Introduction
There was a post a long time ago, when sovereignty was introduced, on the effect it might have. But it seems as most people doesn't know or understand how powerful sovereignty can be if used correctly. Sadly, I didn't bother doing the math back then and all my cities beside one is currently not using it. Anyone, I'll make a post with the numbers to help other players for smarter placement on the future cities.
First of all, there is one thing I cannot stress enough: Only, and absolutely only, build new cities on 7 tile food. No exception, whatsoever. So, if you read this line, and place a new city on a 5 food tile, you fail. The end. :)
This game is pretty much about one thing: food vs population ratio. More food equals more population, which equals more gold. And with gold, you can get bigger and cuter armies. Lets break it down in numbers:
Farm production
A farm tile at level 20 produces 2014 food per hour.
With 5 farm tiles at level 20 you get 2014 * 5 = 10070 food per hour.
Also, lets add a lvl 20 flourmill, usage of prestige and the spell. The bonuses from these are 40%, 20% and 8%, which gives us:
10070 * 1,4 * 1,2 * 1,08 = 18271.
So, pretty much 18.3k is the max amount of food a city can get. But wait, these are depending on your taxation also. With 0 % taxation you gain another 25% to production ( 18271*1,25 = 22838 ).
So, a normal city can, even with prestige, just gain 22.3k food. It cannot even maximize its population (26k). And since its effected by taxation, your maximum income(troop) will be based on your food production.
City at 5k pop
Lets break it down even further and use a 5k pop city as an example and see how much troops it can get and for the sake of argument, all food is maximized:
At 0 % taxation it will produce 22.8k food. But 5k are spent on the population and therefore it would produce 17,8k food per hour. That may sound like a lot, but it isn't since it get heavily effected by the taxation change once it produces troops.
So, say we have 90% taxation:
18271 * 0,35 - 5000 = 1,4k food over.
Sounds decent? Remember this is a 5k pop city only and it will at 90% taxation only produce 18k gold per hour. That equals 4.5k Tier 2 cavalry. That isn't much.
City at 10k pop
Say, we have a 10k population city and with 70% taxation:
FOOD: 18271 * 0,55 - 10 000 = 49 food/hour.
GOLD: 10 000 * 4 * 0,7 = 28000 gold/hour
Tier 2 Cavalry = 7k.
City at 15k pop
Taxation at 40%
FOOD: 18271 * 0,85 - 15 000 = 530
GOLD: 15 000 * 4 * 0,4 = 24 000 gold/hour
Tier 2 cavalry = 6k
Normal city conclusion
I know the exact number for maximizing the gold production, but there is no need to go into detail on that. But 7k tier 2 cavalry is close enough at 10k population. Going much higher in pop will only result in less gold per hour and therefore less space for armies. This was mostly to demonstrate the importance between gold and food. Also it might be profitable to gain some more pop just in order to get that 8th city, since it can cover up the loss from other cities. However, the 9th city, with only normal cities, will NOT cover up the cost it requires.
7 food tile cities
A 7 tile city will produce 2014 * 7 = 14098, and with spell, prestige and flourmill: 25579. Compare that to the normal city 18271 food production. This will result in us having higher pop and therefore more army.
Lets start directly with the 10k city.
7 food tile city at 10k pop
At 80 % taxation:
FOOD: 25579 * 0,45 - 10000 = 1510 food/hour
GOLD: 10 000 * 4 *0,8 = 32000
Tier 2 cavalry = 8 000
And there you go folks, at 10k pop, having 7 food tiles gives you 1k more tier 2 cavalry!
7 food tile city at 15k pop
At 60% taxation:
FOOD: 25579 * 0,65 - 15000 = 1626 food/hour
GOLD: 15 000 * 4 * 0,6 = 36000
Tier 2 Cavalry = 9 0000
That right, 3k more Tier 2 cavalry than the 5 food tile city!
Conclusion on 7 tile food city
As shown, having the two extra food tiles can make a huge difference. It allows you to have bigger cities which makes it more profitable to have 8 or 9 cities, and it also allows you to gain bigger army. In conclusion, no matter what, get those 7 tile cities. Other basic resources are worth next to nothing in this game. But now onwards to the important and cool stuff, sovereignty!
Sovereignty
With sovereignty we can have max populated cities, without loosing food, and also have a great army. In this case, I will use one of my cities to illustrate the power of sovereignty. I will call it "City X", as I for some reason don't want to reveal it here. Can't explain why thou. :)
City X
My city X got two food sov. tiles. The first one has 19 in food and the second one has 15. And this result in a 34% bonus to food production, at the cost of 1580 * 2 = 3160 gold/hour. And of course this city has 7 farm tiles as basic. Therefore the food production looks like this:
Basic food production:
(2014 * 7) =
14098
Bonuses:
Flourmill: 40%
Spell: 8%
Prestige: 20%
Sov: 34%
Total food production is:
14098 * 1,4 * 1,08 * 1,2 * 1,34 = 34276
That is, those two sov. tiles gives almost 10k more food production to the city! And the max size of a city is 26980, which can be supported easily. But how much Tier 2 cavalry can I gain?
At 40% taxation:
FOOD: 34276 * 0,85 - 26980 = 2154 food/hour
GOLD: 26980 * 4 * 0,4 = 43168 -
3160 (sov. cost) = 40008
gold/hour
Tier 2 Cavalry = 10k.
So, at maximal population, this city can still support 10k tier 2 cavalry. And that is not max, at lower population it can support up to 12k tier 2 cavalry. 12k tier 2 cavalry in one city, that is not feed at all by other cities! Next issue is to actually get 12k tier 2 cavalry, but thats another matter. And my next location for city would be even better, which will have food production reaching over 40k/hour. Higher cost of sov. tiles of course but that city could support up to 14k tier 2 cavalry.
Big Conclusion
I hope this has given the people of Illyriad a better insight on how to actually pick their location for cities. Because it always boils down to food vs population ratio. This little post have shown the power of sov. tiles, the importance of 7 tiles of food in a city and that there is a breaking point were bigger cities gives less room for an army, althought I didn't show exactly where it is, even thou I know it :) . Hopefully you have liked this post and that it will help you placing your future cities.
But do remember that long distance between your cities make them more insecure and takes longer time to send stuff between them. Oh, and this pretty much demands usage of prestige, or the time required to actually reach these numbers can almost be calculated in years.
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The power of sovereignty
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