the stuff you do have to other fellowships for the stuff you don't have.

Basically, there is no point in making unboosted goods under almost any circumstance. (Unless you start a world and no one has any tier 3 goods to trade yet).

 

[Deleted User - 107391]

Thanks! I get a bunch of expansions in Act IV so I'll look at adding workshops.

The farther you go, the harder it is to keep up with money and supplies. Stockpile them while you can.

 

[DeletedUser61]

Perfect Timing

My us1: Arendyll city has just reach the Chapter VI Dwarven Ancient Wonders technology, with a score of LESS than 40,000.

• I've only acquired 59 Expansion Sectors, all by fighting except for a couple of quest related bribes, so my troop losses are still trivial
• I have 16 Workshops, all at level 17 except for two that will remain at level 15 because of the footprint
• I have 23 Residences, all at level 17
• I have 2 Manufacturing Buildings for each tier, all boosted and maximum level
• My Main Hall/Barracks/and Armories are all maxed out
• I have both Human/Dwarven Ancient Wonders
• I don't buy Knowledge Points, although I'm fond of the combination population + workers premium Cultural buildings.
• I do quests as they come up, unless they're silly, but don't pick and choose
• I do a full buff rotation maybe once per week, whenever I happen to be a bit short on Coins.

It's actually a pretty average city, rather than anything extreme, because I was mostly going by feel. I'm running my subsequent cities much closer to the wire, so I'll consequently be on much tighter margins. We shall see.

 

[DeletedUser627]

what next? grandma's "brag book"?

 

[DeletedUser61]

what next? grandma's "brag book"?

Exactly so, and for good reason. Not to be pretentious, but history and examples are important to future success.

—Churchhill - House of Commons, 2 May 1935, after the Stresa Conference, in which Britain, France and Italy agreed—futilely—to maintain the independence of Austria.

“When the situation was manageable it was neglected, and now that it is thoroughly out of hand we apply too late the remedies which then might have effected a cure. There is nothing new in the story. It is as old as the sibylline books. It falls into that long, dismal catalogue of the fruitlessness of experience and the confirmed unteachability of mankind. Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong–these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.”