City
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[edit] Overview
Cities allow your colonists to live in a protective surrounding where they can grow financially, which only benefits you in the additional income that you acquire from all of their hard work.
- When turned on it produces 100 to 110 mc per turn for each city that has 2 food and 50k to 100k colonists in it. The food is consumed in the process of gaining the income.
- Decreases your population growth by 0.2% per city, but can be counteracted by Undercities.
- Undercities are the preferred place to congregate and then standard cities. If there is a mixture of the two types of cities then colonists will first populate the undercities.
- The "DOC" ground base command code can be used to destroy all cities (not undercities).
- When there are more than 5 cities and 1 million colonists at a base then it can be scanned by the Spy Scanner ship device.
- When there are any cities and more than 1000 colonists at a ground base then the Ground Quake Trigger ship device can destroy cities and cause unhappiness.
- Cities contribute to the power generated for a ground base during combat. The power generated is equal to their quantity.
- They add 10,000 "hit points" each to a ground base, which will help keep it from being destroyed.
- Cities generate income after movement is calculated and pods are dropped. So you can build cities and have them waiting for newly arriving colonists and they will generate MCs.
[edit] Limitations
- A City requires 50k colonists to produce income, but hold 100k colonists. 49,999 colonists will not work any cities. Even with the expected growth, 50k will work 1 city. This is because Base Jobs (City) occur before Growth in the Host Order. 149,999 colonists will work 1 city. 150k will work 2.
- If you turn OFF your cities they will no longer reduce your growth rate. Alternatively the Command Code DOC can be used to destroy all cities in a base.
[edit] Special
[edit] Analysis
Cities are a major souce of income for most races. They are an excellent investment, earning back their cost in just two turns. In many cases it is best to have all of your colonists in cities.
The drawback to using lots of cities is decreased population growth - but probably not for the reason you think. The cities themselves only cause a 0.2% growth decrease. With 50 cities on a base, the population still grows at 90%; losing 10% growth is probably more than offset by the extra city revenue (5,000 MC per turn).
The real reason that cities hurt growth is because of their food consumption. As your population grows, the food stockpile needed for maximum growth increases exponentially. At 10,000,000 colonists, you'll need a food stockpile of 10,000 to grow at maximum rate. If all of those colonists are also in cities, you'll need to be producing or importing 1,000 food per turn to keep growing at maximum rate. Given that the average planet only has about 100 soil, you'll need about ten major farming colonies to support one base with 10 million colonists in cities!
Over the long run, you'll need to produce between 25% and 40% more food in order to keep all of your colonists in cities and growing at the best rate.
Example: Consider a Lizard base with a starting population of 1 million and 150 farms. Also, assume that the Lizard already has 1,000 food in his stockpile. If he keeps all of his colonists in cities, and does not import food from the outside, his growth will drop below 50% at turn 26, with a population of about 5 million. But, if he doesn't build any cities at all, his growth won't drop below 50% until turn 36, at a population of almost 10 million. The optimum case (revenue-wise) is somewhere in-between.
[edit] Notes
- The Race stat Income does not affect the money cities (or undercities) produce.
