Hi.

As I told in another thread (see BTS forum if you have an hour to loose :)), I had my first Monarch win, with Caesar (the good one, Julius !).

One thing that I may not have understood in all the good advices I got from my readings : what do YOU big guys here do in a city when there is nothing interesting to do ?

An example : you have a commerce city which have all that is good for commerce. What to build ? A unit ? A building from another type ?

Another example : in a production city, what to do after the "health limit" : can't build the factory, because it would trigger the health limit, no buildings of any value to build... a unit again ?

I say "a unit" in the case were you have enough units for all the wars you want (I saw someone blink in the background ;)), or better more than your economy can sustain, you see the kind of situations ?

I'm sure I loose a lot of victory points in this part of the game.

Any advice ?

\bye

PS : and thanks again for all those precious articles, they are VERY good, and show at least one thing : CIV4/BTS is a GREAT game, with infinite ways of playing, winning and loosing :)

I guess a simple answer would be to build gold in your commerce city and units in your production one (you can never have enough I find on the higher levels - early on anyway). Sometimes even culture if this cities are in a culture war, but this is all dependent on specifics obviously.

com cities : if all buildings done, check you dont need a missionnary, a spy, a worker or any stupid stuff like that.

prod cities : should always be building prod buildings or units, you dont care loosing health : do you prefer +50% prod and -2 food (which basicly means -1 mine = -5 hammers) or +0% -0 food ?

if you really dont know what to build, build wealth when CE, research when SE.

One thing that I may not have understood in all the good advices I got from my readings : what do YOU big guys here do in a city when there is nothing interesting to do ?

Train another catapult.

If you have all the units you think you need...start a war because you built those units for a reason. Late game there are always more buildings than my commerce cities have the production to build. Have you built all the espionage buildings?
When you say factories will hit the health limits, do you mean to the point of negative food? or just green faces? Late game I usually have loads of green faces in my production cities. Hey, it's the price you pay for living there and having a job. If you wanted better living conditions then you should have gone to school and moved to a GP farm or a commerce city. So tell the little sick whiners whiners to get their butts to work in the asbestos factory like the good little high school dropouts that they are.

If a city has all buildings it will need I'll generally build units. Building wealth and research isn't very efficient, and are only boosted by the production modifiers, not the gold or research modifiers. Building these in commerce cities is therefore even more ineffective than building them in production cities.

My view is you can never have too many units - even if you have plenty of military there's still missionaries/execs/spies and other consumable units.

In situations where diplo is ok building units as advised here only leads to useless outdated troops that'll cost you lots of upkeep. Sometimes before currency you can have this situation, setting production to science can be a very good idea in this case to get the important currency tech earlier. After currency research usually picks up and you'll soon have markets/courthouses/forges and harbors to build.

A more well known situation is around 1700 ad, research slider at +/- 80 % gearing up for a space race, no use building markets, banks at this point as their lifespan will generally be too short. Concentrate on production health and science buildings and use wealth/science after these are build, when production modifiers are in place this'll boost commerce enormously and is not inefficient at all.

I find it seriously hard to believe you could run out of buildings pre-currency (unless you're deliberately avoiding this tech - highly inadvisable). In any case, unless completely isolated you can then build more units for an early rush. Ditto for most of the game.

There is an argument for research/wealth construction in the last phases of a space race. If you have much time remaining you're better off invading another civ. Unit upkeep should be a negligible expense at this point anyway. I also find it hard to believe you could ever reach a point where you don't have a use for more execs/missionaries or missles.

Production cities can still benefit from a Grocer for the health, and a Market for the happiness. Commerce cities can still benefit from a Forge, Barracks, even a Stable and/or Drydock if you have the events that give them additional bonuses (+1 food Stables, +2 health Drydocks, etc).

Personally, when I run out of stuff, I build Walls, then Castles. The boost of a Trade Route, plus a bonus to Espionage, make it a reasonable choice even in cities that will never see a battle in their BFCs. This is especially true if you have stone and/or are PRO.

For me, city specialization is more of a time-line guide-line than a hard and fast rule. I build the buildings of the cities specialized purpose first, but then, if nothing else is pressing or needed, I dont avoid non-related specialized buildings. Having a Market in place when that war weariness or Emancipation unhappiness kicks in can be a big help.

An example : you have a commerce city which have all that is good for commerce. What to build ? A unit ? A building from another type ?

It may also be worth considering that this is a symptom that your commerce city is working too many hammer tiles. What if you had a cottage on that hill, instead of a mine? etc.

It may also be worth considering that this is a symptom that your commerce city is working too many hammer tiles. What if you had a cottage on that hill, instead of a mine? etc.

Exactly. Commerce cities cannot run out of buildings to build. If they do they aren't commerce cities.

There is usually a point in my games where I can see what my end game is - at which point every city can be dedicated to that end game. If its military then every city will be producing units. If its space then commerce cities will switch to producing wealth once they have maximum science multipliers and as many production multipliers as health will stand. Also when I reach the point that they could not finish a building before I launch I will switch to building wealth.

Typically two choices.

Units. I'd say by and far this is the best option. Most of the time you need them eventually. Consider sometimes building a settler ahead of time, even if it is going to sit around.

Research or gold. This is not always cost effective, but if you are really struggling it is worth it. The crappier your economy the larger benefit it has, because...

Research time for a tech increases exponentially as your beakers decrease(not sure of the exponent, really).

Example:
A tech that takes 200 beakers.

If you have 10 science per turn, it takes 20 turns.
If you have 15 science, it takes 13 turns.
if you have 20 science, it takes 10 turns.
If you have 40 science, it takes 5 turns.
If it takes 80 science, it takes 2.5 turns.

Building research would probably not be cost-effective in the above scenario if you have 40 beakers, and are trying to make a tech come quicker by building. 40 + 10 would go from 5 turns to 4 turns, only 1 turn difference.

But, if you were at 10 science per turn, and you built to 20, you'd go from 20 turns to 10 turns, halving the time until you get the next tech.


The cases where I'd build gold/beakers do it more often is key research techs such as monarchy, civil service, and sometimes commerce. Or, if you have lots of axemen but need catapults to invade, build research. Building more axemen instead wouldn't really help your invasion much anyways.


Take building gold/commerce on a tech by tech basis (or if you have no military threats and/or are going for space race, go for it).

Also when I reach the point that they could not finish a building before I launch I will switch to building wealth.

To be more exact what you should consider is you should build wealth once building the building would no longer give you as much gold as building wealth gives.

For example... if you you are running 90% science, 10% of commerce goes to gold. If a city generates 100 commerce, then a bank gives 5 gold per turn. So if the bank will only operate 20 turns until you launch/whenever your win point it, then there is no point to the bank.

A market would only be break even if you had 30 turns for that market to operate.

It is sometimes a hassle to calculate this exactly, but in some cases it is obvious... like a 50 commerce city with 40 turns left shouldn't bother with a market.

I find it seriously hard to believe you could run out of buildings pre-currency (unless you're deliberately avoiding this tech - highly inadvisable). In any case, unless completely isolated you can then build more units for an early rush. Ditto for most of the game.

There is an argument for research/wealth construction in the last phases of a space race. If you have much time remaining you're better off invading another civ. Unit upkeep should be a negligible expense at this point anyway. I also find it hard to believe you could ever reach a point where you don't have a use for more execs/missionaries or missles.On the contrary i try to get currency as early as possible which is one of the reasons i sometimes convert production to research to get there earlier. If you have for instance library/granary/barracks/monument which other building should there be pre currency?

But the most common situation is of course if you've just done an early rush and your units are near striking, you need to get to currency/col asap and in this case using production for research coupled with assigning scientists is a life saver.

In the medieval era I like to spam Trebuchets when I don't have anything left to do why? Cause a trebuchet costs 80 gold to upgrade to a cannon. That is a very cheap cost for a huge upgrade. You get a gunpowder unit(so it ignores walls/castles) AND +8 strength.

So if you have 20 trebs you can upgrade them for 1600 gold(which is easily obtainable) to 20 cannons. If you get steel as early as you can, nobody is going to stop you if you choose to invade. Nobody.

All beakers are multiplied by civknow modifier and prereqmodifiers so it is not correct to say that a 200 beaker tech takes 20 turns at 10 beakers, it actually takes 17 or 15 turns assuming noone else know the tech with one or two prereqs(cept the very start techs).

Oyzar, please go into more depth with this.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=146163

Prepare for your next war

Having all the buildings built is a symptom of the FA economy. The cure is a differently directed tech path, using fewer hammer improvements in the city radius, or annihilating your opponents instead of happily allowing them to build all their buildings as well.

Remember, multiplier buildings only boost the output of your empire. Units boost your empire's output and lowers your opponents. Usually to zero.