[SPOILER]PB58 - Mr. Cairo residing over the remains of Serdoas Library of Knowledge

[Serdoa]

So, I actually expected that some players settled cities far from each other but I think Tarkeel takes the crown




The capital is 2S1E of the whale... also, whats up with the border 1W of the whale? That should not be there...

[Charriu]

Do you have a scout/unit in the area?

[Serdoa]

I had. And I think I understand what happened. I was there around T50 and defogged his borders. EOT51 his capital borders popped but the only tile that I still had vision on was the lake because I most likely was 2NW of it with my scout.

[Serdoa]

As promised, here is the world-map. The black spaces are measured to be (nearly) exact to the amount of tiles that should be there but are uncovered, to give a better idea of how much I have explored and also how everyone is situated:

[Serdoa]

T60 already, so in 3 days we played 10 turns and this day is not yet over (though most likely SD won't log in before the end of it). I'm torn between being happy that it moves fast and unhappy because I really wanted to report a little better on this game than usual but it simply is impossible on this short time-allotment between turns, because I do have to think through all my micro-plans first and make sure I know what to do the next turn. 
To put it into perspective: I did take off a week from work so I could play the league-start of PoE. That was 12 days ago. Normally I still would play it a good 6+ hours per day or 12+ on the weekend (yes, I have no kids but a wife that plays PoE as well). Instead I only played it on and off the last few days because I simply don't find time while I do the micro for PB58, try to update my C&D (I've mostly given up because I do not have the time to track every single built unit, even though it would absolutely be possible as I have graphs on most players now) and also try to keep a coherent overall plan of where to go with my empire.

So, update... First I was surprised to see how far away from his cap Tarkeel settled. I posted before about that. I was wrong though, he settled ever further away:




I explored further already and that city too has Gold, so I can understand it, but that still is quite far. It is not that bad though, as it is in a near direct horizontal line to his capital, just 1 tile above. Why does that matter? Because distance maintenance is apparently calculated taking into account not the actual distance to your capital but the "ring" around your capital in which it would be. "Ring" means the pattern we commonly see when the borders are popped - just extrapolated over the whole map. 

The maintenance costs as a whole are a combined value of maintenance costs for the number of cities (and pop within them) and distance maintenance. In Tarkeels case his four cities cost him 11 gpt. Before that gold city it was 6 gpt, so that city is profitable if he can work the gold. He now planted a 5th city though, which brings his total cost up to ~14-15 gpt, depending on in which ring he planted it, but I assumed a reasonable 5th or 6th ring. If it is again further out that of course goes up.

Now, the question everyone certainly has on its mind: Why do you calculate that stuff? Well, mainly because I'll be settling my next 3 cities (no. 6,7,8) within the next 3 turns. And I really wanted to know just how expensive that would be. Well:

Current cost: 11 gpt
New cost: 29 gpt

Ouch!

So, uh, can those 3 cities generate 18 more gpt? Not when I settle them no. Each will have a trade route + the city center gold, so that will account for 6 of those 18 gold increase. Leaves 12. I'll probably make from worked tiles only 1 or 2 gold when settle, leaving me 10 down. I will get another Gold though, so that will be ~6 turns till I can grow and work that tile. 

If someone is interested why my costs go up soooo much: That is because of that ring thing. Two of these new cities are several tiles north of my capital and therefore - even that they are not that far away in actual distance (10 and 12 if we use the standard civ-formula for distaance calculation) they count as being in 12th or 13th ring, which makes it quite expensive. Additionally the no. of cities maintenance goes up considerably as a number, dependent on your pop but only slightly increasing with more pop, gets multiplied by half the amount of your cities. Going from 5 to 8 increases the multiplier therefore from 2.5 to 4, increasing the cost by 60%. 

Lets see if we have to stop the expansion here! (Hint: No.)

[civac2]

Distance calculation for city cost uses the exact same formula as standard distance checks for everything else. If your city has 10 distance to your capital it is also in the 10th ring of the capital by definition. Also, 10 and especially 12 distance seem like a lot. Are you sure you are using the formula correctly? Lastly, the increase in city maintenance cost is overwhelmingly due to the quadratic effect of the 'number of cities maintenance' term. Distance maintenance is way less impactful.

[Serdoa]

If you look in the overview map I posted to the west of my position you see many hills. There is a gold / sheep spot as well as a horse, sheep (the same as the other city), wine spot. These are the two I will settle now. If I counted wrong I'm happy to be corrected, I would not mind my costs not raising that much. 

As for the maintenance you are certainly right, the distance hurts once, the no. of cities maintenance every single plant a little more. In my case it should be now:

Distance: 4.46 gold
No.Cities: 6.65 gold

And after the 3 new cities:

Distance: 12.33 gold
No.Cities: 16.60 gold

So yes, while distance does add nearly 8 gold the increased number of cities adds 10.

[civac2]

You were right. I stand corrected. I'm not used to settling cities so far away so early. So in my experience number of city maintenance is the dominating factor.

[Serdoa]

Yeah, these cities are far out for this stage of the game but there really is nothing that would be worth settling close-by imo. I admit though the gold-spot is certainly debatable. I have to admit I've never before really dug deep into maintenance costs - I mean they happen regardless and you build Courthouses to counteract that... - but looking at it now more closely is pretty interesting (to me). I knew that there are two parts to it, I mean that is visible in the game so obviously one knows.

But now, I look at it differently. The no. of cities part does increase regardless where you plant so there is no reason to fret over this part of the equation when you decide WHERE to plant a city but only for the decision IF to plant one at all. That obviously is not debatable in my case. So even though settling this city will incur 2 gold on its own for no. of city maintenance + 1.85 gold more in all the other cities, that would be the case with every city I plant (as long as it is the 8th planted city). That means that the question for WHERE to settle is only a question about the value gained minus the cost of distance maintenance incurred over a different spot. Which I can now calculate thanks to the excel-table I built myself.

In this case it is 3.01 gold distance maintenance. Instead building a city in ring 7 (the floodplains spot above and slightly to the west of my capital) would incur only 1.62 gold cost for dist.maintenance. That is a difference of only 1.39 gold, which I believe we can all agree is covered by the gold-tile as soon as it can be worked.

[Charriu]

While we are having this discussion about maintenance. Don't forget the distance maintenance is not about the distance from the city to the capitol, but rather from the city to the nearest seat of goverment. These are of course cities with the palace national wonder aka your capitol, but also those cities with Versailles or Forbidden Palace. This is why moving your palace to a more central location will decrease maintenance cost.