Worst wonder?

That's actually +25% as it boosts a factory from +25% to +50%. You might have been adding those two to find the bonus rather than subtracting. So for 25% more hammers you have the ability to work about 25% fewer hammer-yielding tiles due to people choking to death on the smog. You spent the turns building the coal plant, basically for no benefit other than the sadistic thrill of watching cities shrink. Who's misplaying now?

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As Ghpstage points out, we both choked here. Coal plants = 50% bonus production if you have coal...and you are giving up a LOT of hammers by putting them off. Cities shouldn't shrink TOO much from coal plants; what are you doing with your cap management?!

There's a reason that I'm not the only high level player advocating coal plants. Generally, most players who are SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER than me will also advocate them. Iranon points out it's not a 100% gimme position, but consistently avoiding it? You should rethink it, if you're looking to improve.

Point taken. I'll have to try robotics-dodging next time I play, see if the AI having stronger land units and +50% space ship production is a huge bonus to me or not (since I'm letting him beat me to robo's and letting him build Space Elevator). But yaaaaaay I can nuke... assuming I can kill the non-proliferation treaty. Cross those fingers for me.

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How is the AI slowing itself down with a crappy wonder going to harm your position? You should be thankful it's that stupid...well IMO the AI should play better and have less bonuses but you know what I mean.

You can inefficiently pursue 2 different victory conditions late game all you want to blow some hot air into the SE; it's still slowing you down to get it when actually attempting space.

Skallagrimson said:

Point taken. I'll have to try robotics-dodging next time I play, see if the AI having stronger land units and +50% space ship production is a huge bonus to me or not (since I'm letting him beat me to robo's and letting him build Space Elevator). But yaaaaaay I can nuke... assuming I can kill the non-proliferation treaty. Cross those fingers for me.

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May I point you to the fact that MI are horrible attacking units ( atleast compared with the rest of the arsenal of the days ) ? May I also remind you that modern wars are decided in the air, missiles ( nuclear or not ) or with intense shelling and that MI does not do any of those?

In short, if you are afraid of a AI attack because of their MI, you would be with only slightly less fear of the same AI without MI ...

Skallagrimson said:

What I'm usually doing in my current strategy, is mostly on a conquest rampage without a whole lot of space ship parts production initially. My Iron Works city, which without an Engineer can build a SE in about 5 turns naked, will put about 2 turns into it and then go back to either pumping units or Wealth for unit upgrades, depending on the scenario. When I discover Fusion, I pop the Engineer, and spirit him over to the IW city and finish the SE. "Time" wise it's not even a blip on my radar. When SE's built I start to let my conquest wind down, start making peace and playing nice, or if my stacks are overkill huge just let them conquer what they can without new unit builds (apart from the West Point city), and the other pump cities switch over to space ship parts. They have the +25% bonus from laboratories and the +50% bonus from SE at that stage of the game.

A *human* would probably beat me to space, but the way the AIs play they typically don't. They usually just have all their thrusters done and one or two other parts before I launch.

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If you can do that, congrats. You should be playing in a higher level that you are today. I can assure that you are losing time by doing tha jiggly moves between conquest mode and SS build mode.

Anyway, like I already said I made some math a long time ago regarding this, and this only in hammer costs: see here. In normal speed you need to be able to save 6000 hammers or more to make the SE to pay up. This does not include a possible GE, but in there you need to factor it vs the other options, that are a possible GA ( or part of it ) or simply settling it in a city with high multipliers and it is not assured that the SE will always win vs those.

Remember, this only covers hammers, not teching time. Teching time is the final nail in the coffin most of the times for SE, and even if you get Robotics via other source ( tech theft, Net or simple trade ( unlikely, but since it is not a SS part tech, it is theoretically possible to trade for it ) ), you most likely would get the SS faster/ with less competition if you simply had avoided to go there and had focused solely in teching towards the SS parts techs.

TheMeInTeam said:

As Ghpstage points out, we both choked here. Coal plants = 50% bonus production if you have coal...and you are giving up a LOT of hammers by putting them off. Cities shouldn't shrink TOO much from coal plants; what are you doing with your cap management?!

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You were originally accurate, actually; It's 50% if everything goes perfectly (probably the expansive trait). It's more like 25% after adding in unhealth and measures to control it, and you might just be making units at 100% or better without it.

Coal rushing gives it time to pay back, but at the expense of other lines.

Although not expansive, Aztecs come to mind as a coal-hungry "mini-mill" civilization, due to how the sacrificial alter affects city placement. Babylon and Persia have non-expansive health boosts. It's civilization dependent. Without a health boost, you might find just 2 cities that could really use a coal plant.

Ok, maybe the Dutch could use coal, because they're probably the only civilization to actually want to use environmentalism to open up more water tiles.

Higher Game said:

You were originally accurate, actually; It's 50% if everything goes perfectly (probably the expansive trait). It's more like 25% after adding in unhealth and measures to control it, and you might just be making units at 100% or better without it.

Coal rushing gives it time to pay back, but at the expense of other lines.

Although not expansive, Aztecs come to mind as a coal-hungry "mini-mill" civilization, due to how the sacrificial alter affects city placement. Babylon and Persia have non-expansive health boosts. It's civilization dependent. Without a health boost, you might find just 2 cities that could really use a coal plant.

Ok, maybe the Dutch could use coal, because they're probably the only civilization to actually want to use environmentalism to open up more water tiles.

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I can't start to phantom a situation where the bonus could cut the coal plant prod bonus to real 25% in a city that actually deserved a factory in the first place. 2 = 1 less pop at worst ... ok, 2 pop if you add the power count ( the coal yuck is another issue ( as long as you have coal you will have it ) ). If you are in a situation where losing one tile or two prod is enough to cut a 50% bonus to half, this means that your city has little prod to start with ... and cities with little prod will take ages to pay up the investment in a factory, if they pay it at all.

r_rolo1 said:

if you get Robotics via other source ( tech theft, Net or simple trade ( unlikely, but since it is not a SS part tech, it is theoretically possible to trade for it ) )

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That bit about actually being able to trade for Robotics due it not being a Spaceship tech is about the only positive aspect of the Space Elevator in BtS. Unfortunately, it's not a strong enough positive aspect , but on paper is sounds good to be able to trade for such a tech.

The issue is getting a AI to trade for it, since it is a wonder tech and you want it before someone does the SE It requires a AI that has the tech and does not want to build the wonder, a quite rare happening That is why I said "theoretically", since it will not happen a lot of times Then you need to trade something for it ... you don't want to trade SS techs ( right ? ) and if you have some similar value stuff to trade that is not a SS tech ( say, something in the Adv Flight side of the tech tree ) you are really not focusing in the SS race

r_rolo1 said:

The issue is getting a AI to trade for it, since it is a wonder tech and you want it before someone does the SE It requires a AI that has the tech and does not want to build the wonder, a quite rare happening That is why I said "theoretically", since it will not happen a lot of times Then you need to trade something for it ... you don't want to trade SS techs ( right ? ) and if you have some similar value stuff to trade that is not a SS tech ( say, something in the Adv Flight side of the tech tree ) you are really not focusing in the SS race

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The wonder tech works in your favor. At that point it's time to spend away the espionage points, so let the AI grab it while you get something better. I think there *might* be a situation where you can steal robotics, make the SE, and slightly come out ahead. It's plausible, if very unlikely. I'd say it's very slightly better than Angkor Wat. AW admittedly can be a cultural muscle, and decent for Egypt or Arabia, but that's as far as it goes.

r_rolo1 said:

I can't start to phantom a situation where the bonus could cut the coal plant prod bonus to real 25% in a city that actually deserved a factory in the first place. 2 = 1 less pop at worst ... ok, 2 pop if you add the power count ( the coal yuck is another issue ( as long as you have coal you will have it ) ). If you are in a situation where losing one tile or two prod is enough to cut a 50% bonus to half, this means that your city has little prod to start with ... and cities with little prod will take ages to pay up the investment in a factory, if they pay it at all.

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It's fathom, not phantom.

For a production city, 2 pop is probably 8 raw hammers (railroad mines, caste workshops, levee all matter here). If we assume, say, a rough ballpark estimate of 40 raw hammers, the coal (over the factory and forge) takes us from 60 to 64 final hammers. If a milicad is present, it's 80 vs 80 hammers, a complete tie.

For a smaller production city, say 30 raw hammers, and just 1 lost pop to unhealth (4 raw hammers, let's say), the coal takes us from 45 to 52 final hammers. If it had a military academy and is for units, it goes from 60 to 65 hammers...

Power is a very nasty 4 unhealth. The coal in a factory adds another 2. An industrial park adds another one. That's potentially ***7*** unhealth as a result of the stuff. The biggest irony here is that expansive guys, who could use the coal the most, are also the most adept at worker spamming railroads very quickly enough to trade it away. They'll only miss the fully charged iron works, a little corporate strength, and the ironclad, which is so overpowered it tends to ruin the game anyway. Even if you do have some cities that need it, the coal itself drags down the ones that don't.

I really don't *hate* the coal plant. It's just very, very overrated, and the industrial park is very underrated. That is all. Try to play without coal (remember to save your great generals for MS), and build the parks instead. You might be pleasantly surprised. Or not. It's situational, but the point is, it is not cut and dried.

The thing to keep in mind, is that the industrial era offers very few new buildings to make. Levees and factories come to mind for production cities, but that's about it. It's a time to make units. The coal plant actually does just give 25% if you are averaging 100% unit build anyway; it's taking you from 200% to 250% at a massive expense of health. Unless you are simply loaded with health to begin with, you'll end up making health buildings, going down a weak tech path, and missing perhaps the best war era in the game.

I have no idea why you'd ever build the Industrial Park instead of Factory/Coal Plant in anything besides your GP farm or National Park. +2 hammers on top of base 40 hammers or +30 hammers on top of base 40 hammers. Hmm, tricky choice choice.

Anyways, who says you'll actually lose population from the unhealth? Or that you'll have to build higher-tier health buildings? Just use your workers to replace hammer tiles with food tiles. Sure, windmills and farms have a lower raw yield than railroad mines or Caste/SP workshops, but replacing just a few will let you stabilise your population and still generate tons of production. A railroad grassland mines with forge is 1F5P, a grassland windmill with forge/factory/coalplant is 2F4P, a plains windmill with forge/factory/coalplant is 1F6P. You'll only need a couple of these to go from unhealth shrinkage to stagnation.

Pacifism and philosophical come into play here. Without at least one of them, your GPP city has such a relative advantage that it's crazy to look for them elsewhere. However, if you have them, you might just have a hammer city with a food resource, irrigation chain, sushi/cereal, and the room to support 3+ specialists. If no corporations, it's probably because you have state property running and you have full food workshops anyway.

The park can often give just enough help needed to win an engineer in this city, so you can snatch one of the electricity line wonders. Representation can also make the specialists more appealing.

The GP farm should not be for engineers. The engineer slots come with too much unhealth. Hammer cities are engineer cities because they've had the forge engineer since the early game, and it's easy to temporarily make workshops into farms, something you would never do with towns.

Permanently giving up production tiles for the sake of farms severely hurts the case for coal. Optimistically, losing just 1 tile can mean the coal plant by itself has a 25+ turn payback. Guys like Churchill and Sitting Bull can make things even worse.

By the time I have Assembly Line and Industrialism, I should have popped a good half-dozen great people (minimum without philosophical). An extra 3 base GPPs is negligible. By that time, the only uses of GPs are for golden ages. And if no GE, just do state property, there's a reason why everyone thought it was overpowered in vanilla. Plus, none of the Electricity-Radio-Mass Media wonders are game-changing enough to burn a GE on instead of Mining Corp.

Then again, I'm not really sure what your thesis is. Are you trying to say that using engineer specialists beats having Coal Plants for hammer output? Because it's not, Engineers are 3P with forge and factory. Are you saying you want the maximum base yield from your tiles? Because I'd happily drop a couple of 1F4P mine to a 2F2P windmill if I can get the extra hammers from every single worked tile in that city. Are you saying that late game (anything post-sci method is late game) GPPs are something viable in all your cities? Because it's not, the threshold is high enough and few cities have the spare food for them pay off and pop a great person.

I do take mining corp for granted. Wonders come after it. They are much more valuable than given credit because they help you avoid having to switch to emancipation, and provide a monopoly resource. Interestingly, a golden age in that time additionally reduces the relative GPP difference between the GP city and normal cities, which helps with more engineers.

3 GPPs from the ground up is pointless by then, but a few hammer cities might have 300-400 saved up, and steam powered workers can set up some makeshift farms for the engineer pop.

I love Mining Corp, but I never ever take it for granted. I can't guarantee that a production city can spare 2F working an engineer for 2P instead of working a plains hill for 4P for hundreds of turns. Meanwhile, my GP farm proper is busy pumping out scientists to build academies or bulb through techs like Education, Astronomy, Printing Press, etc, meaning it's doubtful my engineer city will ever reach the GP threshold. Assembly Line makes it alot easier to farm your GE for Mining Corp, but by the time he pops my Assembly Line-State Property fueled cavalry/infantry/tank rampage has probably made corporations irrelevant for deciding the outcome of the game.

And those "Hit" luxury resources are okay to trade around, they're nowhere near as game-critical as getting Mining Corp. They do double with Eiffel Tower/Broadcast Stations, which is nice. However, GEs are rare enough that I will never waste them on something like that.

For a production city, 2 pop is probably 8 raw hammers (railroad mines, caste workshops, levee all matter here). If we assume, say, a rough ballpark estimate of 40 raw hammers, the coal (over the factory and forge) takes us from 60 to 64 final hammers. If a milicad is present, it's 80 vs 80 hammers, a complete tie.

For a smaller production city, say 30 raw hammers, and just 1 lost pop to unhealth (4 raw hammers, let's say), the coal takes us from 45 to 52 final hammers. If it had a military academy and is for units, it goes from 60 to 65 hammers...

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You could make universities look crappy with this nonsense.

1. Not every city gets to spam out a national wonder or a building requiring a great person.
2. Operating on the assumption that you'll starve off a 4 hammer tile is ridiculous; show me this happening on a consistent basis in practice because I'm pretty sure you can't. Cities that are large enough to be health starved having no marginal tiles? All of them?

Power is a very nasty 4 unhealth.

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Irrelevant to the discussion of using coal plants! Unless, of course, you're trying to make a case for *never* using power...but that doesn't exactly HELP the case of 3GD does it .

I really don't *hate* the coal plant. It's just very, very overrated, and the industrial park is very underrated. That is all. Try to play without coal (remember to save your great generals for MS), and build the parks instead. You might be pleasantly surprised. Or not. It's situational, but the point is, it is not cut and dried.

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The parks add very little real hammers, and M. academies nothing when building wealth/research or infrastructure (or projects like space parts!).

The assumption of "very few buildings to make" is also painful. How quickly/slowly are you teching there...and what buildings are you making on the way? If you really have nothing to make by industrialism, chances are you're slowing down your tech pace by overbuilding low-ROI infrastructure.

BTW engineers can be had with a little planning ahead without having to wait until deep into industrial times...

Then again higher_game, maybe the deity players are wrong. You could always come over to strategy and tips and show everyone how overrated coal plants are in that "izzy monarch fastest space launch" thread or the one started by nishant with justinian/immortal where the goal is "fastest victory"...although you won't be beating anybody in the latter with industrial tech .

TheMeInTeam said:

You could make universities look crappy with this nonsense.

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The university is crappy. Oxford is the real prize.

TheMeInTeam said:

1. Not every city gets to spam out a national wonder or a building requiring a great person.

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Liberalism --> Steel makes the iron works an easy catch. Heroic epic is a bit harder, but not by much. 2 generals is a safe minimum in most games. That's 4 hammer cities with 100% or better, no coal.

TheMeInTeam said:

2. Operating on the assumption that you'll starve off a 4 hammer tile is ridiculous; show me this happening on a consistent basis in practice because I'm pretty sure you can't. Cities that are large enough to be health starved having no marginal tiles? All of them?

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6 unhealth causing the loss of 1 tile isn't ridiculous. I was also surprised that it only takes about 8 good tiles for coal to start looking questionable. You would need a lot of marginal tiles for it to look good, maybe enough for a city itself to be marginal.

TheMeInTeam said:

Irrelevant to the discussion of using coal plants! Unless, of course, you're trying to make a case for *never* using power...but that doesn't exactly HELP the case of 3GD does it .

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3GD is also pointless. Labs do enough for spaceship parts, if that's the real concern. It's not hard to get +100% raw hammers without power.

TheMeInTeam said:

The parks add very little real hammers, and M. academies nothing when building wealth/research or infrastructure (or projects like space parts!).

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By that time in the game, building infantry and artillery is more appealing than wealth. Wealth building starts to look bad when cannon and riflemen are available, but by the industrial era it's definitely time to put it away.

TheMeInTeam said:

The assumption of "very few buildings to make" is also painful. How quickly/slowly are you teching there...and what buildings are you making on the way? If you really have nothing to make by industrialism, chances are you're slowing down your tech pace by overbuilding low-ROI infrastructure.

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Hammer cities need a forge, factory, barracks, courthouse, levee (if available) and the AP temple. Cap raisers are sometimes needed, sometimes not. National wonders are good. They might have a library for culture, and to make a university for the Oxford requirement, and they might make spy buildings. They do not need many buildings.

TheMeInTeam said:

BTW engineers can be had with a little planning ahead without having to wait until deep into industrial times...

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The iron works helps a lot. Factories and parks can still help more.

TheMeInTeam said:

Then again higher_game, maybe the deity players are wrong. You could always come over to strategy and tips and show everyone how overrated coal plants are in that "izzy monarch fastest space launch" thread or the one started by nishant with justinian/immortal where the goal is "fastest victory"...although you won't be beating anybody in the latter with industrial tech .

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When I play on immortal, I usually pick up enough great generals to make me question the appeal of coal. I used to settle them, but now I appreciate the quality of quantity. Stunt games on fluke maps aren't relevant (isolation comes to mind where coal is very nice).

Nick Carpathia said:

I love Mining Corp, but I never ever take it for granted. I can't guarantee that a production city can spare 2F working an engineer for 2P instead of working a plains hill for 4P for hundreds of turns.

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That's the worst case. A hammer city with a single food resource can have 5-6 workshops. 2 food resources almost always call for an engineer.

Liberalism --> Steel makes the iron works an easy catch. Heroic epic is a bit harder, but not by much. 2 generals is a safe minimum in most games. That's 4 hammer cities with 100% or better, no coal.

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Is your IW 50% or 100%? This is going to matter later in the discussion, where you're pulling #s from nowhere.

6 unhealth causing the loss of 1 tile isn't ridiculous. I was also surprised that it only takes about 8 good tiles for coal to start looking questionable. You would need a lot of marginal tiles for it to look good, maybe enough for a city itself to be marginal.

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Six eh? You're counting power, and coal itself? If you're counting coal itself, you don't get your 100% IW above. If you are counting power, then you are forgoing all power plants permanently; perhaps appropriate when game-ending push occurs in renaissance or industrial, otherwise probably not.

You also continue to assume that all of these cities are health capped and are talking about cities that generally have well over 60 base ...cities you're giving up around 30 (or close) by forgoing power for...an extra pop count? Not seeing ?

3GD is also pointless. Labs do enough for spaceship parts, if that's the real concern. It's not hard to get +100% raw hammers without power.

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Are you actually advocating pursuing space races without power?

By that time in the game, building infantry and artillery is more appealing than wealth. Wealth building starts to look bad when cannon and riflemen are available, but by the industrial era it's definitely time to put it away.

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.........................................................................................................................................

No. There's way too much evidence that the above is wrong for me to even bother with anything but pointing out that it exists. Go tell some of the best space race finishes EVER when it's time to put away wealth I guess :/. We all eagerly await your 1400 AD tanks and 1500 AD to 1600 AD range space finishes.

The iron works helps a lot. Factories and parks can still help more.

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I can also quote something and then say something irrelevant. It's fun at first, but it gets old pretty quickly .

The whole point is that you can (and if you really want it probably should) have mining inc available before you're even considering industrial parks and possibly even before factories. Corps have setup costs but are very strong; mining inc leads that description. Waiting all the way until industrialism to get that going? Not ideal at all.

When I play on immortal, I usually pick up enough great generals to make me question the appeal of coal. I used to settle them, but now I appreciate the quality of quantity. Stunt games on fluke maps aren't relevant (isolation comes to mind where coal is very nice).

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This is another example of you quoting something, then saying something irrelevant to what you're quoting. Harpy hags have strike and return. Steel swords are still terrible against bronze metal if attempting a slash. Magic the gathering is a card game, and is arguably superior to yugioh.

One of those maps (the one where power is actually relevant if you want to be competitive) isn't even doctored; just a random roll.

That's the worst case. A hammer city with a single food resource can have 5-6 workshops. 2 food resources almost always call for an engineer.

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Or, one can farm the engineer outside of the dedicated hammer city by watching GPP.

Give it up, this thread has been derailed badly from 3GD being overrated to coal plants being overrated to power being overrated. I'm as confused as you on what the guy's point is, because the 4 hit from the coal plant can be fixed by turning a workshop or two into farms, with a net boost in hammers from the +50%.

The resources a player has are interchangeable in rather complex ways... beyond the early game under clearly stated constraints, it's hard to make a coherent point without having it degenerate into either lazy half-truths or meandering ramblings.

Anyway, I don't like building wealth at all. Commerce tiles/specialists tend to have bigger yields than hammer tiles, gold multipliers come with benefits instead of health penalties and are available earlier. I generally spend much of the gamet jumping through hoops to get more hammers in the few ways that don't suck, I'm not converting it back unless I get a fantastic deal (failure cash... sometimes).

But then, I favour efficiency over focus and a relative advantage against the AI over absolute speed. One great thing about the game is that pretty much any approach that's consistent with itself has some merits. As a result, conventional wisdom is often factually wrong but works anyway.

TheMeInTeam said:

Is your IW 50% or 100%? This is going to matter later in the discussion, where you're pulling #s from nowhere.

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Usually 50%, but often 100% if I have expansive, and always 100% when I'm still railroading and before I have factories up. Hanging Gardens help, and also offer engineer points.

TheMeInTeam said:

Six eh? You're counting power, and coal itself? If you're counting coal itself, you don't get your 100% IW above. If you are counting power, then you are forgoing all power plants permanently; perhaps appropriate when game-ending push occurs in renaissance or industrial, otherwise probably not.

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The IW even at 50% is worth it for the engineer slots. Going coal-less helps you use them.

I usually count both coal and power, but sometimes there's enough health to keep the coal. The power usually demands too much.

TheMeInTeam said:

You also continue to assume that all of these cities are health capped and are talking about cities that generally have well over 60 base ...cities you're giving up around 30 (or close) by forgoing power for...an extra pop count? Not seeing ?

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The vast majority of cities are going to be health capped by coal, or they're building cap boosters that set the hammer payback 50+ turns away, when they could be making infantry. Counting a pop as worth 4 raw hammers is typical.

High production cities that can make 1 unit/turn without power, do not need power.

TheMeInTeam said:

Are you actually advocating pursuing space races without power?

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It's not crazy. After a 100% hammer boost, further going for more hammers loses a lot of appeal. Once you have genetics, coal plants start to look a lot better, though.

TheMeInTeam said:

.........................................................................................................................................

No. There's way too much evidence that the above is wrong for me to even bother with anything but pointing out that it exists. Go tell some of the best space race finishes EVER when it's time to put away wealth I guess :/. We all eagerly await your 1400 AD tanks and 1500 AD to 1600 AD range space finishes.

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Freak games. Wealth building to get tanks/space ASAP is viable if all the diplomatic cards fall right. In most games, you want an army. Wealth building from muskets to rifles makes sense. But after this, it's not as appealing.

TheMeInTeam said:

I can also quote something and then say something irrelevant. It's fun at first, but it gets old pretty quickly .

The whole point is that you can (and if you really want it probably should) have mining inc available before you're even considering industrial parks and possibly even before factories. Corps have setup costs but are very strong; mining inc leads that description. Waiting all the way until industrialism to get that going? Not ideal at all.

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I don't wait that long for Mining Inc (again, I take it for granted), as it's usually from the IW. I do, however, like grabbing hollywood or the Eiffel tower with a great engineer.

TheMeInTeam said:

This is another example of you quoting something, then saying something irrelevant to what you're quoting. Harpy hags have strike and return. Steel swords are still terrible against bronze metal if attempting a slash. Magic the gathering is a card game, and is arguably superior to yugioh.

One of those maps (the one where power is actually relevant if you want to be competitive) isn't even doctored; just a random roll.

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Great generals mean high modifiers, high enough that going higher with coal hurts raw production enough to give it a questionable payback.

Magic is objectively superior to Yugioh.

TheMeInTeam said:

Or, one can farm the engineer outside of the dedicated hammer city by watching GPP.

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I don't see where this is coming from. Non-hammer cities do not want factories. 1 engineer from the forge won't do much. Are you saying to stop the GPP city or build Hagia Sophia? Reloading until you pop an engineer at 20%?

The vast majority of cities are going to be health capped by coal, or they're building cap boosters that set the hammer payback 50+ turns away, when they could be making infantry.

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You keep talking about building infantry.

However, unless you're actually using those infantry to beat something down, they're dead weight beyond what is needed for defense. On anything below deity, the #'s of forces needed for defense is laughably small...

It's not crazy.

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What is your typical space time? What is your best space time when you really push it? I bet you're delaying your win by avoiding power...consistently.

Freak games. Wealth building to get tanks/space ASAP is viable if all the diplomatic cards fall right. In most games, you want an army.

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I guess every deity/random/fractal start is a "freak game" now? Or are you just going to ignore ABCF running around with 1100 AD infantry on a very average start? Unconquered Sun putting up those 1400 AD tanks with...charlemagne on a coastal start? Rusten with 700 AD rifles in a gauntlet game meant to be hard?

Maybe the "freaks" are the players, who have largely advocated ALL of the hammer multipliers.....

Wealth building to get tanks/space ASAP is viable if all the diplomatic cards fall right. In most games, you want an army.

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You are getting your army or diplo set LONG before assembly line, or you're dead. Besides, army requirements for simple defense are quite low...walling the AI stacks with 1/3 of its hammer investment is not uncommon.

Wealth building from muskets to rifles makes sense. But after this, it's not as appealing.

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. Still wrong. Building wealth is at its STRONGEST when you have 100% multipliers; it often turns the multipliers weak enough to skip them. A lot depends on how you set up your empire, though. Lots of smaller cities + corps (or SP shops) benefit a lot more than a couple huge ones.

I don't wait that long for Mining Inc (again, I take it for granted), as it's usually from the IW. I do, however, like grabbing hollywood or the Eiffel tower with a great engineer.

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Waiting for IW and only THEN starting to run engineer GPP is already long. Get one faster. There are ways and if you're creative, you'll think of them. Example: micro your GPP in each city such that the city running a forge engineer pops a GE later in the game, close to when you need it. This is the kind of micro even I can do (I play very quickly), so it's not like it's hard to plan out.

Then again higher_game, maybe the deity players are wrong. You could always come over to strategy and tips and show everyone how overrated coal plants are in that "izzy monarch fastest space launch" thread or the one started by nishant with justinian/immortal where the goal is "fastest victory"...although you won't be beating anybody in the latter with industrial tech .

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When I play on immortal, I usually pick up enough great generals to make me question the appeal of coal. I used to settle them, but now I appreciate the quality of quantity. Stunt games on fluke maps aren't relevant (isolation comes to mind where coal is very nice).

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1. You ignored the point made in what you quoted
2. You started talking about "stunt games", how is that relevant?
3. You started talking about "fluke maps", how is that relevant?

Magic is objectively superior to Yugioh.

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Well you're paying attention at least . You got me there...magic is WAY better ^_^.

1 engineer from the forge won't do much.

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1 engineer is 3 GPP/turn. You have a couple options here:

1. Engineer wonders
2. Pacifism (even if it's your 4th GP, if you're willing to diligently run it in a junker city or a production city with enough food to support it, you'll get a GE in time)
3. Run it in your GP farm and hope you get lucky (when you pop 10+ GPs and have >15% chance engineer, you're playing odds-on...you can always run IW as a fallback if doing this approach).

It's all about planning. Deity HoF space racers, when I asked them, told me that mining inc was a key component of their wins and that they did their best to ASAP it.

Just finished an immortal Mehmed game. 6 great generals, iron works, heroic epic, Mining Inc from the works, and no need for coal except for the railroads. 2 cities always making a rifle/turn. I never saw a need for power. Hit the domination limit just before I was going to engineer rush broadway. I used riflemen, cannon, and grenadiers mostly, with a few infantry at the end.

Grenadiers are surprisingly important if a wimpy AI leaves maybe 3 riflemen in a city, making cannon collateral a bit wasteful or slow. They make for a curious compromise between stack of doom grinding and rapid cavalry wars. They work well as long as the AI doesn't put too many cavalry in cities.

TheMeInTeam said:

You keep talking about building infantry.

However, unless you're actually using those infantry to beat something down, they're dead weight beyond what is needed for defense. On anything below deity, the #'s of forces needed for defense is laughably small...

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Offense is the best defense.

TheMeInTeam said:

What is your typical space time? What is your best space time when you really push it? I bet you're delaying your win by avoiding power...consistently.

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I will war to slow the leading AI down even if it slows me down (but relatively less). I don't care for speed wins.

TheMeInTeam said:

I guess every deity/random/fractal start is a "freak game" now? Or are you just going to ignore ABCF running around with 1100 AD infantry on a very average start? Unconquered Sun putting up those 1400 AD tanks with...charlemagne on a coastal start? Rusten with 700 AD rifles in a gauntlet game meant to be hard?

Maybe the "freaks" are the players, who have largely advocated ALL of the hammer multipliers.....

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My diplomacy isn't so great; I usually can't get away with wealth building to ridiculously early techs. One of my games recently involved 4 pre-rifle wars declared on me, 2 at once.

Those guys almost certainly have vassal-snatched enough health resources by the time coal is available to use it well (and the map has to be moderately generous). The thing is, they've already won by then, and the coal just speeds things up.

TheMeInTeam said:

You are getting your army or diplo set LONG before assembly line, or you're dead. Besides, army requirements for simple defense are quite low...walling the AI stacks with 1/3 of its hammer investment is not uncommon.

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I won probably 3 great generals from Montezuma attacking forests outside of a border city. He would use siege first and withdraw after losing too many catapults, over and over again. I would "cash in" obsolete units instead of saving up to upgrade them (a mistake I used to make a lot). The generals were worth many thousands of hammers later.

TheMeInTeam said:

. Still wrong. Building wealth is at its STRONGEST when you have 100% multipliers; it often turns the multipliers weak enough to skip them. A lot depends on how you set up your empire, though. Lots of smaller cities + corps (or SP shops) benefit a lot more than a couple huge ones.

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You have very good units to make by then, though. You would have to be very behind to want to make wealth instead of war, probably enough to question your chances of winning.

TheMeInTeam said:

Waiting for IW and only THEN starting to run engineer GPP is already long. Get one faster. There are ways and if you're creative, you'll think of them. Example: micro your GPP in each city such that the city running a forge engineer pops a GE later in the game, close to when you need it. This is the kind of micro even I can do (I play very quickly), so it's not like it's hard to plan out.

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No, the IW usually gives the engineer just in time for Mining Inc. Railroad is just after steel, but you also need steam power and corporation. After building the works, and running engineers, it usually comes in time to make me take it for granted.

The IW city does already have an engineer giving points, and hopefully the pyramids or hanging gardens. The 3 extra slots are still very valuable.

TheMeInTeam said:

1. You ignored the point made in what you quoted
2. You started talking about "stunt games", how is that relevant?
3. You started talking about "fluke maps", how is that relevant?

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How are speed games that go 100% perfectly relevant to general play? Hall of Fame trolling is different from a normal match.

TheMeInTeam said:

Well you're paying attention at least . You got me there...magic is WAY better ^_^.

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TheMeInTeam said:

1 engineer is 3 GPP/turn. You have a couple options here:

1. Engineer wonders
2. Pacifism (even if it's your 4th GP, if you're willing to diligently run it in a junker city or a production city with enough food to support it, you'll get a GE in time)
3. Run it in your GP farm and hope you get lucky (when you pop 10+ GPs and have >15% chance engineer, you're playing odds-on...you can always run IW as a fallback if doing this approach).

It's all about planning. Deity HoF space racers, when I asked them, told me that mining inc was a key component of their wins and that they did their best to ASAP it.

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The Parthenon also comes to mind. It's much easier to get than the hanging gardens.