Gustavus Adolphus´s Trait

Well I was just wondering about something. When you, playing as Sweden, DOF 2 Players then you´re receiving a 20% Bonus to Great People or a 21% Bonus?

100+10+10=120

100+(100x0.1)= 110+(110x0.1)=121

10% + 10% = 20%

All Civ percentage bonuses calculate from the base value before other modifiers are applied, so you get a flat 10% per DoF (i.e. 20% from 2 DoFs), it's not calculated from the 110% GP generation you have from the first DoF.

You can also mouse over the GP bar and it will show you what percentage gets added as 'Empire Bonus'.

Yes, with the exception of hapiness (and I'm not sure about CS influence since GnK), all bonuses are additive, including Swedens GP generation ability and its interaction with other things such as National epic, garden, fredom opener and Leaning Tower.

In terms of GP generation power however, the fact that they get more expensive over time (think area of a right angle triangle) means it follows a very approximate square root relationship, reducing the UA power. Also what you really care about is turns per great person, not GP points, so you really care about the reciprocal. Thus if you've gone for all the GP generation buffs, Swedens UA isn't actually adding much to it at all in terms of extra GP because of it.

Example - say you have a lot of DoF's, like 5. Say you also have all 4 of the other GP generation buffs (+100%). Thats a total of +150%. For simplicity say you only work one type of specialist in one city, and over the course of the game generate 4000 points - that's equivalent to 8 great people. now the extra 100% (which any civ can do) gives 8000 points, or 12 great people - an extra 4 people. With the Sweden UA, that's 10000 points, or 13 great people - only 1 extra person! Now lets look at buildtimes. The 8th gp takes 800 points. say you have a base of 12 points per turn. For the regular player thats 67 turns. For the regular player with buffs, that's 24 per turn, a total of 34 turns, a saving of 33 turns - but sweden will not save an extra half of that (16 or 17). They'll have 30 gpppt, taking 27 turns, a saving of only 7 turns.
Needless to say, if you can't get that many DoFs, it tails off further still.

However, This doesn't mean you shouldn't go after GP with Sweden. The other half of the UA is the business end for Sweden going diplomacy VC. Build a specialist economy, but also go to war for GG's and GAd's (Don't be afraid to lose a couple of DoF's in this cause if you think you'll make more great people in total). Also purchase great people with faith (take the cheaper great prophets as an enhancer, they work too, and you can spread religion 3 times and then burn), and the great people at the bottom of the patronage tree mean you don't have to save all you great people for the end of the game. Lastly, take all the great people from SP and WW bonuses, and don't be afraid to use the ones you want to.

Crafty Bison said:

Yes, with the exception of hapiness (and I'm not sure about CS influence since GnK), all bonuses are additive, including Swedens GP generation ability and its interaction with other things such as National epic, garden, fredom opener and Leaning Tower.

In terms of GP generation power however, the fact that they get more expensive over time (think area of a right angle triangle) means it follows a very approximate square root relationship, reducing the UA power. Also what you really care about is turns per great person, not GP points, so you really care about the reciprocal. Thus if you've gone for all the GP generation buffs, Swedens UA isn't actually adding much to it at all in terms of extra GP because of it.

Example - say you have a lot of DoF's, like 5. Say you also have all 4 of the other GP generation buffs (+100%). Thats a total of +150%. For simplicity say you only work one type of specialist in one city, and over the course of the game generate 4000 points - that's equivalent to 8 great people. now the extra 100% (which any civ can do) gives 8000 points, or 12 great people - an extra 4 people. With the Sweden UA, that's 10000 points, or 13 great people - only 1 extra person! Now lets look at buildtimes. The 8th gp takes 800 points. say you have a base of 12 points per turn. For the regular player thats 67 turns. For the regular player with buffs, that's 24 per turn, a total of 34 turns, a saving of 33 turns - but sweden will not save an extra half of that (16 or 17). They'll have 30 gpppt, taking 27 turns, a saving of only 7 turns.
Needless to say, if you can't get that many DoFs, it tails off further still.

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Bear in mind that the bonus works for Generals and Admirals as well (there's no mechanism that will allow it to work for Prophets, since it's a bonus to GP generation, not a reduction in cost).

Really?! I had not noticed this! Well there you go, learn something new every day . Well I suppose it just further highlights what Sweden is about and makes them so interesting - the delicte balance between war and diplo, and trying to get the most out of both. Thanks for the heads up!

Crafty Bison said:

Really?! I had not noticed this! Well there you go, learn something new every day . Well I suppose it just further highlights what Sweden is about and makes them so interesting - the delicte balance between war and diplo, and trying to get the most out of both. Thanks for the heads up!

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I checked by looking at how many GG points I was getting per attack prior to the DoF and then afterwards.

In any case, in all of these cases you assume a full-length game, and besides this accelerated GP effects are much more about speeding up production of your GPs than about getting more. A poster on the Civilization Elimination thread is waxing lyrical about Babylon's UA - it may well be fair enough to point out that the 50% bonus might only net you one extra scientist over the course of the game, but in practical terms it nets you many more earlier, and so quick Academies. And the more you accelerate your GP production, the more likely it is that you'll have a game-winning advantage earlier. There's a lot of misguided complaining about the fact the Mayan UA costs you GP points by people who don't really register this (and yet who won't complain that the Porcelain Tower or Leaning Tower GP does exactly the same).

in the end, 1% of 10 specialist points is still 10 specialist points lol

PhilBowles said:

I checked by looking at how many GG points I was getting per attack prior to the DoF and then afterwards.

In any case, in all of these cases you assume a full-length game, and besides this accelerated GP effects are much more about speeding up production of your GPs than about getting more. A poster on the Civilization Elimination thread is waxing lyrical about Babylon's UA - it may well be fair enough to point out that the 50% bonus might only net you one extra scientist over the course of the game, but in practical terms it nets you many more earlier, and so quick Academies. And the more you accelerate your GP production, the more likely it is that you'll have a game-winning advantage earlier. There's a lot of misguided complaining about the fact the Mayan UA costs you GP points by people who don't really register this (and yet who won't complain that the Porcelain Tower or Leaning Tower GP does exactly the same).

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If you play as Sweden trying to be some big buddy with everyone hoping to have more GP production, you are mostly playing it wrong <.< However in this misunderstanding on the strength of the second part of the UA is likely how it got waxed so quickly <.<

Furycrab said:

If you play as Sweden trying to be some big buddy with everyone hoping to have more GP production, you are mostly playing it wrong <.< However in this misunderstanding on the strength of the second part of the UA is likely how it got waxed so quickly <.<

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The right way to play Sweden is to maximise your use of both elements, since the more GPs you get from your trait the more you have to give away. In my first full Sweden game I won diplo victory with 8 CS allies, in large part from having 3-5 friends game-long and mass-producing Great Merchants to feed to CSes, supplemented by Generals, CS-gifted GPs and the occasional captured Prophet. Naturally, all my wars against enemies of the 3-5 civ alliance benefitted from the extra General points generated at the same time.

PhilBowles said:

I checked by looking at how many GG points I was getting per attack prior to the DoF and then afterwards.

In any case, in all of these cases you assume a full-length game, and besides this accelerated GP effects are much more about speeding up production of your GPs than about getting more. A poster on the Civilization Elimination thread is waxing lyrical about Babylon's UA - it may well be fair enough to point out that the 50% bonus might only net you one extra scientist over the course of the game, but in practical terms it nets you many more earlier, and so quick Academies. And the more you accelerate your GP production, the more likely it is that you'll have a game-winning advantage earlier. There's a lot of misguided complaining about the fact the Mayan UA costs you GP points by people who don't really register this (and yet who won't complain that the Porcelain Tower or Leaning Tower GP does exactly the same).

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I also showed the turn times example to illustrate why I think the bonus can be overplayed (though i appreciate that you'll get a couple of 'significantly' UA aided hard built GP before e.g. the freedom opener). For turn times, the benefit works in a 1/(1+x) kinda way, which can tail off kinda fast. Its the same thing that makes stacking commerce with big ben powerful, or stacking piety finisher with cheaper missionaries (+GMoD ), as these follow the same relationship but are reductions.

Also, Swedens benefit doesn't hit hard super early like babylons/mayans - it only begins to get going after education (I like to give the AI something to defend before attcking, else you end up with a load of unhapiness from unwanted cities and, more importantly, a hefty warmonger diplo penalty), and if you do spam DoFs too early I find you can go for the wrong set of friends and have them all hate each other in the reneissance/industrial, and then your bonus quickly erodes . It's personal taste but I prefer to wait till the patronage GP policy (straight after finishing tradition) to use a lot of my excess GP - that way you get more back from them. using them like this, getting them earlier isn't gamebreaking like it is for babylon/maya. in fact you spend gpt waiting to use them. Admittedly haven't tried burning everything I don't use immediately. I once saved every one for the end in an immortal game, and had over 220 influnce with all 22 (2 destroyed, huge map) CS's for the vote. Perhaps overkill.

Interesting that you got all your hard built GP from GM's - I usually like to hit the GAs hard, cos cathedrals are one way to make some use of last part of the UA earlier, and at the end the 5 slots go quickly and don't leave you with many GP points in the waiting. Also, Diplo implies science, and finishing tradition, patronage, rationalism and right side of freedom does require a few purple points, and hammers on the culture wonders are hammers that could be spent on units and war. Plus you might find later on that it's more efficient to burn 1 or 2 on golden ages. As for GM's, they don't hit till a little later, and while I see the benefit of the extra gold from running the specialists, what's the benefit of the trade mission? I'm not sure you wouldn't get more from using the first part of the UA?