So I began expanding in modern era with colonists assuming there might be city cap increases through tech tree, I mean why else would this unit be offered?  Long story short.....there is no city cap increase in the tech tree after the modern era (maybe 1 or 2 but not much).  I am now in a MASSIVE Influence deficit of over 2K a turn with a total negative Influence debt of 116K by now.

Obviously it didn't start like this.  I had balanced the expansion for quite some time to maintain Influence but there is a wall I hit where I either couldn't expand, or accept a deficit.  Problem is that once you accept a deficit there is no way out!!!!

Once I got the ability to merge cities, to potentially break this issue, guess what, you can't merge because it costs Influence!  The game literally presents a scenario of an irreversible Influence deficit.  I can't even change my civics now because I have no Influence.

Anyone else experiencing this?  It is a terrible design issue.  I am still going to win my game through sheer industrial/military might but half the game was shut off to me because I can take no action that uses Influence.

Lame.

Maybe you could ransack one or more of the cities?

Not ideal, but it would be a way out of the influence deficit.

I guess at the moment the only way out of the deficit is to get rid of the cities or increase your cap via science (if some tech that increases the cap is still available).

Since the penalty bis so harsh I tend to go max one city over the cap.

I'd chalk it up to learning the game's mechanical pitfalls and start a new game...

Not exactly the same issue, but I was wondering how the cost of merging cities is actually desinged? I could not quite work out why it is cheaper for some and more expensive for others. And the cost increases at a rate that makes it hard to ever build that large sum of influence fast enough, i.e. I had a turn-based increase in influence of around 600 but really struggled to get to the many thousand needed. 

Reicha wrote:

Not exactly the same issue, but I was wondering how the cost of merging cities is actually desinged? I could not quite work out why it is cheaper for some and more expensive for others. And the cost increases at a rate that makes it hard to ever build that large sum of influence fast enough, i.e. I had a turn-based increase in influence of around 600 but really struggled to get to the many thousand needed. 

It costs more and more influence to attach an outpost to a city the more it has. I'm entirely certain part of the cost of merging cities is what adding the second city as however many outposts it would comprise. So if you have two cities with 3 territories merging them would cost the outpost attach for the 4th, 5th and 6th on a city. This is obviously a perfectly reasonable cost but its also going to be a very high cost.

Reicha wrote:

Not exactly the same issue, but I was wondering how the cost of merging cities is actually desinged? I could not quite work out why it is cheaper for some and more expensive for others. And the cost increases at a rate that makes it hard to ever build that large sum of influence fast enough, i.e. I had a turn-based increase in influence of around 600 but really struggled to get to the many thousand needed. 

The difference in infrastructure buildings is the most important factor for the cost: you pay influence for every building that's only available in one of the two cities. It's quite clever imho. Otherwise, detaching a territory and upgrade it to a city would be the easiest way to gain infrastructures in the second half of the game, when new cities start with pre-built infrastructures. Number of territories is a factor as well, but often negligible at that point of the game.

WorldlyBoar wrote:

So I began expanding in modern era with colonists assuming there might be city cap increases through tech tree, I mean why else would this unit be offered?  Long story short.....there is no city cap increase in the tech tree after the modern era (maybe 1 or 2 but not much).  I am now in a MASSIVE Influence deficit of over 2K a turn with a total negative Influence debt of 116K by now.

Obviously it didn't start like this.  I had balanced the expansion for quite some time to maintain Influence but there is a wall I hit where I either couldn't expand, or accept a deficit.  Problem is that once you accept a deficit there is no way out!!!!

Once I got the ability to merge cities, to potentially break this issue, guess what, you can't merge because it costs Influence!  The game literally presents a scenario of an irreversible Influence deficit.  I can't even change my civics now because I have no Influence.

Anyone else experiencing this?  It is a terrible design issue.  I am still going to win my game through sheer industrial/military might but half the game was shut off to me because I can take no action that uses Influence.

Lame.

How on earth were your cities not all at 0% stability. I went 2 over the cap early on and got -120 influence penalty. That put my influence pool in to the negative after a few turns and each turn you have a negative influence pool you get -1 stability on all cities. Even after you are back in positive influence per turn you keep getting the negative stability until your influence pool returns to positive.

I agree, only 1 city over cap for most civs, or 2 cities over cap for aesthetes. After that, the penalties ramp up quick.

countcb wrote:

Maybe you could ransack one or more of the cities?

Not ideal, but it would be a way out of the influence deficit.

I guess at the moment the only way out of the deficit is to get rid of the cities or increase your cap via science (if some tech that increases the cap is still available).

Since the penalty bis so harsh I tend to go max one city over the cap.

Right, I considered this but was at my cap after conquering my continent (all cities have 2-3 territories attached).  I am playing on a large map and there are 2 other continents (one with countries, one a New World).  The reason I am hating the city cap design is that it wouldn't allow me to settle the New World, let alone conquer the other continent, without giving up on influence entirely.  Seems like a terrible design choice by Amplitude.

I came across this in an earlier era. The only way forward was for me to liberate some of the cities I took over or maybe even built. This corrected the penalty over the course of 7 -10 turns I begin to get out of the negative zone. This game is really well thought out especially in spaces where if you played civ it can be a handicap (that would be me). What I am learning there is most times a way to adapt effect of the cause but it just may take 20 turns before you figure it out. the algorithm in this game is really really good at keeping it interesting. which is cool for me. hope this helps. 

I felt similar with the city cap / merge city costs - It basically makes me not play on large / huge maps anymore because I can sit there with 10 cities on one continent give or take, pump out yields / district like mad, but have little interest in the New World as my city cap is maxed. I wish this could feel a little less constraining. 

Belechannas wrote:

WorldlyBoar wrote:..

I get that I am "learning the mechanics" as others say, but my point is that this is bad design.

You exceeded the limit by more than a factor of two, and it's "bad design" when heartbreak ensues?

OK.

Well yes, the map can clearly support far more cities than i have even now and yet I have no avenue to control them, even if i had maxed out city cap.

What's worse is now that I'm in this expansion hole, i have no way out except liberating my entire empire.

That's not just bad, it's terrible.  Unless the point is to not have an empire and just earn fame or science.  If that's the only end game here, I'm out.

Why not turn up the difficulty so the AI put up more of a fight? Or just attach more territories to your existing cities. 

But why did you go so far over the cap without checking if there were ways to increase your city cap? And why did you learn that there was a technology to merge cities that deep into the game? It seems like you just made an error in your decision because you are new to the game. I mean they could put more ways to increase the cap, but you building that many cities is definitely on you based on the game's current state.

hehee wrote:

Why not turn up the difficulty so the AI put up more of a fight? Or just attach more territories to your existing cities. 

But why did you go so far over the cap without checking if there were ways to increase your city cap? And why did you learn that there was a technology to merge cities that deep into the game? It seems like you just made an error in your decision because you are new to the game. I mean they could put more ways to increase the cap, but you building that many cities is definitely on you based on the game's current state.

I guess that's my point, this is a broken game from my perspective.  In retrospect, i definitely could have included many more territories per city, while also researching civics and techs to maximize city cap... But again that's just a bad game design.  How was i to know just how large the map and islands would be?  It's the game meant to be so low on cities that my production centers are miles away from the front and i should use forts only as spawn points (even though I get a much higher monetary/science/industry benefit from more cities)?

None of it makes want sense.  This would all go away if they made the city cap affect income, then i could run that deficit (maybe losing units and buildings a la Civ2), and yet i would still have influence to capture territories and rearrange/merge cities to manage it.

My point is that the city cap hitting influence breaks the game's core design. And from this thread it sounds like that is a take it or leave it option (no build tree the alleviates the issue).

You do have a point in the awkwardness of having fewer cities on a bigger map. They should probably somehow scale the cap based on the map size at the very least. But it seems like they did want to try to shy away from a player or AI crushing the other players and colonizing everything with the whole war support needed to actually take cities from an enemy player and increasing cost of influence and of course the city cap. It does seem like some of their other design decisions may be flawed or strange to most 4x players like forced surrender. Maybe they will alter the way the city cap works but that probably wouldn't be anytime soon if at all.

The game is designed so that you expand by adding territories to cities as much as adding cities.  I’d say a good approximation is cities should each have one extra territory per era… so Inustrial era cities should have about 6 territories each.   That said, digging out of the hole involves detaching the territories from excess cities and then either liberating excess or ransacking them.

Your best option at this point would be absorbing some of them assuming they are close enough 

Adine wrote:

Your best option at this point would be absorbing some of them assuming they are close enough 

You need influence to absorb (unless you activated the inherited land civic)…so once in the hole you can only get out through liberation or sacking.

Well, I've just been in a major influence deficit of nearly -400 influence pr. turn. Didn't know what to do, but I'm France in the Industrial age at the moment and so I have Basically spam-built Exhibition Halls with as many Districts adjacent as possible. in about 20-30 turns I now have an influence of +332 influence pr turn. So it IS possible but requires the right special Districts, I would assume.

I'm still at a total minus for now but that will change soon. :)

You can liberate cities or ransack them in order to reduce your city numbers and thus lose less influence per turn due to being over your city cap.

I think there should be an Early Modern outpost upgrade to "Colony", allowing for EQ construction via influence & 8 pops instead of 4.

Right now, on larger maps, there is no way to effectively expand onto new continents without using cheese mechanics (i.e. razing your own cities and buliding an outpost in order to combine for tens of thousands instead of 100-200k influence.

WorldlyBoar wrote:

hehee wrote:

Why not turn up the difficulty so the AI put up more of a fight? Or just attach more territories to your existing cities. 

But why did you go so far over the cap without checking if there were ways to increase your city cap? And why did you learn that there was a technology to merge cities that deep into the game? It seems like you just made an error in your decision because you are new to the game. I mean they could put more ways to increase the cap, but you building that many cities is definitely on you based on the game's current state.

I guess that's my point, this is a broken game from my perspective.  In retrospect, i definitely could have included many more territories per city, while also researching civics and techs to maximize city cap... But again that's just a bad game design.  How was i to know just how large the map and islands would be?  It's the game meant to be so low on cities that my production centers are miles away from the front and i should use forts only as spawn points (even though I get a much higher monetary/science/industry benefit from more cities)?

None of it makes want sense.  This would all go away if they made the city cap affect income, then i could run that deficit (maybe losing units and buildings a la Civ2), and yet i would still have influence to capture territories and rearrange/merge cities to manage it.

My point is that the city cap hitting influence breaks the game's core design. And from this thread it sounds like that is a take it or leave it option (no build tree the alleviates the issue).

You should really consider this from a different perspective.  Nothing about this "doesn't make any sense" or "breaks the games core design".  It actually compliments it.

For one, I think the idea of a City Cap was to make the game more accessible than  lets say Civ where you have to manage the infrastructure in 40 different cities, which can be annoying.  As a game design choice, they decided to keep it more simple in that regard.

No one expected you to know how big the map would be, good thing you're able to merge cities together to gain the benefits from both while being able to go start a new one.  Now obvsiouly you can't because you went so egregiously over the city cap without thinking about it in any regard first, which is of course, your fault and not the game's. 

Strategically connecting your territories so that you can place garrison's in key locations for spawn points is an important and meaningful decision to make when expanding your territory, and you also get WAY LESS output from many small cities than you do from large ones.  I've seen people with late game mega cities producing over 100k industry per turn.

WorldlyBoar wrote:

Belechannas wrote:

WorldlyBoar wrote:..

I get that I am "learning the mechanics" as others say, but my point is that this is bad design.

You exceeded the limit by more than a factor of two, and it's "bad design" when heartbreak ensues?

OK.

Well yes, the map can clearly support far more cities than i have even now and yet I have no avenue to control them, even if i had maxed out city cap.

What's worse is now that I'm in this expansion hole, i have no way out except liberating my entire empire.

That's not just bad, it's terrible.  Unless the point is to not have an empire and just earn fame or science.  If that's the only end game here, I'm out.

It's terrible of your own creation.  It's a purposeful design mechanic that you ignored and it didn't work out.  If you don't like that mechanic, then yes this game is likely not for you, but i suggest you learn it rather than, cry, "it's not what i was expecting so its bad and i wont play it"

It is silly, that you can easily expand and get no punishment for having 5x as many cities as your city limit, besides not being able to select some very minor global boons, that sure matter much less than having all the cities, for a long time, or maybe even till the end of a game.

Ransacking cities, over and over and over, may actually be a better strategy, except it is not.

Ransacking and rebuilding a city with SETTLER-tehnology is much batter in mid-game.

It really helps to plan ahead. What I do:

- Absorb cities that are near each other and have the same infrastructure buildings

- Make sure I can take on one or two new cities before starting a war

- Be strategic about when and where I expand

It is unfortunate you can get in an influence hole, and if you don't have the Inherited Lands civic, ransacking is the only way to go unfortunately.

The city merging and influence cost as it is implemented right now interfaces badly with the other mechanics of the game. It hasn't given me any difficulty, personally, since I know how to deal with it. But the way I go about it feels more like exploits than actual game design.

Death-spirals is generally a sign of bad design, since they don't add any interesting gameplay. Penalties are fine, but they must have a reasonable counter. The "burn your own city to the ground"-option doesn't really feel like an intended mechanic.

The problem lies in how going above the city cap costs influence, but merging also costs influence. Each mechanic on their own is nicely balanced. They just don't work well together.

A possible solution would be that merging cities didn't cost influence, but rather forced both cities to pay for their differences with industry. This would lock down production in the cities, and you could possibly retain the influence cost as a buyout method.

hey there! 2024 here haha. I have -2MILLION influence and I am building mad attack choppers and multi role jets... they mailing cavalry and line muskets, maybe some nice sail ships. BUt I'm rapidly losing my lead and i cant merge cities either. I think Im kim Jong Korean dictator but I'm Japanese with sites set on an expansion for a second uranium source and my civilians stomp my rebels on automatic.  I'm smashing X turn (Xbox) making troops and growing the cities I have with infrastructure and doing ok. The revolutions get stomped and all territory will be conquerored with an iron wall of garrisons leaving nowhere for the rebel scum to hide! We will be world dominant over our innefctual peacefully coexisting underMEnsch!!! they will burn if they defy the sun never setting on the JAPANESE EMPIRE!!! lol ki just put stuff on easy to learn the military side and see the endgame and wow yeah I'm worse than if there was like a Japanese Hitler who was successful at enslaving world.... sort of. very little growthn externally FOREVER but my soil is fertile and rich with rebvolutionary corpse mires in front of my cities... now if I could only build a farm LMFAO